“If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she’s gonna call me Point B … ” began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis — from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York’s Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. — and gives two breathtaking performances of “B” and “Hiroshima.”
Super Size Me creator, Morgan Spurlock brings us, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (presented by Pom). I can’t wait to see this. Brilliant idea! In Theaters April 22nd.
“makedo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.”
Fun, I wish I had a set to build a big monster from all those cardboard boxes I have.
“James White made this poster, which you can buy at the Signalnoise store. All profits go to the relief effort.”
MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language — so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son’s life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch “gaaaa” slowly turn into “water.” Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.
Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
“JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join in at insideoutproject.net.”
Up-Inspired Floating House! Awesome. Check out the other 14 photos here.
“Yesterday morning, March 5 at dawn, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16′ X 16′ house 18′ tall with 300 8′ colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high, reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and flew for approximately one hour.
The filming of the event, from a private airstrip, will be part of a new National Geographic Channel series called How Hard Can it Be?, which will premiere in fall 2011.”
I’m off to the TED2011 conference, which will be my 10th TED conference. I’ll be stopping by LA this weekend to meet up with some TEDsters, then in Palm Springs all of Sunday to meet with TEDx organizers, then Long Beach for a backstage peek, then back to Palm Springs the rest of the week. Let me know if your going, in LA, or follow me on twitter for updates. And yes, that is me on the back of a shared bike last year cruising around the resort during one of the session breaks with my friend Ash from Australia. Also follow the Facebook Fanpage for occasional quick updates.
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.
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.
Up and Over It, an Irish Dance crew, has a entertaining video in them “Hand Dancing”. Just watch it and you’ll understand. You might have also seen them in a recent McDonalds commercial doing their thing.
Performed and choreographed by Suzanne Cleary & Peter Harding
Film by Jonny Reed
Music: Yolanda Be Cool & D Cup ft. Cleary & Harding