Posts Tagged TED

Global Village construction set – TED talk

Nov 15

Posted by sheffner in economic and political philosophy, science & technology | Comments off

Ivan Illich wrote Deschooling Society in 1971. In it, he suggested that the cars 90% of the people of the world really need, are not hi-tech, but lo-tech – cars, trucks, simple forms of transport that can handle the rough, unpaved roads (for example) and that are easily repaired with tools and parts that the local people either have to hand or can easily find. Well, that is the principle this young farmer/engineer/inventor has picked up and run with.

Global Village Construction Set – TED Talk from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

And here is a follow-up:

Shuttleworth Fellowship – Personal Introduction from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

Tags: TED

Is Being an Entrepreneur in Your DNA? | LinkedIn

Jul 6

Posted by sheffner in teaching + learning | Comments off

Would you believe it? A college finds that college courses are useful and necessary. Who’d a thunk? Is the Pope Catholic?

Is being an entrepreneur in your DNA, or can it be taught? A new study from Babson College finds the evidence is “overwhelming” that if business students take at least two core entrepreneurship classes, that can “positively influence” them to go on to start up a business.

Professors at the Wellesley, Massachusetts-based college analyzed a survey of some 3,755 alumni and found that two (“or better yet three”) entrepreneurship classes strongly affected students’ decisions to pursue start-ups, and that writing a student business plan also had some influence, though not as strong.

Is Being an Entrepreneur in Your DNA? | LinkedIn.

There is evidence that entrepreneurs don’t do well in school, but you won’t find that discussed in the article.

This is a false dichotomy. The writer thinks there are only two possibilities: either it’s in your blood, it’s innate, or it is taught in a college course. What about apprenticeships? Or mentors? No. None of that. It’s either DNA or college. No other possibilities.

And in the third paragraph, the article makes the predictable but unfounded leap from “entrepreneurship CAN be taught (in college)” to “it SHOULD be taught”. Surprise, surprise. Also notice the stress on reducing risk, a typical professorial attitude.

Why learn entrepreneurship from a professor who has never entrepreneured anything in his life?

“It’s time to cast off the prejudiced question, ‘Why teach entrepreneurship?,’ because we now have excellent empirical evidence that it makes a difference. We think that entrepreneurship should be taught not only for the production and training of entrepreneurs but also to help students decide if they have the right stuff to be entrepreneurs before they embark on careers for which they may be ill-suited,” the professors wrote in the study, called “Does An Entrepreneurship Education Have Lasting Value? A Study of Careers of 3,775 Alumni.”

I don’t deny that entrepreneurship can be taught. Cameron Herold’s dad taught him (see the TED talk on the video below). I just don’t believe that college courses can teach entrepreneurship.

What’s next? Maybe college courses to teach selflessness and community spirit?

Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, TED

The Remnant Sings!

Apr 5

Posted by sheffner in culture and communication, science & technology | 1 Comment

Gary North has a knack for finding media items – videos, commercials, emails from forum members, articles in professional journals or newspapers – and greatly adding to their initial value through his cogent comments, insights and creative suggestions. The link below is to an article that is an exception: in this case, Dr. North has found a TED video that is truly stunning and stands head and shoulders above any kind of commentary (even Dr. North’s, altho he gives it a run for its money). This video is entrancing and makes a powerful statement all on its own. Watching this, I felt the truth of the words of guitarist John McLaughlin, “The true language of the human spirit is music.”

You are about to see a video that will amaze you. I want you to view it. This will take 15 minutes. Do it on your own time. It isn’t going anywhere.

via The Remnant Sings!.

Tags: Gary North, Internet, music, TED, video, youtube

I, Toaster

Jan 15

Posted by sheffner in economic and political philosophy, humour | Comments off

I, Pencil is a classic essay which instructs not only on the manufacturing process of even a “simple” product like a pencil but also on the free-market and capitalist system that alone allows such a complicated process to run efficiently.

A young Brit, Thomas Thwaites, decided to see if it really is impossible for a 21st-century man, alone, to make even a simple, cheap, product such as a toaster. An entrepreneur I know is always advising people to keep a record of what they do and to create an instructional video or website, possibly a business, out of it. Thwaites kept a record of his attempts to build his own toaster, from scratch.

Check it out. (H/T Mises.org)

Tags: TED, video

How to raise entrepreneurs (TED talk)

Jul 3

Posted by sheffner in teaching + learning | Comments off

Cameron Herold didn’t do well in school. Fortunately, his dad knew what to do about that.

Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, TED, video

The magnificent man and his computing machine

Mar 27

Posted by sheffner in science & technology | Comments off

: Image via Wikipedia

TED talks are well-known, and rightly so. I’ve seen a few, and almost always been impressed, moved, amazed – at human ingenuity, intelligence, creativity. But even with the bar this high, Pranav Mistry’s presentation on his “SixthSense” technology takes the biscuit. Time and again, the audience erupts in spontaneous applause, and gave him a standing ovation at the end of it. What he is making computers do is mind-boggling, and you see him doing it right before your eyes: playing a computer game on the floor of a subway train – the floor of the train is the computer “screen”; projecting his computer screen onto a piece of paper, the wall of the room, any flat surface.

I’m too old to be starry-eyed about the utopian possibilities of this technology (somebody somewhere is no doubt already dreaming up ways of using this technology to commit violence or instill terror or enslave fellow humans), but I have to admit, I’m impressed.