TED Conversations

James Zhang

TEDCRED 30+

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

What's your background?

I'm interested in the demographics of TED all of a sudden, so I was wondering what kind of people into these forums and TED vids.

Guess I'll start,

I'm a 21-year-old Asian-American college student in the field of digital technology and media and who grew up in Dallas, Texas suburbs. And I speak English only with minimal fluency in Chinese.

Topics: TED Conversations
0
Share:
progress indicator

  • gale kooser 20+

    • +1
    Oct 13 2012: I'll be nice & ans. your question:
    I'm 67 yrs. old Caucasian female and international wildlife artist. I have sought knowledge in many fields besides the study of animals, including Cartography, Biology (most but not all areas of that field), and oh so many more. I have a thirst for knowledge that has filled my head with wonders of our world & those that live upon it.
    I was born on a dairy farm in upper NY state but raised in Florida. Have traveled all over USA & parts of Canada & the Caribbean.
    Those of you, who are young, have so much more to choose from at university then I did. I wouldn't know where to start if I was your age. But travel teaches you so much more about the world you live in, so please take an old broad's advice & do some.

  • Roberto Garcia

    • +1
    Oct 12 2012: Well i will submit my background anyway this excercise sounds interesting. I am 46, i made my first computer animations with an NCR 8 mhz computer. My frist spreadsheet projects wee made with Lotus 123, first word processor i met was Wordstar, first computer language Basic (wich is still kicking as hard as ever). First Illustration software used were Print master and Print Shop. First data base software used to build a system DBASE III+. After pure DOS windows came to my life, but i knew there was something missing until i faced myself with my first Mac computers.

    Besides that i have done a lot of arcade and console gaming. From Pac-Man, Galaga and Tron to the latest 3d Like Tekken, Mortal Kombat etc. I still play console games as a matter of test and challenge. I retired from active console gaming 2 years ago after finishing Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, wich was my nemesis as gamer. I try to keep up with technology and science news. And i analyze deeply each new subject that comes out. When i started with Linux a year ago my life had a sudden shift, now i am free from the traditional operating systems and i am still going deep into the Linux world. I still have a lot to learn. When i am not working of in front of a computer i surf, swim, rappel, and organize treks along rain forest trails.

    My favorite TV Shows in order 1.The X-Files 2.Millennium 3.Star Trek DS9 4.Battlestar Galactica

    I try to spread the word about Linux in my country but its difficult. Most users are affraid taking the step and try an unknown operating system.

    I think time travel will never be accomplished, I think global warming is a reality that the powerful sectors of society are ignoring. I am a supporter of clean energy initiatives, and i think that if we dont take good care of our home planet we will humanity will not last 500 more years. I hope to see soon the first home appliances with 100% superconductive wires.
    • thumb

      James Zhang 30+

      • 0
      Oct 12 2012: Mr. Old Skool...

      "I try to spread the word about Linux in my country but its difficult. Most users are affraid taking the step and try an unknown operating system."

      From my experience with Linux, you need Google/StackOverflow at your side lol. The learning curve is much steeper.

      But Ubuntu's aesthetics is surprisingly really nice. Yes, I care about stuff like aesthetics.
    • thumb

      Ken brown 30+

      • 0
      Oct 13 2012: Have you tried Sabayon Linux?

      I had 3.4, it blew Win Xp and Mac Os completely out of the window,it was the first Op system that i came across that had tabbed windows.
      • thumb

        James Zhang 30+

        • 0
        Oct 13 2012: Nope, the only ones I've seen so far are Ubuntu and Redhat.
        • thumb

          Ken brown 30+

          • 0
          Oct 13 2012: Morning James.

          Here's a cut & paste of one it's latest versions.

          "Sabayon is a Gentoo-based GNU/Linux distribution which follows the works-out-of-the-box philosophy, aiming to give the user a wide number of applications that are ready for use and a self-configured operating system. Sabayon offers the user an easy-to-use workspace with a captivating look, good hardware detection and a large number of up-to-date software packages installed by default, with additional software available from a repository. Sabayon is available in several flavors featuring respectively the KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and Enlightenment desktop environments.

          In Sabayon 10: Linux Kernel 3.5.4 with BFQ iosched, KDE 4.9 (4.9.1 available in days), LibreOffice 3.6 are just some of the things you will find inside the box. Gentoo Hardened kernels, Improved Rigo -- a new way of browsing and installing Applications, more ZFS integration work, Mesa 9 stack, Amazon EC2 support, Infinality Freetype patches, and much more."

          I only played with it, i got lost more than i understood.
      • thumb

        James Zhang 30+

        • 0
        Oct 13 2012: Sup

        MS Office > LibreOffice, but at least all the open source applications are free.

        Linux is used to handle servers and I think is less of a pain in the ass to deal with than Windows servers. The Terminal Commands on Linux is like the only thing you need to do everything, and it's really powerful. While at my internship, I was tasked to work on a PHP script that would download a bunch of files from a web server to our local server in the office. And it would crash for unknown reasons after like 13 hours of running. Then I did a little research and there was a Linux command called wget, which does exactly that but instead of like 80 lines of PHP, it was only 1 little command.

        As a personal computer OS, installation was a bit of a pain. I had some trouble setting up Ubuntu on my mom's old laptop because there were some hardware incompatibilities, which took a lot of research on my end to figure out what was going on.

        I checked out a vid of Sabayon Linux:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnR3mUPTtQk

        Not gonna lie, that's fancy eye candy, but still really cool lol
        • thumb

          Ken brown 30+

          • 0
          Oct 13 2012: It was easy for a windows guy like me to jump over and have a play and at that time 6 years ago it was truly innovative, that video had full acceleration on though i think his gpu wasn't up to it and their was a few new added candy pops but essentially still the same from what i remember, i tried Ubuntu but got totally lost. Is it more user friendly today for linux dummies like me?
      • thumb

        James Zhang 30+

        • +1
        Oct 13 2012: Not sure which Ubuntu you used, and it's been a while since I've used Ubuntu, but here's a vid of some cool stuff on Ubuntu.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVixm1MUJGU

        It looks nice, but as for usability, I think you can get a good picture of if its usability through this method:

        Go to google and type in "Mac Usability", then "Windows 7 Usability", then "Ubuntu 12.04 Usability" and compare the results.
  • thumb

    Fritzie Reisner 100+

    • 0
    Host
    Oct 11 2012: I agree with Rick. You could look at a random sample of profiles, understanding that those who share their profiles are not necessarily representative of the community as a whole.

    You might inquire with TED Admin whether they have compiled demographic data of the kind that interests you.
    • thumb

      James Zhang 30+

      • 0
      Oct 11 2012: Yeah, perhaps I could have done that now that I think about it :P
  • thumb

    Rick Ryan 10+

    • 0
    Oct 11 2012: Isn't this what a TED profile is for? I'm not knocking the topic question, but I would assume that anyone who was willing to post that type of information here in this conversation would already have an expanded profile someone could read to get the same info. If they have a "hidden" profile, or one with minimal info in it, they most likely won't expand on it in this thread.

    Just an observation.
    • thumb

      James Zhang 30+

      • 0
      Oct 11 2012: The Ted Profile does not really tell you which users are active, at least not that it was obvious to me anyways.

      And I thought this was good to know for the entire community the kinds of people Ted attracts.
      • thumb

        Rick Ryan 10+

        • 0
        Oct 12 2012: The way I can tell how active a user is from their profile is to scroll down the page and look at the list of their posts. Active users will have a relatively long list of recent contribution posts to the community. And you can also get a decent idea of what type of topics they will post to, and which topics they will not.

  • carolyn mcauley 20+

    • 0
    Oct 11 2012: Im interested in Ted in order to review the belief systems given to me second hand through cultural,and school. I experienced deep differences in what i was told was truth,and that which i personally lexperienced. In the interest of doing the right thing, sanity,and living life to the fullest,I self prescribed constant updates on the latest in knowledge to guide my moral compass and behaviour. I quit school at age 17, kicked out of my house age 16, worked at servant type class jobs,and endured many years of maladjusted behaviour. I have a passion for justice,quantum physics,and beauty.
Showing all 15 comments