Let's get this party started right, get this started quickly

I'm blogging live from TED DIY, which is a part of TED that is Palm Springs only. Rives and Kelly invented it to make Palm Springs different, to make it our own. So a few speakers/presenters already are doing things like--

Mathemagic. Look it up. Tell your friends. Use it to seduce a geek.

Also, a very very short talk entitled "How to Explain Science and Technology So That People Don't Want To Strangle You." The rules are:

• Tell it as a story
• Tell it to me like I'm a friend
• "I cannot emphasis this enough, so write this one down" : tell me the PICTURES. To make a story pop, "make pictures that are jewels-- dazzlingly bright, crystal clearpictures" that tell us that you "love the world and can be trusted to hold it gently." Help me discover the pattern (because we look for them)- it doesn't have to be right or true but it has to make sense.

And now begins 'the microphone section,' where we of the audience are invited to tell something of ourselves. Last year's question was "How did you get that scar? (in 6 words or less)." This year: "I once got caught dot-dot-dot"

SO I once got caught... well, I was in line to tell my story and missed by one person... Now you'll never know. Don't worry, it wasn't bad, it was just embarrassing. I can find an embarrassing this to do pretty much any day. Hang out with me, it's bound to happen again, soon enough.

I know there were more than a dozen people willing to tell some of their most scandalous moments to the hundreds in the room, but I've got to say... it was a blur. Lots of accidental (or semi-purposeful) nudity. There was one guy who as a child thought it would be fun to sell homemade explosives to the neighborhood kids (like fireworks! but more dangerous! i mean fun! i mean dangerous!) but he got busted by his older sister who apparently had no entrepreneurial spirit.

We got cut off from our exercise by the Triumphal March from Aida (unofficially, I'm gonna recommend you listen to it in another window on your browser if you're reading exciting things) which is the official commencement music of TED. It means get in your seat! It means: Let's get this party started right, get this started quickly...