What They Found

I just stumbled on a new, TED-like site, Fora.tv.  According to Fora’s about page,

“FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart. Our users find, enjoy, and share videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world.

We gather the web’s largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world’s top universities, think tanks and conferences. We present this provocative, big-idea content for anyone to watch, interact with, and share –when, where, and how they want.

With our community of savvy users and an extensive, growing library of smart videos, FORA.tv is at the forefront of the ongoing integration - and transformation – of the traditional media, TV, cable, and online industries from mass-market to high-quality, high-value content.”

Plenty of nosh for your noggin.  Coincidentally, here’s another talk by Ken Robinson about learning to be creative and encouraging creativity in all walks of life.  The topics range from creativity, passion, and education, to  standardized testing,  climate change, and industrialization.  It’s a good listen, but about an hour and a half long, so hunker down for the long haul or listen till you’re bored, whichever comes first.

Another fascinating talk from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) series, which focuses on innovative ideas from creative thinkers, all free for the viewing.  Clearly barking up my tree, she discusses how much food has shaped  society and cities past and present, from Rome to London, and how the advent of industrialization, mass transportation, and other food technologies divorced cities from nature, leading to a direct relationship between the growth of non-organic cities and the devaluation of food in society.  Interesting how the earliest city shown actually resembled an animal cell, its size and growth dependent on constraints of resources, and the cities post-industrialization resembled cancerous growths, countless reproductions of houses, growing ceaselessly and without regard for original function and resource-balanced homeostasis, choking out the land they depend on.  It made me smile to recognize  her descriptions of permaculture before she actually said the word, and it caught me off guard hearing it discussed outside of a permie environment(the second TED talk I’ve heard make mention so far).  Enjoy some…wait for it…food…for thought.

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