Innovation takes creativity & vision. For a large dose of both, I recommend visiting http://www.ted.com/index.php. The Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and website hosts a tremendous diversity of thought-provoking subject matter and perspectives. Here are a few examples:
Evangelist Billy Graham's perspective on faith, technology, and suffering:
Evolutionist Richard Dawkins encourages atheists:
Space travel entrepreneur Peter Diamandis on our next leap in space:
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2 comments:
Intriguing mix of scholars and subjects! *grins* I love the Ted Talks videos and find them thought-provoking and inspirational.
I added a comment to tr's site that I introduced during the residency. I'll repeat it here for you. *smiles*
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Bandit asked:
"Are there many examples that technical predictions were unsuccessful when financial backing was abundent and focus on the predictin was high?" at
http://tr-cs855.blogspot.com/2008/08/satellite-communication-analysis-of.html
My response:
Yes, Bandit, developing the Panama Canal was one such example. They had funding and nationalistic zeal for the project when the French lost thousands to disease and poor working conditions.
Throwing people and money at a problem was insufficient. They had built their living quarters with lovely fountains that served as a home for disease carrying mosquitos.
Someone observed that they made progress when they focused on human resources issues and stopped killing the workforce with good intentions.
The PBS special entitled "A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama" illustrates that technological innovations, such as the movable railway track, and better working conditions combined with an understanding of the mosquito helped to address some fundamental obstacles to success.
The problem was simplified to the need to move over 50 miles of dirt, and adding a project manager with railway experienced addressed some of the problems.
Even with these accomplishments, another analogy of the engineering problem reminded me of building a sand castle. The sloping walls tend to continue to fall into the trough, and the Panama Canal was reported to require continual maintenance to address it.
By the way, the title of this rather wonderful PBS show is a palindrome, and similar to the word radar, is spelled the same, forwards and backwards.
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