Session 2: ReFrame- Sir Timothy Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Inventor of the world wide web (no, really) decades ago. Saw the potential of hypertext language. Talks about his presenting the first examples of connecting documents in a hypertext manner... but then they needed people to post post post! Once there were documents, then we needed data! He's referring to Hans Roesling's amazing talk that explained how Hans shattered ideas we held and moreover created Gapminder to connect data-to-data SO IT WOULD BE USEFUL. You need a lot of data and then you need to be able to share it.

Linked data:

1) use them for things besides documents. peoples, places, products, etc
2) i fetch http data in a standardized format
3) NOW the data needs to be in relationships

This seems basic and intuitive and obvious but someone's got to say it the first time to bring it to life. When you name something, you give it life

DBpedia farms info from wikipedia... and other sources (projcet gutenberg etc).

Sir Timothy and Hans are both insistant that THERE MUST ALWAYS BE MORE DATA. Then we can draw information together and learn more and more.

Obama promised transparency by posting governmental information online- Sir Timothy is hoping it's linked data.

He doesn't want you to be "data hugging" hoping that you post it before it's even pretty. He even had us say it all together now:

RAW
DATA
NOW

I'm on the cutting edge of this by posting without editing aren't I? ;) Erm. Sort of.


It's amazing how focused he is about sharing info. Of course he is, he invented the web. The frustation is breaking down the silos of information. Facebook and Myspace can't climb over their own walls.

"You may not have much data to post, but you know to demand it."

To sum up: link data now!

Session 2: ReFrame- Tom Rielly talks gift bag

During the breakdown of the dance set, Tom's holding our attention in the interim. I promised I'd get into the bag with you later... SO. He's doing it for me.

Here's the thing about the giftbag. They're cool, yes. They're also a part of the "ideas worth spreading" perma-theme of TED. In it are things that make you think a little, things that make you think "this is a good gift, I'll buy more", things that are created by TEDsters. (TED is an insular community in that way- like a family, a fraternity, these people are friends and they are people you want in your life for their wisdom, input and business support.)

Rickshaw bags made the bags for TED :) They are literally made out of Coca-Cola bottles. Who doesn't love recycling?

Stuffed Panda from WWF (I think I know who to give it to)

Metal bottle for refilling (used again and again) Thank you TED for giving us the chance to opt-out on Fiji water. (Thank you (!!!!) to the Google cafe for the free coffee, snacks and bottled water... next year can we have water that isn't shipped half way around the world? Talk to Scott about charity:water maybe? =)

Ever-Fi card (founded by TEDster)

iForest app for iPhone (when iPhones cut-n-paste I'll consider getting one). The basic idea is like Tamagotchi only it's trees not pets.

A Dale Chihuly dvd called Short Cuts. (I didn't know Chihuly had a relationship with TED but don't color me surprised. I saw an exhibit of his a while back and he makes- among other things- these great ceiling installations where you have to look up at the glasswork as you walk down a hallway. That's one way of seeing it. Another is to put up the hood of your sweatshirt, lie on your back and slither down the hall. Make your own point of view.)

Scale Is The New Geography (dvd) by Eames Demetrios

Darius Goes West (dvd) - made by a TED fellow about a TED fellow

Lexus: his and hers towels. Tom called 'em out and is trading the genders with his friend Jane so they'd get it right. Oh, and a coupon if you know someone who's in the market for a new Lexus, email me.

Tempus Fugit planner with TED dates on the calendar!

Icebreaker shirts from New Zealand with a baacode to scan and see which farm the wool came from. I'm not kidding they call it a baacode.

Bliss Spa gift set. All tiny and cute and hotel like.

1 Year Subscription to ActionMethod website (mental note: must ask fellow blogger Stephen Collins. He's all about getting stuff done.)

Tom's Shoes (buy one & they give a pair like yours to someone in the developing world). It's like OLPC but for feet, so you don't want the word web in your product development. Also, they have not just the weirdest boot I've ever seen, but the weirdest commercial to endorse it. (He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse...)

Skype pack

Akoha play-it-forward card game

Steelcase discount card: friends, see me if you want it, I'm not able to afford- even at the discount rate- the best chair I've ever had the pleasure of blogging from).

826 Valencia's soon to be released publication

and a very great book by a very great man: Understanding USA by Richard Saul Wurman



Later... 3 stage gift raffles yet to be given:

A bike. Called Radish. By Xtracycle. Seriously, just look at it. I can't imagine owning one in a Manhattan apartment, but it sure is purdy.

Steelcase Walkstation (it's either too weird or perhaps brilliant)

Cameron Sinclair donated a trip Cameroon... commence your punny jokes now.

Session 2: ReFrame-- Gamelan X and ArcheDream for Humankind

Magical mystical combination of dreamy dancers and etherial music. A picture is worth a thousand words and this is moving so... I'm really not able to say much at the moment.I knew very little about what gamelan was before I got to TED so all I can say about that is: crazy, I gotta learn more.

I'm sorry guys but the dance this is beautiful... and I don't have a lot ways to paraphrase that performance.

To see a bit for yourself outside of TED:

Gamelan X

&

ArcheDream for Humankind

Session 1: ReBoot-interstitial, Ben Zander

To know Ben Zander is not just to love him but to get antsy excited when he's around because music and excitement are coming soon.

Ben's talking. No, he's gonna sing. We're singing happy birthday to a random person named Ross who happens to have a birthday soon.

"Now let's do it again and better." Where does the emphasis lie? (lay?) ahem. belong. Where does the emphasis belong. [Author's note: stupid editor. I told you to lie down and be quiet while I'm blogging. Lay down. Lie down. Dammit, down!]

Happy Birthday to YOU.


.....aaaand SIGNAL LOST! Long Beach is singing without us.

Awesome save! A random PalmSpring-er just jumped up and lead us in singing happy birthday to YOU to one of our own. Awesome-awesome-awesome. [Later we'll meet him, he's the outstandingly enthusiastic John Bates, seen here.]

...and the feed is back! We sang again with Ben leading not just to Ross but to the possibility of the infinitely impacting a person in the celebration of their life.

As Ben Zander would do things, it wasn't just a stirring version of happy birthday but a challenge to always sing those words that way.

Ben then said that we have these choices in life: resignation, anger or possibility.

TED is a celebration of possibility and it's the 25 birthday of TED, so with
Richard Saul Wurman (founder of TED) and Chris Anderson (curator and current owner) on stage, we sang happy birthday together. I am not going to admit to getting teary-eyed, but Richard did so I'll deflect attention to him being moved. I'd say it's Ben who moves us when he gets up every year, but it's not just him. It's him calling out to what's in us.

Cheers to possibility and possibly blogging sans edit for 4 days.

xoxochelo

If you want to know more about Ben Zander, read about him, listen to him on TED, read "the book I co-wrote that my wife wrote", or best of all, go see him in action. Before TED is over, his wife will have is in rapt attention too.

Session 1: Reboot. Bill Gates

Hey! He's a good public speaker. Who knew?

The market doesn't drive philanthropy. People who care do. "I am an optimist." Problems can be solved.

And he's speaking as a philanthropist now, and not just someone who gives, but someone who is a leader and a thinker- he wants to talk about the problems of how to do it and what are the challenges.

He seems to be talking about the inverse Mohr's law of human mortality. We get better all the time at preventing death by disease.

Specifically, malaria. There are tools we have now (ddt and quinine) and we've saved the white and wealthy now but it's still kicking humanity's ass in some places which effects their economies and their ability to grow into contributing societies.

Oh, and he brought a jar of mosquitoes on stage and opened it up. "Because not just the poor should be exposed."

Pause.

"Don't worry those aren't infected."

Since malaria treatments grow, but mosquitoes evolve and develop resistance means we're punching back and forth in our progress.

I keep thinking about Dr. Larry Brilliant's campaign to stop small pox.

Ok back to BG part 2:

How do you make a teacher great? (Oh and reminder yeah BG is a college drop out :) It's important to BG to change the model of how we educate to do it better. He's upset about the hs drop out rate, especially the disparity between the wealthy and the poor in these stats. His foundation has been funding what it can to fix as much as possible, but it's patching the holes, not fixing the systems. THE BEST TEACHERS ARE THE SOLUTION. He believes that those teachers aren't being rewarded and their patterns aren't being spread. (Personally I believe good teachers should be revered and respected like oh, say, the Pope. A crown, a bow, a big ol' place to live and the intense listening of those who they speak to.)

BG is talking about how dynamic the teachers are the ones who succeed. It's almost frenetic the way that teachers are constantly interacting.

He speaks of how in some schools the teachers are only overseen by their principals once a year and with advanced notice. He sounds surprised. Apparently he never had a teacher coach his class on the questions, answers and behaviour they were to exhibit tomorrow, wink wink, so we can be left alone to waste or time or not as we please. YES I AM TALKING TO YOU MR JONES JUNIOR YEAR IN MY HIGH SCHOOL.

There are ways to watch yourselves and be watched as an educator so you can see your successes and mistakes.

BG recommends book: Work Hard Be Nice. So he's sending a copy to everyone here. (Palm Springs too I hope?)

He ends on talking AIDS and malaria and says again "I'm an optimist."

Suddenly I'm forgetting the Microsoft issues I had... when? What software and licensing problems? I like a person who cares about the problems of the world and sees ways to fix them. I like him a lot.

After the talk, Chris interview him briefly. "Are you going to have a monopoly on solutions now?"

"I do feel good that we've drawn other people into the solutions, but we DO need a diversity of thought."

Q"Saving lives contributes to overpopulation?"

A "We started out as a foundation focused on reproductive health but now we know that increased health doesn't create more people. Within a generation population growth goes down with health. you don't have to have 8 kids to ensure 2 live to adulthood. you can have 2. high reproduction

Q "How do we get those wacky teachers that are so effective without bludgeoning them into a rigid system?"

BG "The review system of their work should be based on results not a checklist like 'keeps classroom clean.'"
Q: "Words on your tombstone?"
BG: "Warren Buffett recommends "Check My Pulse".

**I confess I don't have the verbatim correct so we're gonna have to look it up but he hopes he lives long enough to not have his life be regarded as a thing that happened, but part of things that are happening still.**

Session 1: Reboot- interstitial, David Hanson

He builds robots with character. He's kinda one himself. You don't get a handlebar mustache by accident, know what I'm saying? He's showing a reactive face- one that smiles back and frowns back, but in a what that seems real, natural. The facial expressions are so frickin' lifelike, he seems to have skipped the uncanny valley.

Okay I justed screwed myself. I hyperlinked while listening and didn't see the visual on the term "hierarchical pores" as part of the realism. Doesn't that phrase just make your ears perk up?

Working out the kinks on this blogging thing.

Bear with me. And visit his website to make this mid-talk linking I just mistakenly did worth it. Go there.

Session 1: Reboot- Naturally 7

Naturally 7 is vocal play, it is a musical performance that is all play. This ain't your college making top 40 pop songs into a capella 'adult contemporary lite'. They're creating "a wall of sound, where the voice is created into an instrument to form a wall of sound. I want to youtube them for you. I want to download their album DRM free without dishing the extra cash to iTunes for it. Just sayin'

They're great. And they don't just make music, they perform it.

And for that, Long Beach jumped to their feet.

Naturally 7 can be found online but I was having trouble with their website so hit myspace, not yet on the TED website and unfortunately, I can embed their youtube videos but I can link to one. Now listen very carefully. Listen with your eyes closed once. Then you can peek when you listen the second time.

Experimenting

I might not be writing this blog in this fashion by the next session. But for now, we're trying it this way-- just insta-reporting if you will, with my eyes on the stage and my hands on the keyboard with need for edits and links. Give me feedback on that, but it won't be able to read it until the next break.

Session 1: interstitial- Mission One's Electric Motorcycle presented by Forrest North and Yves Béhar

Forrest North (a gearhead with a streak of electricity running through him) and Yves Béhar (maker of the sexy jawbone) introduced in 3 minutes or less, their baby, Mission One's electric motorcyle. Their website says it well enough, but the buoyant excitement of review goes to boingboing.

ReBoot: Session 1 cont'd - Jill Sobule & Peter W. Singer

Jill Sobule performed her song from Palm Springs about Palm Springs. “Something’s gonna happen to change my world…” Interestingly enough, it's on her new album already so she wrote it before going to TED@PalmSprings, which is of course, a life-changing event. She's adorable. And nervous. And funny. And the song is very meta. And adorable. And hopeful.

Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War, talked about war and the way we use robots now. His opening story was about the tragic loss of a soldier, a hero in his platoon and the apology letter to send home. This heroic figure didn’t catch the roadside bomb until he was on it, but he saved his colleagues. The apology letter was sent to a company called iRobot for their 42 pound savior.

• the future of war, even robotics, isn’t purely American. There isn’t a permanent first move or advantage. We’re ahead, but others might execute it better so we can’t rest on our laurels.
• Just as software is open source, so is warfare. Good guys, bad guys, soldiers and citizens can do this. We don’t want Al Queda 2.0
• People are more likely to support the use of force if they don’t see it as costly because we don’t have to lose soldiers. We can watch destruction and cheer it on with a soundtrack on youtube: soldiers call it “war porn”.
• The ability to watch more and experience less costs us our humanity.
• “The unmanning of war plays to our strength” – senior Bush administration official
• Soldier who “fought” while never leaving Nevada: “You can kill people for 12 hours and then go home and talk to your kids about their homework.” The interesting thing? Soldiers like him have higher rates of PTSD than other soldiers.
• Mooers' law is in operation in war now. So is Murphy’s law. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes deadly. But it's moving very quickly.
• The next thought is re-programming people who survive war. Can we “fix” someone’s memory so they don’t suffer from the memories of PTSD and does that take away their humanity to wipe out their ability to recall? [I don't know how much he goes into that aspect in his book as his talk was more on the tech than the biotech but I've been obsessed about the ethics of beta-blockers for treatment of PTSD ever since I heard of propanolol. It's seductive.]

“Is it our machines or is it us that is wired for war?” –P. W. Singer

Read more about P. W. Singer on his TED bio page (....when it's up) or on his website.