happy monday | all about ted

i've been on a bit of a TED kick, and by kick i of course mean i watched 23 videos in the past 3 days.

if you dont know what TED is, it's basically youtube with an intellectual/insightful/artistic filter. weeds out the double rainbows/people setting their eyebrows on fire iphone videos. they're video's of talks from various TED events throughout the year. you can watch them at TED.com or on hulu. i'd like to go to one of these talks, but tickets are apparently $5k.

TED stands for technology, entertainment, design: ideas worth spreading. My favorite videos are:

1. underwater astonishments

as of 2008, we've only explored 3% of the earth's oceans. and 70% of the earth is covered in ocean. that's a lot of unknown.

highlights: 4:21. octopus with an invisibility cloak. seriously i had to watch that part a couple times. amazeballz



2. Let's Talk Parenting Taboos
not that i'm necessarily interested in parenting tips, but they point some interesting things about "the baseline of happiness" that are oh so relevant.

13:05 they bring up this chart of average happiness vs age. they then apply a secondary line to plot the extremes of emotions that range around average happiness - when you're young the highs are super high, but the lows are super low. as rufus says, "age is a form of lithium, as you get older you become more stable." as you enter into adulthood, your average happiness goes up but the highs and lows become less extreme. "your average happiness goes up, but you lose those transcendent moments".

so basically they're saying you're overall more happy, but your highs arent as high and your lows arent as low because you self limit your experiences. re: the example he included of you being given the opportunity to go to a concert that is 99% guaranteed to rock your world, but you decide against it because you fear it will be crowded and you wont be able to get a beer so you rather just stay at home. hello, this happens to me ALL THE TIME. and it's kind of sad - i want those highs, but i guess by this point you dont risk it because you know the lows can be debilitating. so here we are moseying through our 20s, right along the happiness baseline.



3. a choir as big as the internet

insanely beautiful.

also holler at the boy with the yellow lighting at 1:45. hey boy hey!



4. Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain

"Listening to Bobby McFerrin sing may be hazardous to your preconceptions. Side effects may include unparalleled joy, a new perspective on creativity, rejection of the predictable, and a sudden, irreversible urge to lead a more spontaneous existence."


"what's interesting to me about that is regardless of where i am, every audience gets that."

5.mike rowe celebrates dirty jobs

is he not the manliest man or what. goodness. even when he's talking about cutting off goat balls.

"Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it’s been unjustifiably degraded in society today."


6. what adults can learn from kids

ok little kids who seem too old to be their age like this girl, dakota fanning circa i am sam era, and that man child who lipsyncs to katy perry on youtube, really freak me out, but seriously she was giving this talk like BAM.

jealous of her speech delivery skills. although she's pretty nerdy. but seriously, girlfriend be name dropping aristotle and bill gates, referencing "totalitarian regimes" and "pioneer germ fighters", and using the word "reciprocal," "credentials," "imperative," "senile" and "alienating" appropriately. she's 11!! shouldnt she be playing with da bratz dolls or something?



also in somewhat unrelated but related news, i saw ted mosbey at the movie theater last weekend.