reflections on the technium

For this installment of Brown Bag at the Movies we will be viewing (abstract below):

• A garden in my apartment  7:53
• How games make kids smarter  16:41
• John Cleese on Creativity  36:10

04-24-2012  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

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CEP COMMENT:  

Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment
<http://www.ted.com/talks/britta_riley_a_garden_in_my_apartment.html>
7:53
ABSTRACT

“Britta Riley <http://brittariley.carbonmade.com/> <http://www.windowfarms.org/> wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles — researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY <http://www.rndiy.org/>. And the results? Delicious.

“Britta Riley designs and builds urban farms and other participatory artworks that explore the city.

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CEP COMMENT:  

Gabe Zichermann: How games make kids smarter
<http://www.ted.com/talks/gabe_zichermann_how_games_make_kids_smarter.html>
16:41
ABSTRACT

“Can playing video games make you more productive? Gabe Zichermann shows how games are making kids better problem-solvers, and will make us better at everything from driving to multi-tasking.

“Do kids these days have short attention spans, or does the world just move too slow? Gabe Zichermann suggests that today’s video games are making children smarter — and we should all embrace gamification.

Gabe Zichermann on Linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?authType=name&goback=%2Enppvan_%2Fgzicherm&locale=en_US&id=211191&authToken=sQqA>

Book: Game-Based Marketing

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CEP COMMENT:  

John Cleese on Creativity
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VShmtsLhkQg>
36:10
ABSTRACT

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cleese>

Book: Families and How To Survive Them 

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OTHER NEWS:  CONFERENCE: Concepts and Approaches for Mars Exploration (abstracts due May 10th) <http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012/>

FUTURE CANDIDATES  /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

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CEP COMMENT:  

Ayah Bdeir: Building blocks that blink, beep and teach
<http://www.ted.com/talks/ayah_bdeir_building_blocks_that_blink_beep_and_teach.html>
5:27
ABSTRACT

“Imagine a set of electronics as easy to play with as Legos. TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir introduces littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable blocks that make programming as simple and important a part of creativity as snapping blocks together.

“Ayah Bdeir <http://ayahbdeir.com/> is an engineer and artist, and is the founder of littleBits <http://littlebits.cc/> and karaj <http://www.karajbeirut.org/>, an experimental art, architecture and technology lab in Beirut.

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CEP COMMENT:  

How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries
<http://www.ted.com/talks/how_simple_ideas_lead_to_scientific_discoveries.html>
7:32
ABSTRACT

“Adam Savage walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods anyone could have followed — Eratosthenes’ calculation of the Earth’s circumference around 200 BC and Hippolyte Fizeau’s measurement of the speed of light in 1849. Find more TED-Ed videos on our new YouTube channel: <http://youtube.com/TEDEd>.

“Adam Savage, the host of “MythBusters” on the Discovery Channel, is a longtime special-effects artist and a minor obsessive.

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CEP COMMENT:  

Hackerspace Global Grid asks for your help
<http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/04/13/hackerspace-global-grid-asks-for-your-help/>
53:13
ABSTRACT

<http://shackspace.de/wiki/doku.php?id=project:hgg>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace_Global_Grid>

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CEP COMMENT:  

Daniel Schnitzer: Inventing is the easy part
<http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_schnitzer_inventing_is_the_easy_part.html>
5:42
ABSTRACT

“Daniel Schnitzer knew that small-scale solar products (like solar-powered LED lightbulbs) could transform the lives of rural Haitians, but found that despite their value, they wouldn’t simply sell themselves. At TEDxPittsburgh, he explains how health and energy solutions for the developing world are useless unless the market works too.

“Daniel Schnitzer is the founder of EarthSpark International, a company dedicated to helping create clean energy supply chains in Haiti.

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