Exploring Pathways of Vision, Sight and Insight

This blog started off as a personal trek to explore new paradigms. It has succeeded in doing that for myself and hopefully some few others along the way. These paradigm pathways have a tendency to cross over one another and create opportunities for serendipity. Even though the rule in blogging is too focus on one idea in short narratives, my habit is to ignore that advice and attempt to link different ideas. Two important sources for new ideas are TED and MIT for seeking pragmatic solutions and personal wisdom in redefining one's self as its says in the header.

Recently, I came across four videos from both sources that had a common set of themes, brain, cognition, vision, but also led to other pathways of compassion and social change. All involved understanding, but used different applications of that word.

In this episode of TEDTalks (video) on Tom Wujec on 3 ways the brain creates meaning - Tom Wujec (2009) -

Information designer Tom Wujec talks through three areas of the brain that help us understand words, images, feelings, connections. In this short talk from TEDU, he asks: How can we best engage our brains to help us better understand big ideas?

Cognitive psychologists now tell us that the brain doesn't actually see the world as it is, but instead, creates a series of mental models through a collection of "Ah-ha moments," or moments of discovery, through various processes.

So making images meaningful has three components. The first again, is making ideas clear by visualizing them. Secondly, making them interactive. And then thirdly, making them persistent. And I believe that these three principles can be applied to solving some of the very tough problems that we face in the world today. Thanks so much.

The next two videos from MITWorld, though longer in length, are well worth watching.

The first continues with the exploration of cognition and vision through - Computers with Commonsense: Artificial Intelligence at the MIT Round Table

Patrick Henry Winston ponders what makes humans different from our primate cousins. His field of artificial intelligence extends that question to thinking about how humans differ from computers, with a goal to "develop a computational theory of intelligence."

"We think with our eyes…vision is the locus of every profound kind of problem solving."

Patrick Henry Winston

The next MITWorld video takes us back to the human and to the humane -

Opening the Mind’s Eye-Learning to See

"Whenever we're asked how the brain does X or Y, the impulse is to work with this beloved creature, the human infant, to see how it acquires different capabilities... But there are challenges: Babies are not interested in being experimental subjects. They'd rather sleep than give us good data."

Pawan Sinha

The reason the Pawan Sinha video goes beyond interesting to inspiring is because

Sinha found these subjects in his native India, which has the world’s highest number of blind children -- more than one million. They are victims of Vitamin A deficiency, congenital cataracts, and absent or atrocious medical care. But salient to Sinha’s research, many of these blind children could be treated. He glimpsed a humanitarian and scientific opportunity, and Project Prakash (Sanskrit for light) was born .

It’s rare to find research that simultaneously advances basic science and brings immediate good into people’s lives, but Pawan Sinha’s Project Prakash does precisely that. An investigator of human visual processing, Sinha is interested in how these brain mechanisms develop, and in treating India's vast population of blind children.

The final video is another short one from TED and deals again with vision, but vision both from the idea of seeing and the idea of envisioning a new world. Both aspects of our understanding are necessary to bring about this new world, the understanding of our world and nature and the understanding we must show to each other.

Atomic physicist Joshua Silver invented liquid-filled optical lenses to produce low-cost, adjustable glasses, giving sight to millions without access to an optometrist. At TEDGlobal 2009, he demos his affordable eyeglasses and reveals his global plan to distribute them to a billion people in need by 2020.

Digging through Web 2.0 for Feelings and Facts and Fraternity

My last few posts used slacktivism to make a point about online activism, but the lesson that I have taken from my blogging and wanted to pass on to others is that Web 2.0 tools can be used to tell the story of a cause not just the facts. The story of a cause goes to the heart or the meaning of a cause and why someone should join, not merely the facts of the issue.

The World Wide Web may have started transmitting only data, but it has evolved into something more and is continuing to evolve.

Change-agent organizations need to understand and adapt these new means of connection, communication and collaboration. It is a balance between pulling on people's feelings and getting them to be part of some larger cause and providing the facts so that they can make up their own minds and find new means of working together.

From the New York Times TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET | August 24, 2009 By ALEX WRIGHT

Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts

The universe of reviews, ratings and recommendations online open a tantalizing window on the collective consciousness.

“Social media used to be this cute project for 25-year-old consultants,” said Margaret Francis, vice president for product at Scout Labs in San Francisco. Now, she said, top executives “are recognizing it as an incredibly rich vein of market intelligence.”

Here are two TED Talks featuring Clay Shirky, who in the first TED Talk looks at how the end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics, Iranian protestors streaming news to the world, showing how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news by bypassing censors (if all too briefly).

The second TED Talk examines how the Internet and Web 2.0 can enhance collaboration.

Reconnecting to Why To Connect

I have decided to reconnect to why I started this in the first place. It was to learn and share. The learning was whatever interested me with more specific focus on issues being dealt with through the Millennium Development Goals. The sharing was with whomever was interested. It is not going to change the Web 2.0 world, but I was quite happy when Youth for International Human Rights is clicked 61 times, or 36 clicks for the MIT video Technologies Changing Communities, Communities Innovating Technology or 34 clicks for my own post Designing Your Future and Your Success as a Team Effort.

Another aspect of blogging that was enjoyable was seeing people across the globe connect with what I was sharing. People find me through Google. One popular search is "millenium development goals obama", and I take satisfaction that Milestones for a New Millennium comes up on the first page. Another from the UK was "web 2.0 on social impact" at which I was at last look at the number one spot. Now this does not mean I am now taking the Web 2.0 world by storm. Much of this is the fact I focus on areas without much competition, which is unfortunate because they are very worthwhile causes, and luck in choosing the right words.

The other measure is how long people will spend interacting with one of my posts. Most visitors don't even register, though hopefully they read some of it. I figure two minutes on web time, equal to about 20 minutes off-web time indicates some engagement. Somebody spent a couple of minutes at my Making Hope Last Longer Than Hunger that I did for BloggersUnite and then clicked to their site. Which is part of the whole idea, getting others to find interesting, informative and inspiring sites. Somebody from NYU.EDU found my blog Milestones for a New Millennium through Google "Business and human rights: Towards operationalizing the 'protect, respect and remedy' framework", though admittedly not on the first page, and through it connected with the Business and Human Resource Centre. That took them 14 seconds. Somebody in Oklahoma City visited my Milestones for a New Millennium blog. and found TED talks Rethinking Poverty on the site. The trouble has been that I have been getting far fewer of these connections lately and could only come up with a couple of examples to share. That is going to change.

Assumptions of Living - Good and Bad

One approach taken in the writing of this blog is finding different ideas on the Internet and see how they can be connected. Sometimes it is obvious, but other times there is just a sense of connection. I found two such sources of interest at TED.

The two TED talks were Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal (sometimes) - Dan Ariely (2009) and Celebrating work -- all kinds of work - Mike Rowe (2008).

Both speak to our tendency of holding assumptions of how moral we are ourselves , how we perceive others and how those others deal with life, both good and the bad. What helped make the connection was Mike Rowe's tying his observations of the everyday lives of working people to the Aristotelian theory of tragedy. Dan Ariely takes that idea from the level of the individual to the level of community reminding me of the words from Julius Caesar.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves...

Cassius
The Life and Death of Julies Caesar
ACT I.
SCENE II.

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

Belief and Ritual Finding Common Ground Through Difference

My objective in creating this blog was as a learning tool for myself through finding websites of interest and organizing them for further study to create my own personal paradigm shifts. One of the main sources of interesting material continues to be TED. Recently, I have had a desire to go back to the original motivations for this blog and broaden my explorations again. This is done with the belief that it will help my gaining more understanding of the Millennium Development Goals dealt with in my other blog. Below are a collection of TED talks I found inspiring on a personal level.

Wade Davis: The worldwide web of belief and ritual
Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada Indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance. Watch this talk >>

Stefan Sagmeister: Things I have learned in my life so far

Rockstar designer Stefan Sagmeister delivers a short, witty talk on life lessons, expressed through surprising modes of design (including ... giant inflatable monkeys?). Watch this talk >>

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth living?" Money cannot make us happy, he says -- instead, he looks to people who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of "flow."

Watch this talk >>

Helping Myanmar (Burma) rebuild, Using Architecture to Rebuild Humanity

A number of the stories that have been held in the draft bin deal with architecture. The concept of architecture, however, applies to more than the design of individual buildings. It also applies to other things such as the web and to entire cities.

Does architecture give us a model as to how we can we use the Web to drive social change? The TED prize is one avenue created to bring about social change. Architecture for Humanity leveraged a 2006 TED Prize to build the Open Architecture Network, linking communities around the globe with architects and designers who can help them solve problems.

In 2006, Cameron Sinclair asked TED to help him build an open-source platform to help architects connect with communities in need of designs. The result was the Open Architecture Network -- a successful website that acts as both a clearinghouse for building plans and a vibrant social network, allows its users to sample, remix and customize design work for their needs. To help Sinclair's wish come true, join the community at the Open Architecture Network's website.

One of the latest examples of their work is their attempt to help Myanmar (Burma) rebuild, with Architecture for Humanity as told by the TED TEDBlog by on 5/6/08.

Following the devastating Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma), Architecture for Humanity asked for help in rebuilding the country over the long term. They wrote:

While the media will focus its attention on the loss of life, there will be millions displaced in the coming weeks -- and like most natural disasters, there's no plan for long-term sustainable reconstruction. Large aid agencies like Oxfam and Care will be knee-deep in immediate delivery of aid. How will the country respond to the long-term strategic need to rebuild the country?

In the first 6 hours of this drive, AfH raised $4,000 from over 120 donors. Learn more about this appeal >>

Sustainability And Collier And Ending The Homo-Defictus Age

Paul Collier is an economist with a vision of raising the economic viability of people at the bottom of the world's scale of wealth - 4 ways to improve the lives of the "bottom billion".

Around the world right now, one billion people live in poverty because of a simple piece of bad luck: they were born in a poor or failing country. What can be done? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor -- and makes the case that we must. Watch this TED talk >>

Accomplishing this goal will take in part Chris Luebkeman' vision, director of Arup, a global design, engineering, and urban planning firm calling for ending the "Homo-Deficitus Age," in which we spend and use more than we have. It will also take an optimistic engagement of the future.

Several hundred million Chinese residents are expected to move from rural areas into cities over the next quarter-century. Dongtan, in Shanghai, will be one of those destinations. Arup is working with local officials to add the necessary homes and infrastructure while integrating sustainable practices and technology. Dongtan is designed to generate its own energy, using a variety of sources, from wind to recycled trash. Public transportation will run on hydrogen fuel cells. The city's three villages will be surrounded by land reserved for farming.

Arup built the Bird's Nest for the 2008 Olympics and other icons of global architecture. Their approach to this effort brings to mind the work of William McDonough of William McDonough & Associates who will be working with Arup on some of the China projects.

diigo tags: community-planning, design, cities, architecture

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution gives us further insight into Collier on the Food Crisis

Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion was my pick for best economics book last year (not written by a dear friend), it was smart, hard-hitting and unconventional. Collier hasn't lost his touch as a great comment, more like an op-ed, on the food crisis over at Martin Wolf's Economic Forum illustrates.

diigo tags: economics, poverty, global, economicpolicy

The challenge is how to implement these changes on a global basis.While many may be working towards this lofty goal, one major institutional resource in this effort has been MIT.

We can't afford to think of business as the enemy. Businesses in many cases are realizing the importance of sustainability more quickly than the public sector which too often defines its view by outdated political philosophies. This video provides a great deal to think about.

MIT World » : Implementing Sustainability Strategies ---

• ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION:
  Companies sometimes regard sustainability as “metaphoric low-hanging fruit,” says moderator Peter Senge, and reach for a few easy targets to achieve cosmetic improvements. His three panelists describe how their corporations are attempting to embrace sustainability as more than just another high-profile, low-impact initiative that “goes right into an overloaded bucket.”

  "Environment is not a special, short-term project, not a fad or flavor of the month," says Balta. IBM pursues opportunities in and out of the company, including "making brown green:" reducing waste in its business and industrial processes around the world; designing intelligent networks to improve the efficiency of electrical utility operations; developing systems for mitigating traffic congestion in cities; launching a Big Green innovation business unit; and creating an Eco Patent Commons, enabling users the free and unrestricted use of IBM technologies that help solve environmental challenges.

  "We're trying to find the sweet spot between social, economic and environmental areas that define sustainability, because at the end of the day if any one of those three legs of the stool aren't available then the model itself falls down." says Mark Buckley.

  British Telecom is tackling three interdependent areas, says Kevin Moss: sustainable economic growth, climate change and creating a more inclusive society.
  

  diigo tags: sustainability, environment, business, management, leadership

Cities Under The Microscope and From A Balloon

There have been a number of articles on cities passing my screen lately, but from varying perspectives. Another of the approaches of this weblog is to combine those different concepts together. The concepts in this post go from the technical to the artistic and from the abstract to the personal.

Science Magazine takes a special look at cities in February.
Science, Volume 319, Issue 5864, Cities dated February 8 2008, is now available:

Video Special: Cities
See a special video introduction to this week's special issue on the science of cities and

Science Podcast Join host Robert Frederick for interviews and stories on the environmental costs of biofuels development; the 2009 U.S. science budget; reproducing in cities; good monitoring relationships;

---

In this week's issue of Science: SPECIAL ISSUE:

---

Reimagining Cities by Caroline Ash, Barbara R. Jasny, Leslie Roberts, Richard Stone, and Andrew M. Sugden

The TEDBlog on the other hand introduces us to Jaime Lerner , who has a maverick flair and a strategist's disdain for accepted wisdom and who re-invented urban space in his native Curitiba, Brazil.

He talks about how to revolutionize bus transit, awaken green consciousness in a populace accustomed to litter and blight, and change the way city planners and bureaucrats worldwide conceive what's possible within the tangled structure of the metropolitan landscape.

It is David Macaulay of The Way Things Work fame, who, in his TED Talk, provides a personal connection with one city in particular:

His love and fascination for Rome dates to his days as an architecture student, but found the path to his book Rome Antics took some unusual (and frustrating) turns. Through failed pop-up designs, scribbled-out title possibilities, surreal sketchbook pages (think "Piranesi meets Escher"), and rambling storylines, Macaulay details each step of his winding journey toward completion of his illustrated homage to the city.

Excepts from -David Macaulay: All roads lead to Rome Antics

I draw to better understand things. Sometimes I make a lot of drawings, and I still don’t understand what it is I’m drawing.

I also make drawings to help people understand things. Things that I want them to believe that I understand. And that’s what I do as an illustrator. That’s my job.

So I’m going to show you some pictures of Rome. I’ve made a lot of drawings of Rome over the years. These are just drawings of Rome. I get back as often as possible. I need to. All different materials, all different styles, all different times, drawings from sketchbooks, looking at the details of Rome. Part of the reason I’m showing you these is that it sort of helps illustrate part of what I go through with trying to figure out what I feel about Rome and why I feel it.

Asking The Big Questions

Beside Edge with "What have you changed your mind about? Why?" and YouTube with the Davos Question, TED and the TEDBlog are also asking "The Big Questions"

Many people come to TED -- and visit TED.com -- seeking something out of the ordinary. A chance to mentally recharge. A chance to step back and consider the really big stuff that's happening. A chance to understand life in a richer way.

• Who are we?
  
  • What is our place in the universe?
    
    • What is life?
      
      • Is beauty truth?
        
        • Will evil prevail?
          
          • How can we change the world?
            
            • How do we create?
              
              • What's out there?
                
                • What will tomorrow bring?
                  
                  • What stirs us?
                    
                    • How dare we be optimistic?
                      
                      • And the point?

The TED | TEDBlog provides a number of Web-based ways to make a difference

+ Share Ron Eglash's cool math tools, for studying math via breakdancing, Latin beats and cornrow braids
+ Dive into Richard Baraniuk's Connexions, a massive repository of open-source class materials
+ Visit Phil Borges' Bridges to Understanding site, which rounds up student films from all over the world
+ Browse Erin McKean's booklist "So You Want to Be a Lexicographer?"
+ Check out the beta of Gapminder World, powered by Hans Rosling's Trendalyzer software
+ Watch video and take action at The Hub, a platform for human rights media and action -- presented by Peter Gabriel's WITNESS
+ Discuss sustainable design and materials on the Cradle to Cradle forums, inspired by the work of William McDonough
+ Learn more about Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child
+ Catch up with Majora Carter's Sustainable South Bronx -- or make a specific gift to SSBx via Changing the Present
+ Calculate your personal CO2 production -- and start helping the planet -- at the website for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, produced by Jeff Skoll

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More On Fair Use And Free Culture (Not Free Use)

I found this at Matthias Zeller Memento post Larry Lessig’s Talk - Software Patents and Free Culture from earlier this year. The slide show was originally by Rashmi Sinha’s weblog.
In this slide-show Larry Lessig provides more background on Fair Use from his perspective.

Larry's Talk - Free Culture

From: rashmi, 5 months ago

| View | Upload your own

SlideShare Link

A more updated talk by Larry Lessig is available here:TED | TEDBlog: How creativity is being strangled by the law: Larry Lessig.

Secrets Of Movement Mysteries Of Design

This is the post that was intentionally moved and fixed with the post below. A second look at the TED video convinced me to place it up front in the main section of this weblog. As I said below this post is also being placed under the tag design. Robert Full does incorporate functionality into design. His approach struck me as being a combination of J. Craig Venter and Saul Griffith. This also leads back to my burgeoning concept of intentional personal paradigm shift. While Maira Kalman seemed to fit without doubt under the tag creativity, this post seems better fitted to innovation though sometimes its hard to determine the difference, both provided inspiration.

Biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic "distributed foot." (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:24.)

This one went under Paradigm Pathways Science Pathways.

Principles of Uncertainty Laws of Serendipity

This post was moved to here from back in November unintentionally. I was intentionally moving the post above this. However, embedding the video for the later post wasn't working and I used this video to edit so that it would. Regardless of that accident, these two posts do tie together under a tag that also has a wide and varied application - design. Originally I did not tag this post under design but I am rethinking that now. The concept of design has changed for me as a result of this weblog more than any other concept that has been dealt with, both in terms of its importance and its intricacy. I am no longer applying the concept of design only to things, particularly to only inanimate things.

The Principles of Uncertainty starts one off on a strange journey starting in the past, both in terms of the work and of Maira Kalman's life, and moving with uncertainty but also serendipity with no particular place to go. Maira Kalman doesn't bring functionality to design, she brings style.

Tech Bubble Burst and Blown Again

This was originally from Businesspundit and as rob says, "Its Fantastic" Unfortunately it stopped working. Same with a number of other sites that featured the video. Undaunted, I found it again at Marketing Pilgrim. This time instead of using YouTube the video is under Metacafe.



Here Comes Another Bubble - video powered by Metacafe

Here is why it stopped working on YouTube. This came from NewTeeVee and was posted by Liz Gannes.

Which happens to be one of those topics I have been wanting to get back to write about. What is Civic Media? is another Ask.com web-available folder that contains a number of different webpages on this particular subject. Despite my new found fondness for del.icio.us, I still, conceptually, like the idea of having a repository or file folder for a set of related webpages. I know that at a certain level there isn't that much difference but having it all together under one title with a specific purpose still appeals to me. My "Generation Jones" side overshadowing my fletching "Generation X" side. The main link that caught my interest in the folder is MIT World » What is Civic Media? The latest to be added was TED | TEDBlog: How creativity is being strangled by the law: Larry Lessig.

Beauty & Truth Is The Essence Of The Universe

Paradigm Pathways Science

Beauty and truth in physics: Murray Gell-Mann on TED.com

What is especially striking and remarkable is that
in fundamental physics
a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right
than a theory that is inelegant.

Why design? Philippe Starck on TED.com

Why design? Philippe Starck on TED.com via TED | TEDBlog by on 12/4/07

The importance of design is made ever more apparent through the explorations done through this weblog, not only in terms of marketing, technology and architecture but biology and physics. Philippe Strarck provides inspiration beyond his physical designs.

Legendary designer Philippe Starck -- with no pretty slides behind him -- spends 17 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question "Why design?" Along the way he drops brilliant insights into the human condition; listen carefully for one perfectly crystallized motto for all of us, genius or not. Yet all this deep thought, he cheerfully admits, is to aid in the design of a better toothbrush. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 17:07.)

Excepts

You will understand nothing with my type of English. Is good for you because you can have a break, after all these fantastic people. I must tell you I am like that [shakes hands], not very comfortable, because usually, in life, I think my job is absolutely useless. I mean, I feel useless. Now, after Carolyn [Porco], and all the other guys, I feel like shit. And definitively, I don't know why I am here, but -- you know the nightmare, like you are an impostor, you arrive at the opera, and they push you, "You must sing!" [gasp!] I don't know.

So! So! Because I have nothing to show, nothing to say, we shall try to speak about something else.

Because there is different types of design. The one, we can call it the cynical design, that means the design invented by Raymond Loewy in the '50s, who said, what is ugly is a bad sale, La Laideur se vend mal, which is terrible. It means the design must be just a weapon for marketing, for producer to make product more sexy, like that, they sell more, it's shit, it's obsolete, it's ridiculous. I call that the cynical design. After, there is the narcissistic design; it's a fantastic designer who designs only for other fantastic designers. [laughs] After there is people like me, who try to deserve to exist, and who are ashamed to make this useless job, who try to do it in another way, and they try, I try, to not make the object for the object but for the result, for the profit for the human being, the person who will use it.

That is our poetry. That is our beautiful story. It's our romanticism: Mutation. We are mutants. And if we don't deeply understand, if we don't integrate that we are mutants, we completely miss the story.

And here is something: Nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate. And to participate, for a mutant, there is a minimum of exercise, a minimum of sport ... The first, if you want, there is so many, but one which is very easy to do, is the duty of vision. I can explain you. I shall try.

Combining Efforts, Connecting People - Nokia and Pangea Day Work on a Paradigm Shift

Nokia and Pangea Day combine efforts, to connect people around the world through film via TED | TEDBlog by on 12/4/07

Pangea Day, was the subject of my first blog post two incarnations ago so I am happy to put it back up again to promote this effort. Now they are partnering with Nokia who has been featured at one level or another in this weblog.

Pangea Day will be broadcast globally to millions on television, in digital theaters, online and via mobile devices.

"From the earliest days of movies, film has had the power to bring people together. But today, Internet technology is allowing film to bring together not only neighbors, but an entire global community," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia president and CEO (pictured at right). "Nokia is proud to work with Pangea Day as we embark on this important shared mission of connecting people across the globe."

"Perhaps Nokia's greatest contribution to Pangea Day is the ability of our technology to give a voice to people who previously were unable to take part in the global community that is the Internet," Kallasvuo said. "By integrating the power of wireless technology into Pangea Day, we can help it meet its goal of bringing together people from around the world."

"Pangea Day was created by TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim"

For more information on Pangea Day, visit www.pangeaday.org.

About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions and services for communications networks.

Why be Optimistic? Why Not!

Why be optimistic? Larry Brilliant at Skoll World Forum, on TED.com via TED | TEDBlog by on 11/26/07

As was said in the last post much of the information on the web is repeated but that is in part because many of the individuals providing the new information have multiple venues, for example Larry Brilliant. This is worth repeating as this brings up the concepts of innovation and even more importantly optimism.

Recorded at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford, UK: 2006 TED Prize winner and Google.org director Larry Brilliant uses a clip from an old Frank Capra movie to show that we've known about global warming for 50 years -- yet in half a century, we've done almost nothing to solve it. He explores this and other megatrends that could inspire pessimism. But, he says, there is a more powerful case for optimism. (Recorded March 2007 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 21:01.)

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, UK, is an annual gathering of innovators from all over the world who are creating positive change across critical issue areas.

If this doesn't load use one of the links above to get to the TED site.

Digging Your Way In and Out Of A Hole 2

Continuing with the concepts from the last post, TEDblog also had something to say about How toddlers (and monkeys) make choices. They focused though more directly on the question of human happiness citing the same study as the New York Times article in the previous post. However, they or their links to the Proper Study of the Mankind provide the actual recent study published in Psychological Science, by Louisa Egan, Laurie Santos and Paul Bloom, as well as better sources for in-depth inquiry and other voices that took part in the discussion. This includes Barry Schwartz, who spoke on the paradox of choice at TED. Other speakers on What Makes Us Happy have also spoken in the past at TED on this subject.

This led to other sources of insight. Dr Christian Jarrett, BSc MSc PhD, is according to his writeup, a writer/editor specialising in psychology and the neurosciences. He works full-time for the British Psychological Society as inaugural editor/writer of their Research Digest. His blog had two articles of interest to this line of inquiry - How ignorance can lead to the right answer and Inter-ethnic violence predicted by same rules that govern chemicals. This reminded me of a past post that linked to a Cosmic Variance article Birds of a Feather. The fascinating premise of the article is that the movement of the flock was created by the decisions of the individual birds.

So where does this leave us? We enter the world in ignorance. We become very good in justifying our selves and our ignorance. As Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson point out in their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), "we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong". I do believe though that we can make decisions that transcend cognitive dissonance, where we don't create a false belief to justify ourselves, but we must also be willing to not continue to attach to that which we chose not to pick.

"The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." F. Scott Fitzgerald

If Money Doesn't Buy Happiness But Happiness Gets Money What Do You Use The Money For?

Mind Hacks looks at the relationship between money and happiness "The relationship between money and happiness:Newsweek has a brief article on what research has told us about the link between money and happiness. Essentially, more money makes you happier until you're comfortable, and then, it really doesn't do much good. "

Another blog post from Fast Company puts the optimal point of money with happiness at, $1.5 million. Googling "'money and happiness' on the FC website. According to this 2003 article, $1.5 million net worth is the magic figure where people's feelings of happiness go from nowhere to nirvana in nanoseconds."

Even more helpful, since getting $1.5 million any time soon is unlikely, is some good advice as to what to avoid being:

Uncomfortably challenged = stress and an untimely death.
Comfortably unchallenged = numb and stagnant; has a strange habit of morphing into uncomfortably unchallenged over time.

The post goes on to discuss finding happiness by following the different drummer in your career. This according to another Fast Company article means happiness comes from figuring out "How to Get the Job of Your Dreams"

"There's heaps of research out there that shows that the quality of your work affects your well-being and mental health. This has spillover effects for your life outside of work," says Professor Sharon Parker, Director of the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield. She emphasizes that money is not usually the sole motivating factor behind why people choose to stay in a particular job; more important is whether it's challenging, exciting and stimulating."

Dan Gilbert provides insights into why we are happy and why we are not happy.

It is however Matthieu Ricard: Monk, author, photographer who provides us the habits of happiness.