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You are here: Home / Open Threads / A TED talk for the rest of us

A TED talk for the rest of us

by Soonergrunt|  October 27, 201311:16 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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A lot of people around here bag on the TED talks.  And for good reason.  They tend to be pretentious, overly wrought, and filled with ideas that don’t actually solve real problems for real people.  Occasionally, however, there are some gems that are worth considering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHxTKj6TdN8

It’s a beautiful day outside, and I have stuff to do, so here’s an open thread for a while.

It occurs to me that this idea could successfully be used at teabagger rallies.

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    October 27, 2013 at 11:25 am

    I tweeted that shiznatch. Nice catch.

  2. 2.

    Anoniminous

    October 27, 2013 at 11:39 am

    TED talks are the Silicon Valley version of high school pep rallies … plus PowerPoint.

  3. 3.

    Keith P.

    October 27, 2013 at 11:43 am

    The end of the zombie fad cannot come soon enough.

  4. 4.

    raycharles 90

    October 27, 2013 at 11:48 am

    What the fuck has meet the depressed turned into? I have watched its decline for some time but, today was the last straw. Having a round table discussion on the aca website roll out with the frothy mixture that is the former senator. Then there is not enough time to finish that discussion because they needed to discuss the horrors of teenagers at parties.

    I’m done, we’re fucked.

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 27, 2013 at 11:52 am

    @raycharles 90: Look at its ratings. We’re not as fucked as you fear.

  6. 6.

    Violet

    October 27, 2013 at 11:53 am

    @raycharles 90: Posted this in an earlier thread, but my local NBC station seems to have pushed MTP to a later time. It used to come on right after the weekend Today Show, but lately they seem to have put other things in its place–this morning the Today Show was followed with another round of local news and then some football show (I think the local team is playing today) and finally they got around to MTP. This isn’t the first time.

    I think it points to bad ratings. The local stations aren’t obligated to show it at the traditional time, I guess. If it had good ratings they wouldn’t move it because they’d lose viewers who were expecting it. I think they’re trying other shows to see if their ratings are better.

  7. 7.

    The Pale Scot

    October 27, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    Molly Worthan some how gets into the NYT:

    Single Mothers With Family Values

    The left has recast marriage not as a lifelong contract, but as a civil right, a choice, one of many paths to empowerment. An old-fashioned covenant that binds two people in mutual submission sits uneasily in a secular ideology that holds personal autonomy as the highest good.

    Ya, anyone who doesn’t agree with fundie patriarchy is a lefty, funny how that mutual submission thing goes.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    October 27, 2013 at 12:05 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    Reminds me of that old canard:

    In marriage, man and woman become one — and the man is the one.

  9. 9.

    gogol's wife

    October 27, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    Do you mean “overwrought”? Because I don’t know what “overly wrought” means.

  10. 10.

    piratedan

    October 27, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    @Keith P.: at times I think we should have gone straight into hypnotoad mode :-)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AOfbnGkuGc

  11. 11.

    Soonergrunt

    October 27, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    @gogol’s wife: it’s my own word. It means “even more overwrought than overwrought.” :P

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 27, 2013 at 12:20 pm

    @piratedan: Nine minutes and 49 seconds of that? Awesome.

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    October 27, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I know, anything worth doing….. :-) about as informative as watching Meet The Press

  14. 14.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 27, 2013 at 12:23 pm

    Health care.gov is in good paws now. The media denizens should stop pretending like they are IT experts and get off their fainting couches now.

  15. 15.

    sacrablue

    October 27, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    @Violet: Our NBC station airs it at 6 am, when nobody is watching television on a Sunday morning. That must help a lot with ratings.

  16. 16.

    Yatsuno

    October 27, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    “I have a husband. His name is Jesus Christ. I have decided that he will be my daughter’s father, and she has grown up being told that God is her father. He is real in our house,”

    Mon Dieu.

  17. 17.

    gogol's wife

    October 27, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    Okay — because the TED talks I’ve seen are kind of underly wrought, using “wrought” in the old sense of “fashioned”!

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 27, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    @Yatsuno: So…. She’s a nun?

  19. 19.

    gogol's wife

    October 27, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    NewsMax headline — “Christie’s Cardiologist: He’s Fit To Serve.”

    We’ll be the judge of that.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 27, 2013 at 12:32 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Maybe he meant it in the cookbook sense.

  21. 21.

    srv

    October 27, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    @raycharles 90: You just don’t appreciate the wrought of manfluence.

  22. 22.

    mai naem

    October 27, 2013 at 12:41 pm

    @Violet: Couldn’t have happened to a better host. I can’t remember who it was, but I do remember seeing Gregory be tough on one conservative(Rand Paul?Paul Ryan?),but otherwise he’ just does not grill the GOP guests. Watching his last week, he just let Maria Baritiromo go on without correcting her.

    I was flipping channels the other night and I ran across this show “Locked Up Abroad” and it’s not the MSNBC filler show. This stupid naive 18 yr old Texas girl got caught up in a one time heroin smuggling deal in Bangladesh and ended up doing 4 years in the 90s. Apparently, then Congressman Bill Richardson got involved and got her pardoned. I guess her Texas pols couldn’t help her??

  23. 23.

    gogol's wife

    October 27, 2013 at 12:44 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “To Serve Mankind.”

  24. 24.

    Yatsuno

    October 27, 2013 at 12:48 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Umm…if he’s that fit to serve then why does he have a cardiologist in the first place? I never had to see one until I developed tachycardia (I was fine, it was stress related) so something ain’t passing the smell test here. Not to mention heart issues are only one concern with being morbidly obese.

  25. 25.

    muddy

    October 27, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    @Baud: When you only see one set of footprints, it is because you are carrying him. Meanwhile, he sees how deep the footprints are and tells you to lose weight.

    Easy diet, 180# melts right off.

  26. 26.

    Poopyman

    October 27, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    Speaking of words and Newsmax headlines, “Meghan McCain: Dad ‘Down-Trodden’ Over State of GOP”.

    That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

  27. 27.

    muddy

    October 27, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    @Soonergrunt: I thought it had to do with overly intricate metal work.

  28. 28.

    ice weasel

    October 27, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    ” lot of people around here bag on the TED talks. And for good reason. They tend to be pretentious, overly wrought, and filled with ideas that don’t actually solve real problems for real people.”

    You forgot one. Chris Anderson is an enormous douche.

  29. 29.

    mai naem

    October 27, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @gogol’s wife: I saw a clip of Sanjay Gupta’s interview with Cheney where it comes out that Cheney got a clean bill of cardiac health from Dr. Denton Cooley(the guy who did the first US heart transplant) but Cooley never actually saw him.

  30. 30.

    muddy

    October 27, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @Yatsuno: Maybe it’s the same cardiologist Cheney has, who never mentioned there could be mental issues to do with heart failure and numerous surgeries.

    ETA: I mean Cheney “says” the doc never mentioned it to him. Clearly it’s the evil one who is most likely to be lying.

  31. 31.

    muddy

    October 27, 2013 at 12:57 pm

    @mai naem: He has a practice with Bill Frist. It’s like a modern housecall, entirely at a distance due to the wonders of modern technology. Or maybe more like a seance.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    October 27, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    @Yatsuno: Christie has more specialists that most people. link

  33. 33.

    gene108

    October 27, 2013 at 1:56 pm

    Anybody watching Sleepy Hollow on Fox? I’m catching up with On Demand episodes. Part of me wants to like the show, because it is different. Part of me thinks they are asking too much of my disbelief to be suspended.

    In episode 2 a squad car goes missing and no one notices? Corpse goes missing from the morgue and no one notices?

    The police force in this small town, somewhere in the Hudson Valley, is freakin’ huge? And is it run by the Sheriff’s department or is there a city police force, i.e. did Captain Irving out rank the Sheriff, who died in Episode 1?

    Why does a Sheriff’s department have a Lieutenant Mills and not a Deputy Mills? Why did this Lieutenant go from being a uniformed member of the Sheriff’s department to a plain clothes cop after the Sheriff’s death? Also, why has no one replaced the Sheriff or even appointed an interim-Sheriff?

    When a story’s premise requires the massive suspension of disbelief to accept it, I get irked when they go about expecting me to suspend my disbelief on the little things that are supposed to be normal like they are in the real world.

    I’m not sure, if I’m willing to give the show a chance because of this. So much of the show so far seems to revolve around the law enforcement, they should at least make that bit of structure follow some sort of logic, either internal to the show or likely to happen in the real world.

    When The X-Files started, they had their own internal logic on how their version of the FBI was organized, with respect to Moulder and Scully and how it would fit in with the larger organization, because the main characters were FBI agents.

    I wish Sleepy Hollow would do the same.

  34. 34.

    Yatsuno

    October 27, 2013 at 1:59 pm

    @JPL: I think Governour Christie looks tired. Don’t you think he looks tired? Maybe he just needs a nice long rest.

    /worked for the Doctor

  35. 35.

    John Weiss

    October 27, 2013 at 3:32 pm

    @gogol’s wife: It’s “To Serve Man”. I think it was a short shorty by Damon Knight published in the ‘sixties and appeared on the ‘Twilight Zone.

  36. 36.

    gogol's wife

    October 27, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    @John Weiss:

    Yes, I just was doing it by memory. Too lazy to google.

  37. 37.

    Joseph Nobles

    October 27, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    @Yatsuno: Can we call that Delta Dawn Syndrome?

  38. 38.

    Ramboman

    October 27, 2013 at 9:41 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Well, it goes like this:
    Overly means more than necessary
    Wrought means twisted, as in: wrought iron

    Putting these together, we get the combined phrase meaning twisted more than necessary, or as one might say in the vernacular when applied to ideas, unduly complicated.

    Wasn’t such a leap, was it?

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