Roadside Assistance v TED

I spend a lot of my time as pictured above (way too much): on the side of some backwoods road, praying that someone will eventually stop, and that someone will know a little something about cars. Usually, this does not happen, and McGyver tactics are employed to reach the closest pueblo.

Though probably best not to go into all details, the latest escapades take the cake. A mix of anger, frustration, hopelessness and the feeling of life wasting away beyond your control, lost to the hands of mechanics somewhere on a mountain road, only to achieve nothing; the van got left behind, the story unfinished.

As this uselessness plodded its course, TED talks in all their eclectic shapes and sizes filled rooms in Oxford, wrapping up yesterday. (If by some chance you are not familiar with TED, please take the time to at least download some talks from their rad site, or through their itunes podcast).

After gaining interest from my homey Jenny Stefanotti's Twitter feed from the conference, I went looking for more info (she started blogging again, fyi).

Ethan Zuckerman won. Ethan, who runs an unbelievably informative blog (that, admittedly, often flies over my head on the technology side of things), took it upon himself to do what appears to be live summaries of most of the talks. They are currently the first 40 posts or so, and well worth the read.

From Tan Le's helmet that can allow brains to accomplish tasks without using the body, to Wikileaks - a site i can't believe I didn't know about - that publishes leaked documents at rates that make journos shake their heads, to encouraging accounting for human rights in the supply chain, and even making origami out of hate mail received after starting a campaign called 'From 52 to 48 with love' that encourages caring dialogue between regular Dem and Rep people and putting said origami on plants or cats. (see below)

If you're in the mood for stimulation, reading Ethan's summary notes will certainly teach you something you didn't already know.

Guaranteed cooler than being stuck in small towns with Mexican mechanics.