B-List

Another selection of interesting TED talks...

1. "Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html>
"Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather
than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that
a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider
'real' value -- and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how
we look at life."

2. "William Ury: The walk from 'no' to 'yes'"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/william_ury.html>
"William Ury, author of 'Getting to Yes', offers an elegant, simple (but
not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations
-- from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East."

3. "Martin Seligman on positive psychology"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html>
"Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it
works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves
beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to
become?"

4. "Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_pagel_how_language_transformed_humanity.html>
"Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans
evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a
piece of "social technology" that allowed early human tribes to access
a powerful new tool: cooperation."

5. "Eli Pariser: Beware online 'filter bubbles'"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html>
"As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and
search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended
consequence: We get trapped in a 'filter bubble' and don't get exposed
to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli
Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for
us and bad for democracy."

6. "Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html>
"Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for -- and
increasingly controlled by -- algorithms. In this riveting talk from
TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine:
espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And
he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications
we can't control."

7. "Robert Lang folds way-new origami"
  <http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html>
"Robert Lang is a pioneer of the newest kind of origami -- using math
and engineering principles to fold mind-blowingly intricate designs that
are beautiful and, sometimes, very useful."


About TED:
  <http://www.ted.com/pages/about>
"TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out
(in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds:
Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever
broader."

Previous TED Talk Picks:
  <http://b-list.blogspot.com/2011/05/ted-talk-picks.html>