Do Not Fly Air Canada

Over the course of three flights they have managed to lose my luggage
three times and miss a connection once, resulting in an 11 hour delay.
I now count it as the worst carrier I've ever flown.

I just hope I get my bag back.

There's Always One (at least)

I just can't get over one of the last conversations I had at TED. It
started simply enough, with handshakes and introductions and inqueries
into the other's profession. He's an app designer from LA; my badge
labels me a consultant.

"What kind of consulting?"

"Communication and design strategy."

"Give me an example."

"Executives giving keynote presentations, start-ups pitching to VCs,
the speakers here at TED. Everyone needs a story, and they need
graphics to support it. Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth is a great
example of the medium."

And then he said something weird.

"I don't buy into that extreme left-wing global warming stuff. I'm a
Republican."

Which is the sort of thing that catches you off-guard. In a kind of
how-do-I-respond-what-do-I-focus-on-does-this-person-even-live-on-the-
same-planet kind of way.

"You mean the idea of man-made climate change that every credible
scientist supports?"

"Not every one. Have you read Ayn Rand?* The economics don't work.
There's no profit in climate change. I'm not explaining it right but I
could."

I was baffled. Was this a rebuttal or some kind of tea party mashup?
Where does one start to deconstruct this? Realizing I was about ten
years too late (much like actions on climate change), I excused myself
to another venison sausage and other, saner conversation.

(BTW, he crashed a Fellows party later and tried to sell his app
services to everyone. Tres uncool.)

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? I mean, people
rejecting established, scientific fact because it doesn't fit with
their ideology/Glenn Beck said so? I may not encounter a lot of people
like this in my travels, but I fear they're out there in large
numbers. And they're going to fuck things up for all of us.

* Author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Libertarian darling,
though her economic philosophy has been thoroughly discredited. At
least among the reality-based.

And Then it was Done

After six long but very enjoyable days, TED Global's come to a close. The speakers are spent, the tents are packed, the gardeners have restored the verge, the sun is shining, and I'm packing up.














Great week, great people. More than one fellow TEDster described it as "Summer Camp for Nerds." Which is pretty accurate, considering that the talks spanned topics as diverse as sustainable agriculture, neuroscience, Muslim comics, gaming, astronomy, voting systems, computer science, ethnic conflict, education and entomology.

For whatever reason--I started doing this at TED India--I usually hold off commenting on the speakers until the end of the program. Their talks are being edited and uploaded to the TED site as a write this, and all of them will be available soon. Here are my picks (bearing in mind that I missed a few sessions due to a massive headache):

Matt Ridley, looking on the bright side
Naif Al-Mutawa, bringing superheroes to the Arab world
Eben Bayer, whose team uses mushrooms
Adrian Dolby, likes to play in the dirt
Marcel Dicke, who has a new diet for you (that you're not expecting)
Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International
Sebastian Seung, mapping mouse brains
Sugata Mitra, on educating kids (if you watch only one, make it this one)
Chris Anderson, on the future of TED
Ze Frank, who will make you laugh (and more)

Long list, but they're only 18 minutes (so you could pack in three in the same amount of time it takes to suffer through So You Think You Can Dance).














As usual, TED also makes the most of its surroundings, hosting receptions in venues like the Ashmolean Museum, chock full of European history. Great place for a party.














And, of course, punting. Which is packing up to six people in a Mekong Delta-style boat, giving one of them a pole, and hoping everyone can swim. After a barbeque. No worries: no one ended up in the drink.














There's one final TED Fellows dinner tonight that I'm off to now, likely some pub-crawling after that, and a 9:00 am train back to London with my name on it.

Amazing Who You Run Into

Just met Edward Burtynsky. About all I could manage was, "thank you
for the images."

Google him. Seriously. Better yet, add Manufactured Landscapes to your
Netflix list.

Lounges and Parties

TED locates its main stage in the Oxford Playhouse, a noble venue to which I have not yet ventured--I'd just got over my weird sleep schedule and had no intention of standing out in the rain for a seat. Fortunately, the Randolph Hotel is located right next door, and if you can manage to navigate past the lovely old ladies enjoying afternoon tea, TED features a simulcast lounge where the show is broadcast live. Plus they have snacks.




























It wasn't hard to spot the congregation of Fellows toward the rear. From right to left (the first four):
Olatunbosun Obayomi of Nigeria--the bio-energy inventor mentioned in previous posts.
Boniface Mwangi of Kenya--bringing reconciliation to his country through photo-activism.
Nina Dudnik of USA--a geneticist dedicated to supplying students of developing nations with lab equipment deemed obsolete here.
Roshini Thinakaran of USA--founder of Women at the Forefront, journaling the lives of women in war zones.

I told you these people were awesome.














Su Kahumbu-Stephanou and Joseph Foster Ellis. He's an American artist working in China; she's an organic food entrepreneur in Kenya. For whatever reason, the East Africa delegation has adopted me as their coach/spokesperson. I'm not saying it's my next trip, but I've practically been invited to Kenya to do whatever it is I do. I wouldn't turn it down.














And then there's this. Freud's. An old converted church in the Roman style. Johnny Walker sponsored the party.




























And it was a party. Those who followed TED India know of what I speak. BTW, the guy front-and-center in the last picture is Tom Reilly, Community Coordinator for TED. He also runs the Fellows Program. Great guy. I don't know when he sleeps. The typical TED schedule starts at 7:00 and runs to 1:00 the next morning. And he's still gotta take care of all the logistics, speaker considerations, lost and found, etc. I don't envy him.

Oops

Careful kids. If you try to download a video off a new camera onto an old laptop/version of iPhoto, it may not work. And if you thought you were being extra smart by automatically deleting files from the camera once they're downloaded, they magically vanish into the ether. Which is what happened to the two videos I shot of the Fellows yesterday.

Don't worry, though: TED will be posting them to the site in the near future. The names you want to look for are Joseph Foster Ellis and David Gurman.

OK Go

These guys are here, too.

And this video is awesome.