Bruce Schneier: True Security

                                              ("Schneier")

                                                                                                  ("YouTube")

             Bruce Schneier enlightens viewers on the fact that true security is not all what we make it out to be in his TED Talk that was filmed in October of 2010.  His main argument is that security is split into three different categories.  They are reality, feeling, and model.  Reality is, as hinted in the name, based on reality.  An example of this is the security risks of terrorist attacks.  Bruce words this as, “…terrorism almost never happens, it's really hard to judge efficacy of counter-terrorist measures.  There aren't enough examples of failures” (“Schneier").  This is why many people aren’t really concerned with the war on terror and thus protest the United States’ efforts in the Middle East.  Above is a video from the 2007 Iraq war protests in Washington DC.  An idea that appears as if the protesters are circling around is that they are reprioritizing their beliefs on security.  Another one of Bruce Schneier’s beliefs about security is that every choice has some kind of trade-off.  Bruce uses the example of a rabbit to example this idea.  It states, “Imagine a rabbit in a field, eating grass, and the rabbit's going to see a fox. That rabbit will make a security trade-off: ‘Should I stay, or should I flee?’ And if you think about it, the rabbits that are good at making that trade-off will tend to live and reproduce, and the rabbits that are bad at it will get eaten or starve" ("Schneier").  In my own education of biology, I have learned this idea coined as “survival of the fittest”.  It was created by biologist Herbert Spencer after read George Darwin’s book The Origin of Species.  This whole process is and has been used continuously by nature, but relatively recently noticed and thought about by man.  Why is this?  I feel that this is because since the formation of the information age, the learning and knowledge-holding abilities of humans have been increasing at an extremely fast paced, exponential skyrocket.  The people that were not able to learn as fast and work as hard were eradicated so that a more capable form of people lived on.  It feels to me that the principal on which Biology is founded is the underlying message of the “TED Talk” that I will have for my English class Final.  That message is that competition drives everything because there are only limit resources and limited time in one’s life.  I think that Bruce Schneier’s concept of security should be applied to everything and especially education.   By this I mean that grades are not so influential to the security of getting a job in the future.  Instead, I think that it should be the student’s responsibility to learn and if they don’t then it will weed out competition in the job market when that student cannot get a job.

            Bruce Schneier’s way of presenting was reinforced heavily by the use of story.  He seemed to find one or two ways that every point that he brought up could be backed up specifically by a real life story.  However, another thing that Bruce did during his presentation was overuse of his hands.  It appeared that at the beginning of his TED Talk that his hands were constantly speeding from one side of his body to the other.  In other words, it distracted from his performance.  That will be helpful to my when I give my TED Talk because I constantly use my hand when I speak publically.  

Works Cited

Schneier, Bruce. "Bruce Schneier: The Security Mirage | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Apr. 2011. Web. 06 May 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_schneier.html>.

"YouTube - IRAQ WAR PROTEST - JAN. 27, 2007." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 27 Jan. 2007. Web. 06 May 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEYELcLoU0s>.

David Christian: The Big History

                                 ("Christian")

David Christian provides a clear and informative message through his recent TED Talk video.  David’s message is that the entire universe and all the life in it, is based on the ever diminishing likeliness of the “goldilock thresholds”.  His story begins with the formation of the universe; specifically events like the Big Bang and the creation of celestial objects.  His big timeline that lays out all of history describes the ever increasing improbability of life in the universe, much yet the life on earth that created you and I.  David’s underlining theme is that humans are lucky enough as a species to be alive.  In other words, we should cut our differences to collaborate in a global community to surpass future threshold that is described by David Christian as, “collective learning”.  More specifically, collective learning is the ability for a species to quickly build upon the mistakes of others to attain more intelligence and complexity.  David Christian bases this idea on the invention of the human language.  Humans are the only known species that is capable of communicating one’s ideas to someone else, which can be used in future events.  David states this as, “Now what makes humans different is human language. We are blessed with a language, a system of communication, so powerful and so precise that we can share what we've learned with such precision that it can accumulate in the collective memory. And that means it can outlast the individuals who learned that information, and it can accumulate from generation to generation. And that's why, as a species, we're so creative and so powerful, and that's why we have a history” (“Christian”).  In my own life, I have been able to use this idea of building upon mistakes in school, success in sports, and virtually every activity that isn’t a “one shot and you’re done” endeavor.  I have specifically been able to achieve more in my academic career by heavy learning from my own mistakes.  For example, if I received a poor grade on a test (C or lower), I make a commitment to myself to either study before the test, or to do my work more diligently.  Mistakes have also had the same effect on my performance in athletics.  As relates to education, a “mistake-based” approach might be more beneficial towards learning.  This could look like an environment where more pop quizzes are sprung onto students.  The effect of this would be more students would initially fail.  Then because of the internal drive to succeed, students would push themselves to truly know the material, thus thrive in school.

            I thought that David Christian’s speaking technique was very effective towards the presentation of his TED Talk.  He started his presentation at an average volume of voice and neutral tone.  Then his voice and tone evolved into varying dynamics and tones to match each sentence used o describe the “Big History”.  The style of his presentation was actually quite unpredictable in the way of his neglect of a thesis statement.  However, for his individual presentation, this method worked very well.  This is because David Christian is able to seamlessly flow from example to example without forgetting to explain everything that he said.  Although David was able to pull off such a spectacular performance as he did in his March 2011 TED Talk, I do not think that his method will work for me.  

Works Cited

Christian, David. "David Christian: Big History | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Apr. 2011. Web. 03 May 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history.html>.

Dave Eggers: New Form of Education

                             ("Eggers")

Dave Eggers describes the difference one idea can make with the impact of his free writing tutor business set up in the Bay area of San Francisco through his TED Talk performed in February 2008.  Dave figured out that the nearby schools were being underfunded in the English department, so he began to set up a writing workshop next to the offices reserved for his McSweeney’s magazine writing and book editing business.  His community of writers were able to successfully help each individual student with at least an hour of one-on-one coaching.  Dave describes the success as, “And we found ourselves full every day with kids. If you're on Valencia Street within those few blocks at around 2:00, 2:30, you will get run over, often, by the kids and their big backpacks, or whatever, actually running to this space” (“Eggers”).  In my life, I have been able to get help from a similar service.  This place was the writing lab that takes place in the study center of my school.  At least one English teacher is able to provided one-on-one help to students every single hour of the school day.  My own writing has been able to improve by going to these sessions by learning skills like removing extraneous details, checking for word confusion, and staying relevant to the main idea.  By visit the Writing Lab before turning in an essay has drastically improved the scores that I had been able to receive.  Although Dave Eggers’ idea isn’t completely ground-breaking, he has fostered an idea that could alter the ways of education.  That may not make sense to readers because being able to alter the future usually requires a ground-breaking new idea.  However, tutoring students outside of school is not a new idea, nor is it creative.  If you are struggling in school, it makes sense to go get extra help.  But it is because Dave Eggers is making this service free to all people and organizing it in a way that is fun for the learner and the teacher.  All of this ideas described in every speaker’s TED Talk connect back to Dan Pink’s TED Talk about motivation.  Dave Eggers is helping the community because he wants to and feels the duty to make the world a better place.  In the future, I think that people like Dave will advance the world in a direction that is productive and faster compared to anything that has happened during the information age.

Dave Eggers presentation style is something similar to the “pecha kucha” or “ignite” format.  Eggers’ presentation, although much longer, had many slides with prerecorded timings.  Each slide ran for about the same amount of time as the other slides, mirroring the 15 seconds per slide in the ignite format of presentation.  Dave Egger’s topics also flowed from one to the next, with the aid of the PowerPoint slides.  He speaking technique was also very effective because his points were clean and easy to understand.  His also was able to perform the entire presentation without muttering or showing signs of nervousness.  Overcoming nervousness is one thing that I am going to practice so that my own presentations are as good as they can be. Dave Eggers’s sense of community will one day lead the world in a positive direction than the violent condition that it is in today.

Works Cited

Eggers, Dave. "Dave Eggers' Wish: Once Upon a School | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Mar. 2008. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html>.