Regina Saphier TED Long Beach 2011 Day 3

Image by redmaxwell via Flickr

TED photo stream slide show (opens in new window) Day 3

Thursday, March 3, 2011

11:00 AM – 12:45 PM Session 8: Invention and Consequence

• Edward Tenner
• Historian of technology and culture

While listening to Mr. Tenner, I created the word: “TEDknowlogy”… This is the most boring talk possible on interesting human technology, so my mind wondered off a bit… sorry… anyway… when I see the TEDnews tweet “Edward Tenner at #TED: Drawing an astounding connection between Legionnaires’ disease and the magnetic tape drive. 140 chars not enough.”, I reply: “@TEDNews E. Tenner: Magnetic tape drives disturbed by original formula: Legionnaires’ disease air conditioner bactericides remixed. #TED” 🙂

Philip Zimbardo is worried about boys! Social Intensity Syndrome: young men prefer men’s company, instead of women’s. (Guess what: many women do the same, they feel more comfortable with other women. Now why is it, that I have no women friends? Only men! And I am the type who remains good friends with ex boyfriends. You really have to be a jerk to be rejected by me as a friend. My few close friends are types from the show: The Big Bang Theory lol) Anyway, Philip says, boys are getting isolated from women, they have no idea how to handle intimacy, and are chronically shy, unable to be mature men. They are actually digitally reprogrammed while addicted to computers, games and asynchronous online contacts.

• Dennis Hong
• Roboticist

Car for the blind in development! Now we understand why there are braille signs on drive up ATMs… lol

After this a self-driving car is introduced by Sebastian Thrun from Google. It was tested on the road and not one driver noticed that the car was driving empty…

• Ralph Langner
• Security consultant

I am glad I did not get this talk… Chris says Ralph scared him…

Mranu Prakash viewing an office fly in a geeky way…

An activist speaking to us about China and lack of freedom of speech… We in Hungary know what it is all about after decades of communism. And this “internet censoring” China is the owner of a huge portion of the US debt.

• Eli Pariser
• Organizer and author

57 parameters of online search profiling… Everything is tailored today. You are in a filter bubble. You do not know what gets in and what stays out. Artificially curated info… algorithms filtering news and data… We are back in 1915 with the web… he says this: algorithms need ethics to let in even the uncomfortable news.

• Eythor Bender
• Berkeley Bionics’ CEO

Exoskeleton for soldiers and paralyzed people.

2:15 PM – 4:00 PM Session 9: Threads of Discovery

• Juan Enriquez
• Futurist

Guest curated and hosting this session…

• Fiorenzo Omenetto
• Biomedical engineer

Silk reinvenTED hightech!

• Daniel Tammet
• Linguist, educator

Aspie and Savant. Daniel shows the emotion behind words and colors of numbers. 🙂

• Janet Echelman
• Artist

Putting beautiful and colorful fishing nets into the fabric of cities. 🙂

• Ed Boyden
• Neuroengineer

Engineering light activated brain cells… so atrophied brain cells in eg: schizophrenia causing cell groups could be  selectively turned off by blue light… You could treat PTSD, bipolar depression, chronic pain, end so on by using this method. You can eliminate fearful behavior. Or research parts of the brain to find out which part is doing what exactly. This is brilliant work! 🙂 This is revolutionary research!

• Christina Lampe-Onnerud
• Energy expert

She is introducing her energy building blocks.

Steve Gullans: After eliminating infectious diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular illnesses, well: we are going to face accidents to eliminate them or fix their outcomes.

• Anthony Atala
• Surgeon

Talking about regenerative medicine. Cells, external building materials, or both… Building heart valve… human bladder… and other organs. Engineering human liver tissues… a skeleton of a liver perfused with blood vessel cells and real liver cells… 3D printing organs and bones… scanning and printing wounds with cells. The large solid organs are a problem.  Printing a kidney on stage! We see a finished one. And a young man telling about his own printed organs. Luke Massella received his printed organs 10 years ago… he talks about living a normal life and being saved by Anthony. 🙂

5:00 PM – 6:45 PM Session 10: Beauty, Imagination, Enchantment

This section was full of fun that one has to see. Unfortunately, I got food poisoning and was unable to fully enjoy this session. But I am going to watch it again! 🙂 I am feeling much better now. I have no idea what made me so ill so suddenly. I have not been ill for the last three years (since 2008) at all, so I am really surprised.

• Beatrice Coron
• Papercutter artist

Putting stories in paper. That is right. Not on, but rather right into the paper.

• Sarah Kay
• Poet

Putting poetry and heart on stage.

• Kate Hartman
• Artist and technologist

Making really funny and wearable technology.

• Shea Hembrey
• Artist and curator

I watched his TED talk several times (live during the webcast, later just to repeat the fun, and finally when I reviewed the Hungarian subtitle translation of his TED talk…). I still sometimes burst out laughing when I think of his style, words, ideas, and images. His public persona is a work of brilliant art in itself. 🙂 Not only has he created 100 artist profiles, and complex art, but also managed to stage it in the form of stand up comedy. Plus he also managed to fit in a lovingly critical mirror for the contemporary artists who are only trying to become original. Congratulations upon his true story telling genius. I shared his TED talk with all people who are able to appreciate it. Thank you for being you Shea. 🙂

 

• Jason Mraz
• Musician