A.J. Jacobs: How healthy living nearly killed me

I've spent the last decade subjecting myself to pain and humiliation, hopefully for a good cause, which is self-improvement. And I've done this in three parts. So first I started with the mind. And I decided to try to get smarter by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z -- or, more precisely, from "a-ak" to "Zywiec." And here's a little image of that. And this was an amazing year. It was really a fascinating journey. It was painful at times, especially for those around me. My wife started to fine me one dollar for every irrelevant fact I inserted into conversation. So it had its downsides.

But after that, I decided to work on the spirit. As I mentioned last year, I grew up with no religion at all. I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian. (Laughter) Not really. But I decided to learn about the Bible and my heritage by actually diving in and trying to live it and immerse myself in it. So I decided to follow all the rules of the Bible. And from the Ten Commandments to growing my beard -- because Leviticus says you cannot shave. So this is what I looked like by the end. Thank you for that reaction. (Laughter) I look a little like Moses, or Ted Kaczynski. I got both of them. So there was the topiary there. And there's the sheep.

Now the final part of the trilogy was I wanted to focus on the body and try to be the healthiest person I could be, the healthiest person alive. So that's what I've been doing the last couple of years. And I just finished a couple of months ago. And I have to say, thank God. Because living so healthily was killing me. (Laughter) It was so overwhelming, because the amount of things you have to do, it's just mind-boggling. I was listening to all the experts and talking to sort of a board of medical advisers. And they were telling me all the things I had to do. I had to eat right, exercise, meditate, pet dogs, because that lowers the blood pressure. I wrote the book on a treadmill, and it took me about a thousand miles to write the book. I had to put on sunscreen. This was no small feat, because if you listen to dermatologists, they say that you should have a shot glass full of sunscreen. And you have to reapply it every two to four hours. So I think half of my book advance went into sunscreen. I was like a glazed doughnut for most of the year. There was the washing of hands. I had to do that properly. And my immunologist told me that I should also wipe down all of the remote controls and iPhones in my house, because those are just orgies of germs. So that took a lot of time.

I also tried to be the safest person I could be, because that's a part of health. I was inspired by the Danish Safety Council. They started a public campaign that says, "A walking helmet is a good helmet." So they believe you should not just wear helmets for biking, but also for walking around. And you can see there they're shopping with their helmets. (Laughter) Well yeah, I tried that. Now it's a little extreme, I admit. But if you think about this, this is actually -- the "Freakonomics" authors wrote about this -- that more people die on a per mile basis from drunk walking than from drunk driving. So something to think about tonight if you've had a couple.

So I finished, and it was a success in a sense. All of the markers went in the right direction. My cholesterol went down, I lost weight, my wife stopped telling me that I looked pregnant. So that was nice. And it was successful overall. But I also learned that I was too healthy, and that was unhealthy. I was so focused on doing all these things that I was neglecting my friends and family. And as Dan Buettner can tell you, having a strong social network is so crucial to our health.

So I finished. And I kind of went overboard on the week after the project was over. I went to the dark side, and I just indulged myself. It was like something out of Caligula. (Laughter) Without the sex part. Because I have three young kids, so that wasn't happening. But the over-eating and over-drinking, definitely. And I finally have stabilized. So now I'm back to adopting many -- not all; I don't wear a helmet anymore -- but dozens of healthy behaviors that I adopted during my year. It was really a life-changing project. And I, of course, don't have time to go into all of them. Let me just tell you two really quickly.

The first is -- and this was surprising to me; I didn't expect this to come out -- but I live a much quieter life now. Because we live in such a noisy world. There's trains and planes and cars and Bill O'Reilly, he's very noisy. (Laughter) And this is a real underestimated, under-appreciated health hazard -- not just because it harms our hearing, which it obviously does, but it actually initiates the fight-or-flight response. A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. And this, over the years, can cause real damage, cardiovascular damage. The World Health Organization just did a big study that they published this year. And it was done in Europe. And they estimated that 1.6 million years of healthy living are lost every year in Europe because of noise pollution. So they think it's actually very deadly.

And by the way, it's also terrible for your brain. It really impairs cognition. And our Founding Fathers knew about this. When they wrote the Constitution, they put dirt all over the cobblestones outside the hall so that they could concentrate. So without noise reduction technology, our country would not exist. So as a patriot, I felt it was important to -- I wear all the earplugs and the earphones, and it's really improved my life in a surprising and unexpected way.

And the second point I want to make, the final point, is that -- and it's actually been a theme of TEDMED -- that joy is so important to your health, that very few of these behaviors will stick with me unless there's some sense of pleasure and joy in them. And just to give you one instance of this: food. The junk food industry is really great at pressing our pleasure buttons and figuring out what's the most pleasurable. But I think we can use their techniques and apply them to healthy food. To give just one example, we love crunchiness, mouthfeel. So I basically have tried to incorporate crunchiness into a lot of my recipes -- throw in some sunflower seeds. And you can almost trick yourself into thinking you're eating Doritos. (Laughter) And it has made me a healthier person.

So that is it. The book about it comes out in April. It's called "Drop Dead Healthy." And I hope that I don't get sick during the book tour. That's my greatest hope.

So thank you very much.

(Applause)

Sebastian Wernicke: 1000 TEDTalks, 6 words

I am a statistician by training, so for my TED talk I did a tongue-in-cheek data analysis of about 600 other TED talks. I found that the most loved talks typically evoke emotion—for example, through using words like “happiness,” “the brain,” and “coffee.” So you might want to try talking about “how drinking coffee spreads happiness in the brain.” Also, don’t talk about oxygen, aircraft, or computers—statistically, technical terms are associated with less popular talks. These also cite the New York Times much more than the best-rated ones. The more successful speakers tend to use fewer slides and more props. About half of the most popular TED talks don’t even use slides at all. And for some reason, talks that people rank as “fascinating” employ a lot of purple, and ones that are “ingenious” emphasize the color green. It is statistically significant, but I haven’t found anyone who can explain that to me.

The maximum time you are given for a TED talk is 18 minutes. This really forces the speakers to make just one point, and get to it immediately. You don’t have any time for diversions. When you prepare your talk, there are always certain phrases or slides that you think are incredible. Then you start showing them to other people, and they tell you different. You have to be really brutal about cutting them out. For my TED talk, there was tons of stuff I had to throw out. It was the right thing to do, but I’m still sad for some of that material.

At your typical conference, people there are basically forced to endure the talks—it’s happening at you. Looking at the TED speakers, many of them talk about very serious or fascinating topics, yet they don’t flaunt their ego. At TED, it’s more about contributing to the conference.

Wernicke, a consultant at Oliver Wyman, created the website TEDPad.










If you go on the TED website, you can currently find there over a full week of TEDTalk videos, over 1.3 million words of transcripts and millions of user ratings. And that's a huge amount of data. And it got me wondering: If you took all this data and put it through statistical analysis, could you reverse engineer a TEDTalk? Could you create the ultimate TEDTalk? (Laughter) (Applause) And also, could you create the worst possible TEDTalk that they would still let you get away with?

To find this out, I looked at three things: I looked at the topic that you should choose, I looked at how you should deliver it and the visuals onstage. Now, with the topic: There's a whole range of topics you can choose, but you should choose wisely, because your topic strongly correlates with how users will react to your talk. Now, to make this more concrete, let's look at the list of top 10 words that statistically stick out in the most favorite TEDTalks and in the least favorite TEDTalks. So if you came here to talk about how French coffee will spread happiness in our brains, that's a go. (Laughter) (Applause) Whereas, if you wanted to talk about your project involving oxygen, girls, aircraft -- actually, I would like to hear that talk, (Laughter) but statistics say it's not so good. Oh, well. If you generalize this, the most favorite TEDTalks are those that feature topics we can connect with, both easily and deeply, such as happiness, our own body, food, emotions. And the more technical topics, such as architecture, materials and, strangely enough, men, those are not good topics to talk about.

How should you deliver your talk? TED is famous for keeping a very sharp eye on the clock, so they're going to hate me for revealing this, because, actually, you should talk as long as they will let you. (Laughter) Because the most favorite TEDTalks are, on average, over 50 percent longer than the least favorite ones. And this holds true for all ranking lists on TED.com except if you want to have a talk that's beautiful, inspiring or funny. Then, you should be brief. (Laughter) But other than that, talk until they drag you off the stage.

(Laughter)

Now, while ... (Applause) While you're pushing the clock, there's a few rules to obey. I found these rules out by comparing the statistics of four-word phrases that appear more often in the most favorite TEDTalks as opposed to the least favorite TEDTalks. I'll give you three examples. First of all, I must, as a speaker, provide a service to the audience and talk about what I will give you, instead of saying what I can't have. Secondly, it's imperative that you do not cite The New York Times. (Laughter) And finally, it's okay for the speaker -- that's the good news -- to fake intellectual capacity. If I don't understand something, I can just say, "etc., etc." You'll all stay with me. It's perfectly fine. (Applause)

Now, let's go to the visuals. The most obvious visual thing on stage is the speaker. And analysis shows if you want to be among the most favorite TED speakers, you should let your hair grow a little bit longer than average, make sure you wear your glasses and be slightly more dressed-up than the average TED speaker. Slides are okay, though you might consider going for props. And now the most important thing, that is the mood onstage. Color plays a very important role. Color closely correlates with the ratings that talks get on the website. (Applause) For example, fascinating talks contain a statistically high amount of exactly this blue color, (Laughter) much more than the average TEDTalk. Ingenious TEDTalks, much more this green color, etc., et. (Laughter) (Applause) Now, personally, I think I'm not the first one who has done this analysis, but I'll leave this to your good judgment.

So, now it's time to put it all together and design the ultimate TEDTalk. Now, since this is TEDActive, and I learned from my analysis that I should actually give you something, I will not impose the ultimate or worst TEDTalk on you, but rather give you a tool to create your own. And I call this tool the TEDPad. (Laughter) And the TEDPad is a matrix of 100 specifically selected, highly curated sentences that you can easily piece together to get your own TEDTalk. You only have to make one decision, and that is: Are you going to use the white version for very good TEDTalks, about creativity, human genius? Or are you going to go with a black version, which will allow you to create really bad TEDTalks, mostly about blogs, politics and stuff? So, download it and have fun with it.

Now I hope you enjoy the session. I hope you enjoy designing your own ultimate and worst possible TEDTalks. And I hope some of you will be inspired for next year to create this, which I really want to see.

Thank you very much.

(Applause) Thanks.


若你上 TED 的網站， 你會看到 超過一整星期的 TEDTalk 影片， 超過13億字 的字幕。 還有百萬以上的使用者評比， 資料量很龐大。 所以我在想， 如果你把這些資料 進行統計分析， 你可不可能反向製作出一個 TEDTalk？ 還是你可以創造出 一個「最棒的」TEDTalk？ （掌聲） 還是說，你可以製作出 一個最爛的 TEDTalk， 而且還可以全身而退？

為了找到解答，我選擇三個層面來分析。 我先看該選什麼當做演說的標題， 再來看看在台上該怎麼表達， 以及該使用什麼視覺輔助。 先來說標題，你可以選的標題範圍很廣， 但你應該謹慎地選擇， 因為你所選定的標題， 將會嚴重影響聽眾對你演說的反應。 為了讓你更明白一點， 讓我們先來看看篩選出來的前十名最佳字句， 這是統計分析的結果， 是分別從聽眾最喜愛的 TEDTalk， 和聽眾最不喜愛的 TEDTalk 中所篩選出來的。 所以，如果你到這兒來， 發表一個主題是「法國咖啡如何 在我們的大腦裡傳播快樂」的演說， 那就對了！ （掌聲） 但是，如果你的主題 是敘述你所從事的專案計畫， 內容與氧氣、女孩、飛機等字眼有關， 我個人其實還滿想聽這種演說的， 但統計數據卻告訴我們這不夠吸引人。 嗯, 好。 如果我們廣泛地推論， 最受歡迎的 TEDTalk 所談論的主題， 是聽眾容易與之產生共鳴的， 既簡單而又深入， 像是快樂、我們的身體、 食物和情緒等。 而比較技術性的主題， 像是建築、材料、還有 – 這非常的奇怪 – 男人， 這些就不是那麼受歡迎的主題。

該怎麼進行演說呢？ TED 最負盛名的是 對演說者時間的嚴格掌控， 所以他們會很討厭我告訴你們這一點， 因為根據統計， 你應該在他們允取你的時間範圍內，說得愈長愈好， 因為最受歡迎的 TEDTalk， 平均比最不受歡迎的演說， 時間長上一半。 這是 TED.com 的排行榜告訴我們的事實， 除非你的演說是 優美的、具啟發性的或是有趣的， 那麼，你應該簡潔些。不然的話， 你應該一直說到他們要把你拖下台為止。

（笑聲）

嗯，好.. （掌聲） 在你爭取更多演說時間的同時，還有幾項規則要遵守。 我會發現這些規則， 是因為我統計了演說中所出現的辭句， 看看哪些在最受歡迎的 TEDTalk 中較常出現， 哪些又在最不受歡迎的 TEDTalk 中出現。 我會舉三個例子說明。 首先，身為一個演說者， 我必須提供我所知道的資訊給聽眾， 而不是告訴聽眾我不知道什麼。 第二，要記住 不要引用紐約時報的報導。 （笑聲） 最後，我要告訴你們一個好消息， 要學會不懂裝懂。 如果不瞭解某件事，就用「諸如此類...」來矇混過去。 你們都知道我在說什麼吧! 這樣很好啊！ （掌聲）

現在我們來談談視覺輔助。 在講台上最醒目的視覺標的應該就是演說者了。 統計分析顯示，若你想成為 最受歡迎的 TED 演說者， 你應該把頭髮留得比一般人長一點， 記得戴上眼鏡，然後穿得比一般 TED 演說者 再正式一點， 投影片可以用，但如果能有道具輔助會更好。 然而，最重要的事是 講台上的氣氛。 色彩佔有很重要的地位， 你選用的色彩會決定 你在網路上的評價 （掌聲） 舉例來說，被評價為「引人入勝」的 TEDTalk 都大量使用 這種藍色， 使用頻率比一般的 TEDTalk 高得多。 被評價為「機智」的演說多是這種綠色， 諸如此類... （掌聲） 我個人覺得， 我應該不是第一個做這種分析的人， 但這留給你們 自己判斷吧！

現在該是我們把所有東西拼湊在一起 製作出最棒的 TEDTalk 的時候了。 由於這是 TEDActive， 從我研究的統計資料裡， 我知道我該給你們一些實際的東西， 我不會強迫你們做出最棒的 或是最爛的 TEDTalk， 但我會給你們一套工具讓你們製作出自己的演說。 我把這個工具命名為 TED Pad。 （笑聲） TED Pad 內含有 100 組精選語句， 你可以善加組合， 製作出你自己的 TEDTalk。 你所要做的決定只有一個， 那就是：你是要使用白色的版本 來製作出優質的 TEDTalk， 內容關於創造力、人類的才華？ 還是你想要選用黑色的版本？ 那讓你可以製作出超爛的 TEDTalk， 內容大部分涵蓋部落格 還有政治這些玩意兒。 現在就下載，好好玩一玩吧！

希望你們喜歡我的演說。 也希望你們喜歡自己製作出來的 最棒及最爛的 TEDTalk。 也希望你們之中有人會受到啟發， 明年可以站在台上，我真的很期待你們的演說。

謝謝你們。

（掌聲）

Paddy Ashdown: The global power shift

A Youngster's Bright Idea Is Something New Under the Sun

By SOPHIA HOLLANDER

NORTHPORT, N.Y.—A new way of collecting solar energy has polarized scientists around the world and ignited fierce debate on the Internet, where the innovator in question has been called everything from an alien to the agent of a global conspiracy.


13-year-old Aidan Dwyer developed a new way to collect solar energy, and along the way sparked a fierce debate among scholars and scientists. He joins the News Hub to tell his story. Photo: Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

Maybe a better title would be an intellectual Hannah Montana. That's because the scientist, Aidan Dwyer, is 13 years old.

This past summer, Aidan won a national science competition with what seemed to be a bright idea: His research appeared to show that solar panels arrayed like the leaves on a tree collect sunlight more efficiently than traditional setups.

Enlarge Image

Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal
Aidan with his tree-branch mode

Many people on the Web called the Long Island teenager a "genius" who had achieved a true "breakthrough" in solar power. Others praised him for proving that nature's own designs are superior to man's.

But there was one little problem: To prove his hypothesis, Aidan had measured the wrong thing.

As readers figured out the mistake, the Internet went supernova. Commenters and bloggers attacked Aidan with vitriol usually saved for political enemies and the Kardashians. Blogs decried his experiment as "bad science" and "impossible nonsense." Someone called him "an alien—a cool one, though."

Aidan and his family watched in amazement as strangers around the world debated his intelligence and abilities, as well as his opinion of subjects generally beyond the scope of a suburban boy his age: politics, evolution and the state of modern society, for example.

He got some constructive advice, said Aidan's mother, Maureen. "Then there were people who were just—"

"Haters," Aidan chimed in with a grin.

The legitimacy of his original idea remains unsettled, though scientists are skeptical. Aidan is now revamping his experiment as he maneuvers around homework, sleepovers and the odd curfew violation.

But there is no disputing that he has become a star. Many in the scientific community are championing his intellectual curiosity and graceful ability to weather an Internet firestorm, making him a hot speaker at events around the world.

"It looks like there is some validity to what he's come up with. But even if there wasn't any validity, I wanted to give this young man the opportunity to sort of say, 'Here's what I learned and here's what I did,'" said Andrew Zolli, the executive director of PopTech, a nonprofit organization focused on innovation.


AIDAN DWYER

In October, Aidan got a standing ovation from more than 500 people at PopTech's annual innovation conference in Maine after discussing his work and touching on the controversy.

He has been invited to address 300 undergraduate engineering students at New York University in the spring. He has filed a provisional patent application for his research. He has had, and declined, friend requests on Facebook from venture capitalists.

After viewing one of his talks on YouTube, organizers of World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi invited Aidan to participate—and offered to fly his family over, too. He is scheduled to speak at the event's opening ceremony this month.

"Our mandate is to look for great minds, talents, technology innovations around the world," said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of Masdar, a company owned by the Abu Dhabi government that founded and hosts the conference. "We need thousands of Aidans to help transform the way we produce and consume energy."

On a recent afternoon, Aidan and his parents admitted they were somewhat baffled by the attention for a project that began two years ago on a winter hiking trip through the Catskill Mountains.

Aidan, then 11, stared at the tree branches denuded of leaves and noticed they looked alike; he wondered why. Back home, his parents encouraged him to research the subject. Google searches uncovered that a mathematical concept called the Fibonacci number sequence underlies the structure of tree branches.

His parents had been hoping to install solar panels on their Long Island house, but their yard was too small and their roof wasn't suitable. There was, however, enough room for a tree. Perhaps, Aidan postulated, trees arranged their branches to improve the collection of sunlight. If he used the Fibonacci sequence to imitate that design with solar panels replacing leaves, maybe the structure could fit his family's limited space, look pretty—and power the house.

He did chores to earn the money to buy about $75 worth of materials. With help from his father—and after many mistakes—Aidan ended up with two models: a traditional flat-panel array and a tree-shaped solar collector designed to mimic the branch sequence of an oak tree. Over the course of months he compared measurements. To his delight, the tree structure's numbers were higher.

Exuberantly, he submitted the results to the Young Naturalist Awards, a national contest run by the American Museum of Natural History. Of 700 entries, his was picked as one of 12 winners.

"Then," Aidan said with a slight smile, "things got out of hand."

As the report went viral, attacked and championed in hundreds of comments, museum officials became worried. "We do think it's really important that information that we put forth is scientifically accurate," said Rosamond Kinzler, senior director of science education at the museum. They were also concerned for Aidan, she said.

Critics had a point: Aidan had recorded voltage, when he needed to calculate power. It is a serious flaw, explained Jan Kleissl, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, San Diego.

Imagine a water pipe, he said. Voltage is equivalent to water pressure. Current is the size of the pipe. Power is equal to the flow of water out of the pipe, which depends on both variables.

Dr. Kleissl praised Aidan's work, but added that even if Aidan had measured the right variables, "I'm certain that he will not find that his arrangement is better," he said. "I think it's a romantic ideal that nature has many lessons for us, and there are a few cases where this is true, but in the majority of cases we could teach nature, in a way, how to be better, faster."

On a recent afternoon, Aidan showed a visitor his newest model, tweaked to respond to his critics: a towering seven-foot tree form adorned with solar panels and painted green. He is now measuring current and power. So far, he said, the tree continues to outperform the traditional panel. "I'm thinking that it could actually change the world."

Next gen UI: Learning tools and toys for the digital age

What if you no longer needed a screen, mouse, and keyboard to use a computer? Siftables creator, David Merrill, shows us how individual, cookie cutter-sized tiles that use motion sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication will teach users a new way to learn.



David Merrill: My name's David Merrill and I'm a principal at Taco Lab based in San Francisco and we build next generation user interfaces.

Background Music My background is in cognitive science and computer science and I've been interested for a long time in how our interactions with computers can be more natural and more efficient and more delightful. My colleague Jeevan Kalanithi and I were at the MIT Media Lab as graduate students, and we started working on a new physical interface called Siftables. Siftables is one example of what I think will be a new ecosystem of what I'm calling hand tools for the digital age, ways to interact with computation that's very different than the mouse and keyboard we use today.

Background Music We have built Siftables so that each tile is a little, self-contained interactive computer with a screen on top, the ability to sense its neighbors and the ability to communicate wirelessly. So you can represent a problem, say a math equation, on the screens of the Siftables with each screen showing one piece of the equation. And then by putting them together, it can compute the results of the equation showing you the answer. The way we use computers now, or even our mobile phones and other mobile devices is usually one person per display, one person per piece of technology. But Siftables is an example of what we've been calling cookie-scale computing where you've got smaller pieces of computation, the size of cookies, and you're actually interacting with a group of them together. And that's a version of computing that we haven't really seen yet, a way of interacting with computers that we think has a lot of potential to increase the ease with which we can manipulate digital information. I think our interfaces for computers in the future are going to take a lot of different forms that are not just gonna be the mouse and keyboard. And so that's really what I'm excited about is to see the ways that we can more seamlessly connect our brain and our intentions to what we can create with the computer, because it's a wonderful tool. It's got a lot of potential, but we're not yet leveraging it in the way that we could. That's the way that I want to interact with computers in the future, is for there to be a seamless translation from a thought that I have in my head to something that I've created with the machine.

SRI invents tiny medical instruments for pediatric surgery

In order to perform surgery on children, doctors often have to jury-rig adult instruments to fit their needs. But Pablo Garcia, a principal engineer at SRI International is working to solve this problem. He's teamed up with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford to develop new surgical tools that will fit smaller, hard-to-reach areas. SmartPlanet visits SRI and looks at a neurosurgical instrument in development that will excise cysts in the brains of small children.

iPod father Tony Fadell shows off latest gadget--a thermostat

At Nest Labs, former Apple product engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers have molded their thermostat with many of the design and technology characteristics of Apple products like the iPod and iPhone. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das visits the startup to see what they've been up to and finds out what Fadell--who oversaw the design and production of the iPod--learned from Steve Jobs.


I'm Thomas Meyerhoffer and I'm a designer.

Music

Background Music

>> I used to work for company called IDEO, a big consult firm and then I went from there to Apple where I was part of the design group and then I started my own company. For me, it's about creating a story in the end for the user so that the user will have a good experience with the product. One of my big priorities right now is surfboards. The surfboard I designed is quite radical for that audience. The design of the board looks like a peanut. Basically what I've done I had gone in taking a large board, the long board, and taking a way as much material as possible for the long board to still perform as good as a normal long board but then bring in the ability of a short board into that design. That means taking away the middle of the board, making a rounder tail where you stand which makes the board turn a lot easier in the waves. So it's kind of a combination of two designs into one.

Background Music

>> Another project that I'm working on, it's called the WikiReader and it's a kind of a low technology. So we took one of the most simple things from the internet which is the Wikipedia information and we put that on one device. Everything in the device is designed to take as little power--be as efficient as possible. You don't have to charge it. I mean that's three and a half million articles from the Wikipedia in this device and you don't have to do anything. You can bring it everywhere. For me personally, I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. I think the most challenging part is to make the right decision. It's not difficult to be creative. It's not difficult to come up with new ideas. I think its understanding what you are doing in the context of what's needed and where you need to go so that you take in the right turns and go on forward.

Loosecubes: A more intelligent way to work?

New York-based startup Loosecubes has created an office-sharing portal that helps people find and rent work spaces. SmartPlanet talks to company CEO Campbell McKellar about how her Web site is making it easier to find a work space almost anywhere in the world.

'Printing' your next house

MIT's Mediated Matter Group is developing ways to use new materials like concrete in 3D printing. See how researchers are working with biologically inspired designs in this MIT video.

新大學物理（一）_物理發展與物理量簡介

描述加利略的一些實驗觀察以其發現之力學行為，探討物理在研究什麼？講解一些基本的單位及向量概念。

Viral Video: 15-Year-Old Korean Girl Channels Adele

If you’re impressed by British singer Adele, you’ll be wowed by this 15-year-old girl covering her hit, “Rolling in the Deep,” on Korean singing show, “K-Pop Star.”
I was definitely not expecting this from the slight, sweet-looking singer:



Adele - Rolling In The Deep (Live)

DJ Earworm Mashup - United State of Pop 20

Fault Lines: Politics, Religion and the Tea Party

Creating videos on the go just got easier!

Mossberg Reviews Asus Transformer Prime Tablet

The Android game Ant Smasher is kind of like Pop Cam for frogs — only more dangerous:

Meet the Methodolist - Peter Bentler

Better Audio for Your Videos - with an iPhone

Use An iPhone To Record High Quality Audio For Your Videos from FStoppers on Vimeo.

Samsung Flexible AMOLED and Transparent OLED Screens

Cylindrical Mirror Optical Illusions On The iPad #DigInfo

Asterisk - Omni-directional Insect Robot Picks Up Prey #DigInfo

Next Generation Toyota EV and Hybrid Vehicles - Tokyo Motor Show 2011 #DigInfo

Smartphone-connectible car display developed by Toyota #DigInfo

Video: Japan Gets Vending Machine 2.0 With See-Through Full HD Display, Facial Recognition

Maker Sanden says the machine’s display can produce text, pictures or animations in HD quality.

The company commands a 30% global market share for vending machines and is also active in the US, meaning this prototype could also make its way over to North America one day.

HZO demo

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Real Rewards For virtual achievements

Kiip: An Introduction from kiip on Vimeo.

Kiip: A Welcome from kiip on Vimeo.

02 pursuit motorcycle

MELBOURNE — Last month industrial designer Dean Benstead unveiled the 02 Pursuit — a prototype for a motorcycle fueled not by gas or electricity, but by compressed air.

Based on the geometry of a 250cc motocrosser, the O2 Pursuit prototype uses the breakthrough engine technology developed by Angelo Di Pietro of Engineair.

Benstead, a recent graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has harnessed the power that exists in the air tanks to mechanically drive the vehicle.

According to Benstead, testing of the motorcycle showed close to a quarter of an hour running time with stops at around 25-45 km/h. During stationary testing, Benstead’s team timed the speed off the back wheel, registering over 100 km/h. Preliminary testing of the prototype was limited to an indoors factory environment on a circular track.

“The bike is running a standard scuba tank which runs air compressed up to 200 bar, with further developments, we would be looking at running a tank at 400 bar with increased capacity to also increase the range,” he said.

The innovation was the result of Benstead’s final-year design research into the future of motorcycles, looking at air as a genuine alternative to petrol and electricity.

“Air was the starting point back in 2010, but I continued to explore this for the prototype because of its low-tech nature,” Benstead said. “A solar panel and a compressor now becomes your refinery and without huge battery packs to dispose of, we now have a low-cost to free powered bike with minimum impact on the environment.”

The project began mid last year at the RMIT Ecomoto, the only motorcycle-specific design studio in Australia. Led by RMIT Lecturer and Acting Program Director Simon Curtis, Benstead’s super motard bike project won him the Product Design – Automotive and Transport award at the 2010 Melbourne Design Awards.

The air engine developed by Engineair is still yet to be commercialized. The motor used in the 02 Pursuit was one of five prototypes in the world.

Benstead, recently named in Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential people, is currently working with Australia’s Engineair on a new design that can bring the technology to the market.
02 Pursuit specs:

Top Speed: >100 km/h
Weight: <100kg
Engine: ‘Di Pietro’ 9 chamber air engine
Engine Weight: 10kg
Material: Aluminiumhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Development: Melbourne



http://www.engineair.com.au/

More ways to use Skitch

Brad Burnham Explains Why SOPA Must Be Stopped

The Congressional Judiciary committee is debating a bill today called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which nobody in the Internet industry wants to see passed. Not surprisingly, the bill was written by lobbyists for the music and movie industries, who are frustrated by their inability to go after foreign sites filled with pirated material. The piracy problem is real, but the proposed solutions in the form of this bill and the Senate’s corresponding Protect-IP Act (PIPA) will create more problems than they solve.

Brad Burnham, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, came into the TCTV studio in New York City to explain why SOPA is misguided and how it threatens to break the internet. There are many problems with SOPA, but some of the main ones are that it transfers liability for copyright infringement onto second parties like search engines, social networks, blogs, and all sorts of websites. It provides for DNS blocking much in the same way that China’s great firewall blocks foreign sites it does not want its citizens to see, raising a serious censorship issue since it would not take a court order to block these sites (although it is more complicated than a simple takedown notice).

But more than anything, the bill would inject a level of uncertainty into the internet which could chill the willingness of VCs like Burnham to invest as freely as they have and for founders to start internet companies in the first place. The internet is one of the few sources of job creation in the U.S. economy right now. We don’t need laws that will stifle it.

If you want to learn more about SOPA, read this excellent overview by Mike Masnick at TechDirt. Call your Congress person or let them know that you work for the internet.

Seth Godin on curiosity

These people are the 'curious'. Here is the reason they count. They are the ones who wake others around them from stupor. They are the ones who talk to the masses in the middle who are stuck

Seth Godin Wants You to Decide!

Student Leaders Workshop designed to introduce the next generation of leaders to social entrepreneurship and the concept of patient capital.

PressPausePlay - Seth Godin Interview

中秋烤肉特輯

Curate Your Own Digital Magazine With Scoop.it For iPhone

Field Notes ♥ Busy Beaver

We’ve been both fans and customers of the Busy Beaver Button Co. since forever. They’ve made buttons for Pinsetter, for Field Notes, and for a lot of our personal projects, too. So when Michele said, “Would you want to go over and film with them?” we were immediately out the door. We hung out in their office for a couple of hours, talking to founder Christen Carter, and put together this short doc, hopefully capturing a little of the greatness that is Busy Beaver (and along the way, showing how a Field Notes button gets made).

Fused I Say, Fused!

Field Notes: Making of Balsam Fir from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

The inside covers and interior pages of the Balsam Fir notebooks were offset-printed in “Wet Bark Black” at Envision Graphics in Bloomingdale IL, then the covers were sent to Diecrafters in historic Cicero, IL for hot foil stamping. This is FIELD NOTES’ first foray into foil stamping, and the process is shown in the video above. The press is a Kluge EHE 14×22, manufactured by Brandtjen & Kluge in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Hot foil stamping is fairly similar to letterpress printing (as seen in our Raven’s Wing video) but instead of ink, colored or metallic foil (or holograms!) are fused onto the paper with a heated die, In this case, a snow-white matte non-metallic ‘foil’ was used, rolls of the material can be seen mounted above the printer. Each roll was aligned to a specific print position on the sheet to minimize wasted foil. The finished covers went back to Bloomingdale to be cut, assembled, bound, trimmed, round-cornered, belly-banded, and shrink-wrapped, and they’ll be in your hands soon!

Amsterdam,

Look what I found from zaansehans on Vimeo.

Field Notes “Green Bicycle” Edition

Green Bicycle from mrfears on Vimeo.

Letterpress and Rounded Corners

Wings: Making the Field Notes 2010 Fall Edition from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Sort of like “How It’s Made,” but with much cooler music. Our new film is about about the making of the Fall COLORS edition, “Raven’s Wing.”

Introducing THE STENO

Field Notes: Making of Steno Book from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Enjoy this quick film about the production process behind THE STENO. The covers are silk-screened. You might also be interested in our previous printing films covering letterpress and foil stamping.

We’ve been listening. Devoted Field Notes fans have asked for a larger notebook, something to keep on their desks to go along with our pocket-sized and portable originals. So today we’re announcing the new Field Notes Brand STENO BOOK.

THE STENO is 6″ by 9″ with a black, Double-O Wiring spiral binding at the top, so it lies flat, open or closed. The cover is a beefy 60 pt. “Super Duty Chipboard” from Newark Paperboard Mills, and there are 80 pages of Gregg-Ruled, Finch Paper “Opaque Smooth” 70# text paper inside. We’ve been testing them here and frankly, we wonder how we ever got on without them. They’re the perfect form to keep open on your desk at all times.

County Fair, A Field Trip

Field Notes: Monona County Fair from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Some History on Fire Spotters and the Star of Our Film

Field Notes Fire Tower from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Located in Oconto County, Wisconsin in the Chequamego-Nicolet National Forest, just two miles from the community of Mountain (pop. 860) and just off Forest Road 2106, the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower rises 93 feet, well above a tree line crowded with pines, oak, and maples. The Model LS-40 tower was built in Chicago in 1932 by the Aermotor Company, and was erected by the Wisconsin Conservation Commission, first several miles east-southeast in far more isolated location reachable only by foot trail, and then disassembled by the CCC and moved closer to service roads in 1935.

In use for nearly forty years, from May through September of each year a trained fire spotter would live at the site, spending every daylight hour up in the cab keeping watch for smoke, reporting possible fires via phone to a central Northern Wisconsin fire suppression station. At one time rich with thick forests, which in turn created a massive lumber industry, the area was prone to raging fires like the 1871 Great Peshtigo Fire which resulted in thousands of deaths, twelve completely decimated towns, and millions of scorched acres. Incidents such as these created a dire need for towers like the Mountain Fire Lookout.

Originally surrounded by small living quarters, a latrine, and storage sheds, the tower itself is now all that is left on the site. The last fire called occurred on April 25th, 1970, and it is one of only 2 remaining towers from the original 19 that were built in the immediate area. After its decommission, it served briefly as a radio antenna/relay for local ambulance and law enforcement services. Between 1993 and 1994 the site was rehabilitated and converted into a public site. The Mountain Fire Lookout Tower was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Happy Holidays!

Field Notes Brand: The Northerly Edition from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Our thirteenth FIELD NOTES COLORS release, for Winter 2011, is called “The Northerly Edition,” and as always, we’re trying a few new ideas.

It's that time of the year again - Happy Holidays!

Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


You can make your holiday a special one.

IDEAPAD U300S

Roller Bag Snuggle (Stop Motion)

We will look at the different types of fuel cells

Energy Policy: Developing Ethanol-Based Fuels

Quyen Nguyen: Color-coded surgery

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Quyen Nguyen
Quyen Nguyen uses molecular probes that make tumors -- and just the tumors -- glow, as an extraordinary aid to surgeons.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck

New iPhone App Helps NASA Keep Track of Meteoroids

A new app for iPhones and iPads harnesses the power of citizen scientists to help NASA track meteoroids hitting Earth.

R&D (South Lab) - Video report on the move

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/newsmedia/southlabdevelopment.shtml

How can you be a force for nature?

Why Software Is Eating The World

Zuckerberg Talks To Charlie Rose About Steve Jobs, IPOs, And Google’s “Little Version Of Facebook”

New Battery Technology at Argonne Nat. Labs

Clean Skies News goes behind the scenes where new batteries are being developed at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Lee Patrick Sullivan reports.

Getting paid to break into things: Argonne's Roger Johnston on NBC

Roger Johnston and the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne break into "foolproof" systems.

Why falling in love is like owning a dog

Sarah Kay: How many lives can you live?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sarah Kay
A performing poet since she was 14 years old, Sarah Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E., teaching poetry and self-expression at schools across the United States
http://www.project-voice.net/about-us/



Sarah Kay is a Spoken Word Poet who grew up in New York City and began performing her poetry when she was only fourteen years old. Even though she was often the youngest poet by a decade, Sarah made herself at home at the Bowery Poetry Club, one of New York's most famous Spoken Word venues. In 2006, she joined the Bowery Poetry Club's Poetry Slam Team, NYC Urbana, and competed in the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas. That year, she was the youngest poet competing at Nationals. Sarah was featured on the sixth season of the television series Russell Simmons presents HBO Def Poetry Jam, where she performed her poem "Hands." She has performed in venues across the country including the United Nations, where she was a featured performer for the launch of the 2004 World Youth Report. She has also performed internationally in the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, India, and South Africa. Sarah is a published author, whose work can be found in literary publications such as Foundling Review, Damselfly Press, decomP, the Literary Bohemian, Pear Noir! among others. In 2004, Sarah founded Project V.O.I.C.E. and has since taught Spoken Word Poetry in classrooms and workshops all over the world, to students of all ages. Most recently, Sarah was a featured speaker at the 2011 TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) on "The Rediscovery of Wonder" in Long Beach, California.





Sarah is featured on the CNN.com homepage




Sarah Kay is celebrating National Poetry Month on the YouTube homepage

Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Luis von Ahn
Luis von Ahn builds systems that combine humans and computers to solve large-scale problems that neither can solve alone

Bipedal Cycling Robot Can Balance, Steer and Correct Itself #DigInfo

Utamin Music Toy Responds to Hand Movements #DigInfo

Bridgestone Air-Free Concept Tyres #DigInfo

Temperature as an Interface Element for Gaming, Drawing and Sitting #DigInfo

Worlds First Elastic Electric/Data/USB Cables - Roboden #DigInfo

Revolutionary Rap In Tahrir Square, Cairo

Reed Lindsey reports: Salman Abdul Aziz al-Balshi and Mohammad Mohammad Youssry mix music and politics in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt.

Start-Up Slader Looks to Solve the Math Homework Problem

Rove interviews Kevin Clash - Elmo

Rove McManus interviews Kevin Clash who plays Elmo on Sesame Street.

Due to the high number of comments about Kevin making a joke about Rove's wife, I think it necessary to let you all know that Belinda Emmett was alive and well at the time.

Simulations have become commonplace in much of higher education in recent years, including at Northern Illinois University (NIU), where students use a

Anyone with a web connection can engage in the marketplace maneuvering, the pressure-packed decision making, and the inevitable price wars that break out among business students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

For four years, students in John Sterman’s [2] business management courses have gone toe to toe in simulated business arenas, with the latest being a concocted world of video game companies looking for an edge in marketing and selling their game consoles and software.

The university announced Nov. 30 that the simulation, known as “Platform Wars,” [3] would be freely available on the MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources (MSTIR) website, following the lead of MIT’s OpenCoursWare program [4], a seminal experiment in higher education’s sharing of open source material.

Sterman, a professor in MIT’s Sloan School of Management, said the chance to employ out-of-the-box strategies in simulated business environments has proven perhaps more valuable to his students than strategizing in the real world.

“In many respects, simulation is superior to the real world when it comes to theory and learning,” said Sterman, director of MIT’s System Dynamics Group, a gathering of researchers. “[A simulation] is a safe container. Students choose strategies that may not work just to learn about it, and your actual bank account isn’t drained if you lose millions in the simulation. … Like a flight simulation, you risk nothing.”

In “Platform Wars,” students set the price of hardware, negotiate royalty rates with game makers, and decide if they should subsidize the first few games for their video game system, because, as Sterman said, “if there are no games to run on it, it’s just a big, heavy paperweight.”

“Platform Wars” often lures MIT students into price wars with their competitors. Companies in the online simulation see their prices undercut by the competition, and respond in kind.

Avoiding this vicious cycle of company destruction has served as a valuable classroom lesson for many MIT students on the precipice of the business world.

“The emotion comes into play,” Sterman said. “They know they’re supposed to signal willingness to cooperate and not trigger a price war, but feelings people have when they’re undercut are hard to overcome. … People’s not wanting to lose face gets in the way of making a good decision many times.”

Management simulations are nothing new for Sterman, who created three simulation programs before “Platform Wars.” “Salt Seller,” for example, teaches students about commodity pricing, and “Fishbanks” focuses on managing renewable resources.

These simulations take place over years or decades, helping students better understand short-term and long-term business strategies and the downfalls of getting big too fast.

Every simulator program is based on case studies read by MIT students. All four are available for free on the MSTIR website.

Simulations have become commonplace in much of higher education in recent years, including at Northern Illinois University (NIU), where students use a simulation [5] that lets users design a desired movement or action using the required formulas and algorithms that apply to all types of engineering.

Brian Coller, an associate professor of engineering at NIU, designed the simulation after showing students computer-generated NASA footage from the Mars Rover landings.

Using Coller’s program, students are required to complete the applicable formulas and algorithms to successfully steer a video game car around an oval track. Students must consider rate of speed, geometrical calculations, and all manner of mathematical information to do this.

“These projects are very open-ended, meaning that I’m not going to tell [students] everything they need to know,” Coller said. “They have to go find stuff, and they have to put things together. There’s no one right answer, … so different students can get to a solution in different ways, and that’s what real engineering is like.”

iPhone Games In Real Life

YOUBIQ™ is dedicated to the camera inside your smartphone.

Leave your digital camera at home.

YOUBIQ Home Final from YOUBIQ on Vimeo.

Versatile Grip & Tripod

As a smartphone accessory, the Gymbl is compact and rugged. Attach it to your iPhone® 4 in seconds. Use the handheld grip or tripod on the Gymbl anytime, anywhere. Hold the camera in the position that’s best for you. With the Gymbl, you’re always in the picture.


Hands Free
With the Gymbl, you can use your iPhone® 4 hands free—at home, in a meeting, for FaceTime, when interacting with your apps, and everywhere else.

Panoramic Head
The Gymbl has a gimbal, a pivoting, panoramic head that lets you rotate the iPhone® 4 around its optical center. Use the Gymbl to take accurate panoramic photos without optical distortion. Once you’ve created the source files, use your favorite stitching software to create seamless panoramas.

Tripod Attachment
Your Gymbl attaches to any full sized tripod or other specialty mounts like a Steadycam through an industry-standard 1/4-20 threaded hole in center pivot for even more flexibility.


Ergonomic Case
The stylish, hard-shelled case protects your iPhone® 4 and attaches to the Gymbl. Feels great in your hands anytime you use your iPhone® 4.


At the heart of the Gymbl™ is a gimbal.

The Gymbl™ is versatile as:
• a comfortable grip,
• an on-the-go tripod, and
• a tripod adapter
for taking images and videos with great fidelity.

Capture great panoramas with the Gymbl™.

Use the Gymbl™ hands-free for FaceTime®…anywhere, everywhere.

Security Threats Facing the Mobile Device

Shoe Making Process

Food automation

Jonathan Ive - Tribute to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs and NeXT: Rare PBS Documentary circa 1986

In 1985, shortly after being fired from Apple, Steve Jobs founded NeXT, the somewhat short-lived but revolutionary company focused on higher education and business services. It was there that Jobs honed his visionary approach to computing and design, and crystalized his lens of priorities — the very qualities that made him not only a cultural icon but also a personal hero.

This fascinating PBS documentary, titled The Entrepreneurs and filmed in 1986, offers a rare glimpse of Jobs’ original vision with NeXT, from his aspirations for higher education and simulated learning environments to his decision-making process on price point and product features to his approach to company culture and motivational morale.






Merely 48 months later, Jobs stood up in front of a riveted audience at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and introduced four fully crystalized, groundbreaking NeXT products, including “some of the neatest apps that have ever been created for any desktop platform,” “the best color that’s ever been,” and “the most important new application area in the 1990s…interpersonal computing.”

Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment

ABOUT THIS TALK

Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles -- researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY. And the results? Delicious.





Grow it Yourself: Hydroponic Gardening in Your Home

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/windowfarms-hydroponic-gardening-in-your-home#ooid=ZpZnBlMjpP8-DVwvtRD11JrFrH-06OSP


I, like many of you, am one of the two billion people on Earth who live in cities. And there are days -- I don't know about the rest of you guys -- but there are days when I palpably feel how much I rely on other people for pretty much everything in my life. And some days, that can even be a little scary. But what I'm here to talk to you about today is how that same interdependence is actually an extremely powerful social infrastructure that we can actually harness to help heal some of our deepest civic issues, if we apply open source collaboration.

A couple of years ago, I read an article by New York Times writer Michael Pollan in which he argued that growing even some of our own food is one of the best things that we can do for the environment. Now at the time that I was reading this, it was the middle of the winter and I definitely did not have room for a lot of dirt in my New York City apartment. So I was basically just willing to settle for just reading the next Wired magazine and finding out how the experts were going to figure out how to solve all these problems for us in the future. But that was actually exactly the point that Michael Pollan was making in this article -- was it's precisely when we hand over the responsibility for all these things to specialists that we cause the kind of messes that we see with the food system.

So, I happen to know a little bit from my own work about how NASA has been using hydroponics to explore growing food in space. And you can actually get optimal nutritional yield by running a kind of high-quality liquid soil over plants' root systems. Now to a vegetable plant, my apartment has got to be about as foreign as outer space. But I can offer some natural light and year-round climate control.

Fast-forward two years later: we now have window farms, which are vertical, hydroponic platforms for food-growing indoors. And the way it works is that there's a pump at the bottom, which periodically sends some of this liquid nutrient solution up to the top, which then trickles down through plants' root systems that are suspended in clay pellets -- so there's no dirt involved. Now light and temperature vary with each window's microclimate, so a window farm requires a farmer, and she must decide what kind of crops she is going to put in her window farm, and whether she is going to feed her food organically.

Back at the time, a window farm was no more than a technically complex idea that was going to require a lot of testing. And I really wanted it to be an open project, because hydroponics is one of the fastest growing areas of patenting in the United States right now and could possibly become another area like Monsanto, where we have a lot of corporate intellectual property in the way of people's food. So I decided that, instead of creating a product, what I was going to do was open this up to a whole bunch of co-developers.

The first few systems that we created, they kind of worked. We were actually able to grow about a salad a week in a typical New York City apartment window. And we were able to grow cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, all kinds of stuff. But the first few systems were these leaky, loud power-guzzlers that Martha Stewart would definitely never have approved. (Laughter) So to bring on more co-developers, what we did was we created a social media site on which we published the designs, we explained how they worked, and we even went so far as to point out everything that was wrong with these systems. And then we invited people all over the world to build them and experiment with us. So actually now on this website, we have 18,000 people. And we have window farms all over the world.

What we're doing is what NASA or a large corporation would call R&D, or research and development. But what we call it is R&D-I-Y, or research and develop it yourself. So for example, Jackson came along and suggested that we use air pumps instead of water pumps. It took building a whole bunch of systems to get it right, but once we did, we were able to cut our carbon footprint nearly in half. Tony in Chicago has been taking on growing experiments, like lots of other window farmers, and he's been able to get his strawberries to fruit for nine months of the year in low-light conditions by simply changing out the organic nutrients. And window farmers in Finland have been customizing their window farms for the dark days of the Finnish winters by outfitting them with LED grow lights that they're now making open source and part of the project.

So window farms have been evolving through a rapid versioning process similar to software. And with every open source project, the real benefit is the interplay between the specific concerns of people customizing their systems for their own particular concerns and the universal concerns. So my core team and I are able to concentrate on the improvements that really benefit everyone. And we're able to look out for the needs of newcomers.

So for do-it-yourselfers, we provide free, very well-tested instructions so that anyone, anywhere around the world, can build one of these systems for free. And there's a patent pending on these systems as well that's held by the community. And to fund the project, we partner to create products that we then sell to schools and to individuals who don't have time to build their own systems.

Now within our community, a certain culture has appeared. In our culture, it is better to be a tester who supports someone else's idea than it is to be just the idea guy. What we get out of this project is we get support for our own work, as well as an experience of actually contributing to the environmental movement in a way other than just screwing in new light bulbs. But I think that Eileen expresses best what we really get out of this, which is the actual joy of collaboration. So she expresses here what it's like to see someone halfway across the world having taken your idea, built upon it and then acknowledging you for contributing. If we really want to see the kind of wide consumer behavior change that we're all talking about as environmentalists and food people, maybe we just need to ditch the term "consumer" and get behind the people who are doing stuff.

Open source projects tend to have a momentum of their own. And what we're seeing is that R&D-I-Y has moved beyond just window farms and LEDs into solar panels and aquaponic systems. And we're building upon innovations of generations who went before us. And we're looking ahead at generations who really need us to retool our lives now. So we ask that you join us in rediscovering the value of citizens united, and to declare that we are all still pioneers.

(Applause)

Windowfarm Timelapse




Lincoln's Windowfarm - 2011-07-29





Indoor Gardening

Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Louie Schwartzberg
Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer who captures breathtaking images that celebrate life -- revealing connections, universal rhythms, patterns and beauty.

交大材料宣傳影片

交大材料宣傳影片

00 前進交大 　　　01 簡介 　　　　　02 關於交大 　　　　03 就業工作 　　　04 交大材料研究方向
05 關於金屬材料 　06 關於電子材料 　07 關於高分子材料 　08 關於陶瓷材料 　09 關於奈米科技
10 工學院長談話 　11 材料系主任談話 12 陳智教授談話 　　13 材料所學生感想 14 材料系學生感想
15 結尾

Home > Courses > Materials Science and Engineering > Introduction to Solid State Chemistry > 1. Introduction to Solid State Chemistry OCW Scholar 1. I

This lecture is an introduction to the class.

Professor Sadoway begins with important information about the course objectives, organization, and expectations, and proceehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifds to introduce the subject of solid state chemistry. 3.091 integrates thorough coverage of the principles of chemistry with various applications to engineering systems. The thesis of 3.091 is that electronic structure holds the key to understanding the world around us.


http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/materials-science-and-engineering/3-091sc-introduction-to-solid-state-chemistry-fall-2010/1-introduction-to-solid-state-chemistry/MIT3_091SCF09_lec1.pdf

Georges Island, GMC

從戰場到廚房——讓現代人又愛又怕的微波爐

What If You Are…

When I started my career, all I ever heard was no. So many doors never opened, and the number of times I felt I wasn’t good enough were endless. But still something inside me kept trying. I kept asking myself, “How can I get better? How can I grow?” And my answer to that never changed – and It still hasn’t changed:
Keep trying.
Work harder.
Stay out of your head.
Ask for advice.
Ask for honesty.
Stay open.
Listen.
And no matter how bad the criticism or the word “no” feels, don’t stop believing in what you have to say photographically.
So, I say to all of you: What If you are good enough?

Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it. Whatever it is you want to be, you can be it. So go do it. That is your final assignment.

There is no way I could have ever anticipated what an online, live-streamed food photography workshop would have ignited in the thousands who watched this past weekend.
I couldn’t sleep a wink Sunday night after it was over, I was stirring so much; the energy, the adrenaline, replaying moments, thinking about the different scenes we created in one weekend, all in the name of food photography. But still, that wasn’t what kept my mind racing. It was all the tweets, Facebook messages, comments on this blog, and the hundreds of personal emails I received over the past 72 hours.
Many of them were thank you notes, others heartfelt words of gratitude – and some were very personal accounts of lost dreams that people have decided to reclaim and believe in again.
These words from you all have moved me beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Something changed for me personally, too. I have no idea what all of this means, but I do know one thing: we walked through a threshold this past weekend. No one knows how or when that will materialize or manifest, but I personally can’t wait to see what happens.
Thanks to all of you from the bottom of my heart for the support and kind words.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from an email that especially touched me when I read it early Monday morning. I think it says everything:

“I turned forty years old a few months ago, and out of nowhere, someone just showed me how to find the passion I had when I was fourteen. What the hell, Penny? It’s a tremendous gift, and maybe I deserve it, maybe I don’t. But if I fail to do anything with it, then I would have answered that question.

Someone just took me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and laid out the simple truth: “If you’re not doing what you love, why not?” I have no answer for you, but that was the point, wasn’t it? There’s just no acceptable answer.

The last three days—and most especially the final hour of those three days—I heard my muse give me the ultimatum. And I don’t care that I’m forty; this fire within feels ageless.

I’m not going to say that you showed me the career I always wanted, because I’m not looking for a new career. What you showed me is much more than that: you showed me who I was, who I’ve always been. I never realized how much I needed to see myself again. I’ve lost so much recently, and I’m still listing the things I’ve lost in an endless parade of spreadsheets. But no one makes you list the dreams you’ve lost, the hopes you’ve abandoned, the passions you’ve pushed into the background.

So thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart—a heart much larger now because my muse has finally reclaimed her rightful space in it”