I watched two TED talks on a flight yesterday, and then realized there were some old TED notes that I still hadn’t published. So here they are, in their scattered and collective glory. Some notes are thorough, and others are – at best – just passing scribbles.
Also, here’s my collection of 100+ TED talk notes. I haven’t updated this page in more than a year, but the notes (and talks themselves) are mostly evergreen.
Samina Ali: What Quran says about a Muslim woman’s hijab
- 600AD – when woman awoke in middle of night, had to walk into dangerous territories to use restroom, group of men began to attack
- if a woman wore a coat (status symbol) the woman was free and protected by her clan
- if she dressed freely (didn’t wear a coat), or men knew she was a slave, men attacked her
- Mohammed learned of situation, turned to God, and his verses were revealed
- “draw upon yourselves the garments, so that she not be known, and molested”
- idea was to have a conservative, uniform look among women, to make it hard to distinguish free from slave
- in modern times, if wearing a veil leads to harassment, then it actually goes against the roots of why veils arose
- The Qu’ran is 114 chapters and 6000+ verses
- Only 3 refer to a woman’s dress: the one above, a second specifically about the Prophet’s wives, and a third which is specific to that time’s context – a scarf to wear on the head, which would cover exposed breasts
- There is no mention of a woman’s veil
- What “hijab” really means is “a barrier”, “a divide”, between human and divine, or between men and women
- Women played an important and strong role in early Islamic and Arabic culture
- Mohammed’s first wife was a successful CEO, import/export, hired Mohammed and eventually she proposed to him
- His second wife rode into battle
- Early women demanded to be part of Mohammed’s revolution
- They even publicly debated with Mohammed himself
- At that time, custom was for woman to select her husband, propose, and initiate divorce
- Today, why does hijab = Muslim women, seclusion & isolation?
- This isn’t an accident
- Islamic clerics are responsible; they twisted and added words to Mohammed’s original verses (eg, they specified that the garment would be a veil, and exactly how long that veil should be)
- They issued fatwas = legal rulings
- Today Muslim women are heavily discriminated against
- A woman only need finish elementary school
- A woman must fulfill physical obligation to husband
- Islam forbids a woman from wearing a bra
- Sounds erotic, misogynous fantasy
Tom Chi: Everything is connected
- Story of the Heart – blood transports hemoglobin and center of hemoglobin is iron; only way iron is created is supernovas, stars forming and exploding; most common formation of new stars is galactic collision, which itself is driven by gravity at the galactic level
- Story of the Breath – 3B years ago, 80% nitrogen, not enough oxygen, but cyanobacteria came to rescue; slowly ozone layer forms, then multicellular life forms, then Cambrian Explosion; cyanobacteria descendants became chloroplasts in plants
- Story of the Mind – piano invented in 1700; pianists use many parts of their brain to play; the piano, its brain patterns and music it produces, was not a thinkable thought until it was invented; like inventing a new color, like inventing computer science
- “palette of being”
- all spiritual positions have this same concept of connectedness
Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers
- They’re quick to start, slow to finish
- There’s a procrastination sweet spot for creativity, not too much, not too little
- MLK’s famous “I have a dream” line for his speech wasn’t in his speech notes, it was likely improvised!
- First mover advantage is largely a myth, improvers (followers) have a 5x lower failure rate
- The opposite of deja vu is vujas de – surprising new idea and insight from seeing some old unoriginal thing in a new light
- Firefox and Chrome users more creative than IE users, when normalizing for other variables because of one reason: they don’t accept the default (eg, IE comes pre-installed so it’s about questioning what you’re given and making a conscious choice)
- Classical composers – one of the best predictors of success was sheer quantity of composition, how much output
Yuval Harari: Why humans run the world, a recap of his book Sapiens
- What enables us to cooperate in such large numbers, and thus what separates us from every other species, is our imagination. Fictional stories from capitalism to religion
- All about “flexible cooperation in large numbers”
- Kevin’s note: this is the same as Karen Armstrong’s point that our chief religious faculty is imagination
Here are my highlights from reading Sapiens.
Amy Lockwood: Selling condoms in the Congo
- The Congo is 2/3 the size of Western Europe
- Sex workers’ hotel manager doesn’t sell condoms, there’s no demand, only 3% of DRC uses them
- Despite similar prices and plenty of marketing, people don’t buy branded condoms, only generic
- Branded messages: FEAR, FINANCING, FIDELITY
- Generic messages: all about sex, nudity / sexuality, provocative, aspirational
JJ Abrams: The Mystery Box
- Loved his grandfather who opened and studied electronics
- Obsessed with letter printing and book binding
- Loves boxes, even took apart his hotel’s Kleenex box
- Was gifted a Super 8 camera at 10 years old
- Bought Tannen’s Mystery Magic Box a long time ago, never opened it, memory of his grandfather
- Damon Lindelof and him created Lost, had 11 weeks after writing to making a 2 hour pilot
- What are stories but mystery boxes?
- In TV the first act is called the teaser: “withholding information intentionally”
- ET: you think it’s alien meets kids; but ET is really about heartbreaking divorce, same with Die Hard
- Jaws: really about a guy dealing with his place in the world
- Father to son: “C’mon…give us a kiss”. “Why?”. “Because I need it.”
- The movie theater is another mystery box
Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator
- Wrote a 90 page senior thesis in 3 days – was a terrible experience
- Started waitbutwhy
- Wrote about procrastination because it confused him
- The Instant Gratification Monkey only cares about 2 things: what’s EASY and FUN
- Dark playground – where leisure happens when it shouldn’t happen
- Procrastinator has a guardian angel: The Panic Monster
- The Panic Monster lies dormant until a deadline, or embarrassment, or career disaster
- Everyone’s a procrastinator
- The Monkey’s sneakiest trick is when the deadline isn’t there
- “frustration isn’t that you’re not able to achieve your dreams, it’s that you’re not even able to start chasing them”
Tony Fadell: The first secret of great design
- Steve Jobs hated when you opened a new gadget, and then you had to charge it before using
- So he increased manufacturing time from 30 minutes to 2 hours to fully charge the battery so that when a customer opened the box, the gadget was ready to use
- Habituation is incredibly powerful, but also because of it, you miss great opportunities
- Built a custom screw for the Nest thermostat; it’s expensive, but easier to install on the wall
- “Think younger”, kids haven’t been around long enough to be exposed to habits
- “Stay beginners”