Tag - ted

TEDx Vancouver

November 16, 2011
John Koetsier
news

Aaron Coret & Stephen SlenI had the great privilege of going to TEDx Vancouver this past weekend …

It was in UBC‘s Chan Centre, a great venue – although it’s hard to sit anywhere for 8 hours or so of lectures. But TED talks are generally awesome, and these did not disappoint.

(If you don’t know what TED is, stop everything, go here, and watch a few videos. Short form: Technology, Entertainment, Design.)

My favorite sessions:

  • Aaron Coret & Stephen Slen
    After Aaron broke his neck snowboarding, they invented an airbag for snowboarders that saves lives and was used in the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies (yeah, I was in those opening ceremonies). Very cool, very courageous, very inspiring.

  • Christopher Gaze
    Wow. If you love language, you have to love Christopher. He loves the bard, Shakespeare, and does an amazing job explaining, no, demonstrating why.

  • Dr. Kate Moran
    How about the internet in the ocean? She’s doing it … very cool.

  • Romeo Dallaire
    The Canadian leader of the UN force in Rwanda during the genocide, who had his hands tied by UN rules, was forced to basically watch the atrocities, and wrote a book about it later: Shake Hands with the Devil.

  • Jer Thorp
    Wow. Amazing data visualizations with the NY Times and other organizations.

  • Victor Lucas
    Victor was announced as talking about 3-D. Turns out he was introducing the 3D rules he wrote in a letter to his unborn daughter:

    • Don’t be a dick
    • Don’t hang around with dicks
    • Don’t dick around

All in all: a great day. A few of my shots:

It's perfectly illegal

August 5, 2008
John Koetsier
news

I just let the kids watch Gever Tulley’s video 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kid Do. One of them is driving your car.

Immediately Aidan, our 5 year old, asked if he could drive my car tomorrow. I said no, maybe on Saturday, though. Right away he went off to Teresa and told her that Daddy had said that he could drive the car on Saturday.

When that statement was greeted with a somewhat strained silence, he added with great assurance: “it’s perfectly illegal!”

Here’s the video. Enjoy!

[ update August 21 ]

So I did it – I let Aidan (5) and Ethan (8) drive my Mini. Kind of gave my heart a good workout.

I found a nice parking lot, let them sit in the driver’s seat (I actually had to sit behind them) and drive the car. Ethan freaked me out when he pushed the gas pedal hard, but fortunately we were still in Park. Of course, they loved it, and maybe we’ll try it again sometime … in a decade or so.