Brainpickings.org: #TED conference highlights

Suspended animation, augmented reality, and what sheep’s knuckles have to do with the future of cultural problem-solving. Session 4: Reason; Session 5: Provocation; Session 6: Invention; Session 7: Breakthrough.

What one pound of tuna has to do with five years of chocolate milk, spider silk and a ukulele. Session 1: Mindshift; Session 2: Discovery; Session 3: Action and The TED Prize heroes. This concluded a riveting first day, beautifully curated to ever-so-subtly-yet-powerfully illuminate the intricate connection between food, health and social policy.

Solid sand, the art of curation, why doing nothing matters, and how to get 700 of the world’s smartest people singing. The final day of TEDGlobal in images and soundbites — the closing of a truly phenomenal experience. On a personal note, the TED experience has been every bit as invigorating, inspiring and incredible as expected, and then some.

Hip hop for peace, hot air balloons, and stereotypes. Day 3 of TEDGlobal in images and soundbites, plus a glimpse of an electrifying surprise performance at the afterparty.

Optical illusions, aquatic apes, and the sweat of genius. The second day of TEDGlobal offered an endless flurry of brilliance, and we have the photos to prove it.

Tiny objects, supermassive holes, and everything in between. Coming from anyone else, an event titled The Substance of Things Not Seen would come off as anything from wishy-washy to obnoxiously self-important. But it’s coming from TED — it’s the title of this year’s TEDGlobal conference, which opened today in Oxford, and it’s the kind of brave and aspirational promise only TED can make, and only TED can deliver on.

There’s no secret we’re huge TED fans over here. Today, we’re excited to announce a pet project of our very own, paying tribute to TED — TEDify.org, an audio-visual experiment connecting the dots between TED talks to make those bigger social and cultural points. The first episode deals with the relationship between three of today’s most culturally relevant issues: The role of design, the idea of sustainability, and our collective capacity for change.

Lots and lots (and lots) of brilliance, wrapped in fascination and tied with a shiny ribbon of sheer jaw-droppingness. Despite our sleep-deprived state, we managed to live-blog our way through another day of TED. Well, sort of — the guys at Long Beach had severe technical difficulties on their end, which sort of reduced TED to ED for a couple of hours.

A cultural dialogue on sex, Bill Gates releases more bugs into the world, and lots of caffeine. But perhaps the most noteworthy of the day’s wildcards was a short cameo by professional jaw-dropper Cindy Gallop, who unveiled her new site, MakeLoveNotPorn.com — a humorously framed yet enormously culturally ambitious project that takes the myths of pornography and balances them with the reality of sex.