my obsession with ted

first off, i know i'm posting twice in one day.  i hope the earth doesn't implode because of this catastrophic and scientifically unexplainable event.  moving on.

i'm obsessed with ted.  no, i'm not cheating on the bf or stalking some celebrity.  i'm talking about ted.com, "a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize."

this site is one of the best things i've stumbled upon in a while and i'm sure it's well known to those of you out there who are more internet-savvy than i.  ted.com gives you access to talks, interviews and lectures on a variety of topics from some of the top speakers and experts around the world.

i was getting ready to clean my messy apartment today and was struggling to find music i felt like listening to on my ipod/iphone.  sometimes i turn on the tv just to have background noise, but i didn't want to have daytime tv in all its glory blaring in the apartment, either.  i've been meaning to check out ted so i thought this would be a good time to do so.  i'm hooked. 

while cleaning, i listened to talks on nurturing creativity (presented by author elizabeth gilbert), why there are too few women in the workforce (presented by facebook coo sheryl sandberg), the influence of architecture on music (david byrne, musician), why the world needs wiki leaks (interview with wikileaks founder julian assange), and global power shifts (joseph nye, former assistant secretary of defense), just to name a few.  these are great because they're relatively short, about 20 minutes, and you don't really have to be sitting, glued to the computer to absorb what the speaker is presenting.  it's great to listen to while doing other tasks, especially mindless cleaning.  subjects range from art to politics to science to entertainment and everything in between.  it's sort of like audio cliff's notes for current affairs.

check it out.  you won't be disappointed.