TED Community » Lina Praskeviciute

More About Me

I'm passionate about

sustainable design (from scrupulous details to businesses to global projects to social structures), technology, education and learning.

Talk to me about

your / their / my ideas and how to realize them. Feel free to contact me. I'm interested in both local and international projects / ideas.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +60.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: How can we improve the TED translations project?

  Feb 27 2011: It would be nice if we could have subtitles for the Best of The Web TEDTalks. Of course, it's a technical issue, not just a matter of choice. However, I'd think it's possible to do it.

• A comment on Conversation: Can we test some innovation in these conversations?

  Feb 17 2011: 2 ideas here: voting with "arguments" and collapsible comments.
  
  1. Voting - it'd be really useful in some Conversations, here's how I imagine it:
  1.1. Allow to vote without commenting and comment without voting.
  1.1.a. If both are done, show the voting choice next to the name of the person.
  1.1.b. "Show only " option for reading a comprehensive summary of pros and cons.
  1.2. Choice + argument:
  1.2.1. The author of the conversation writes the main choices when s/he adds a poll, e.g. Chris in that Conversation about uploading videos would have picked "yes" and "no". When a person is voting s/he chooses from "yes" and "no" and then "beacause..." appears where s/he can write an original argument (short one) or pick from what others have already wrote. As somebody has suggested there, the main NOs argument has been that "crowd couldn't effectively self-organize".
  1.2.2. Expand/Collapse vote results: initially show only main choices and number of votes but allow seeing all or several most popular arguments
  
  2. Comments
  2.1. Expand/collapse replies! It's easier to add this (I suppose) and indeed needed. Sometimes I love to read long off-topic discussions as they are usually interesting and well argued, but there are days when I want to read only about the particular TEDTalk/topic and scrolling gets annoying.
  2.2. Titles for comments? I'm not sure about this one. Basically, if we could get used to start a comment with the main point or if there was a separate box for it (think as a "title" or "topic"), there could be an option to collapse comments to one-liners. Then we could have an overview of the discussion and could pick the comments we want to read (of course, we'd also have thumbs count next to each which could also help).
  
  On one hand, we could slip into a habit of reading only small bits without going into details, but on the other hand, with the community growing bigger it might give some control over the information (over)flow.
  
  3. "Follow" option?

• A reply on Conversation: Should anyone be able to upload their TEDTalk to TED.com?

  Feb 15 2011: Maybe because in the reality they (crowds in real life situations) can't: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/02/10/deindividuation/ . Of course, the examples in the article are far too different than voting on videos but, basically, it's enough for me to start questioning.
  
  Also, with free voting systems many 'internet gems' get to the top only because they seemed hilarious to a critical mass of people while they aren't that good.
  "Oh, it isn't idea worth spreading, but it is too cute to not get a vote up".
  "I've watched it all but I haven't noticed anything good here. Did I waste my time? I don't waste my time, there must be something! Oh, yes, it was, I remember, that idea. Yup, it's definitely worth a vote up. I'm so glad I watched it."
  
  I think crowd could curate itself. But I doubt it would do as well as TED now does. That's that.
  
  
  I've just recalled some ideas from J. Surowiecki "The Wisdom of Crowds". I wonder whether voting systems could be more effective if the current votes were invisible before voting or couldn't be seen at all. (On a side note, it's really worth reading, you can get some ideas from Wikipedia article.)
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Should anyone be able to upload their TEDTalk to TED.com?

  Feb 15 2011: NO!
  * "TED..." means "reliable". "I saw on TED" wouldn't mean much if you would always have to check "Was it a TED Talk or that candidate tv?".
  * The flaws of free voting (lots of videos, many voters, everyone can vote for every video) - even if we assume the crowd can be objective, there is no guarantee each video will initially be seen by the same amount of voters
  - - some good videos are left behind
  - - some videos are getting votes up only because a seemingly worse video is in a higher position
  
  I already hear my friends saying "oh, TED is publishing more than I can watch", but it's ok - at least we know that all TEDTalks are more or less worth watching and we won't need to skip 30+ to get to an interesting one. I agree, don't turn it into youtube ;)
  
  
  Yes, TED might benefit from recommendation and self-recommendation system.
  One way to do it: The candidate video could be sent to let's say 10 people to vote (definitely no - no - I don't know! - yes - definitely yes, and some space for comments, with a tick "I suggest to edit and reapply"). Maybe videos could have tags and they would be sent to the people who are interested in that specific area (e.g. video about innovative way to teach science - voters: 3 scientists, 3 educators, 2 passionate about those things but from other professions, 2 totally unrelated) If it gets high rating, video is forwarded to TED Staff with a summary of voting.
  If video is worth spreading, it can be put under "Best of the Web".
  
  
  Hehe, maybe TED could provide social bookmarking service. "I was digging the internet, stumbled upon that video, it was delicious, definitely worth spreading, TED, look!"

• A comment on Conversation: Are questions on TED Conversations for a different community than Quora et al, or will questions be a different focus (ie, more science)?

  Feb 15 2011: I haven't used Quora much so I might be wrong, but I see it more as an encyclopaedia, while TED Conversations are more similar to focus groups. The former is for asking and answering specific questions, the latter is for solving problems together.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Christopher McDougall: Are we born to run?

  Feb 10 2011: I just wanted to highlight, some research suggests that running shoes changed the way we run (into more harmful one). I think I have read or heard the idea quite a while ago but I have only found this article now: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8483401.stm (2010 Jan).
  
  Thus simply getting rid of the shoes might not be enough to stop injuries, we need to relearn how to run. "Barefoot runners have to use their calf muscles and Achilles tendon much more to control ankle flexion. So people who switch to this style of running are much more likely to develop calf problems if they don't do so slowly, carefully and with a lot of stretching." (quote from that article)
  
  
  Based on my personal experience I'd say we can naturally feel how we should run barefoot. That is, if you let yourself experiment and enjoy running.
• +4

  A reply on Talk: R.A. Mashelkar: Breakthrough designs for ultra-low-cost products

  Oct 25 2010: Most importantly, you need to look at all kinds of impacts altogether - you can't look only at environmental impact - I suppose Nano increased carbon footprint overall - but you need to take social change into account as well. It would be mean not to make an affordable car for those who really need it only because of the environmental concerns while in other places we use cars more than we probably need.
  
  If we apply Gandhi engineering widely we could probably achieve more even in terms of the environment-friendliness. That would be a nice approach if they incorporate environmental concerns in their work from the very beginning.
  In general, it would be nice that everyone who starts something new try to be social responsible from the very beginning while you don't need big reorganisations to change socially or environmentally questionable parts of business.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Brian Skerry reveals ocean's glory -- and horror

  Jun 18 2010: I've just realised that the main reason why I'm not vegetarian or vegan is that my family had some pigs, chickens and cows when I was a child. Even pigs looked lovely (all animals have their characters, you know) but I was happy to eat pork etc. I was aware of the fact that it's from an animal I probably saw some time ago but it didn't seem wrong (would you blame a tiger for eating other animals? No. So I didn't blame people as well, it's a natural food chain).
  Today I see the problem with unethical farming, eating meat itself is not bad (and I still believe our body needs meat but I'm already bored with too general arguments against it so I wouldn't discuss that).
  
  Let's say we stop eating meat and fish. What's then? You know, fertile soil isn't infinite resource. You have to deal with it properly. Here comes the same issue - if we don't use it properly, we'll make harm here as well (just it's more difficult to measure it).
  
  *We must learn to harvest our food properly, all kinds of food.*
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Brian Skerry reveals ocean's glory -- and horror

  Jun 2 2010: Great talk (and amazing photos). However, I wonder what I can do about this. Sorry, but I don't think that becoming a vegetarian is an optimal solution (humans are recommended to eat meat and fish occasionally, isn't it?). We just need to behave sensibly, um, we need a sustainable solution.
  But.. I feel a bit lost. When big infrastructures settle down it's difficult to change anything. I believe that tiny things matter (i.e. I can do something what counts) but I am not sure WHAT I could do in this case.