Saturday, February 9, 2008

TED Talks

Have you heard of TEDtalks? There are some amazing people and ideas here, and it's all free. The website says:

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. Almost 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted."

The speakers are amazingly intelligent and diverse. Gardeners might be interested in Michael Pollan, biologist/technologist Janine Benyus, and photographer Frans Lanting. But be sure to try a few random people. Videos can be found here on their website and at least some of them are on YouTube.

This video of nature photographer Frans Lanting incorporates many things that fascinate me: trilobites, silverswords, euphorbias, the stilt-legged fox from the Pampas, the work of musician Phillip Glass, and the unity of life.

I also enjoyed:

Theo Jansen: Kinetic sculpure "Beach Creatures."

David Gallo: Ocean animals. Amazing.

1 comment:

kate said...

These are interesting - I will watch more of these videos. I watched one by Michael Pollan which was great. He's such an interesting and entertaining speaker!