We're at Sunray watching the Ted Conference simulcast from Vancouver. We're starting in session two:
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The host of session two jokes: as you know ted will you we will all live forever and your colleagues will be robots. Session 2 is about "history" or as it is being called "Retrospect".
Bran Ferren is now taking the ted stage.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Etech05_Bran1.jpg/200px-Etech05_Bran1.jpg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Ferren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Ferren). He was the visual designer for little shop of horrors, among other many accomplishments.
His parents were contemporary artists so he decided to get into engineering...he jokes, to drive his parents crazy.
When he visited Rome when he was a kid and thinks now a savvy marble sales man got one over on the officials.
He is discussing Oculus in the Pantheon. It is the largest concrete dome ever built.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4SQGpZNQMiI/TZ4ivzx4YKI/AAAAAAAACSE/udp7nu3TGHc/s1600/PantheonOculus.jpg)
- the shaft of light beaming through the Oculus showed him that light can be used for design.
- he concluded that the worlds of science and art are not mutually exclusive, when combined they make the miraculous.
Five miracles are needed for to create "game changers" like the Oculus but most people don't get past 1.5 miracles.
- The design of the roof only works with a hole in the center.
Now he is getting into recent examples of oculus type events
- getting on the moon and getting off.
- the internet, not so, it is like the concrete of the pantheon. It needs skillful application.
- autonomous vehicles. yes. Roads were vital to the success of the roman empire and the usa. They are the key technology that will allow us to redesign our cities. They will save lives. Cut energy use. Cut road congestion. Compel new designs for cities...where we work and where we live.
- it took people outside of the car industry had to create the process that can now be applied to autonomous vehicles.
5 miracles for autonomous vehicles:
1. where you are and exactly what time it is...GPS by government
2. where are roads and where are you going...web based maps
3. intense communication with
4. recognize people, signs and objects.
5. ?
Autonomous vehicles will simnifically change our world in the next couple of decades.
The miracle makers don't just pop up. They need nourishment from role models who allow them to fail and find their own path. And, on a cautionary note they need to be pried away from the modern miracles so they can experience the natural world....the ultimate point of it all.
Finally, art and science are not luxuries. They are essential.
Brian Green is on stage. Author of the elegant universe. He is telling the history of the Universe in four minutes.
- Imagine the history of the universe in one month. He breaks down key points of our history by time and date. One second before midnight on the final day modern science came about.
He has incredible graphics that I want.
TED has officially moved their headquarters to Vancouver.
Marc Kushner, architect, will talk about the last 30 years of architecture. he's starting with...New Jersey.
(http://philipjohnsonglasshouse.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/marc-kushner.jpg)
discusses how much he hated the layout of his house...because every time he went to the bathroom on the 2nd floor his family on the 1st floor would know. And, he hated it and that, he says, is architecture.
Architecture is powerful. Architects use tricks to evoke emotional responses. Uses columns as an example of creating emotive responses.
Shows the Livingston public library as a bad example of architecture.
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Then shows this library in Seattle. (http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/courses/fa10/arch244/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/library.jpg)
How does this happen he asks?
Architecture is a pendulum and they use cheap symbols. Instead of creating places we're creating memories or "false" nostalgia.
Something amazing happened in 1997: guggenheim. Everyone loved it. Then every city got some iteration of guggenheim. Why? because that style symbolized culture and tourism. And, every mayor wanted a piece of that symbol.
(http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/log/d17c0eb4-db48-40b9-a3bd-dd06c26c75c2.JPG)
We are on the verge of the greatest movement in architecture. It's a media revolution. Essentially, he is saying architecture can become almost a real time process because the feed back loop is faster through media.
- we don't need the "greeks" anymore to tell us about architecture. we can tell each other about architecture.
If the livingstone library was being built today it would start with a google search to see what others are doing to do new things.
Architects can hear you and you are not intimidated by architecture.
He says "this is the end of architectural history."
The point is...architecture style is no longer bound by periods or time.
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documentary filmmaker.
She is focused on the homosexual experience. She starts with the juxtaposition of Obama winning on 2008 on the same night as proposition 8 lost.
Now, she says that blacks were immediately blamed for the failure of proposition 8. She was pissed, why was the gay rights movement being pit against the civil rights movement? She is the beneficiary of both movements. Why were they not supporting each other. The opposition did not make sense and in fact, were much more connected than it seems.
The gay rights movement, she says, uses many of the tactics of the civil rights movement.
Compares the Montgomery Bus Boycotts (as she calls it "I'm tired of your foot on my neck" strategy). Fourteen years later homosexuals fought against police brutality in Greenwich Village.
1963: March on Washington or "we are visible and many in numbers" strategy. The march was organized by Bayard Rustin, an "out" gay man who went on to fight for LGBT rights.
October 11, 1979: Almost a million people showed up to Washington. Now, called "national coming out" day.
She directed a move called "The New Black".
http://www.youtube.com/v/GX4XiTSuuF0
She is emphasizing that the civil rights is not just a one road journey with one purpose.
Everyone got very serious as they introduced Edward Snowden to to the Ted stage. The curtains pulled back and something like this came out...only with Snowden live image.
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Snowden: It doesn't matter if I am the worst person in the world or the best person in the world. What matters are the issues at hand. I wouldn't call my self a hero or a traitor. I would call myself an American.
- we do good things in the intelligence community. Some things that need to be done. But a lot of things are done without permission.
- when I thought about how to get this out...I could have gone to congress where I had no protection as a private contractor and I and the info. could have been buried.
- but giving it to the journalists where its adversarial nature force the government to answer questions [was what he thought was best].
- This is PRISM it is not about metadata. It is about content. It can deputize corporations to do the dirty work of the government. Some of the companies did try to fight it and they lost in the courts. But, these are secret judges in secret courts. These judges have only rejected 11 requests out of over 30k requests for warrants.
Snowden puts much impetus on the companies to resist the NSA's attempts to violate the rights of "users" of their services.
He thinks that every web page should be encrypted. Encryption by default. When a user goes to look up a book on Amazon it's not just the US that has access to that info...it's every country.
Boundless Informant: It's a program hidden from congress. Congress asked if the NSA knew how many devices were being tracked. The NSA said no, we can't track it it would violate privacy. Snowden suggests Boundless Informant tracks Americans.
It is too great a temptation to put the entirety of all human communication in the hands of a secret government organization.
There are more revelations to come. Snowden took about 1.7 million documents.
Bull run: an NSA program that intentionally misleads corporate partners . They tell them that they need to work with them to make sure that the corporate systems are safe. Instead the NSA builds in back doors of access.
These programs have never stopped a single terrorists attack so say all three branches of our government. Terrorism is a term used for action. These types of programs were rejected in the 90s but after2001 terrorism became the key word to employ any program.
The moderator says that the split over "you" is not along political standing.
It seems it falls more along generational lines.
The founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee takes the stage to discuss the "magma carta" of the internet.
- I want to be clear I did. It do this to be safe. I did this because it was right.
His final words : we do t have to give up our privacy and liberty to have good government.
A standing ovation for snowden. The NSA was invited and could not make it. The moderator invites them to beam in if they are watching "and I'm sure they are."
This session is done
Amanda Burden: Director of the New York City Department of City Planning
(http://www.archfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/amanda-burden-headshot.gif)
Cities are about people. Amanda is an Animal Behaviorists by training.
She points to blank canvass spaces...just concrete and no amenities. Kind of like what Redman wants to do to Hemming.
She says it is very hard to create successful, meaningful public spaces. They don't happen by accident. Someone has to think very hard about every detail.
Design is not just about how something looks. It is about how you feel in that space. The very individual experience matters.
Burden was having to consider where and how to plan for a projected 1million new new york residents.
So, they had to grow up because they couldn't really grow out. So, they decided to grow around their transit which meant rezoning. Communities had to approve their plans to create developments that were not framed around cars.
She began walking and walked each neighborhood to learn the DNA of each neighborhood. Block by block we set height limits around transit.
She rezoned 12,500 blocks. All new development in New York is within a ten minute walk of a subway...which means residents don't need a car.
Burden's passion was the public spaces, though, not rezoning. She wanted LOTS and LOTS of spaces to sit. Her parks were meticulously created. People came from all over the city to use the parks.
Burden's goal and ambition is to find the abandoned spaces that have beautiful dimensions and bring them out.
"All over new york city you can find a place to sit"
Tells a story about the Highline, an elevated rail way. The highline was destined for demolition and lives today because Burden kept a watchful eye. She says it is one of the most contested areas in the city. You may see a beautiful park. Private devlopers want to turn the highline into a "mall"...Burden is dead set against it. Even if it may mean more money for a city the city has to take the long view for development.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/High_Line_20th_Street_looking_downtown.jpg)
- no matter how successful a public space they should never be taken for granted.
- the one lesson she has learned is that public spaces have power. It changes how you live in a city, how you feel about a city and whether you stay in a city.
- people stay becase the are having a great time.
WOW, so subtly passionate and in love with their work and the people that are connected to the public spaces!
(http://a.scpr.org/i/e6f301c79b2f8400cefcc8f8e9c49aaf/61820-full.jpg)
David Kwong:
David Kwong is a magician, puzzle creator, writer, and producer
"we are born to solve."
Every culture has their own puzzles, like crosswords.
It's a deeply rooted drive, to solve.
He takes an audience member through an exercise. She is coloring in animals....not sure where this is going...very cool, forgive me...I'm not going to explain.
Okay, I'll try. Essentially, he was able to prove that he knew exactly what colors she was going to use for each animal. Because of subtle suggestions he made in the intro of his tAlk. He is saying we can create order out of chaos even when we don't realize it.
My laptop battery has finally faded and there are no outlets that I can find inside the theatre. Consider this post the wrap up I hope you found the live log enjoyable to some degree.
Good night everyone.
She was incredible. I can't emphasize how much she mentioned seating as a priority. She wanted people to be able to sit in any part of the city, at any given time. Wherever there were restrictions on seating she changed those rules. Contrast that to todays council...
Great liveblog. Here's more detail on Bran Ferren's comments- http://blog.ted.com/2014/03/18/what-will-be-our-pantheon-bran-ferren-gives-an-idea-at-ted2014/ (http://blog.ted.com/2014/03/18/what-will-be-our-pantheon-bran-ferren-gives-an-idea-at-ted2014/).
He thinks the game-changer will be autonomous vehicles.
You can check out cars with autonomous vehicle technologies and speak with autonomous vehicle experts at the "Transportation Tomorrow" breakfast, Tuesday March, 7:30-9:30 AM at Marriott Southpoint.
Meet visionary Chunka Mui and get a free signed copy of "The New Killer Apps." He talks about six technologies that are disrupting every major industry.
Register here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/event/97911 (http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/event/97911)