Technology, Design and especially Entertainment from TED

The following came from TED for the Week of March 13, 2009. This is another example or re-blogging what somebody else has done. The reason is that I find it all interesting, and at some level interrelated. I am adding a few more links to what the TEDBlog originally provided. This blog is primarily an exploration in what Tim Berners-Lee created and what has grown from it. What he says about numbers will have a profound impact on the world as demonstrated by some of the links to my Milestones for a New Millennium blog.

This blog has also discovered an interest in design and in the MIT Media Lab. Don Norman's three emotional design cues are Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective. Instead of Don Norman's site, when I Googled "design and emotion", with and without the "and" I got Design & Emotion Society. When I did "emotion and design", the Don Norman site was third and design & emotion - Marco van Hout site was first, regardless of the "and". So things can and do change and the exploring is fun. You will understand what this is all about when you watch the video. Below are the selected videos from the TED site.

20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, music and video: Unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together. Watch this talk >>

This demo from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT Media Lab, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry, was the buzz of TED -- and now the web. It's a device that enables a profound, data-rich interaction with our environment. Imagine Minority Report and then some. Watch this talk >>

PLUS: The TED Blog talks to Pranav Mistry (and he answers questions from the TED.com forum!)

Design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at well-designed products that makes people happy, from fast cars to the Philippe Starck juicer. He names the three emotional cues that a product must strike to become a success. Watch this talk >>

Some Related links:

Human Development - The Measurement of Human Endeavors

Understanding a dollar a day could be an invaluable resource for the Millennium Development Goals

Taking the Measure of Chronic Poverty

Simply the Best: Maeda’s the Man at RISD

Making A Come Back - Does This Mean Design Is Not Dead?

Lesson From Philippe Starck "Design Is Dead" Lesson From Hugh MacLeod "The Future Isn't"

Designing What We Live In, Where We Live At , How We Live

Designing For New Paradigms

Avaaz asks Help Free Aung San Suu Kyi

The following is taken directly from the Avaaz email that was sent to me. Burma, which to me is preferable to Myanmar, has provided both insights and inspiration for this blog and Milestones for a New Millennium. Many times though it is just a matter of helping to get the word out. I am only going to reach a small number of people, but if everyone kept passing this along awareness would increase exponentially. They were at 143,838 participants supporting the Burmese when I signed up. Help them get to 888,888.

Free Burma's Political Prisoners Now! from FBPPN on Vimeo.

Dear friends,

Burma's peaceful pro democracy activists are calling on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to secure the release of political prisoners. Stand with them - Sign the petition

Burmese pro democracy leader and Nobel peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has spent 13 years detained by the Burmese military junta. She and thousands of fellow monks and students have been imprisoned for bravely challenging their brutal regime with calls for democracy. This week a glimmer of hope has risen for their release, and it's time for us to stand with them.

Risking danger to speak out for their jailed friends, Burmese activists this week demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and called on the world to help. As the global economic crisis makes aid flows more essential, Burma's generals are becoming more vulnerable to international pressure, but we need a flood of petition signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to make this a top priority. Follow the link to sign the petition, and forward this email on to make sure she and her fellow prisoners are freed:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_burma_political_prisoners

The Burmese organizers have set a goal of 888,888 signatures. The number 8 is powerful in Burmese culture, and the ruling junta is extremely superstitious - such a large and significant number might have a special influence on them. But this issue isn't in the headlines, so to build our numbers we need to forward this email and persuade our friends to help.

Aung San Suu Kyi is the international face of the struggle for democracy in Burma. She has been detained over and over again since 1988. She is now under house arrest and is allowed no contact with the outside world.

But growing international pressure is working -- In December, 112 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 50 countries sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to press for the release of all political prisoners, and 20 political prisoners were released in February after a United Nations envoy visited the country.

Sources now say that the military regime is fearful of this unified and massive online call to the UN -- over 160 Burma exile and solidarity groups in 24 countries are participating in the campaign. But it will take all of us and all our friends signing this petition to get Mr Ban's attention. Avaaz has done it before for Burma – we can do it again. Click here to stop the arrests and brutality:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_burma_political_prisoners

This is one of those times where if enough of us act we can truly make a difference. Let's join the courageous Burmese democracy activists in jail and in hiding and help end this violent repression.

In hope and solidarity,

Alice, Ricken, Pascal, Graziela, Veronique, Iain, Paul, Luis, Paula, Brett and the whole Avaaz team

For more about the Global Campaign visit:
http://www.fbppn.net/?page_id=582

For more about Burmese political prisoners visit:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46118

Article on torture in Burmese jails:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201865.html

Some prisoners release after UN envoy visit February 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022201188.html

Letter from former presidents:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/index.php/burma/news/Letter-from-112-Former-Presidents-and-Prime-Ministers-to-UN-Secretary-Gener

For more about Aung San Suu Kyi visit:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma/aung_san_suu_kyi.htm

--------------

ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Call us at: +1 888 922 8229 or +55 21 2509 0368 Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages!

Making Change Making More Change Bit by Bit

One pathway of exploration that this blog has taken me is global health delivery. It was initially an interest in how business management systems could improve the efficiencies of social beneficial delivery systems such as global health. It has been a fairly frequent topic of contemplation both here and at Milestones for a New Millennium. Over time I have become interested in participating, first by blogging about the Millennium Development Goals, participating in collective actions such as BlogAction Day Against Poverty and BloggersUnite for Refugees and World AIDs Day, and now by participating with Change.org and creating a fundraising page for FightAIDSTuberculosisMalaria. There is still the internal conflict of having so much to do with the "Real World/Day Job" and not relegating one's self to mere slacktivist mode. Below is the more or less official pitch.

Hello,

I am raising money for FightAIDSTuberculosisMalaria.

Please take a moment to visit my online fundraising page and make a donation. It's really easy - you can donate by credit card and receive an immediate tax receipt for your donation.

Thanks and best wishes,
Brian

Here's my page:

http://www.change.org/myfundraising/FightAIDSTuberculosisMalaria