Personal Musings for Public Consumption - Brain Food

Harmful Drinks In America

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:48:00 -0700

This is one of those blog posts that horrifies you how awful most sugary drinks are. Three Starbucks drinks in there.

http://worldmysteries9.blogspot.com/2010/05/harmful-drinks-in-america.html

Yuja Wang - Cziffra's Tritsch Tratsch Polka

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:23:00 -0700

Extremely impressive.

Pale Blue Dot

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:30:00 -0700

This is one of those profound videos that should help center a person's understanding of "the world." Or, more correctly, uncenter their understanding and realign it with reality. Thank you, Carl.

Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:27:39 -0700

One of my favorite TED talks. All marketers and economists would probably enjoy this nugget. Paraphrased: "I wrote an entire book trying to explain to myself why I was less happy with my just-purchased pair of jeans that fit me better than any other pair of jeans that I've owned in my entire life."

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TEDTalks : Gary Lauder's new traffic sign: Take Turns

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:39:00 -0800

Pretty cool to watch small numbers yield big numbers. Traffic wonks will enjoy this 6min video.

Fifty percent of traffic accidents happen at intersections. Gary Lauder shares a brilliant and cheap idea for helping drivers move along smoothly: a new traffic sign that combines the properties of "Stop" and "Yield" -- and asks drivers to be polite.

TEDTalks : The LXD: In the Internet age, dance evolves

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:00:00 -0800

I've been waiting for this to come out. Excellent performance.

The LXD (the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) electrify the TED2010 stage with an emerging global street-dance culture, revved up by the Internet. In a preview of Jon Chu’s upcoming Web series, this astonishing troupe show off their superpowers.

TEDTalks : Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration?

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:00:00 -0800

If you're a data geek, you'll love this presentation. It's a blatent "we invented this at Microsoft" talk, but look past the corporate nod and you'll see a really interesting technology that lets you visualize information as a web. Very pleased to see information represented in some kind of multi-dimension interface.

Gary Flake demos Pivot, a new way to browse and arrange massive amounts of images and data online. Built on breakthrough Seadragon technology, it enables spectacular zooms in and out of web databases, and the discovery of patterns and links invisible in standard web browsing.

Video: The Facebook Economy

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:34:36 -0800

If you wanted to get an idea of how the Facbeook economy works, or at least this concept of social games, this is a fantastic video that is both interesting, and a bit spooky in its implications (ps, if you're an educator, you need to at the very least watch starting around 19:30).

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TEDTalks : Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:44:00 -0800

This video was fantastic. Educators should most certainly watch this.

Temple Grandin, diagnosed with autism as a child, talks about how her mind works -- sharing her ability to "think in pictures," which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

Video: The Machine is Us/ing Us.

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:25:00 -0700

Probably my favorite online video.
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Life Is Like Hot Chocolate

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:00:00 -0800

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

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