“When film critic Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw to cancer, he lost the ability to eat and speak. But he did not lose his voice. In a moving talk from TED2011, Ebert and his wife, Chaz, with friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, come together to tell his remarkable story.”
Category: thoughts
TEDxCambridge: Don Katz, Food Neuroscience
Last year I helped organized TEDxCambridge and starting this week we’ll be releasing a few of the amazing talks held during that event.
“Neuroscientist Don Katz uses experiments with rats to shed light on where taste preferences come from and, when it comes to food, why we like what we like.”
via YouTube
Golden Ray Migration
Amazing! Just a reminder in how breath-taking and beautiful nature is. I still need to watch the documentary movie Oceans as well which I posted about 2 years ago.
“In 2008, Sandra Critelli shot this excellent photo of Golden Rays off the Mexican coast:
She said: “It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.
“It’s hard to say exactly how many there were but in the range of a few thousand.
“We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too.
Golden Rays grow up to seven feet across and migrate within the Caribbean.”
Photo Link and Article Link via reddit (via Neatorama)
Duane Keiser: Peel
Duane Keiser originated the phenomenon known as “painting a day“.
Keiser recently posted on his blog a short time-lapse video called Peel where he paints the process in peeling apart a tangerine, repainting over the the same painting where the past vanishes just like in real life. He’s also auctioning his final piece which at the moment of the post is at $225.
I’ve seen paintings repainted over, but too paint over purposefully and retain the history through video is a great addition and a great story! If this was done digitally, a buyer could go through each stroke forwards and backwards, but to make it something non-digital retains a history and mystery which at times can be more valuable than information.
Natsumi Hayashi: Levitating Self-Portraits
Photographer Natsumi Hayashi has an inspiring diary of self-portraits capturing her levitating(in the moment that is). It’s addictive to go through all the photos which renders her like a magical character in a video game floating everywhere. This would be an incredible coffee table book. Awesome work Natsumi. I’d love to levitate with you sometime on Tokyo =)
Look at some many of my favorites after the jump.
Heather Russell
I don’t usually post on young Youtube singing sensations but this one had my eyes open for some time. Young singer, writer, and musician Heather Russell has been writing and singing since she was 8 years old (now 10) with the help of her parents who are also musicians. 2 years later her Youtube video finds itself in front of famed American Idol Judge Simon Cowell, who decides to sign here a contract with the help of Rob Fusan who was Lady Gaga’s former producer. Watch all of her videos on Youtube as it’s quite impressive, and her written songs stick in your head.
User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea
Great article from Fast Company about Innovative designs not being consumer-led. I’ve always believed in this. Consumers know what they love and hate now, but they never know what they want tomorrow. Users often don’t know what they actually want even though they might say otherwise. Focus groups are sometimes useful, but in most cases they an excuse to do when creativity is lacking or something to ease the mind in management. To innovate is to lead, not to follow, or as the article concludes with ” It’s time for brands to step up and trust themselves again”
Anyhow, read the article mirrored below after the jump.
iPad Finger Trails
Ha. Your fingerprint trails show what you were last doing on your iPad or any touch phone to some degree. I can usually tell what someone is doing just by their finger movements standing in front of them, especially for Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and chatting.
via design language
(thanks ray)
Video: Uncontacted Tribe in Brazilian Jungle
Wow. It’s mind boggling think about cultures and groups of people that have been uncontacted in our world, living incredibly different lives, away from technology, the industrial revolution, print, the internet, science, air transportation, and everyday things we take for granted. Watch the video above, and read tons more about these uncontacted tribes at UncontactedTribes.org. I’ll mirror a few of the astonishing pictures after the jump.
” Video of an uncontacted tribe spotted in the Brazilian jungle has been released, bringing them to life in ways that photographs alone cannot.
The tribe, believed to be Panoa Indians, have been monitored from a distance by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, a government agency charged with handling the nation’s indigenous communities. Many of the world’s 100 or so uncontacted tribes live in the Amazon.
Until 1987, it was government policy to contact such people. But contact is fraught with problems, especially disease; people who have stayed isolated from the mainstream world have stayed isolated from its pathogens, and have little immunity to our diseases. Brazilian government policy is now to watch from afar, and — at least in principle — to protect uncontacted tribes from intrusion.
Unfortunately, uncontacted tribes usually live in resource-rich areas threatened by logging, mining and other development. There’s often pressure on governments to turn a blind eye. Videos like this, released by tribal advocacy group Survival International and produced by the BBC’s Human Planet program, are legal proof that uncontacted tribes still exist, and deserve protection.”
video via wired science
Wired story and pictures mirrored after the jump
Snowman Goes to the Dessert
As snow poors across the world it reminds me of when I attended RISD where I met several international students whom had never experienced snow before. At times, I’d see these students sit outside in a corner just watching the snow for hours as it collected on their shoulders, but then I’d pile them up into theh snow, telling them this was the full experience.
Anyhow, the video above reminds me in this experience. Panasonic has a new Insulator and to demonstrate how good it is, they made a snowman in Japan, packed it up inside this new material, then shipped it o Bahrain 8,000 kilometers away. Besides the incredible feat, what grabs my attention even more is a reminder in how amazing snow can be. It’s amazing to see how these kids from Bahrain react. I do wonder I I first reacted seeing snow? Do you remember your first time?
For more details on the project and the story behind it:
http://eco-ideas.net/sparks/snowman/“