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Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

#61

Post by avinashv »

plinkplonk wrote: post #25

http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind... ("Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples. .. Dr Ramachandran is the author of the author of Phantoms in the Brain (the basis for a Nova special), A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness and The Man with the Phantom Twin: Adventures in…

I highly recommend reading his book Phantoms in the Brain. Fascinating and approachable introduction to the kind of neuroscience--some of the talk's examples come from this book--that he talks about.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

#64

Post by brianwillis »

Liz Gilbert's talk on Creative Genius (http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html) is really underrated. Not only does it cover a fascinating subject, it's also a beautifully done speech. Gilbert skims across the surface of many subjects, and in the final few minutes ties it all together into one cohesive whole. Poignant, thoughtful, and entertaining - as all speeches should aspire to be.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

#66

Post by ju2tin »

jamesbritt wrote: post #59
ju2tin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't like it. Rowe has a disingenuously self-deprecating speaking style, where he says again and again how much he "got wrong", but the subtext is how smart he is for realizing certain things that the rest of us supposedly haven't. And his big insight is that for every Steve Jobs, we need a bunch of workers to actually build the iPods? Wow, golly. I also hate the verbal tic he demonstrates, which is becoming depr…

Wow. I'm almost done watching iti right now, and didn't catch him saying 'right?' at all; maybe it happens in the earlier part, but in the last few minutes, none at all. If he's saying it, I hardly think it's meant as some subtle pysch trick. Nor did I get the feeling that his claims of being wrong was in any way disingenuous. At worst it's a ploy to structure his talk. Every TED talk works off the assumption that th…

I thought the notion that plain old labor can be a more fulfilling path than following your dreams was a tacked-on message designed to help him wrap up his talk. But in fact, it's a naive, perhaps even willfully misleading suggestion.

The examples Rowe used to back up this idea were unlikely mavericks who managed to turn undesirable or unremarkable jobs into fantastically successful businesses. Those people are just as rare, if not more so, as those who find success by "following their dreams".

Ordinary workers aren't millionaire entrepreneurs; they're janitors, or sewer workers, or Foxconn assembly line drones. Yet that's what "real work" looks like. And I notice Rowe isn't quitting his job as a TV show personality in favor of joining the road crews who "whistle while they work."

The best thing I can say about Rowe is that he ranks up there with Malcolm Gladwell in his ability to throw around a bunch of unrelated contentions and anecdotes and pretend to tie them all together with a facile and unsubstantiated thesis.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

#69

Post by nrbafna »

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology.Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pranav_mistry_the_thrillin...

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

#70

Post by RevRal »

nrbafna wrote: post #69

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology.Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pranav_mistry_the…

SixthSense is the most promising system of augmenting reality I have seen.
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