lemony

reader in the house

I had this file open on my computer and Amos wandered over and READ IT. Brings new meaning to the phrase "home security."

Back home on the farm assorted TED information is slowly assimilating into my brain as I process it.

I woke up this morning with the sun dully showing its glowing outline behind a veil of clouds as a small snow flurry swept in front of the bare trees. Now I can no longer look at weather as backgound, or even as part of nature. The simple beauty of clouds, sky, rain noises on the roof, the silence of snowdrifts – all are tainted with the lurking menace of global warning. The days routine of coffee, breakfast, cartoons – all seem off. Fiddling while Rome burns, etc.

It all makes me want to flee to some other hemisphere (as if there is a place you can go on Earth to escape the horror) or at least to a beach or a mountain or some other kind of wilderness. But then fleeing is what I do best. Right now I’m fleeing into cyberspace.

So, what next?

Researching Fair Trade and Organic and locally-grown goods for the store.
Researching for Fair-Trade and organic alpaca items
Considering every object. Is there such a thing as organic shaving cream?
Looking into Volunteer Vacations.
Reading like a mo-fo.

attention Lemons

Not to keep berating my siblings, but here's some of the things that reminded me of you at TED:

Jim: Amazing game designer David Perry talking about the future of gaming... the artwork... the need for programmers and artists... Cllifford Stoll demonstrating how to calculate the speed of light with an oscilloscope and a slide rule (showing us on an overhead projector)... the moving talk by Burt Rhutan about the cycles of inspiration in the aerospace, and how the private sector's rapid expansion is going to boost the curiosity of kids now to create a new generation of scientists and explorers...

Alice: The incredible photographs and stories of Phil Borges (see www.bridgesweb.org) he has been collecting in Tibet and Dharmsala for his bridges project.... Jehane Noujaim's wish for the creation of a global "Pangea Cinema Day"... the haunting music of Vishal Vaid... astonishing information about global health from Larry Brilliant and others...

Sara: The mindbogglingly beautiful design story of how Joshhua Prince-Ramos and the architects of Rem Koolhaus created the Seattle Public Library, evolving directly from usage data... the intensity of Amy Smith and her work with low-tech inventions in developing countries... Helen Fisher's fascinating data about love, attraction, and gender... the amazing graphics of Hans Rosling... the passion of the Gore.

and Mom... can't wait to send you the DVD so you can replay it all and have a little mini-university!

2.24.2006 TED, Day 3

Whew. Today I managed to relax into the comforting arms of TED instead of busting my head to belong to TED. If that makes any sense.

Anyway: best day yet.
Highlights of the highlights:

1. From the talks:
Julia Sweeney is a goddess.
Burt Rutan is just better than you would ever imagine he could be.
Amy Smith deserved the MacArthur. The Ecole de Charbon!
Tony Robbins bantering with Al Gore. With audience participation. Who gets to see that?
It was like Pong of the Wills.
Oh my god. New heroes of hotness: Vishal Vaid and Joshua Prince-Ramus.
New comedy kings: Charles Fleishner and David Pogue.
New project role model: Phil Borges.
New teaching role model: Clifford Stoll.
New research hero: Helen Fisher.
New superstars: Sirena Huang and Dynamo.

2. Personal:
Finding out that we get a DVD that plays everything straight through.
Having the time and chutzpah to talk to lots of people in the breaks.
Finally getting to meet up with some fellow New York design chicks and cackle.
While watching neon orange jellyfish in the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Wandering up to the main hall for a spell where I can exercise my need to hoot 'n holler when awed.
Steppin out at the Cameron Sinclair lunch.
Meeting sculptor John Shannon and learning about the Air Genie.
Getting callouses on my goosebumps.
Totally bailing on calling and emailing and taking notes in favor of just BEING HERE.
Hoo-hah!
NBFs: DK, Cheryl and Amy.

Plus, tonight got some confirmation on the DE endowment. More to be revealed!
Oh yeah.

Oh, and last night, I think it was the drumming circle that finally loosened me up...

Day 2: The afternoon

After a headache-inducingly long conference call, or maybe it was the fact that I was missing both the "Memes" first talk and a Peter Gabriel performance, rushed back into the groovy and homey Simulcast lounge. I brashly fired up the laptop and commenced to sign up for TED2007 in a fever of enthusiasm. This could be addictive. And expensive. Of course, that shouldn't scare moi.

Some random quotes I latched onto in this pm:

When you are trying to count the number of passes that a group of thre people in white shirts are making with a basketball while they move around and between three people in black shirts also passing a basketball it's almost impossible to notice a man in a gorilla suit walking through the group.

But I did. Richard, was that your dad?

Then we got onto the topic of a Purpose-Driven-Life, by someone who should know, but who steadfastly refused to comment on the inner workings of George Bush's mind. "People ask me if I'm left wing or right wing" he quipped, "But I'm for the whole bird."

The next speaker neatly skewered some holes in the previous speaker's best-selling-book-on-the-planet.

Myself, I do believe that a purpose-driven life is the best kind, and I don't believe purpose requires religion. I do believe that service makes for more happiness than status, success, sex and survival, unless you happen to be one of the people lliving on four dollars a day, in which case survival might move to the top of the list. ?

The poet guy is totally hot. Who is he and where can I get some of them poems?

Stew: you gotta hear these songs. Personal fave: The first time she got out of rehab...

Then it was on to the TED Prizes. this in a way is the crux of TED, crystallized. This year:
Cameron Sinclair wishes to create a global community that actively embraces open source design to generate innovative and sustainable living standards for all. See Architecture for Humanity.

Jehane Noujaim's wish: To bring the world together for one day a year through the power of film.
(this is the only one I can imagine that I could be of any use on). the creation of Pangea Cinema Day.
See: Control Room.

Larry Brilliant's wish: To build a powerful new early warning system to protect our world from some of its worst nightmares. See: google.org.

The cool thing is, last year the winners got THREE wishes and they STILL ALL came true. Talk about a group of movers and shakers.

Which all reminds me of a motto I picked up at Landmark: Get bigger problems. Get problems wotrth having. These are some big darn problems.

Right now, my big problem is finding my friend, and dinner, before I faint.

2.23.2006 TED, Day 2

Breakfast at LouLou's "Griddle in the Middle" (of the pier). Yum!

TED: Einstein the talking parrot says hi. Also, meows like a cat, oinks like a pig, and makes about every other noise that exists.

The web is out to be polyglotted: only 23% of the people on the internet are from North America now.
12 of the top 100-visited blogs are now in Chinese (in the last six months.

Digital fabrication - where bits meet atoms - exists. FabLabs are creating products for a market of one in farflung locations. By children. Operating computing equipment beyond your wildest dreams.

Limbs are now being regenerated using pig intestine tissue.
Stem cells injected into hearts are curing - making asymptomatic - heart disease.

The Shanghai Institute for Visual Arts just opened: this will be the powerhouse of our industry in the future. Because, in Asia they recognize that design adds value.

There is a good chance (50%? More?) that life forms will be discovered in the subserface of Mars that may have things in comon with earthly cave microbioloogy. Including organisms on earth that are uranium-, chromium- and iron-eating.

We learned the terms "snottites" and "boogerania". From two different geniuses.

Joe Derisi calmly described his production of a virochip which enables diagnosis instantly of every known human, animal and plant virus. The machine to create these chips, by the way, is buildable by anyone based on the instructions published on the web.

More later.

2.22.2006: TED, Day 1

Dawn. Standing on a (real, not tourist) fisherman's wharf watching the sun crest over the Monterey Peninsula and listening to the sound of the sea otter just below me happily crunching on a Pacific crustacean.

And then things just kept getting better.

18 minutes each. Erik Peterson on the future. Robert Wright describing the full arc of human (indeed, pre-human) history. Nicholas Negroponte and his startlingly simple and compelling vision of One Laptop for One Child. Hans Rosling's stunning graphical representation of human populations and health statistics. Lisa Randall's matter-of-fact explanation of string theory and alternate universes. Paul Berg's humble decoding of the human genomic code (um, he invented, or discovered, it.) The goosebumpy demonstration of a multiple touchpoint computer interface (remember that scene from Monirity Report? Well, this AWESOME kid at NYU has created it already!) Bill Joy's dark but calm vision of an apocalyptic future and the "defensive" strategies to avoid it. Capped with a heart-wrenching performance by the Children of Uganda and then the ass-kicker of a speech by AlGore. That last was the single most terrifying and convincing 18 minutes I have ever spent. Go ahead, ask me about global warming. I'll scare the bejesus out of you, too.

At first: a nagging worry that attending this is too expensive, too time-consuming, too Unnecessary, and besides, who am I? They must have accidentally let a piece of riffraff in, because all these people are friggin' geniuses, and I don't mean that in a conference-room kind of way. Like, global experts in alternate universes. Harvard! MIT! The founder of Google poking his head into a workshop on personal finance! As if!

And the man who used to be the next President of the United States.

Tomorrow I get to meet the woman who invented Movable Type! Hi Mena!

But those negatory voices are drowned out now by my intention to retroactively deserve this opportunity. OK, so i haven't raised 40 million dollars with an arts group devoted to saving orphaned Ugandan children, yet. But wait.

And I'm takin a vow to actually hobnob with some of these eggheads tomorrow. Or something. I'm lonely! And weirdly scared. But hyped-up. Hmmm. Also, kinda jetlaggy and bees-in-my-headish.

Oh, and first thing, I ran into DK Holland - the woman who got me here, inadvertently, by writing about it in Communication Arts. And I told her so. So there!

Plus, it got me to do this. And that's just day one.