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TED: Tom Chatfield: ways games reward the brain

experience bars measuring progress - instead of small reward increments give lots of task - keep the tasks small and measurable, break things down into many tasks reward effort - don't punish failure feedback - must link consequences to action, feel a lesson, model lessons uncertainty - neurological goldmine, the reward that they weren't sure they were going to get, there was an unlikelihood, the real turnon is doing stuff with other people, collaboration

TED: Nalini Nadkarni: Life science in prison

She gave trees canvases and let them paint. Found that trees have signatures like a Monet or a Renoir. She did calculations and found that the way they painted had cycles. How can this be applied to a seemingly static institution like a prison. They gave lectures about science in prisons The prisoners chose the lectures over TV That is movement They had a project about frogs and wetlands The prisoners chose to the project over TV Solitary confinement prisoners were given images of nature in their exercise yards If prisoners can change, we can too

TED: Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction

fetsiboomsticks: Cultural ghettos are places where we congregate with people just like us. Where we otherise others by affirming ourselves and by actively ennumerating what differences the differences of others. frustration is very stimulating. Learning a language, being frustrated that you can't express in fine detail keeps you trying. a reader wants to see the manifestation of the identity of the author in the story fetsiboomsticks: you are not a creator, an actor takes roles that he 'agrees' with, that he is prepared to endorse, that's what we think. multicultural writers are expected to write their culture, English writers are allowed to be more imaginative she was prosecuted for words she had written and she objects because it is fiction writers are entitled to their opinions, but it is not politics its fiction, separate things fiction is a connector, politics is a divider Muslims read books by Palistinians and vice versa, they connect. Politicians stop you ...

TED: Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders

Women systematically underestimate their own ability Women don't negotiate for themselves in the workforce 7% of women negotiate their first salary, 57% of men do Women attribute their success to external factors, men attribute it to themselves No one gets to the promotion without believing they deserve it Success and likability are negatively correlated for women and positively correlated for men Solutions: Get women to sit at the table (make sure that you notice that men are reaching, but women are also there), Make your partner your partner (men do less housework/childwork), Don't leave before you leave (open yourself to men working in the home, women stop putting their hands up in their careers because they want to have children)

TED: Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"

Information junk food, vegetables and desert.  We don't have a balanced information diet. Beware the filters.  You are living in a filter bubble - google and facebook tailoring what gets into your bubble. You don't know what DOESN'T get in. Algorithms are curating the world for us, online.  The editors were human gatekeepers, now the gatekeepers are algorithmic - created by coder-gatekeepers. We need control over the filters. Filters must be made more responsibly because we need to know things outside of our opinion set so that we can operate responsibly.

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world

Ushahidi was created by two blog readers who had time (72 hours) to create a platform on which a person can congregate information - aggregates it and make it public, people loved it, so they turned it into an open source platform. The ability of the world population to collaborate on free projects A trillion hours a year exist for free projects When a new technology steps in people always ALSO use it for throwaway stuff (e.g. LOLcats) It's tempting to want the abundance without the LOLcats, but it doesn't work that way Freedom to experiment means freedom to experiment with anything. Even with the printing press we got porn before journals 'Design for generosity' our intrinsic motivations are more powerful than our bosses telling us to do something Deterrence theory - add a punishment, people will do less of that thing Study - when you add a punishment, people do MORE of that thing - if you pay the fine you pay it and you feel nothing, it's more powerful pr...

TED: Jason Clay: How big brands can help save biodiversity

Amazon. What can I do to save the rainforest? Get someone to make a product that is sourced from the rainforest that can show that the rainforest is worth more as resource than pasture. It failed. The people who made money from the rainforest were not the same people who were cutting the forest.  The average European cat has a larger carbon footprint than the average African. The average American consumes 43 times more than the average African. Should consumers have a choice between sustainable or not sustainable products, or should all the products on the shelf be sustainable.  Are consumers equipped to make the choice between products? Do they have time to make an informed choice? There are so many ifs ands and buts. It's a minefield. Sustainability needs companies to work together, countries need to work together. And the where what and who have to be managed. There are 1.5 billion producers. 500 commodities determine the trade of all of these companies. If you look a...

TED: Sheryl WuDunn: Our century's greatest injustice

There are fewer women in the world because more girls are discriminated to death than all the people killed in all the battlefields in the 20th century. When you educate a boy, he has slightly fewer children. When you educate a girl, she has significantly fewer children. When you don't use women as part of the solution you not using all the solution resources you can.  Move women out of a viscious cycle into a virtuous cycle (and she will work harder for women than men do - fetsiboomsticks). 

TED: Sheryl WuDunn: Our century's greatest injustice

There are fewer women in the world because more girls are discriminated to death than all the people killed in all the battlefields in the 20th century.  When you educate a boy, he has slightly fewer children.  When you educate a girl, she has significantly fewer children.  When you don't use women as part of the solution you not using all the solution resources you can.  80 000 slaves were transported to the new world, 800 000 women are trafficked across borders .

Freshly Ground, "I'd like" lyrics

I'd like to call you sometime I'd like you to need me one time What would you do if you knew the truth? Oh what would you do if I told you the story of my life? Would you find me overly familiar towards you? Would you call me crude, fling me aside to the birds? What do I do with all these feelings warming me up inside? What do I do with all these precious hours dreaming of you and I? Would you recognize it's a need I've been fighting for so long? Would you recognize it's a hunger only you can fill? I'd like to call you sometime Oh I would like to call you I'd like to call you sometime I'd like you to need me one time

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism

My father resigned from his men-only business club because he didn't want to belong to a club that would welcome his son one day, but not his daughter My mom started the longest running feminist film festival in the US I claimed the feminist label because a feminist delivered a lecture in fishnet stockings - acknowledging that beauty is relevant Feministing the most widely read feminist text ever Feministing has political clout You should never judge women who fail to reach their really lofty goals Feminists are working in really difficult environments and their own measure of success is 'daily acts of caring' ACT in the face of overwhelm

Unicorns

strength untamable agility Christ tamed by a virgin (Mary) can only be mounted by virgins will sleep in a virgin's lap, makes it vulnerable to hunters (like, what's she doing... leading it to slaughter, get off your arse woman! Woman are so passive in old texts... %$%$#%$#^#) chaste love faithful marriage neutralize poison shown in heraldry with broken collar, that it has been taken, but will not be again

Jason Fried: Why work doesn't happen at work

Bosses who think that social networking keeps people from their work are wrong This isn't China. Facebook is the modern smoke-break Bosses are afraid that if they can't see their employees working at home are wrong M&Ms interrupt - managers interrupt, meetings interrupt You can Quit Skype, Quit Facebook, Quit Twitter - you can't Quit your manager At home you can take a walk later, record the program you want to watch later, or work later. How about no talk Thursday afternoons. Silence in the office. Work will be done. How about managers leaving people to get some work done.

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

A leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed He has to be doing something easy Then someone will join him The first follower transforms the leader from a lone nut into a leader The first follower is also a leader, it takes guts to be the first follower Will show the others how to follow The leader embraces the follower Nurture your followers if you are the first leader The next followers emulate the follower not the leader Three is a crowd and a crowd is news, the third one starts the tipping point As more people join in it's less risky Those that join in quickly will be part of the in-crowd Those that are too slow will be ridiculed because they don't recognise the leader Leadership is overglorified The first follower is the real leader Have the courage to follow, have the courage to be the first one to follow the lone nut

Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from

The water wasn't safe, so the English used drink beer By 1650 they had started drinking tea and coffee and since before they were drunk, the Enlightenment started when tea and coffee spread.  From pub to coffeehouse The architecture of the space allowed ideas to have sex Been studying what environments breed ideas, patterns Chaotic environments Important ideas have long incubation periods, they fade into view Building barricades around ideas - copyright, patenting - which stifles many of them Noodling around, hacking Chance favors the connected mind - ideas that pop into your head by chance because people suggest reasons and uses for your ideas, stimulating your imagination

Elizabeth Lesser: Take "the Other" to lunch

Martin Luther King - I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be Mother Theresa - The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of the family to small We give too much voice to the most divisive amongst us Book titles reflect this - Pinheads and patriots; Arguing with idiots Negative otherizing morphs into violent extremism Counteracting otherizing A strategy: Take the other to lunch Agree on some ground rules - ahead of time Be conversational, don't persuade, interrupt, be curious, listen, be real, don't try to change the other side, acknowledge that it's a first step What issues concern you, what have you always wanted to ask someone from the other side Two people dropping the pretence of being know it alls Two people practicing ubuntu