TED talks videos

from Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder: I went to TED2007 as a member of the press and was profoundly impressed by the quality of the events and the speakers. I drove home dumbfounded by the cascade of mind-boggling information in the presentations I saw there.

I told my friends about TED and its effect on me, but I knew I wasn't able to convey how wonderful the speakers were. Fortunately, TED is offering the talks on its website in the form of 20-minute videos. There very high quality, and they're free.

I recommend starting with researcher Hans Rosling's presentation of his Trendalyzer software, which converts inscrutable database numbers into instantly-understandable and revealing dynamic animations.

In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software -- which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale.

Link

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Web zen: illusion zen

from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin:

- akiyoshi's illusion page - exploratorium - optical illusions + visual phenomena - depth perception - masters of deception - best visual illusion - natural hallucinogen

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Image: Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s "Out of Focus," Link to explanation of the optical magic this induces.

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Timeline of hazardous made-in-China products, 2007

from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin: Who-Sucks.com has compiled a master timeline of incidents involving dangerous (sometimes lethal) "made in China" products banned or recalled by the US Consumer Products Safety Commission in 2007.

It's a big list. Well-known killers like Thomas the Tank Engine of Death and Antifreeze Toothpaste are in here, but so are less-known gems like "razor blades for kids," "lead bracelets," "toxic jackets," and "dangerously crappy hammocks."

Link (thanks, Fred Hall)

Reader comment: Dan says,

This reminded me of the great old SNL skit with Dan Akroyd portraying a purveyor of such "exciting" toys:

"Okay, Miss, I wanna correct you, alright. The full name of this product, as it appears in stores all over the county, is Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk. I mean, nothing goes wrong.. little girls buy 'em, you know, they play games, they make up stories, nobody gets hurt. I mean, so Barbie takes a knife once in a while, or Ken gets cut. You know, there's no harm in that. I mean, as far as I can see, you know?"

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Wellcome Trust releases 2000 years of medical images under Creative Commons

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow: Ian sez, "The Wellcome Trust, one of the UK's largest medical charities, has released its image collection under Creative Commons licenses, with a new web site to search through it. I'm not sure how many thousand images there are, but for science teachers and anyone doing research into the history of medicine and biosciences, this will be a huge bonus." Link (Thanks, Ian!)

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NASA scientist: ban coal plants now!

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow: Alex from WorldChanging sez, "We just published a new letter from NASA's Jim Hansen, in which he essentially says the world can't afford to burn coal any more, and we should have a moratorium on coal-burning (except perhaps in a new generation of power plants with carbon capture and sequestration technologies)."

The resulting imperative is an immediate moratorium on additional coal-fired power plants without CCS. A surge in global coal use in the last few years has converted a potential slowdown of CO2 emissions into a more rapid increase. But the main reason for the proposed moratorium is that a CO2 molecule from coal, in effect, is more damaging than a CO2 molecule from oil. CO2 in readily available oil almost surely will end up in the atmosphere, it is only a question of when, and when does not matter much, given its long lifetime. CO2 in coal does not need to be released to the atmosphere, but if it is, it cannot be recovered and will make disastrous climate change a near certainty.

Link (Thanks, Alex!) (Image ganked from Jay Dugger's Flickr photostream: Unknown Coal Plant Near Saint Louis, Missouri)

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