Recent Comments

Less than 5 minutes ago: The video of the Haiti datasurge looks like humans in times of needs are just like "Borg" (Like in sense of "we let our ego go and work on a global level, efficient and coordinated")

5 minutes ago: Creating rules without context on why they are made become, over time and place, just a rule to obey because we have to play by rules. No common sense involved...

25 minutes ago: Further discussion about the RNA World Hypothesis:

Hubert Yockey, borrowing a metaphor from Jonathan Swift, suggests that current origin-of-life research, including the RNA World hypothesis, floats improbably in mid-air like the roof of a house built by an architect of the Grand Academy of Lagado. This savant had contrived a method of building houses by beginning at the roof and working downwards. "The architect pointed out that among the advantages of this procedure," Yockey notes, "was that once the roof was in place [before the walls or foundation] the rest of the construction could proceed quickly and without interruption by weather." That "roof" -- consisting in this instance of tiles which represent the catalytic activities of RNA -- may look solid to those believers in the existence of a prebiotic RNA World. But is the roof really solid? Is it supported by walls and a foundation? (Gordon C. Mills and Dean Kenyon,1996)

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/o

35 minutes ago: Planet Earth in Real Time, this is like Garmin version 2.0. Check this site out too if your interested in Global Crisis Management - http://www.ushahidi.com/

35 minutes ago: As I was watching this, I thought this is a great idea but what would be even more brilliant is if there is an ELECTRONIC EYE attached to this sign that checks out all the possibilities to see if it's safe, then communicates this to every car in the intersection, one car at a time, telling it that you can safely make the turn. OF course, the "electronic eye" would have to be programmed to interpret the signals, right, left turn etc. Can this be done Mr Lauder?

40 minutes ago: Wow. Aimee is incredibly intelligent, articulate, thoughtful, and inspiring. Hope to see more of her at Ted.

45 minutes ago: Wow. This talk (part 1 included) was sort of hard for me to understand, partly because I don't understand everything he's saying, partly because I'm not educated much in this area (as same as in others). But anyway, things I did understand amazed me and I think this was a great talk. I am very curious (like others are too, I guess) about the Big Bang and I think how it happened is one of the biggest questions of 21st century.

55 minutes ago: It was a really well-articulated talk. The bhagvad gita also mentions about our control on actions and not the fruits that they might bear.

Probably the only disagreement I have here is with the notion that "Life's too short". If it is indeed our nature to be content and happy innately, how can we ever think that life's too short? Even statistically the average age has been increasing for ever.

If all you need is a moment, then that moment is your life, no matter at what point in life it comes. On a different dimension I'd just like to add that since "short" is always subjective, what are we comparing life against?

1 hour ago: this is a really in spiring talk. Even Steve Jobs said the same during his Stanford commencement speech in 2005.

1 hour ago: The talk was fascinating and shows remarkable potential applications of wireless and smartphones. However, I was surprised to see the emphasis on the potential financial savings, while the potential saving of life was hardly mentioned . I'm concerned that the emphasis on biometrics, and constant measuring and monitoring is contributing to a problematic prioritizing of our values.

1 hour ago: At my preschool fieldwork site there is creativity throughout. The kids are definitely enjoying their day and learning too. At my first grade site there are hints of creativity within the classroom but classroom management issues can overshadow. Some kids are bored asking when is it time to go home. At a second grade site the kids are sitting in their desks taking notes from the overhead projector---test preparation is the mantra here. I think it is up to the new generation of teachers -- who are aware of the benefits of creativity and the different learning styles of students -- to change things in the classroom. Creative opportunities will need to be incorporated within the classrooms (creative dramatics, music with math, hands on creating in science, etc). But just as importantly we need to spread this message within the schools, administration, districts and at the higher political levels.

1 hour ago: Mac is not supposed to be just made of 'Intel'...

2 hours ago: thanks Raghava for be alive and be like you are

2 hours ago: what the hell are you yammering about?

2 hours ago: MR-My definitiion of something being beyond our "natural understanding" is our inability to comprehend something, something we do not observe in the natural world or the natural universe. Without the ability to measure the desired mathematical phenomenon using known objective measures.

Lets say that we can demonstrate that flat tire demons are possible through the power of mathematics. Even though the mathematics makes sense, it would be a very difficult process if not impossbile to demonstrate they are real using empirical objective measures. Just as the infinite Multiverse is impossible to quantify objectively so is God.

You then asked if energy is transferred from one membrane to the next when membranes collide. That is a question that I essentially asked you and I was hoping that you could shed some light on. Not sure why you are re-asking it to me, because I do not know. I do not know the Theory of the Multiverse well.

2 hours ago: inspiring talk. it's all about the journey not the destination.

2 hours ago: Very emotional ending, when he said the second head fake, was that the presentation was not really for us. But for his kids. Such a great speaker and human being

2 hours ago: the very sad thing is - in this case the speaker totally confused you. Microsoft has NOT the control over this. Its actually called Linked Open Data, and is standardized (like XML or HTML).

You can check out the open source implementations and standards, like www.dbpedia.org, www.freebase.com, http://nepomuk.kde.org for the desktop, or many other things in the direction of "open linked data". Don't believe that this is the only thing out there, it is not and that is a good thing, open standards and open data lead to more innovation and competition in this important market.

3 hours ago: the bad thing is: the idea is 11 years old, and was standardized by W3C then, and this guy is well aware of this and reuses the argumentation of Tim Berners-Lee and Hans Rosling, but behaves like he invented all this singlehandedly. I get a very very uneasy feeling for this.

Microsoft worked hard to give an impression of "we stick to standards" and what I see above is not what the corporate usually does. I don't like this talk because he is copying from others without quoting them. As if Microsoft invented this and has control over it - no, it hasn't, and this is a good thing.

3 hours ago: I don't like what I just saw. In my view, he intentionally does not quote previous work nor competitors nor standards to look clever. Gary Flake behaves like his company is not part of W3C who standardized the web of data in 1999. a shame.

He lies several times in the video, like saying "This has never been done on the web before".
Of course it was:

* Sir Tim Berners-Lee on Open Linked Data, 2009
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

* Hans Rosling, 2006
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

* Freebase.com

* dbpedia.org

The irony here is, that Tim Berners-Lee was attributing Hans Rosling in his talk - this is what you expect from a "Sir".

Rosling's technology was bought by Google, a shameful reason for not mentioning him.

"We need a web of data". This sentence is accredited to Tim Berners-Lee from 2001.

TED, you and microsoft fail for letting this guy dazzle you. What he sells as new is standardized 1999