TED talks

I think I'm a late comer to the table to share what TED is all about. No, I'm not talking about the bear movie. I'm talking about the 'fountain' of knowledge and inspiration of geeks. The TED talk site composes of thousands of video clips of intellectuals of different streams talking to audiences with powerpoint on all sorts of interesting topics that geeks would love.

I heard of TED about 6 months ago but didn't really seek it out till last week. I downloaded a bunch of them via Podcast on my iPhone, mostly about technology, science, society and culture, and started watching few of them. Wow! what I've missed all these months!!! These talks are just great, they are not as long as those on iTunes U, but they are equally educational, inspiring and interesting.

When I look at those TED speakers, I see the 'cream' of our human races. Since most of them are Americans or Brits (at least what I've seen so far), their existence just another proof that the U.S. or the West in general, still have an upper hand than the rest of the world in terms of education or simply human intellectual advancement. One of my funny afterthoughts is that, if the end of the world is really coming and if we do have time to prepare, like building an ark as in the movie 2012, these TED speakers got to be on the ark. They deserve to live for the protection or maintenance of our human intelligence and advancement for future.

Anyway, I'm not gonna drill down into all the TED talks that I've watched so far, but few of them are just amazing. I saw a talk which is about bio mimicry. It illustrated 12 different approaches being adopted by different scientists in the development of more 'green', self-sustaining and enriching model of technology which aim to use our limited earth resources for the good of our population growth and development. Namely, getting inspiration from biology, creatures of our nature, to do things the 'natural' way - achieving results and cut down wastes in the meantime. Another one is 5 minutes talk hosted by a survivor of a plane crash who reminded us what is really important to us as a human, like just do things we should do, and don't wait, and be a good parent. They sound simple, but many truths are just simple but feel people really take them into their heart. Another inspirational one is by a computer programmer to set out doing a new thing for 30 days. He was not talking about something extremely difficult, but something that's doable, like writing a book, take a picture everyday, etc. I'm not sure if I will do that myself for real, but at least, it got me thinking, which is valuable enough for now.

I enjoy TED very much and it is exactly what I need these days - to be inspired. Thanks TED, thanks those speakers, and thanks internet! Rock on!!!!

A Great Public Speech

Let's learn how to make a great speech:

Transcript of Bill Clinton's remarks

A transcript of former President Bill Clinton's remarks Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, as provided by the Democratic Party:

By The Associated Press

---
We're here to nominate a president, and I've got one in mind.

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

In Tampa, we heard a lot of talk about how the president and the Democrats don't believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's right? Well, since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals. I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.
Through my foundation, in America and around the world, I work with Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are focused on solving problems and seizing opportunities, not fighting each other.
When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. All of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. They think government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican secretaries of defense, the army and transportation. He appointed a vice president who ran against him in 2008, and trusted him to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. And Joe Biden did a great job with both. He appointed Cabinet members who supported Hillary in the primaries. Heck, he even appointed Hillary. I'm so proud of her and grateful to our entire national security team for all they've done to make us safer and stronger and to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I'm also grateful to the young men and women who serve our country in the military and to Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for supporting military families when their loved ones are overseas and for helping our veterans, when they come home bearing the wounds of war, or needing help with education, housing, and jobs.

President Obama's record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

He also tried to work with congressional Republicans on health care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn't work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their No. 1 priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.

Senator, I hate to break it to you, but we're going to keep President Obama on the job.

In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president's re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

In order to look like an acceptable alternative to President Obama, they couldn't say much about the ideas they have offered over the last two years. You see they want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they'll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor kids. As another president once said- there they go again.

I like the argument for President Obama's re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Are we where we want to be? No. Is the president satisfied? No. Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month. The answer is yes.

I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it.

I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working and the economy was growing but most people didn't feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No president- not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you'll renew the President's contract you will feel it.
I believe that with all my heart.

President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

So back to the story. In 2010, as the president's recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around.

The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the president's jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, congressional Republicans zero.
Over that same period, more than more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama- the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

The auto industry restructuring worked. It saved more than a million jobs, not just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships, but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country. That's why even auto-makers that weren't part of the deal supported it. They needed to save the suppliers too. Like I said, we're all in this together.

Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Gov. Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama 250,000, Romney, zero.

The agreement the administration made with management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage over the next few years is another good deal: it will cut your gas bill in half, make us more energy independent, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and add another 500,000 good jobs.

President Obama's "all of the above" energy plan is helping too- the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near 20 year low and natural gas production to an all-time high. Renewable energy production has also doubled.

We do need more new jobs, lots of them, but there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in America today, mostly because the applicants don't have the required skills. We have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are being created in a world fueled by new technology. That's why investments in our people are more important than ever. The president has supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for open jobs in their communities. And, after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the drop-out rate so much that we've fallen to 16th in the world in the percentage of our young adults with college degrees, his student loan reform lowers the cost of federal student loans and even more important, gives students the right to repay the loans as a fixed percentage of their incomes for up to 20 years. That means no one will have to drop-out of college for fear they can't repay their debt, and no one will have to turn down a job, as a teacher, a police officer or a small town doctor because it doesn't pay enough to make the debt payments. This will change the future for young Americans.

I know we're better off because President Obama made these decisions.

That brings me to health care.

The Republicans call it Obamacare and say it's a government takeover of health care that they'll repeal. Are they right? Let's look at what's happened so far. Individuals and businesses have secured more than a billion dollars in refunds from their insurance premiums because the new law requires 80 percent to 85 pecent of your premiums to be spent on health care, not profits or promotion. Other insurance companies have lowered their rates to meet the requirement. More than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents can now carry them on family policies. Millions of seniors are receiving preventive care including breast cancer screenings and tests for heart problems. Soon the insurance companies, not the government, will have millions of new customers many of them middle class people with pre-existing conditions. And for the last two years, health care
spending has grown under 4 pecent, for the first time in 50 years.

So are we all better off because President Obama fought for it and passed it? You bet we are.
There were two other attacks on the president in Tampa that deserve an answer. Both Gov. Romney and congressman Ryan attacked the president for allegedly robbing Medicare of $716 billion. Here's what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None. What the president did was save money by cutting unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that weren't making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program, and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. It's now solvent until 2024. So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it.

When congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's "biggest coldest power play" in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You see, that $716 billion is exactly the same amount of Medicare savings congressman Ryan had in his own budget.

At least on this one, Gov. Romney's been consistent. He wants to repeal the savings and give the money back to the insurance companies, re-open the donut hole and force seniors to pay more for drugs, and reduce the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by eight years. So now if he's elected and does what he promised Medicare will go broke by 2016. If that happens, you won't have to wait until their voucher program to begins in 2023 to see the end Medicare as we know it.

But it gets worse. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming decade. Of course, that will hurt poor kids, but that's not all. Almost two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for seniors and on people with disabilities, including kids from middle class families, with special needs like, Down syndrome or autism. I don't know how those families are going to deal with it.

We can't let it happen

Now let's look at the Republican charge that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work.

Here's what happened. When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform's work requirement is just not true. But they keep running ads on it. As their campaign pollster said "we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself- I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.

Let's talk about the debt. We have to deal with it or it will deal with us. President Obama has offered a plan with $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade, with $2 of spending reductions for every $1 of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

I think the president's plan is better than the Romney plan, because the Romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility: The numbers don't add up.

It's supposed to be a debt reduction plan but it begins with $5 trillion in tax cuts over a 10-year period. That makes the debt hole bigger before they even start to dig out. They say they'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. When you ask "which loopholes and how much?" they say, "See me after the election on that."

People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a $5 trillion tax cut in a debt reduction plan- the- arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen:

1) they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up $2,000 year while people making over $3 million a year get will still get a 250,000 dollar tax cut; or

2) they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education and other programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research; or

3) they'll do what they've been doing for thirty plus years now- cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can't afford to double-down on trickle-down.

President Obama's plan cuts the debt, honors our values, and brightens the future for our children, our families and our nation.

My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in. If you want a you're on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities- a "we're all in it together" society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If you want every American to vote and you think it's wrong to change voting procedures just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama. If you think the president was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama. If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama.

I love our country- and I know we're coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come out stronger than we went in. And we will again as long as we do it together. We champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor- to form a more perfect union.

If that's what you believe, if that's what you want, we have to re-elect President Barack Obama.

God bless you - God bless America.

六字大明咒

I found the following interesting information in a forum that I visit often. Just wanna share with anyone that is interested and may find it useful if needed.

唵嘛呢叭咪吽（梵文：ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ，oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ是觀世音菩薩願力與加持的結晶，故又稱為觀世音心咒「六字真言」

達賴喇嘛十四世的解說
「六字大明咒持誦必有效驗，但汝頌時應思其意，其妙樂殊無量。…Om（ༀ）字乃汝帶業之身言意，亦為諸佛（སཔས་རྒྱས）無垢之身言意；…四音指其徑：Mani（མ་ཎི）乃為寶飾，示其法：…無私悟，無私憫，無私善。Pad-me（པད་མེ་）乃為蓮花，智也。…清淨圓滿乃智、法所為，hum（ཧཱུྃ）乃圓滿也。…是以六字真言為智法圓滿之徑，修持汝帶業之身言意，乃至諸佛無垢之身言意…」


http://youtu.be/jU1WG_dpWS0

Terminators are coming!

I've long been fascinated by our technological advancements. I know the Asimov's three rules on robotics. However, I'm just not buying that robots are all good to human. The evil twins of robots and AI would wipe us all some days! Believe it or not! Well, we are just helpless bystanders watching the few genius among us creating wonders that would do us harm ultimately. After watching the clips below, it just reminded me the words that I read in one of Michael Crichton's books ( I got which one): "Just because we can do it, doesn't me that we should!"

DARPA Drones and Robots
DARPA Robots 1
HRP-4C Miim's Human-like Walking
Most Human Like Robot Ever human robots !!
 BigDog Overview (Updated March 2010)
DARPA Cheetah Sets Speed Record for Legged Robots
Real Swarm of Flying Nano Quadrotors Doing Flight Tricks HD
Amazing 8 foot robot seriously advanced
Robot Snake

Gundam

If I saw this when I was young......I would scream and dream about it everyday.....

Just Crack me up....

Becoming human...

Imagine what she will evolute into in 10 years....
Japanese robotic tech has just been amazing all these years....

Is this the future of Music?

I came across this clip today on Youtube. I don't know about it man.....She is cute and talent, but I don't know if I wanna pay to see a concert in future if musicians in future are all doing what she has done. I love iPhone....playing music with it is a nice gimmick....but....well, it is better you see it yourself.....

Korean Beyonce....

Korean Lady Gaga....

Lady Gaga

As a ‘veteran’ of music fan, I’ve glad to be able to live through the modern pop music era with the monumental event of the birth of MTV. I enjoy music video as a natural metamorphosis of music in the form of visual elaboration and interpretation of lyrics, usually with the aid of artist performance. In terms of pop female artists, it is no doubt that Madonna is the Queen or Mother of all. With her as the pioneer, dozens of follow up (Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Christina Agurlera, Kerry Clarkson, Beyonce, etc) have been blossoming along the way in the last 20+years of so. They all have their ups and downs, nonetheless, the continuous pop-up of these Madonna protégés definitely show that how successful Madonna’s formula of success is.

Few years ago, when Madonna performed on an award show with Britney and Christina as guests, it was deemed that Madonna had kinda ‘officially’ passed the baton to them. Of course, Madonna didn’t retire since then and had still stolen all the thunder in her every high-profile appearance. With the relative ‘tanking’ of both Britney and Christina, it is kinda given Beyonce the crown of pop female artist in Madonna’s absence. Then, in 2008, here came Miss. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga.

I didn’t pay much attention to Lady Gaga till last year. For me, I thought she is just another Pink back then. I listened to her albums – Fame and Fame Monster. She sings alright, the music is of the genre of electro pop with some sonic engineering. Beats and rhythm are catchy. However, my experience as a pop music fan told me that her music will come and go, just like the others. So far, she sold more than 10 million albums and won awards as well, so far so good. I’m no social critic, but her surge in popularity does raise some eyebrows of the generations older than her and her fans.

I can’t dissect how she gains her popularity. Music wise, she is ok. I think she gained her fame above the others from her outrageous appearances and images. Those smoky eyes makeup while she met Queen Elizabeth II, the lobster face mask? I don’t know what to call it, etc. She reminded me of a female version of the young David Bowie and Elton John. I’ve never really caught a glimpse of her music video until last night on Youtube. The debut of her new song with Beyonce – Telephone with a MV of 9+ minutes long was the first time I really see what kind of image she is presenting in her performance. Well, I’m an open-minded person. I think for my age, her image and performance are absolutely fine with me in view of the freedom of artistic expression and all that. Certainly, parental guidance should be granted to children for watching her. Actually, after seeing Britney’s womanizer video, Lady Gaga’s outfit in Telephone doesn’t really shock me. To be honest, she is not pretty. To me, she looks like to me a female version of Marilyn Manson. Provocative? Yes. Attractive? Definitely Not.

I would say that Lady Gaga’s image is definitely a further development building upon the success of Madonna. Unlike Britney or the others who are more like copycats that can’t really exceed what Madonna has done, Lady Gaga certainly further push the envelope. Does it a ‘good’ further development or not? Well, since I don’t see anyone has push to another direction, I can’t say she is good or not. However, I’m not sure why I just can’t see Madonna would do the same things that Lady Gaga does. Maybe, I think what Lady Gaga does are a bit ‘dirty’. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but it is like…you can act dirty but still retain a certain level of ‘grace’, but Lady Gaga to me is downright dirty without that ‘grace’. Perhaps, it has something to do with herself that she is just not pretty.

Also, with the envelope that Lady Gaga has been pushed so far, it is certainly outrageous. I’m not sure how far she can further push. If she is going back, she will most likely cover some grounds that Madonna has already been there done that. Certainly, younger generation of fans might have not seen that before, so she will still be fine. However, she would not be considered as a trail brazer in terms of pop persona. Nevertheless, after view her video, though that hasn’t converted me as a fan of her, I will definitely check out her next chapter down the road for the sake of entertainment.

Sing all you want...

25 years later, another natural disaster gave another reason to resurrect the old ghost of 'We are the World'. Maybe I'm old, I like the original more.


But actually, I like the original 'Do they know it's Christmas?'even better.


Yes, there is an 20th year anniversary version...


I don't care too much about this one.

The bottomline is that I'm sure these 2 songs will continue to have new versions in future. As long as we human beings are not able to take care of ourselves, to prepare for the worst when we are having good time. I just don't care how many times people gonna sing these songs, they are simply bandage to a larger problem - We, human beings, just don't learn!

Google vs China

Interesting presentation->

Google China: The Chinese Internet Overview

View more documents from Geeks On A Plane.

The Magic of Chroma Key

Don't believe what you see on TV, though they are meant to be believable.

Robot invasion

come across this by accident....it is nice, but the robot moves so slow....

Nice Painting

An example of good thing never last....if she did that 100 years ago. But now, with Youtube, her art can linger forever....

Pixars luxo jr

Funny clip!

How "Terminator" Should Have Ended

As a fan of time-travel movies, this one is really funny! Check this out!

1:1 Gundam in Odaiba, Japan

Dream come true for anyone who love RX-78 since 1979.......

Philips Carousel Commercial - Adam Berg Commercial of the Year Stink Digital

One of the most amazing bullet-time visual effect in recent time!

Iron Man vs Bruce Lee

Multi-dimension Illustration