Posts in category: Video/Talk

Rusty wire cage. Are we caged in our personality?

TED Talk. Brian Little: Who are you really?

17.11.2016

„One of the most influential approaches in personality science is known as trait psychology, and it aligns you along five dimensions which are normally distributed, and that describe universally held aspects of difference between people. They spell out the acronym OCEAN. So, ‘O’ stands for ‘open to experience’ versus those who are more closed. ‘C’ stands for conscientiousness’ in contrast to those with a more lackadaisical approach to life. ‘E’ — ‘extroversion’ in contrast to more introverted people. ‘A’ — ‘agreeable individuals’ in contrast to those decidedly not agreeable. And ‘N’ — ‘neurotic individuals’ in contrast to those who are more stable.“

Brian Little’s intriguing talk is highly entertaining – and it reminds us that we cannot lick the outside of our own elbow. :-)

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Warrior or Scout?

TED Talk. Julia Galef: Why you think you’re right – even if you’re wrong

4.07.2016

„Unconsciously, our judgement is strongly influenced by which side we want to win. We can think we’re being objective and fair-minded and still wind up ruining the life of an innocent man.“ Julias talk revolves around the example of Alfred Dreyfus who – in 19th-century France – was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Why? Because everybody wanted him to be the culprit and existing evidence was interpreted against his favour without further investigation.

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TED Talk. Tristram Stuart: The global food waste scandal

8.06.2016

Most rich countries produce three to four times the amount of food needed to feed their own population – and almost half of the produce is being discarded before it even reaches the consumer. Not mainly because it’s expired and has become inedible, but often solely for cosmetic reasons. „What we see is only the tip of the iceberg. Food waste is happening on a gargantuan scale“, says Tristram Stuart, activist and strong advocate against global food waste. By 2050, Earth will be inhabited by around nine billion people who expect to be fed. This talk helps understand the implications of food waste and how urgent immediate action is.

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Al Gore's TED Talk on Climate Change

TED Talk. Al Gore: The case for optimism on climate change

17.03.2016

Former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore presents drastic examples on how man-made forces are gradually destroying our planet. „After World War II, the emission rates started really accelerating. And the accumulated amount of man-made, global warming pollution that is up in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours, 365 days a year – a fact-checked over and over again.“

Still Al Gore is optimistic that climate change can be tackled. But how?

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TED Talk. Sean Follmer: Shape-shifting tech

TED Talk. Sean Follmer: Shape-shifting tech will change work

21.02.2016

Computers can do a million different things and run a million different applications. Yet, they have the same static physical form and the same static interface elements as well: computers don’t allow us to interact with our hands and capture the rich dexterity that we have in our bodies. Sean Follmer’s belief is that new types of interfaces can capture these abilities, that they can physically adapt to us and thus allow us to interact in completely new ways.

Sean Follmer is building a future with machines that bring information to life while you are working with it. Watch this amazing video!

Sean Follmer is a human-computer interaction researcher who designs shape-changing and deformable interfaces. An Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, he teaches the design of smart and connected devices and leads research at the intersection between human-computer interaction (HCI) and robotics.

Header image: Screenshot from TED video.