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What do we really know about dying? He began to study the Near-death experience. It was similar to Raymond Moody's description. Lack of pain, calm, out of body experience or not, and a tunnel with a light at the end. Loving compassionate supportive. Sometimes a review of your life with comprehension of its meaning. A being of light. A garden full of dead relatives. You come to a border and you know that if you cross you don't return. Some are sent back. Some go back on their own. Heart attack victims were chosen to study, so that the people being studied could be compared. If you compare near death from suicide and heart attack, you don't have similar brain states. Can there be consciousness without brain function? Run with the data, even if it contradicts the current model. Collected over 1500 stories about what happens when you die. Premonitions. Deathbed visions. Every culture has them. You are visited by a dead relative. Negotiation of death date. Helping us look forward to death. Deathbed coincidences are when the dead person comes to someone they care about after dying to say they are ok. watches and clocks stop. Animals react. There is light at death. Compassionate light. Have a good death. Relax into the death process. Make sure that you do not die in a hospital. Die at home or hospice. See your grandchildren. Teach people, even children, not to be afraid of death. Prepare for death. Not only your paperwork but your relationships. Discuss death. Don't be afraid. The idea that because many people experience something similar at death does not mean that your mom and your dog are going to really come usher you into the afterlife where you will wander around picking daisies for eternity, but all the same I do like the idea (leaving the afterlife and ghosts completely out of it) that the experience of Death itself might be rather pleasant.

Always wanted to be cool. Tried to analyze what makes something culturally relevant and why he is not. He eventually gave up trying to find the next big thing and started doing what he liked. But then came back to the idea of studying it. It's idiotic, but fascinating Define cool: n. the acquired relevance in the contemporary culture of a particular demographic. Studied cool people. Started by approaching the cool people he knew. Asked cool people how it felt to be cool. Interviewed them for 6 months. 1. Cool people will talk openly about being cool, but not on record. 2. Cool people have a following and are codependent with their following. 3. Cool people make it look effortless, but they work hard at it. 4. Cool makes you lonely. 5. People embody a persona. They play a character and they end up losing their real selves. Cool people are projections from us. We project on to them what we desire. We get comfort from being inferior to them. What you need to be cool 1. Must be appointed by someone else. 2. Cool comes from the fringes of mainstream. It starts against status quo then becomes the status quo. 3. Cool is temporary. You cannot stay cool forever. Eventually you have to let go. Cool is not constant 4. Cool is a product of effort. Where is cool culure going? Why is it important? What is the biological relevance and importance of cool?

Travel as a conduit to getting out of a stalled spot? Wanted to travel but not to be a drop out or to change his profession. He researched the rules of the Journeyman and translated the rules to his profession and to his time. Must bring work equipmant. Only two sets of clothes, but wanted 7 days of clothes without washing. Work for board and lodging. He added on all continents and within 2 years. He had no money. Moved into a tiny room to save money. In 2010 he paid off his debt and went to Shanghai with 500 euros. Did 16 jobs and all continents. His stories about culture problems are entertaining. Dancing is illegal in Bangalore! Seriously?! But Indians I know LOVE to dance. That is nutty. The last rule of the Journeyman is to report your insights. That is what he is doing today. Living without possessions is a relief. It simplifies things. You learn that you don't need stuff. It's all about the people. The best city in the world is useless without great people. It's not where you go, it's who you travel with. But great cities are made of and by people. Don't follow the expected patterns. We should not all follow the same rules. You have to push yourself to be able to find your rules.

Her father told her when she was 5 that her destiny was to be a champion swimmer. At 12 she wanted to be an Olympic champion swimmer. There is a small group of humans who do long distance swimming. At 30, she decided to swim 100 miles in the open ocean. The world record at the time was 58 miles. They looked for a place to do it. They found Cuba. Great symbolic and real border. Havana to Key West. She had swum so far from the Bahamas. When she retired, she feared losing the feeling of passion that sports brings. Sports gives you measurable success to commit toward. 42 hours to swim from Cuba to Florida, in rough water. 103 miles. Sharks. Jellyfish. The gulf stream. It's treacherous. She didn't make it the first time she tried. She swam her 100 miles from the Bahamas. The Cuba failure stewed in the back of her mind. She became a journalist. When she turned 60, she felt much closer to the end than to the beginning or even to the middle. 60 is a big deal. She examined her life. Asked, "Have I been living with passion and commitment every day." She did not swim a stroke for 30 years when she retired. At 60, she started training again. She clandestinely trained again for the Cuba swim. The box jellyfish now inhabit the Florida Straits. It's tiny, but it will kill you. She has people who dive around while she swims and scare off sharks. YIKES. 51 hours of swimming. Training alone is 20-hour-long swims. Holy shit. Sensory deprivation is part of swimming. Her description of how you think and the things your brain does while you swim this distance is kind of blowing my mind. She says she will probably never make it from Cuba to Florida, but she will never stop trying.

Just because you are good at what you do does not mean that it makes you happy. Starship Millenium Project 3-year multimedia cruise, publishing documentation of the trip every day. Expensive slow internet. They had a flying dinghy. Beautiful photos! He had never had an experience of cross-ocean sailing and he felt really uncomfortable at first. What he learned is that comfort zones expand. 2.5 years living on a boat is equal to 20 years of marriage. Having nothing makes you free. But having nothing is uncomfortable. He decided to go live in Cape Town. He bought a house. Wanted to go back into nature. He had a great time in Southern Africa and started to take pictures. But then he ran out of money. So, he decided to become a photographer. Luckily, his first book of photos was very successful. Everyone's comfort zone is different. He went to Canada to photograph walruses. He met Joe, an Inuit. He had a boat. The boat was not in good shape. He started to feel uncomfortable. He does not like danger, so being on that boat in a storm was not a good idea. Calculated Risks only. Going out of your comfort zone is not about facing danger. I want to go to see this lava lake in Etheopia. He's been taking people to remote places aroudn the world. Disorienting places. It makes people cry. The experience of nature on this scale is humbling, it makes you feel how you are pat of evolution. After people go to these places, they get PIN code syndrome. They can't remember their PIN codes. Many people make dramatic life changes after this.

Borders in music are defined by words. We have to redefine the terms. Delete three words: Classical Pop Crossover They force us to think in ways we otherwise would not. Classical music makes us think of the past, but does classical somehow end? Young composers are trapped by the term classical. Young composers don't know these borders. Classical composers do not live in an aquarium like they used to. They listen to everythig. They go nightclubbing. They don't need the idea of crossover anymore. They are already out of the aquarium. This term was helpful when composers needed a word for that, but this is past. Let the young composers in. Stop letting the IDEA of what classical music is prevent the new generation from being heard.

Real local knowledge is rarely googleable. He says Google is only usable in 5% of human languages, but that is not a good statistic. What matters is what percentage of the human population is left uncovered. Languages spoken by larger numbers of people are more impactful. Technology alone does not give you access to knowledge. You also need language to share information. How can we overcome this barrier? How do we connect the languages? The concept is to create 36 million language pairs to pass knowledge from one culture to another. Wikipedia has 80k language pairs by linking articles in different languages on the same topic Google offers 4k language pairs by automatic translation. I wish he would talk a bit more about the mechanics of this dream. I've not been convinced that this is quite possible. Possible or not, it is certainly a worthwhile effort.

Pictures of Sudan. Ugh, it looks bad in the media. Anwar lives in another Sudan. Borders that need to be crossed in Sudan: Education. Access to information Languages Over 70 languages plus dialects in Sudan. Arabic is the dominant language. Even in South Sudan, they communicate across languages with a form of Arabic. He did his CS PhD in Korea. WE have a culture of sharing in the tech world. He tells about the TED Open Translation Project. This makes the content more shareable. He translated a talk to Arabic. Since 2003 he has discovered so much via TED, as have many of us. So, this talk is kind of an advertisement for TED itself... a mise en abime... could we call it recursive? Why not use TED to promote aspects of TED? Still feels kind of funny. JD Schramm's talk was one that he translated. How to prevent people from trying again to commit suicide after they attempt it once. He tells about how his contact with TED made him grow personally by overcoming his own homophobia. Very funny. Crossing inner borders. Now he asks himself as a translator if he should translate the phrase where the man refers to his husband into Arabic because of how homosexulity in particular is so taboo in Sudanese culture. He felt it was important to share with everyone the lesson he learned. The essence of his mission is to share knowledge.

Questioning the idea that public spaces should be for sale. Civic vandalism to challenge the billboard's legitimacy as an advertising medium. No opt out, etc etc etc. They did 36 installations in 5 cities in 5 days. What is the boundary between art and activism? They tried to expose the mechanics of the advertising industry. Why is there so much advertising in our public space? A common defense is that advertising is information and it is a benign service. Peer into the origins of the advertising industry. Freud's nephew wrote a book called propoganda where he basically laid out the mechanics of modern advertising. Edward Bernays. People must be trained to desire rather than to need. Paul Mazer, Lehman Brothers. Yeah. That is gross. How does society tell stories about itself? Advertising exploits genuine meaningful human experience by linking them to products. Advertising helps shape culture and we mustn't naively think that it is a mirror... well of course. Every part of culture is simultaneously a mirror and an influencer. That's life. Studies show that most people in Europe think advertising sucks and that it puts stupid pressure on young people in particular to conform to social tribes through consumerism. Conceptions of beauty problem also. Talking about the Dove chubby models ad. They are basically saying that it is not possible for advertising to be ethical. It is simply and plainly incompatible. This is true. The impact of consumer culture on our planet is also impossibe to sustain. Sao Palo went after visual pollution. Removed public advertising and legalized street art. Amazing. 70 pre cent of Sao Palo residents back it fully. We should be promoting alternatives to public space advertising. We should think of ourselves as citizens not consumers. Advetising is ro reviled it's almost fun to try to defend it, but I have to admit that I despise the co-opting of civic space in this way.

Marrakesh is a place of inspiration. Create a place for people to think about te future in a context that is already rich, confusing, and inspiring. Marrakesh is a place of peaceuful coexistance of opposites They renovated an old Medina with no electric tools. As a woman, she was erased by the culture of Marrakesh. The workers would not even look at her. She tried to find a way to make herself visible and the first step was to stop believing that she could come to another culture and teach them something instead of learning. She became fascinated with the crafts and trades that are disappearing in Africa and realized that Europe loves this kind of handcraft. So she created a plan to bring the two worlds together. Sell vintage products to raise money. Found craft schools. Make new stuff. Sell it in Europe. Fund community projects. It is difficult sometimes for a native person to see the value in their own culture. It took her a long time to build trust and to bring the craftsmen to see the dream. It took a year and a half. Very interesting when cultures collide productively. They gave the village a microcredit for building the school. They had over 100 women apply for the school. There were only 20 spaces. The villagers had no trouble sifting through the applicants. The first product was an ipad case. Protecting a modern device with a nearly dying craft form has a poetic character. Ethics are not a USP. Social brands have to be built the same as consumer brands. Her mission is to make social sexy. After a year, they have done several projects in the village with the business revenue. Next they will tackle illiteracy among women in the village and area. "tradition is not to preserve the ashes, but to pass on the flame" --Thomas More

Godfather of Linux Free culture. Open source culture. Goes beyond software. Richard Stallman's "copyleft" movement software freedom gives you the power to create something the original author never dreamed of. I like the slowly emerging concept that all creation is reuse. Not exactly what this man is talking about, but certainly related. Closed software causes global imbalance of opportunity and brain drain. National security is also at risk with closed software because it can be controlled by the government policies of the creator's nation. The borders of Economic Levels * Piracy is rampant. 34% piracy rate in the US. Why don't people pay for software? Sometimes because it is so expensive and so needed. Free software makes it easier for a growing nation to build a software industry. Software slavery is maybe even a better way of thinking about it than software freedom, because freedom is too easy to take for granted, but slavery slaps you still. Rasberry pie runs linux and for 35 dollars you can do amazing things. Hall found a guy in Soweto who was working on the Linux kernal. The computer industry has always had an inclusive culture. Hall came out at the age of 61. Sounds like for the It Gets Better project. Another border. Nobody knows where the next software genius will come from. It is crazy to think that this person will come from one place or another. Free software makes it possible for that genius to be found wherever he or she may be.

John Bunzl #tedxberlin #crossingborders


global markets hold politics prisoner

Accomplishing anything worthwhile requires global cooperation. He proposes a global tax on curreny exchange

simultaneous policy

Requires people to vote based on a global issue, otherwise the the pledge or campaign is powerless. How long can you get citizens to stay focused on saving the planet? The worse the economy, the harder that is. 

*****

Here is the video proof that I finally did my first tech talk.



I've put the slides up on slideshare.

All facilitators are volunteers, all events are free

Oppenness

Empowerment
- the students become teachers

Hands-on Learning Experience

Safe learning environment
- beginners questions are also difficult for coaches, because it often exposes what you take for granted

Transparency
- everything is public. Your material is put into the pool and can be reused by others elsewhere
- Google group is public, everyone can see what is being planned and participate

Past Events
RailGirls Berlin success was a real inspiration. Gave them a lot of momentum.

JS for Absolute Beginnners
Installation party Friday night
Sat and Sun programming

Intro to Programming with Python
Saturday, really crowded
Lots of women in the picture from the event

Program a twitter client with Python

Beginners workshop followed up by more complex projects

first wed every month at Co-up. First part is talks (beginners and others) about projects. Then learn and tell. on the Hack and tell format. 5 minutes to show, 5 minutes feedback.

People ask questions and then you have 5 minutes to try to answer it. Can be anything. Will go on with this format for the next month.

Campus Party
43 workshops

Upcoming events
Javascript
Python
Gaming
Math
iOS
Git
Github
Beginners Meetup

Events are both in English and German.

opentechschool.org
facebook.com/opentechschool
twittewr@Opentechschool
twitter @beatricemartini

Ugh! Ipad fell of my lap and I lost my post somehow.

I need to learn to use my smart phone as a presentation remote control like Amelie is doing.

term frequency (tf) # of occurences in the doc

inverse document frequency (idf)


high= many times in a small number of documents
lower=fewer times in a document or in many documents
lowest=term occurs in almost all documents

This is not enough for good relevance.

Example of looking for "rope" Foo Fighters song on Soundcloud. Without page rank, you don't get what you expect.

Pagerank
Boost the popular results.

The web is a graph.
-nodes=pages
-edges=hyperlinks

Some nodes are visited more often
- Nodes with many links
-coming from frequently visited nodes

Teleport
If you end up on a page where there is no link, you can enter an address to go somewhere else.

Going to a node without using a link.

Adjaceny matrix can represent the graph of nodes, links, and teleport.
Each row represents a node and the links between.
Empty rows don't link to anything. Add teleport to all 0 rows.

I'm sure this does not make any sense without the diagrams and matrixes. Oh well.

"It's fairly simple when you think about it," she says. I think that is true, but equations with tildas in them intimidate me.

Univeral search on Soundcloud
They wanted users, songs, and sets mixed by relevance.

Their graph has not only nodes, but also node types and how they are linked.
(User A follows user B and created playlist A)

They weight links based on these relationships.
twitter @utstikkar

Introduction to Information Retrieval is a great book for people interested in this topic.





















Binary is another way of counting. Computers only have two fingers.

We count
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11

computers count
1-2-10-11-

1011
1 eights 0 fours 1 twos 1 ones=11

While studying Biology, learning binary opened her mind.

Why base 2?

Base 10 (decimal) 11
Base 16 (hexadecimal) B
Base 60 (babylonian)

60 has a lot of factors. Good for division.

What has this got to do with computers? What do computers do?
- store data. books do that, too.
- transform data. transforms data into patterns of light on your screen.
- store audio, image, numbers, text. you want one way to store all different kinds of data. Computers use numbers. Numbers can model anything.

core units can store a 1 or a 0. Memory cell.

8 bits in a byte. Bits have 8 digits per number

The Enchantress of Numbers. Ada Lovelace. Babbage called her the Enchantress of Numbers.

Why did we pick binary instead of another system?
Some people did choose decimal for early computers. in the 1800s, Babbage built a mechanical computer. He had two machines. Differential engine (calculator) and the analytical engine. Never completed, but fully designed. He tried to use decimal

The first computer eniac (?) did not use binary. Its programmers were all women. 8 of them.

Memory cells
each has either a one or a zero.
The circuit was invented long ago. High signal or low signal. Very simple.

Enniac represented decimal using binary memory cells
0001000000=3
This is a waste. You can only represent 0-9
If you use binary, you can store 0-255 with the same 10 cells.

Hardware dictated the choice, then, really.

Binary is also used in the Morse code system.

If you want to know the roots of technology, start with the telegraph.

Switches
switches are on or off.

Electromechanical switches send an electrical signal and it does the swithing automatically. It has an electromanet inside. The electromagnet flips the switch.

diagrams for switches for AND, NOT, OR

I never thought of these as switches before.
It's obvious, but never seen it before.

switches can do logic, add, store information.

Eniac contained 17,468 vacuum tubes. Another kind of switch.
Core i7 has 781 million transistors
Computers turn crystals into electromagnetic switches.

Switches are amazing. A neuron is also just a switch.











Interesting that she refers to her hypothetical designer as "he."

Process-->People-->Create

user-centered design is a holistic approach. Work in future focus, seek innovation.
identify problem, identify people's needs

Collaboration is important.

How to design
Analyze everything
- What is the problem--example of social services project. People thought the problem was access to services, but really it was elsewhere (reputation of bad services, not knowing the services exist at all)
- Who are the users
- What is the product's context--do fieldwork. Observe people. Design anthropology.

Explore details. What do people DO? How? Why? What work arounds do people create in the real world?

Empathize
observe, listen, ask, immerse, understand

Process:
empathize, understand-->define. What is the problem?-->ideate-->prototype-->test

But you will define your own process.

Define:
Who is your user? Create a persona
What is the need?
Insight--something extra about the person

Perspective:
example" An easy going waman needs to feel at home wherever she is traveling. This includes the user personality, the need, the insight.

Ideate:
Ask how
Ask more questions
Brainstorm
Don't go for the safe bet.

Prototype:
paper product, video
story
handcrafted is better in first steps.
Get feedback, prototype fast and sloppy
Don't prototype everything at once. You can do it in pieces.
Test it with real people.

Test:
Just listen, don't influence people
Unpack the feedback. Go back to the process.

Use your learnings, don't ignore them.

People ignore design that ignores people




Korea is like a country from the future.

Destroyed during war, not many natural resources, makes a lot of culture and tech

Starcraft is the national sport of Korea. Game addiction is a big problem. There is wifi everywhere. 100% of the population have internet and mobile phones. 50% have smart phones. Plan to have paper-free schools by 2015.

1. It's about collaboration.

Subway card--you can have your subway card in Hello Kitty shape, anything you want. You can also use your subway card in the cab. You can also use it at the convenience store. All three phone carriers collaborate on NFC. 3 carriers and 9 credit card companies. 100 shops are ablet ot take NFC payment now. Pay with your phone thanks to this collaboration.

2. Understand social changes and solve problems with technology

Kakao talk--like WHat's app. Everyone uses it.

Couples culture in Korea is different. Not having a boyfriend is weird. Not married before 30 means you will never be married. If you are together, you are REALLY together.You have to be in constant communication with your significant other.

1 billion Kakao talk every day Also have to buy each other gifts all the time, so Kakao talk sells gifts.

March 14 is black Valentines where single people get pity gifts 

3. Know your opportunities

Commuting.

Long commutes are normal. Every subway platform has a digital screen for finding places. You can make a free call to anyone, play games, etc. They look beautiful and are not vandalized. There are phone chargers on the bus.

 janchipchase.com/themes/future-perfect is an interesting
blog twitter.com/elinaram

Manager for Etsy Germany.

Ask a lot of stupid questions. Do things you don't think you can do.

Philosophy of being a woman in tech.
Silicon valley is focused on money a lot.
Homogeneous tech scene brings homogeneous solutions and products.

Campus party Mexico
technology is about creating a living and a future for themselves
finding small solutions for their communities, not making something MS would buy.

Should be more older people in tech and differently educated people.

Apologizing for not being a coder. Interesting.

"Finding your voice." Problematic weird idea. Took Calculus in summer school right before college. The class was full of young brainiacs. First time she was afraid to ask questions.

Make yourself visible and heard in the work environment. Ask questions. This is one way to combat the quotidian exclusion that can happen (guys go out drinking together, men go to sauna together)

Respect other people asking questions. Be humble. Be patient. Be helpful.

Sometimes asking questions helps you understand what you are good at.


10:15 AM

This is the first female-focused tech event I have ever been to. It feels like I've fallen into a parallel universe. On one hand, I am a little bit giddy to see all these cool-looking women. I could use a few more great women in my life and this looks like a good place to meet some. On the other hand, it does feel a little weird to be all women.

It's not the same kind of weird as when you go to a networking event and it's all men. It's a nicer, happier, more comfortable kind of weird. It's a weird I like.

I've read in a few articles that one of the problems women have is that, unlike other minorities in tech, they are often reluctant to network around their minority-ness.

Girl Geek Meetup started four years ago in Sweden. It's nice to see this networking reluctance breaking down. Go young people!

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