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martedì 9 febbraio 2010

Seth's Blog : TEDthink

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TEDthink

Can you factor this?

x^2-4 x+4

If you're like most people, you get a little queasy at the thought. And when you were in tenth grade, you surely wondered why they were bothering you.

(the answer is (x-2) times (x-2), in case you were curious.)

It turns out that the real reason you needed to do this work was to be able to play with numbers in your head. Abstract numerical thought is an important skill among educated people.

Which brings us to TED, a conference held every year in Long Beach. It's going on right now.

Watch a few TED videos and try to get ahead of the speaker. They have an idea...it's probably a conceptual tricky idea, one with a lot of moving parts. And there is a lot of shorthand and arm waving ... basically, it's similar to a quadratic equation. If you need the other person to slow down and explain every little bit, you've missed the point. The point is to do abstract conceptual thought. To get in practice taking the accepted status quo and questioning it, at least for a little while, at least this or that part of it.

I think this is a skill, a rare one. The ability to be facile in the manipulation of ideas, both theoretical and established, is a valuable one, and I think the TED videos and art of reading books (at least the first ten minutes of each) are two great ways to getting better at manipulation of ideas. It takes practice, and it's worth it.

I sat in a meeting last week with someone who was 100% tactical. She couldn't let go of the urgency of the moment long enough to envision a different future, even for five minutes. The abstract conceptual part was missing from her part of the conversation.

The trick is to be able to leap to, "if we did A and B, would that get us C? Would C be a good thing? Is it possible to do A and B if we really commit?" and then move on to the next one. And that takes practice. Why wouldn't it?

BONUS: Hugh MacLeod, artist, good friend and creator of the cartoon above, has created four cube grenades about being a linchpin. These are limited editions, first come first shipped. (You can sign up for his free cartoon of the day).

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WebEcoist

Eyes on the Prize: A Super Bowl of Incredible Animal Vision

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 06:00 AM PST

[ By Chris in Animals & Habitats, Nature & Ecosystems, Science & Research. ]

(Images via: Sword Fishing Central, Molly O Brown, Kid Cyber, Take No Prisoners, One to Many, Xenophilius, Free Dog Listings)

Roger Daltrey of The Who once sang that he could "see for miles and miles." As the legendary British rockers prepare for tonight's halftime show of Super Bowl XLIV between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, we thought it would be fun to look at animals with some unique and cool eyesight of their own. Just as Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are known for incredible downfield vision, animals like sea urchins, hammerhead sharks and bees maintain visual skills that are quite eye-opening and advantageous in their fields of play.

Hammerhead Sharks: Presented in 360-Degree Stereo Vision

(Images via: Fanpop, Aero Design, Guzer, Genetic Archaeology)

While the Super Bowl plays out in high definition on many televisions throughout the United States, hammerhead sharks move out about the oceans with amazing, human-like stereo version. According to a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the T-shaped head formations of hammerhead sharks allow them to have a wider range of view and greater depth perception, potentially giving them a distinct advantage when tracking down speedy prey. In the study, researchers flashed arcs of light around the right and left eyes of hammerhead sharks and then recorded the shark's electrical activity via electrodes placed just under their corneas. The researchers learned that the hammerhead sharks had a three times higher overlap of what they could see in both their right and left eyes when compared to other sharks. The only downside for the hammerhead sharks is that they have bigger blind spots in front of their heads due to the larger distance between their eyes, which could explain why small schools of fish have been documented swimming safely in front of these mammoth creatures.

Sea Urchins: Eyeless but Not Powerless

(Images via: Midnight Sun School, Sheppard Software, Tree Hugger, Keealfian)

While sea urchins technically do not have eyes, they apparently "see" with their spines. As suggested by recent research at Duke University, sea urchins apparently interpret their surroundings from light that bounces off their spines. In the recent Duke study, 20 sea urchins were placed in a well-lit tank featuring two black discs of different sizes. While the sea urchins did not react to the smaller disc, they reacted differently to the beam intensity of the larger disc. Some of the urchins fled from the bigger disc while others moved closer to it. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested that sea urchins are capable of maintaining similar vision to the nautilus, horseshoe crab and other marine invertebrates with eyes, although sea urchin vision is still limited.

Bees: From the First Time They See Your Face

(Images via: P Base, Flickr, Flickr)

In another recent study detailed in the Journal of Experimental Biology, bees demonstrated the ability to recognize and remember human faces. French researchers first presented the bees with a simple image that represented a face, including two dots for eyes, a vertical dash for a nose and a horizontal line for a mouth, and rewarded the bees with droplets of sugar water went they went to the image. The researchers then removed the sugar water and presented other images with the dots, dash and line jumbled. Amazingly, the bees still went to the image that resembled the human face. However, when the researchers jumbled up the image of the human face, the bees did not know where to go, suggesting that they understand and use patterns to recognize humans in their environment.

Puppy Dogs: When Is It Pointless to Point?

(Images via: Daily Puppy, Dog Breed Info, Breeder Retriever, West Falen Collies)

If you own a puppy that just doesn't seem to be responding to your pointing and other training, you should avoid getting frustrated, according to recent findings in the journal Animal Behavior. In a study examining German shepherds, collies, Dachshunds, pointers and many other breeds of puppies, researchers learned that these young guys are unresponsive to pointing until they are at least 21 weeks old if not older. Apparently, dogs better understand pointing as they get older and gain more experience and familiarity with such visual cues. Similar findings have been documented in young chimpanzees and baby children as they age and start processing more information, showing that animals and humans are more alike than we sometimes think.

See-Through Frogs and Fish: Japan's Visual Gift to You

(Images via: Young Eager Minds, Day Life, The Sun, Digg)

While see-through frogs and fish may not have any extraordinary visual capabilities, they do provide humans a first-hand glimpse of amazing inner workings. In wake of controversies about dissecting animals, Japanese researchers have developed these see-through frogs and fish that are sans pigmentation, thus opening a window to the brain, heart and other organs. Interestingly, the researchers say that these see-through fish can live up to 20 years, thus letting us see how organs evolve over lifetimes. Since the see-through frogs are higher forms of life than the see-through fish, they are more preferable for scientific study and research. Whatever the case, both the see-through frogs and see-through fish are certainly cool to look at.

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[ WebEcoist - By Chris in Animals & Habitats, Nature & Ecosystems, Science & Research. ]

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Seth's Blog : Frightened, clueless or uninformed?

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Frightened, clueless or uninformed?

In the face of significant change and opportunity, people are often one of the three. If you're going to be of assistance, it helps to know which one.

Uninformed people need information and insight in order to figure out what to do next. They are approaching the problem with optimism and calm, but they need to be taught. Uninformed is not a pejorative term, it's a temporary state.

Clueless people don't know what to do and they don't know that they don't know what to do. They don't know the right questions to ask. Giving them instructions is insufficient. First, they need to be sold on what the platform even looks like.

And frightened people will resist any help you can give them, and they will blame you for the stress the change is causing. Scared people like to shoot the messenger. Duck.

The worst kind of frightened person is one with power. Someone in a mob of other frightened people, someone with a gun, someone who is the CEO. When confronted with a scared CEO, time to run. Before someone can change, they have to learn, and before they learn, they have to cease being scared.

One reason so many big ideas come from small organizations is that there is far less fear of change at the top. One mistake board members and shareholders make is that they reward the scared but hyper-confident CEO, instead of calling him on the carpet as he rages at change.

When I first encountered surfing, I was scared of it. It looks cool, but an old guy like me can get hurt. A patient instructor allayed my fears until I was willing to get started. When you first start out, the things you think are important are actually irrelevant, and it's the stuff you don't know is important that gets you thrown into the ocean. Finally, and only then, was I smart enough to actually learn.

I'm bad at surfing now, but at least I know why.

Comfort the frightened, coach the clueless and teach the uninformed.