TED10 Saturday: Chaos, Lawyers and Avatars

<-- Friday Afternoon

Nathalie and I were really glad we had decided to stay to the end. Saturday was a great day.

Benoit Mandelbrot
Score: 4 balloons

I had so looked forward to hearing the inventor of fractals. Unfortunately, he did not deliver. He sat back and reflected on all his work, with a lot of jargon and an expectation that the audience was already familiar with chaos theory.

George Whitesides

Score: 6 balloons

The Harvard chemist, whose publications are the most cited in the field, presented a talk on the two kinds of complexity -- emergent and stacked. Emergent complexity arises out of systems with many simple parts interacting and a steady supply of energy (the most prominent example is human life, which emerged from the evolution of competing cells). Stacked complexity -- like the internet -- emerges from exploiting predictably functional parts in systems with more and more layers of functionality (e.g. transistors, ICs, computers, networks).

This talk should have preceded Mandelbrot's, which might have then made more sense.

Sir Ken Robinson

Score: 10 balloons

As with Raghava KK's talk, we'd have never guessed beforehand from the speaker's bio or the content that this TED talk would score 10 balloons. But Sir Robinson, whose recent book The Element presents his theories on education, elocuted a summary of those ideas with compelling humor and wit. His primary message is that educators should prioritize the campaign to help students identify and ignite their passions, rather than pushing standard, tedious work.

Philip Howard
Score: 5 balloons

Phil Howard, author of Life Without Lawyers, delivered a rousing rally against litigators. It was very well received (way more than my 5 balloons would suggest) but I think it lacked substance and instead merely tapped into mob psychology.

Phil provoked anger at trial lawyers by illustrating examples of trivial litigation. But in my opinion he did not provide a balanced view -- even after cherry picking his examples, I think that they crumbled beneath some critical thought. For example, his flagship example was a schoolteacher he met in the woods one day who complained that she was under legal pressure to reverse her late penalty on a particular student's grade. Furthermore, when she wanted to drive two students to an extracurricular activity, the school prohibited it because of The Lawyers, insisting instead that they use a school bus.

Imagine that! How shocking that parents will sue an earnest, hard-working schoolmum for teaching discipline, and prevent her from simply driving a couple of kids to a scholastic opportunity. Those lawyers are OUT OF CONTROL!!

I don't know the details of the schoolteacher's case -- Howard did not share them. But I do know that in most of these cases where parents seek legal advocates relating to grades, the situation arose because the student -- usually a child on the autism spectrum -- has some learning difference that warrants accommodations in the classroom (such as extra time for homework). These accommodations are exactly the kind that Temple Gardin and Ken Robinson prescribed to standing ovations, not to mention that such accommodations are legally enforceable under federal law. But sadly, teachers who lack experience with learning disabilities sometimes see these accommodations as unfair, coddling, or inconvenient, and choose to ignore them, forcing the parents to either seek legal help or else watch their children unnecessarily fail at school.

As for the school bus, I do not want teachers driving my kids around when a trained, licensed school bus driver is available. Do you?

I am all for legal reform but let's approach it with balance and reason, rather than pitchforks and nooses. Anyway, here's the talk so you can decide for yourself...



Alan Siegel
Score: 9 balloons

If by some chance this TED Member's 3-minute talk makes it into a video, watch it! It was a very compelling description of how this guy makes the world better by simplifying complicated forms. The world is too complex, Alan complains, with too much fine print. But instead of organizing a posse like Philip Howard, Alan does something practical -- he redesigns forms to be much simpler. This kind of transparency is not only good for avoiding legal disputes, but it's also good for business. The examples he showed were a clear, streamlined, one-page credit card agreement that every lender should use, and the second was a streamlined, easy-to-understand IRS form that will replace a gobbledygook 9-page notice that millions of taxpayers get today.

Adora Svitak
Score: 8 balloons

Incredibly impressive 12 year old girl talks about her views on education. The content is secondary -- her charm, confidence, and eloquence are eery.



John Kasaona
Score: 9 balloons

For many decades in John's homeland Namibia, the local "poachers" like John's father were prohibited from the wild game preserves ("This Land For Use Only By White Persons" read the signs) at the punishment of death. But the locals had lived alongside the wildlife for millennia, sharing a sustainable ecosystem. Under white rule, the game was hunted for trophy and profit, and the animals dwindled to the point where only 20 lions remained in northwest Namibia. Finally the Prime Minister overruled the colonialists and charged the local poachers with protecting the wildlife. John's father, and later John, were among the newly deputized conservators. According to John, they succeeded in restoring the animal populations, with 60 conservancies now operating across the nation. The program is funded by the newly enabled tourism, with surplus profits funding a thriving new school system. The call to action here was to learn from Namibia's example of how important it is to support the local human populations when trying to conserve ecosystems.


James Cameron
Score: 8 balloons

The director of blockbuster films like Titanic and Avatar shared some great stories about his life and motivations. James described his younger self as an introverted sci-fi nerd who, for lack of access to space, resolved to learn scuba diving after seeing such alien life forms on the Jacques Cousteau programs. This was the inspiration for The Abyss, the first film to feature a character completely rendered by computer graphics. Cameron also confessed that he agreed to direct Titanic solely because he knew he could thus compel the studio to send him down to tour the real thing, which he did in a Russian submersible. It was on that trip, as he remotely controlled a video robot through the wreckage, that he first became interested in virtual agents and avatars.

Cameron's message was that the most important ingredient for success -- at least in budding filmmakers -- is imagination. And that's what the world needs now.

TED10 Fri PM: Music and Comedy

<= Friday Morning Saturday Morning =>

Friday afternoon and evening were packed with official TED talks, TED member talks (3 minutes on stage), and entertainment. I'll cover the major stuff here but there were too many short format talks to cover them all.

Raghava KK

Score: 10 balloons

This was the best full TED talk of the day-- a Slumdog Millionaire tale of an Indian cartoonist's coming of age. The delivery was masterful and funny. Watch it now...

Denis Duton
Score: 3 balloons

Duton is a philosophy professor from New Zealand. The intriguing thesis of his book The Art Instinct is that appreciation for beauty is an evolutionary adaptation -- that we naturally find beauty in things and scenes that support our survival or reproduction. For example, he claims that people naturally prefer landscapes where the trees have low lying branches -- the better for escaping predators. Unfortunately his delivery was not up to TED standards.

Marion Bantjes

Score: 1 balloon

A totally self-absorbed artist shares her doodles. Okay so lots of folks liked her and I'm just a Philistine. Still, ick.

Temple Grandin
Score: 7 balloons

An autistic woman, whose autobiography is the subject of an upcoming film, presented her position on education. Temple has turned her intuitive understanding of animal cognition into a successful career improving slaughterhouses, and now she's preaching the importance of reforming education to accommodate learning differences. Amen!

Specifically for kids on the autistic spectrum, schools should integrate mentorships, hands-on activities, and on-the-job internships, so that Asperger's kids can "one day make their way to Silicon Valley."

David Rockwell
Score: 4 balloons

Architect designs innovative playground for kids. Crowd goes wild with sentiment.

David Byrne, Thomas Dolby and Ethel Quartet

Some great music to ease us in after the break.

Natalie Merchant
Score: 9 balloons

Even after David Byrne, Robert Gupta and Sheryl Crowe, the best musical show of the week was Nathalie Merchant's performance of the classic poems she has put to music in her upcoming album Leave Your Sleep. Here's a nice one...

"The Janitor’s Boy," Nathalia Crane (1913-1998)

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
And the janitor's boy loves me;
He's going to hunt for a desert isle
In our geography.
A desert isle with spicy trees
Somewhere near Sheepshead Bay;
A right nice place, just fit for two
Where we can live alway.
Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
He's busy as he can be;
And down in the cellar he's making a raft
Out of an old settee.
He'll carry me off, I know that he will,
For his hair is exceedingly red;
And the only thing that occurs to me
Is to dutifully shiver in bed.
The day that we sail, I shall leave this brief note,
For my parents I hate to annoy:
"I have flown away to an isle in the bay
With the janitor's red-haired boy."

Julia Sweeney

Score: 10 balloons

Julia Sweeney, aka "Pat" from SNL, is my heroine for writing and performing her theatrical production Letting Go of God (which you can see on Showtime next week). In an impromptu 3-minute talk, Julia hopped on stage and recounted the birds-and-bees conversation she just had with her daughter. It was hysterical -- if this makes it into a TED video, watch it. Meanwhile you can check out her debut TED Talk from 2006:



Eve Ensler
Score: 9 balloons

The woman behind The Vagina Monologues presented an outstanding reading from her new book I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Lives of Girls Around the World. We heard the tales of two young women -- one in an Asian sweat shop and one who was kidnapped by soldiers in Africa. Again, if this makes it onto video, watch it.

Sarah Silverman

Score: 4 balloons

Silverman performed a stand-up shtick with shock comedy that became the subject of much controversy when Chris Anderson himself tweeted how god-awful she was. Later he deleted the tweet and apologized for sending it, but also apologized to TED for bringing Sarah in the first place.

Silverman's supportive bloggers insist that she was simply shaking up the establishment, sticking it to The Man by using the word retarded. Now I'm all for shock comedy, and so I laughed hard at her jokes about poop, hot sex and Jews -- for the most part she met my high expectations. But when she mocked dying, retarded kids, she lost me and most of the room. Less polite audiences would have booed off her the stage, but TED still applauded. Now I'll never criticize a comic for making folks uncomfortable or offending sensibilities, but Silverman hurt a lot of parents in there, and (maybe even worse) the joke just wasn't funny.

The controversy has fanned many anti-TED flames in the blogosphere, some of which I'm bound to attract because I admit I didn't laugh at one of Sarah's jokes. Apparently the detractors find TED to be elitist and self-important; we at TED don't produce fresh enough ideas, we take ourselves too seriously, and we're too crusty to get Silverman's sophisticated form of parody. The odd thing is that I only hear this from people who didn't attend TED. Really, who has time for this?

The Party

As usual TED hosted a Grand Party on that last night, which was okay (chilly, crowded and short on food). But the REAL party erupted, unplanned, in the lobby of the Westin, where Jake the Uke player held court among those of us who speculated that there just might be a repeat of last year's Westin lobby sing-a-long. As the hours passed, TED performers of all kinds must have read their tweets and made their way over, joining the impromptu jam session. Robert Gupta of the LA Philharmonic, the Ethel quartet, Louis the flamenco guitarist, Natalie Merchant, soundtrack composer Carter Burwell on the piano, and others joined the fray, riffing off each other's music and whipping up the crowd. At the pinnacle of the party, Harry Shum of LXD (and the cast of Glee) turned the lobby into a dance spectacle (check out the video below). This performance won't make it into a TED Talk video, but if you want to see it, I'm betting that Friday Night at the Westin has now become a TED institution.

TED10 Fri AM: Microsoft and Google

<-- Thursday Afternoon Friday Afternoon -->

John Underkoffler

Score: 7 balloons

Fun demo of the hand-gesture UI developed at MIT Media Labs that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas

Score: 8 balloons

Very cool demo of Microsoft technology that synthesizes photos in the public domain, stitching together a navigable, 3D virtual street view product (without having to dispatch trucks everywhere). Watch it for yourself....

Bill Gates

Score: 8 balloons

BIll Gates gave a great talk on the landscape of choices facing us in the energy arena. Since renewables are intermittent, and all the batteries on Earth can store only 10 minutes worth of the world's energy usage, we need to make nuclear power work. Tothat end Gates has funded Terrapower, which aims to make fuel out of Uranium 235, which is far more abundant and safer than enriched Uranium 238.

Sergey Brin

Chris Anderson interviewed Sergey about Google's changing posture toward China (and you can watch it here). Sergey responded openly about the difficulty of figuring out what is right to do as China enforces political censorship. "Some say I'm naive. That may well be true -- I wouldn't have started a search engine company in 1998 if I wasn't." However, Sergey wimpily dodged Chris' question as to whether Google found evidence that China was behind the cyber attack.

Soon after a Googler came on stage to demonstrate the Nexus One, which seemed uncharacteristically commercial for TED, until the end when Chris announced that Sergey brought enough unlocked Nexus Ones for everyone! Really.

Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin

Score: 7 balloons

The co-founders of the Kipps charter schools led what can best be described as a pep rally for educational reform -- low on content and but high on volume and fun.

The Kipps schools target underprivileged neighborhoods, and so far their 82 schools are delivering phenomenal results that have raised the high school and college graduation rates to be on par with national averages.

George Church

Score: 2 balloons

This Harvard biologist touched on many interesting topics, but did so incomprehensibly. He defines life as "replicated complexity" and discussed his work synthesizing molecules that somehow "mirror" organic compounds, but can't interact with the wild. Self-referential?

Gary Lauder

In the best short-format TED Talk so far, Gary Lauder reflects upon how we might organize traffic differently at a time when we care about carbon emissions.

TED10 Thu PM: David Byrne, Laser Shield, Suspended Animation

<--Thursday Morning Friday Morning -->

David Byrne

Score: 5 balloons

David Byrne of Talking Heads fame gave an interesting talk about the impact of spaces on music -- how the elements of different musical genres can be traced back to the spaces in which that music was performed, or the technical capabilities of the delivery mechanism (e.g. radio, CD, car boom box, iPod). He draws examples from Baroque, Jazz, Choral and other styles, explaining they differ in their allowance of volume changes, key changes, held notes, musical detail and other stylistic effects based on the acoustics of the cathedral, palace room, smokey bar or other venue. Of course he also shared photos of his grungy basement, where he and his buddies first wrote and performed.

Nathan Mhyrvold

Score: 8 balloons

To combat his reputation as patent troll, the former Microsoft CTO talked about his company's facility for invention, such as an optical scanner that can detect malaria by illuminatng hemozoin (waste from the malaria parasite), or a container that can dispense vaccines but keep the remaining ones cool inside -- without power -- for up to 6 months. But he brought his team's most awesome invention to demonstrate on stage; although it may not be the most practical intervention for African malaria, it is surely the coolest: a laser defense system from mosquitoes!

Mhyrvold's machine, which we got to examine up close later in the lobby, was made purely of parts bought on eBay. At one of the stage he placed a fish tank with mosquitoes flying around. At the other end, a good 20 yards away, he placed his gizmo that tracks the mosquitoes through long range infra-red cameras, extrapolates their motion in a computer, and then illuminates them each, as they fly, with frickin' laser beams! To keep the demo going they used low energy levels so as not to burn the critters, though of course that's what the machine is built to do (and Nathan brought videos of the buggers smoking up just to prove it works). Even better, they use two different color lasers to distinguish the genders, so they could choose to kill only the infectious females! (I'm guessing no one would mind if they killed all the mosquitoes, but someone thought up a way to hear the difference and it was too cool a feature not to include.)

Legion of Extraordinary Dancers

I don't normally blog the entertainment, but the LXD are superheroes. Check them out...

Mark Roth

Score: 8 balloons

Cancer researcher Mark Roth presented another candidate for the It-May-Not-Be-Pratical-But-It's-Cool-As-Shit Award. He and his team studies "metabolic flexibility", the phenomenon observed in rare medical cases where people are dead for hours -- usually in frozen conditions -- and then revived when their bodies are warmed. They hypothesized that our bodies may have some agent that can somehow lower our metabolism to the point where, under distress, we can do without oxygen for hours.

The concept of inducing suspended animation is not pure science fiction. Human eggs survive up to 50 years inside ovaries, and plant spores can survive up to 250 million years. The number of cases where human beings returned from frozen death states with no heartbeat has inspired the saying, "You're not dead until you're warm and dead."

Some of those cases involved industrial accidents in which workers collapsed after exposure to hydrogen sulfide, and were thought to be dead for hours until they were removed from the poisoned air and "woke up". Roth realized that we have trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide in our brains, and so perhaps this is the mystery agent. Early tests on rodents support the hypothesis, successfully "killing" the specimens until they are removed from the hydrogen sulfide chambers. So Roth's team is now in clinical trials with a drug that would place trauma victims in suspended animation for hours until their wounds can be properly treated. Really.

Seth Berkley

Score: 6 balloons

AIDS Researcher Seth Berkley presented some startling statistics on flu pandemics, suggesting that we are likely to soon see another like the one in 1918 that killed 100 million people.

Berkley also presented some promising research on a new vaccine to fight AIDS. He presented a great animation developed by XVIVO to illustrate the mechanism by which the memory cells that develop from vaccines can fight the AIDS infection.

Stephen Wolfram

Score: 8 balloons

With Wolfram's characteristic ego, he launched his talk about "the biggest idea of the century" which is, if I understood him, computational complexity. Wolfram has made his career studying emergent complexity, as documented in his humbly titled volume A New Kind of Science.

At TED he presented three things: an impressive demonstration of Wolfram Alpha, his web-based front-end to a computational engine; some background on mathematica, his attempt to build a structured, comprehensive computational engine; and his simulation of physical models designed to suss out those that reflect reality (I think he's basically trying to find the grand unification theory of physics through trial and error).

TED10 Thu AM: Science, Needles and Nukes

<-- Wednesday Afternoon Thursday Afternoon -->

Thursday morning was a celebration of reason -- my favorite part of the program.

Michael Specter

8 (out of 10) balloons

Michael Specter is a New Yorker journalist who lambasted the anti-science movement. He wrote the book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives.

"Belief in magic instead of science leads to disease and war." With a passion befitting Christopher Hitchens he ripped apart the movements that oppose vaccination, engineered foods and western medicine. "Science is NOT a company." As a laymen he seemed to carry more credibility than those know-it-all scientists, though he wasn't as eloquent as a Dawkins or a Harris.

In a 3-minute presentation, Graham Hill (founder of TreeHugger) reflected on a question he had asked himself last year: why couldn't he bring himself to be a vegetarian when it's so much better for his health, the animals, and the planet's climate? "I just couldn't imagine that THIS is the last burger I will ever eat." So he became a Weekday Vegetarian -- an 80/20 solution. He gets most of the benefits of vegetarianism without feeling deprived. Now I normally don't blog the 3 minute presentations, but based on the hallway chatter here at TED, his Weekday Veggie meme has spread very successfully.

In another 3-minute diversion, Jim Daly taught us all about carnivorous plants, like the Venus Fly Trap native to North Carolina. These plants are quite beautiful, and one of them is now the basis of medical ant-bacterial research – it has a compound that kills its prey’s bacteria so that the bacteria can’t digest the bug's nutrients before the plant does.

Sam Harris

9 balloons

For the first time I got to hear Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation! Sam's talk today attacked the sacred cow belief that science has nothing to say about moral values. Provocative and compelling, he offered up some great examples of how relevant the scientific method is when grappling with serious moral issues of the day such as economic disparities, pollution, and women's rights. He challenged the ethos of cultural relativity -- some behaviors are simply wrong no matter where you grew up, so we must overcome our fear of saying so. “Do we know enough to judge a father whose reaction to his daughter’s rape is to kill her?”

He offered lots of examples. Is it right to apply corporal punishment in school (as endorsed by the law in 21 states)? Science can address this question by examining the well being and educational success of the children blessed with such discipline.

“How did we convince ourselves that every culture has a point of view on morality worth considering? The Taliban is ignorant on physics – how is their ignorance on human well being any less obvious?”

One example he offered was, in my opinion a bad one. Science can tell us, he said, whether it’s a good idea for people to believe that the evil eye is watching and punishing us for what we say about others. He slipped here, confusing belief and action – we cannot select our beliefs based on what is good for society, lest you invite a demand for theism – despite the utter lack of evidence of for it – simply because it tricks some people into being good on Sundays.

His conclusion: “It’s possible for entire cultures to care about the wrong things. Just admitting this will transform our society… we must converge on the most important questions about human life. We must first admit that these questions have answers.”

Nicholas Christakis

Score 8 balloons

Christakis is a Harvard professor of medicine and sociology, and author of Connected. He studies the properties of social networks such as friend counts, centrality (are you in the thick of the social graph or on the fringe), and transitivity (are your friends connected to each other). In his talk he overlaid obesity as a property to analyze, and learned that obesity clusters in the social graph. If your friends are obese, you are 45% more likely to be obese yourself. If your friends’ friends are obese, you’re 25% more likely.

Why would obesity cluster? Turns out that that are three reasons: friends are exposed to the same bad food choices based on their environments; friends encourage each other to make the same choices they make (“Let’s have muffins and beer!”); and people tend to befriend others like them.

Elizabeth Pisani

Score 7 balloons

Pisani is an epidemiologist who studies the spread of AIDS in Africa. Her presentation centered on the hidden rationalities behind the choices people make that spread HIV -- kind of like behavioral healthcare. From afar, it’s easy to dismiss the intelligence and well being of junkies and prostitutes, but a closer understanding of their circumstances yields clues as to why they share needles and engage in unprotected sex. In Indonesia, for example, anyone stopped by the police with a needle will be arrested and imprisoned, so addicts have no choice but to share. Prostitutes in that country earn close to $10 per hour, rather than the 30 cents they would other otherwise earn.

Pisani’s agenda is to encourage clean needle programs. In the UK, Australia and Netherlands, where clean needles are available, 3% of heroin addicts are HIV+. In New York, Jakarta and Moscow, where they are not available, 50% of heroin addicts are HIV+.

Pisani is particularly frustrated by the short-sighted, moralistic arguments against the distribution of condoms and needles, dismissing the notion that they encourage destructive behavior. "Pope Benedict, if you're watching this TED talk: I carry condoms and I NEVER get laid!"

Valerie Plame Wilson

Score 7 balloons

Wilson is an outed CIA agent who worked covertly to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons. She explained why terrorism and accidents will likely lead to catastrophic nuclear explosions, and the Global Zero movement to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. She showed a trailer of the film Countdown to Zero, aired at Sundance and previewed by TED Thursday night.

Michael Sandel

Score: 7 balloons

Sandel is the renowned and dynamic Harvard philosopher, whom I was fortunate to have as my professor for Justice as an undergrad (watch one of his lectures below). To improve the quality of our public debates, he prescribes raising the level of dialogue from the specific issue to a discussion of the fundamental philosophies that underlie the arguments. The example he used was the controversy around Casey Martin's use of a golf cart due to his disability, and the application of Aristotle's philosophy to the question (despite Aristotle's notoriously high golf handicap).

The TED talk was entertaining (e.g. mocking Justice Scalia), but it didn't tie together as well as the full lecture presented above, and Sandel was too wimpy to broach the underlying theistic philosophies that underlie arguments against gay marriage, stem cell therapy, and women's rights.

Christopher "moot" Poole

Score: 6 balloons

Founder of 4chan, the immensely popular, anonymous, and often profane chat site. The teenage Poole talks about his accidental fame, and his commitment to preserving privacy on the internet.

Kevin Bales

Score: 8 balloons

This sociology professor founded Free the Slaves, a movement to liberate the 27 million people around the world currently enslaved. Largely an unknown phenomenon, slavery exists in many nations where, for hte most part, bandits kidnap impoverished men, women and children, often under the guise of legitimate employment. I'd have given this guy the TED Prize.

Stewart Brand

Score: 7 balloons

Brand presented the merits of nuclear power, followed by a spirited debate with Mark Jacobson. Nuclear power is clean and doesn't require the huge land resource footprint of solar power (50 square miles per gigawatt) or wind power (250 square miles per gigawatt--although he seems to have forgotten that wind farm land can still be used for agriculture). The debate exposed a lot of numbers and costs, and the answer really boils down to whether you think that nuclear power will inevitably lead to radioactive accidents or the use of nuclear weapons. If so, it's an awful choice but if not then it's a no-brainer. The audience came into the discussion 75% pro-nuclear and exited 65% pro-nuclear.

Jane McGonigal

Score: 4 balloons

Game designer Jane McGonigal asserts that the 3 billion hours per year of computer game play prepares children well for the challenges that face our species. To win today's games, one must face daunting, world-shaking challenges despite awful odds, overcome failure numerous times, and innovate.

Nathalie and I topped off the morning enjoying a picnic lunch in the sunshine with Dan Dennett (the world's pre-eminent authority on consciousness) and his wife Susan. Over salads and sliders Dan convinced us that public schools should teach comparative religion -- it's the best ammunition against in-home brainwashing.