Five favourite TED videos
By Nicole Kobie in Editorial
Posted in Uncategorized on
TED kicked off in Oxford today. That statement either makes you go “Huh?” or fills you with disappointment that you’re not there (if you are there, and reading this, what’s wrong with you? go listen to the amazing people.)
For the uninitiated, TED is the Technology Entertainment Design conference, but that hardly sums it up. It’s a gathering of ridiculously intelligent, passionate, amazing people. They each get a quarter of an hour of stage time to share their idea or creation or whatever with the world. It started off in California - no big surprise there - but has a spin-off in Oxford this year.
To attend, you not only must shell out £2,700, but you also need to write an essay and pass the application process.
So I’m not only unable to afford it, I’m likely not clever enough. But don’t worry, TED is an inclusive bunch, for all the conference’s exclusivity. They’ve set up a website with videos of the presentations — it’s like YouTube, but full of clever, do-gooder content, instead of clips of cute kittens.
That might not sound great, but it’s just as easy to kill a few hours watching TED clips as it is YouTube crap, and you don’t feel like you’ve wasted your time after TEDding. (The videos are also available on YouTube, actually, so I should stop slagging it off.)
To get you started, here’re my favourite five videos:
1) The first just blows my mind, and is classic TED. Hans Rosling explains health statistics in a way which has been compared to sports play by plays… A perfect example of the passion these people have for their topics. Don’t let the 20 minute time scare you off — it’s worth every second. And actually funny.
2) Keeping with the data theme, here’s one from the UK’s own Sir Tim Berners Lee. I have a wee bit of a professional crush on this man — he’s brilliant and humble and sweetly funny, and this video proves all those traits. He stumbles through his own jokes, and then awkwardly leads a chant of Raw Data Now, but it’s still captivating and inspiring.
3) In this next one, Johnny Lee finds some cool new uses for a Wii remote, showing how much very advanced tech goes into the types of devices we now take for granted.
4) In the next, a guy I went to university with demos his rather amazing and remarkably fun desktop animation called BumpTop — you can download it free here. I’ve never had a desktop make me laugh before…
5) And to round out my five favourites — if you watch just one of these videos, make it this one. A team of MIT researchers chuck together some bits and pieces of mobile phones and cameras to make a portable projector, letting you take pictures with your hands, dial on your own fingers and more. If it doesn’t blow your mind, there’s something wrong with you.
So if you don’t mind losing a few hours of your time, wander over to the site. I’ve picked largely techie ones here, but there are hundreds of videos across all topics — there’s poetry from Felix Dennis (the very man who owns this site), education from Dave Eggers, and even a video on how mushrooms can save the world.
If you see any good ones, drop us a link in comments below.
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