TED Community » Mark Freehoff

Comments

• TEDCred score: +86.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Nilofer Merchant: Got a meeting? Take a walk

  Apr 30 2013: I guess a quote or two, from reputable sources stating the neurological basis behind our learning brain and it's predisposition to accelerated and enrichened data acquisition whilst the vehicle (the rest of our body) is in motion, would be interesting at the least, if not fantastically informative.
  
  I'd rather go another route and just ask, "Doesn't every one who can, seem to be walking as they talk". Just look at all those people on their cellphones, milling back and forth, turning around on their heels like animals at the zoo reaching the limits of their cages or not unlike dogs on a leash, with no disrespect to the animals.
  
  Get someone on the phone and watch them move about, left and right, back and forth. You see them at the beach or in the park, striding one way and then another, only to turn about and head to where they started from. Why?
  
  Could it be that there is something that just feels right or maybe good about it? Perhaps the words volunteer themselves more readily and the conversation seems to flow rather effortlessly when we are in motion. Perhaps not. I kind of like the idea. So, I guess you can "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" simultaneously.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Katherine Kuchenbecker: The technology of touch

  Apr 1 2013: Proprioception. That's what came to mind when I read the intro to your talk. I came out of your talk with a few questions, that's what the good talks do to me :)
  If an object, lets say one that appears to be a basketball, was tossed towards me, I would prepare to catch just that, a basketball. If a larger item, let's say a watermelon, was tossed, I would then prepare to catch it.
  Examples of how we "sense" the world are as endless as the ways we, as individuals react to it.
  So, the question is, What goes on with that part of us that would normally be doing all the interpretation of how something should, would, could, feel, look, smell, sound, taste while Haptics presents us with surrogate sensations? I know there are no surrogate sensations but i think the point is clear.
  
  Would we both sense the surrogate and procure, from our own experiences, the expected sensation of "what should be" though the dissonance may make it unlikely? Would or could the real sensation Haptics provides eventually displace my "grasp" upon, not only the way it would feel, if I were to peel an orange but even possibly dislodge my acquired sensation of the orange rind rolling back over my fingers in favor of the possibly stronger sensation provided by Haptics? Could we learn to prefer sensation acquired through Haptics much the way some would prefer the feeling obtained from two glasses of a nice Merlot over the wind blowing over warm sands at the beach? Our senses are so fickle.
  Your work, the brief bit of it I saw here, reminds me of work done on phantom limbs in as much as there is a sensation provided for the brain to interact with and thrive upon, using the sensation to construct it's world of reference.
  I wonder if you ever thought, when you set out to study engineering, that this is where it would bring you. Thank you for sharing your work.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"

  Mar 1 2013: I see that you have given your TED U Talk. Hopefully I'll see it here, as the question is provocative. Provocative in many different ways and levels. It appears to me that I am not alone in the belief that we are solving the problems and yes, the big ones but, its not technology that's doing it. Apologies to those taking offense at that remark. I am fully aware that at MIT the "T" stands for technology and having spent my youth in Malden I take great pride in things on both banks of the Charles.
  
  We are the big "problem". The technologies we develop may give insight to some of our goals and desires but we are not our technologies. Things not achievable are not necessarily problems. Desires unfulfilled are just that, not problems. Mankind dramatically progresses, in the Shakespearean sense. We explore the skies beyond the scope of imagination and yet, our degree of ignorance for that within arm's reach is numbing. Communities within and surrounding MIT, people in India and Japan, motivated by their compassion for mankind, they go on to solve the "big problems", at times flying possibly to Mars, other times getting food and clothing to those who need it most.
  
  I was very happy, yet not the least bit surprised, to see similar sentiment expressed or hinted at by others. Is hunger a problem for technology today? Do current technologies not suffice to solve the problem ten times over? "We" are the big problems. "We" are the big solutions. Looking forward to your talk.

• A comment on Talk: Wingham Rowan: A new kind of job market

  Feb 15 2013: Was the labor market the issue in Wingham Rowan's talk and "here's an undeveloped resource" that government, business and industry should reassess or was it more than that?
  Was it just the face value relationship between labor and industry or did anyone feel, as I did, that there was a distinct reference to, not only people's potential value but rather to people's inherent value and that the resources made available to government, business and industry would rightly be administered in the facilitation of the public betterment, wherever and however possible, even if it demands more effort?

• A comment on Talk: Steven Schwaitzberg: A universal translator for surgeons

  Feb 11 2013: Often, when we speak or perhaps every time we do, the words that we use, dare I say chose, are woven diligently, one after the other in a careful weave, not so much as to prevent a misunderstanding as to take advantage of the endless possibilities of that inevitable blunder, that very same mistake undermining that which we are trying to express, as I with this run-on (runaway) sentence, may have succeeded in doing.
  
  Perhaps a system flexible enough to "learn" during actual conversation. Making adaptations, acquiring preferences, recognizing and assessing the pitfalls to work with them, not unlike, real conversation.
  
  The more two people converse with one another, the better they become (possibly though not assuredly) at understanding what it is that their counterpart in the conversation is "saying". In time, fewer and fewer words become necessary to impart the same message or intention. Are we to expect more of an artificial translator? In the end, is it not still the human who has to comprehend?
  
  Quite a challenge! Worthy of any effort, Good Luck.