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[klingon13524]

For those of you who don' know, T(echnology)E(ntertainment)D(esign) talks are pretty much recorded speeches about nerdy things like gaming, biology, technology, art, psychology, and other things of that nature. All these talks are available for 100% free, in your choice of streaming, a torrent, or downloading. The talks are almost always in English, and are translated into many different languages by the community. TED talks are about 3-20 minutes long.

There are also TEDx talks, which are pretty much local TED talks of (usually) lower quality that are independently organized, which anyone who feels like securing a free license can do. I decided to make this post as some Bay12ers are already aware of TED talks and would want a place to discuss them, while others need introducing.

Links:
http://www.ted.com
http://www.twitter.com/#!/tedtalks
http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector
http://www.facebook.com/TED

I'm not in any way affiliated with TED, I just think they're awesome.

[Dutchling]

I watched some of these in my English class. At least some of them are okay, though there also was one with an asthmatic pianist which was just plain annoying to watch. They could have at least turned off his microphone while he was playing the piano.

[Duke 2.0]

 There appears to be more a focus on novelty than legitimacy when it comes to choosing people to talk, and quite a bit of what they walk about are simple flights of fancy that go nowhere.

 Most of them are pleasing to watch, but it's not a perfect system that I care about enough these days to watch.

[Aqizzar]

I was more interested in TED talks about five years ago, when they seemed to have a big focus on demo-economic changes and the simultaneous explosion of population and technology in Asia and Africa.

The stuff on the frontpage now is pretty ehh for me.  A lot of supposedly-brilliant people I've never heard of talking about stuff they thought of while watching the news.

[Il Palazzo]

Yup, the Great Minds of the Internet Community have declared TED to be passé. Nothing to see here, go back to watching your lolcats on youtube, you're not missing out much.

[Pnx]

The one thing I can credit TED for is introducing me to Theo Jansen.
http://www.strandbeest.com/

He's this guy who creates these amazing ... creatures out of plastic tubing and some other little things.

He's brilliant, if a little eccentric. You have to be amazed that he can make something so mechanical so lifelike.

[kaijyuu]

He's brilliant, if a little eccentric.

In my experience, genius and eccentricity go hand in hand. You have to be at least a little weird to be really smart and good at something.


TED rarely interests me. I got linked to a "video games are art" thing a while back and felt that the speaker did an absolutely horrible job and proving that point. You don't show video games to be art by focusing on the visual aspects.

[klingon13524]

I agree with you all, some of the talks are pretty meh. But quality of the talks aside, they're also too short for my liking. If someone I'm really interested in talks about something fascinating, I want to listen to him for another 30 minutes! They keep them short for a reason, but it's still a valid complaint whining opportunity.

[Capntastic]

Two of my favorites right now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsHKrP-66s Open Source Ecology and Global Village Construction Set.  Would love to see this get funding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww Sam Harris on Science and Morality.  This one's pure gold, and something I keep on hand to link to friends.

[Hiiri]

Kathryn Schulz is a great speaker.

On being wrong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleRgTBMX88

Don't regret regret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka8L1YMR88U

[Il Palazzo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww Sam Harris on Science and Morality.  This one's pure gold, and something I keep on hand to link to friends.

It's a great talk, and does exactly what TED is aiming to do - it puts an idea into people's minds. To spark an interest, to ponder, to find out more about, to form an opinion.

There's a longer(~100mins) talk of Harris' available on Fora TV.

Fora TV is, incidentally, a place somewhat similar to TED, but providing longer talks. Sadly, increasingly more of them are available only to subscribers. Still, there's a good chance of finding some elaboration on the ideas found on TED there.

Back to TED, one of the classic talks is Jill Bolte Taylor's "Stroke of insight" - a neuroscientist describes how did the stroke she once had affect her, in a somewhat funny, somewhat moving fashion.

My favourite speaker is probably Ken Robinson. Not only because what he talks about is relevant to my interests, but also because he's always funny and pleasant to listen to. What he talks about are the follies of the current schooling systems:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

edit: fixed a link

[zwei]

Dan Ariely is worth watching: http://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_ariely.html

[klingon13524]

This talk is informative and cool.

How you helped digitize books when you signed up for these forums, and how you can learn a new language for free while translating the internet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ht4qiDRZE8&feature=feedu

[nenjin]

I too sort of feel like the impact of a lot of these talks has gone down over the last few years. But I haven't been keeping up as much. They used to be the only videos I'd watch on Facebook, when I still used it.

[Kogut]

Interesting one: http://www.ted.com/talks/ralph_langner_cracking_stuxnet_a_21st_century_cyberweapon.html