In it what is in it

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has been an outstanding source of thought-provoking talks. This non-profit's "Ideas Worth Spreading" conference was the original source. Now, it has evolved to many conferences and projects, to the point where I was complaining to a friend the other day about the "commoditization of TED". Where once almost any talk could be relied on for its insights, one can now find a few that are clearly "recycled" with speakers who are less than leaders, or original thinkers, or provocateurs or futurists in their fields. But then TED redeemed itself (somewhat) by adding a "Best of the Web" feature -- and pointing me to Steve Jobs' 2005 address to students at Stanford University, How to live before you die. See and hear it -- it is inspiring with its deep honesty and passion.

What are memes?

he Oxford English Dictionary succumbed in 2003 to officially including “meme” (rhyming with “dream”) as a word. The definition is, “An element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation”. A paradigm for understanding the internet, media, politics and more? You betcha. Urban Dictionary spells this out further. A meme is “an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)”. UD then goes on to give four more definitions: “a pervasive thought pattern that replicates”, “the fundamental unit of information”, “an idea that spreads from blog to blog” and “an internet information generator, especially of random or contentless information”. In today’s world of viral You Tube videos, chain letters and instantly recognizable spam themes like the Nigerian inheritance, these latter definitions of meme are easily understood. 

Why Toyota and not Toyoda?

By now we are all aware that Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder, is the head and chief apologizer (and apologist) for the car company Toyota. But why Toyota and not Toyoda? BBC news has dug into this. The original Kanji name, shown on the left, can be read as both Toyota and Toyoda -- "toyo" meaning abundant, and "da" or "ta" meaning rice field. But that was just the start. A 1936 competition with 27,000 entries led to a formal change to Toyota. The fact that the name in the Katakana and Hiragana scripts require a lucky eight strokes rather than ten for Toyoda had a lot to do with it. Read more at the BBC.

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The 6 ways in which people learn new technology

ow do people embrace and start using new technologies? The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario has published research that suggests that the learners fall into six groups. They are: purposive planners, explorers, visionaries, problem solvers, reluctant learners and 'pinballs'. The author Deborah Compeau defines these as follows:

Top 10 Super Bowl Ads

You have choices. There are the 10 funniest ads. The classics here include Macdonald's showdown between Larry Bird and Michael Jordan as well as three Budweiser favorites: rock, paper, scissors, the Clydesdale streaker and Will Ferrell.  Or, you could go for the 10 best technology ads.  Who can forget Apple's 1984 introduction of the Macintosh in a "1984" setting? Then we have EDS's 'cat herders' and Intel's Play That Funky Music.  Or, you can stop being picky and just go for the top 10 Super Bowl ads of all time. This fine list is selected by MSNBC.

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Salman Khan teaches the world

Here is one person making a difference. I learned of Salman Khan's work when someone forwarded me a link to an audio interview of him by John Udell on IT Conversations, YouTube Teaching as Guerrilla Public Service. Impressive credentials -- Harvard MBA, MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, BS in Mathematics from MIT, recently a fund portfolio manager, with a past that includes Technical Architect at Scient and Senior Product Manager at Oracle.  But what is even more impressive is Salman Khan's idea of creating videos on YouTube to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and finance. The non-profit Khan Academy now is the gateway to 1000+ teaching videos! Take mathematics: the topics range from elementary algebra to differential equations, probability and statistics, matrices, trigonometry, linear algebra, calculus and more. The mission is simple, "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere". Admirable!

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Games for change

What a great concept! These are on-line games for children from ages 3 to 18 and over, "that engage contemporary social issues in meaningful ways to foster a more just, equitable and/or tolerant society". The games criss-cross the globe, grouped under themes like Poverty, Public Health, Environment, Human Rights, Global Conflict. I found myself playing "3rd World Farmer" making choices on a virtual farm about crop types, livestock, trying to add a shed to the farm, worrying about disease -- and thinking, boy, this is a tough game to win.  And then it struck me: this is not a game, this is reality for many millions!  Games for Change has many others. "Against All Odds", designed by UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency, makes you experience what it is like to be a refugee fleeing for your life. "Climate Challenge", played on the BBC's home page, is a fact based game where you make decisions to save the earth from catastrophe.  For kids through teenagers and the other caring adults you know, Games for Change is a site to recommend.

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Action Philosophers!

If you like your philosophers in small wacky chunks look no further than Action Philosophers! This is the newly published compilation of the award winning comic book series by the same name. Fred Van Lente is the artist and Ryan Dunlavey is the writer -- and they are having fun. From the pre-Socratics and Lao Tzu through Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida you get a chronological look at the lives and thoughts of all the Great Ones. I was surprised to find Rumi, Freud and Thomas Jefferson included -- but no complaints. The tales are told with humor, rendering the esoteric harmless and accessible to mere mortals. For the few whose works I knew, I was surprised as to how clear and 'faithful' the comic stories were, though brief and told in a slightly mad way.  It has now been a few weeks that Action Philosophers! has been my last-read at bed time.  I sleep smiling and feeling smarter.

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Islands of irrationality

I first heard the phrase from Professor Anwar Syed who used to teach Political Science at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The concept is simple. Everyone has a set of beliefs that are impervious to reason. The sooner you recognize these 'islands of irrationality' the better off you will be in terms of your relationships. And, you will save huge amounts of time in arguments. 

This is an amazingly useful insight! I am sure you know of otherwise completely reasonable and logical people who will have a strong, unchangeable and wrong opinion that baffles you. You cannot believe that this paragon of 'normalcy' cannot see what is so obvious to rational you!  Try as you might, you have hit a brick wall. Recognize the island. Accept it. Move on.