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>.

Kathryn Shultz: Being Wrong

                              (Shultz)

Kathryn Shultz describes in her TED Talk that being wrong does not have any correlation to being idiotic and being wrong is part of the human nature.  The nature of every living thing is to be a fault at least every once in a while.  Otherwise, the food chain would not work because no animal would be wrong, leading to its digestive death.  However, humans are the only species that obsesses over irradiating every single fault that will occur.  Kathryn words this as, “…it's not some kind of embarrassing defect in the human system, something we can eradicate or overcome. It's totally fundamental to who we are. Because, unlike God, we don't really know what's going on out there. And unlike all of the other animals, we are obsessed with trying to figure it out. To me, this obsession is the source and root of all of our productivity and creativity” (Shultz).  What Shultz is describing, links in with what Daniel Pink is trying to convey to readers in A Whole New Mind.  Mistakes are some part of humans that appear like they should be part of Dan pink’s Philosophy, Symphony.  This is because one must balance their life with mistakes as well as productivity and success.  However, I think that this ties into the main idea what the philosophy “meaning” is trying to show. Mistakes are so ground into the human way and so “frowned upon” in nearly every culture, that all of the machines, inventions, and ideas that have been developed, are created to destroy every chance of a mistake.  But life does not always happen according to plan.  Machines break down, inventions never find the social foot hold to succeed, and ideas challenged to be found false.

            Kathryn Shultz’s presentation style was that in which she spoke clear and crisp, with next to no hints of being rushed or nervous.  This would be an extremely good thing to take away from this video because I am not the most confident of public speakers.  In general, Kathryn Shultz shows that mistakes are a part of life and are the teaching tool of being human.  For without mistakes, there is no drive to success or to learn.  And with a fast approaching future where the key to actually owning one’s life is authentic creativity and understanding, admitting to and learning from one’s mistakes can provide a future where one transforms into “a whole new mind”.

Works Cited

Shultz, Kathryn. "Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Apr. 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html>.

Clay Shirky: The Uses of Design

("Clay")

               

                   Clay Skirky, a well known writer, specifically in the field of technology, gave a TED Talk about cognitive surplus.  According to Clay Shirky, cognitive surplus means that, “…the ability of the world's population to volunteer and to contribute and collaborate on large, sometimes global, projects” ("Clay").  An example of cognitive surplus at work is the website called Wikipedia.  It is a non-profit domain where people type in articles about anything or anyone.  As information becomes outdated, Wikipedia articles can be easily altered.  Cognitive surplus can also be used towards entertainment such as the LOLcats posted all over the internet.  These LOLcats, although ridiculously time wasting, show that at least someone’s mind is being put towards creative ideas.  LOLcats also apply to Dan Pink’s idea of designing and how it will bring in the conceptional era because the captions that are attached with the pictures of cats must somehow make sense, thus possessing design.  Nearly every kid creates a LOLcat or something similar because in kindergarten, pictures are drawn or macaroni sculptures created.  I for one have created copious sculptures or drawn pictures that required the minimal amount of design.  Clay Shirky uses a presentation that focuses on the facts and not the emotions associated with the points of his original thesis.  An example of this is when Clay discusses the website known as Ushahidi.  Ushahidi is a website created by a few computer programmers that wanted to assist a woman in Kenya who was trying to show where the violence of Kenya during 2007 was taking place.  However, this task required more man power than Ory Okolloh could possibly provide in her lifetime.  So the computer programmers created the Ushahidi website to automatically compile the data of where the violence was taking place and place it all onto a map for everyone on the internet to view.  The designing of this website provided valuable information to the people of Kenya and an application for many other uses such as traffic, weather, natural disasters, or political campaigns.  Clay Shirky provides clever insight to the uses of design in the world through his clever TED Talk.

Works Cited

"Clay Shirky: How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. June 2010. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html>.

 

Daniel Pink: Motivation

                                                                       ("Pink")

            Daniel Pink shows through his research in the powers of motivation the creative jobs necessary for the arrival of the conceptual age, a new approach in motivation is needed for the work place.  Instead of the stuck-in-the-mud, left-brained approach to a reward system, Pink describes the fact that people in nearly all situations perform better when convince to work by an intrinsic motivator.  According to ChangingMinds.org an intrinsic motivator is, “…when motivated by internal factors, as opposed to the external drivers of extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation drives one to do things just for the fun of it, or because they believe it is a good or right thing to do” ("Intrinsic"). 

I can see this kind of force in my life when I find a topic that truly interests me.  For example, the Million Dollar Project of fifth grade where I decided what I was going to do if given one million dollars.  For my project I decided that was going to take a week long vacation in the Greek Isles and parade around in a 30 foot long hummer stretch.  Part way through the project, I discovered a few variables that would make this project much more difficult.  One was the exchange rate of dollars to Euros in 2007.  A second problem that I discovered was that Hummers use a lot enormous amounts of diesel gasoline, which at the time was priced at about $4.00 per gallon.  The issue with this is that I had to figure out a ballpark estimate value for how far I would be driven around, how much to pay the driver, convert dollars to Euros and gallons to liters in order to buy the gas, and finally tip the driver.  After this week of data crunching, the rest of the project was rather straight forward.  And to expect this from a 5^th grader?  Obviously, my teacher had high expectations for my class, but that kind of calculations should be reserved for AAA agents.

Some people would disagree with Dan Pink’s message of impending left-brained “doom”, but what people cannot dispute is his gift for public speaking.  While Dan Pink speaks, he uses crescendos, and decrescendos to emphasize certain key points.  If this doesn’t seem true, use his video and skip to the part where he says, “Is this some kind of touchy feely socialist conspiracy going on here? No. These are economists from MIT, from Carnegie Mellon, from the University of Chicago. And do you know who sponsored this research? The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. That's the American experience.”  It shows a clear change in his emotion because he is connected to this topic and yearns for everybody to understand it as he does.  Dan Pink presents his ted talk in a certain way that in both inviting and educational.  Instead of using a standard expository essay format, he brings points up as they come along in his story of the changing world.  In other words, there is no leading thesis that shows what his talk is going to be about before he gets to explain his idea. 

In conjunction with A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink’s TED Talk emphasizes his warning that the world is changing and every one better hop on the “train” or get left behind.  When I begin to work on my first career in ten years or so, Dan Pink’s idea about a new form of management will be beneficial to me so I can work efficiently with others in a more competitive business market.  

Works Cited

Pink, Daniel. "Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Aug. 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html.

"Intrinsic Motivation." Changing Minds and Persuasion -- How We Change What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Do. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/intrinsic_motivation.htm>.

Oliver Sacks: Behind the Hallucination

Sir Ken Robinson of the previous response to the TED Talks stated that the current public school system is failing our students.  By degrading the flow of creativity, imagination is also disrupted.    In this video, Oliver Sacks, a British Neurologist, suggests that certain kinds of hallucinations actually show a great insight into the imagination of a patient, the “machinery” behind the brain, and that having hallucinations do not directly correlate to going insane. 

From Oliver Sack’s years of compiled research as a respected physician, he has concluded that, “Normally these hallucinations are all part of the integrated stream of perception, or imagination” (Sacks).  Thus, hallucinations show that the mind is over stimulated.  His research goes even further when he describes that even when a person becomes blind or “visually impaired” is able to have more of these delusions more frequently or even more in depth, which included more of the senses.  For example, the first patient that he discussed was a 95 years old woman who suffered from very detailed hallucinations.  However, when beginning the diagnosis, Oliver was not notified that the old woman had been blind for the past five years.  After taking this variable into account, Dr. Sacks diagnosed her condition as Charles Bonnet Syndrome.  According to Mdsupport.org (Macular Degeneration Support), this is a mental condition where it, “…is characterized by visual hallucinations in people who have a sudden change in vision such as that brought on by macular degeneration. Named after the man who first described it in 1780, it was later defined as "persistent or recurrent visual pseudohallucinatory phenomena of a pleasant or neutral nature in a clear state of consciousness” (Roberts).  In other words, people that are in a neutral state of mind and experience visual hallucinations; these people are usually in their old age and have vision problems.  In the case of Oliver Sack’s patient, she experienced described her hallucinations as this to her doctor, “’No, it's not like a dream. It's like a movie.  It's got color. It's got motion. But it's completely silent, like a silent movie. All these people with Eastern dress, walking up and down, very repetitive, very limited"’ (Sacks).

                                                        ("Google")

Another piece of information that Dr. Sacks describes during his TED Talk is what the “machinery” behind the brain actually is.  After multiple fMRI brain imaging scans of patient during hallucinations, he has concluded that many different parts of the brain are incorporated into all types of hallucinations.  For example, delusions where victims experience cartoon-like visions are using the majority of the right side of the brain.  Similarly to Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, the right side of the brain is stimulated, producing creative “dreams”.  On the other hand, when victims experience hallucinations where detailed faces are scene can be cause by damage to the Temporal Lobe and specifically the Fusiform Gyrus.  In addition, whether related to A Whole New Mind, the Fusiform Gyrus is located mainly in the left hemisphere of the brain.  Some of it trickles over to the right side, but most is in the left side (paraphrased from “Fusiform”).  This mouth-full of a scientific name is simply the part of one’s brain where faces are recognized.    People with damage in this area of the brain usually develop symptoms where they have trouble discerning faces.

Finally, Dr. Oliver Sacks has been able to prove that producing symptoms of hallucinations does not automatically mean that one is mentally unstable.  Although many-a-nut-job have tried to plead their case to others why they encounter strange visions and feelings, Oliver Sacks has been successful in producing conclusive evidence that shows that many hallucinations are results of the lack of stimulation to certain senses.  People that have been blind are often able to produce visions of things that they have never seen such as Dr. Sack’s 95 year old patient.  However, this does not mean that visions that one sees in a dream will come true like a “Harry Potter nightmare”.  It does mean that one’s nerves are simulating situations through inactive, yet possibly functional sensory organs.  On the other hand, some functions of the brain provide evidence that one is in an unstable mental environment.  In every day terms, this could be similar to the “out of it” feelings or even extreme migraines.  A malfunction of the brain is causing it to perform inefficiently and play tricks on the person’s body.

Dr. Oliver Sacks uses a very scientific method which includes more indisputable facts than clever insights and opinions.  An example of this is his multitude of records of patients and other symptoms of different variations of hallucinations.  A speaking technique that he used that became more evident as the presentation wore on was that Oliver Sacks sat calmly in a chair and did not mumble or fumble around for a specific fact written down on a piece of paper.  In terms of education, Dr. Sack’s research shows that in terms of education, not every person put into special mental deficiency classes truly deserve to be there.  One that suffers from hallucinations would obliviously have struggles in school but their mental capabilities could be virtually the same as an average person.  



Works Cited

"Fusiform Gyrus." Neuroscience Information Framwork 3.1. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.neuinfo.org/nif/nifgwt.html?query=%22Fusiform%20Gyrus%22>.

"Google Images." Google. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigcH7Mn4SEGaqXaUjX5XzyA9QvEsBzp1j8wBe3MBlXBvMBK4CWSRu3DdnvNBknu1MI8CBjBO-w7-aCmRdGqrD4HPZ9If60z0WUjppcxx8oD3vDzv4BXLPq5LLb0tV9P58arsFYVqb0fGY/s1600/light-blue-women-dress.jpg>.

Roberts, Dan. "Charles Bonnet Syndrome." MD Support. Sept. 2006. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.mdsupport.org/library/chbonnet.html>.

Sacks, Oliver. "Oliver Sacks: What Hallucination Reveals about Our Minds | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Sept. 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds.html>.