TED Community » David Wees

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Education, mathematics, technology, my family.

An idea worth spreading

Instead of representation by population, we should have a system where each person is granted a weighted vote, the strength of which is determined by your participation in the Democracy. Think "representation by participation".

People don't know that I'm good at

I sang for 8 years in various different choirs. I don't have an outstanding voice, but it's not bad. :)

Comments

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• A comment on Conversation: Children's schools should have an "Imagination" period

  Jun 4 2012: What I see missing from schools in terms of an imagination time is the tools students for students to be creative, and the space to store the products of their labour.
  
  If you have seen the video about Caine's Arcade (see http://cainesarcade.com/) you'll see how a kid who is supported and provided the tools they need has the ability to be creative. Caine has space to store his stuff, a mentor to help him build it, an audience to see the results of his creativity, and the tools necessary to build.
  
  What is missing in schools is space for students to store their stuff, and the kinds of materials they can use to build things, whether these things are made of paper and glue, or with digital tools, kids generally just don't have unfettered access to these things. It unfortunately also rare for students to have access to these things at home.
  
  So what I think schools (or community centres) need to do is to build these spaces, provide the tools, and help mentor kids. It doesn't matter much what they build, or how they build it, just that they have space to do it. We could call these STEM clubs, or Arts clubs, or whatever, we just need to ensure that all kids get the chance that Caine had - a chance to build a piece of themselves into the world around them.

• A reply on Conversation: How can computer models help us build intuition?

  Feb 16 2012: I agree James. Often someone designing a simulation has to make simplifying assumptions, and it can lead to a misalignment between what actually happens, and what is shown to happen in the simulation. However, if you can compare the simulation against raw data and there is a strong correlation, then the construction of a simulation may give you some insight into the mathematical properties of the phenomena you are simulating, even if you can't articulate those phenomena explicitly using a mathematical model.
  
  However, you do really need to ensure that you are thoughtful in your use, and you don't assume that what you have provided is an accurate measure of reality; you need to check.

• A comment on Conversation: How can computer models help us build intuition?

  Feb 16 2012: I never finished it, but this is the beginning of a classroom simulation, relying on the notion that knowledge is transferred between different students in the room (or between the teachers in the room and the students).
  
  http://davidwees.com/classroomsim/
  
  There is a lot of work that would need to be done to work on this simulation (it has some pretty serious bugs at this point). For example, it ignores the idea that given the right conditions, students can spontaneously discover ideas on their own (without relying on outside information necessarily) and the variables related to transmission of knowledge are incomplete. It is an unfinished attempt to look at information transfer theory as it would apply to education, and to see if we can gain any insights as to appropriate arrangements of classes (and pedagogical styles) based purely on information theory.
  
  Obviously, I'm sharing this example as a sample of something we could attempt to use the power of computing to solve (whether we would be successful is entirely a different matter).

• A comment on Talk: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

  Jan 19 2012: Copyright law, at least according to Wikipedia, in something similar to its current form, was created in 1709. The original copyrights were not granted so that publishers could ensure sole right to create copies of their work, but so that what was published could be tightly regulated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law. This suggests to me that for many thousands of millennia of human culture, there was nothing in our society like the current copyright scheme.
  
  So now one wonders, what did the people who created content do to make a living before the invention of copyright? Presumably, they made a living by being the best person to perform their work, and by interacting more directly with their customers. Society changed to adapt to the introduction of the printing press, and so too must it adapt to the introduction of the Internet and the computer.
  
  I don't know exactly how artists will survive in the future. I recognize that it will change, but to think that the act of being an artist will disappear is, I think, mistaken. It will evolve.

• A reply on Conversation: Is the current direction of the web Democratic?

  Nov 13 2011: The question is Scott: are most users aware of this issue? Do they know how to avoid being in an Internet filter bubble?
  
  Net Neutrality is a huge issue as well. No disagreement from me here, we need to get that sorted out, and I don't see that we can rely on our governments to support Net Neutrality.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Is the current direction of the web Democratic?

  Nov 13 2011: Who said anything about bribes? I think you are putting words in my mouth.
  
  Have you actually tested your Google results and your friends Google results, and the difference between when you are logged in, or not logged in?

• A reply on Conversation: Is the current direction of the web Democratic?

  Nov 12 2011: One of the problems is, a bit of randomness in your search means that you occasionally get exposed to ideas to which you are not accustomed. When your search results are entirely personalized for you, you get results that are not as likely to expose you to the many different perspectives on how the world works. Instead of the various factions that inhabit the Internet being exposed to each other regularly, you bump into each other only very occasionally, and forget that other perspectives exist.

• A comment on Conversation: Is the current direction of the web Democratic?

  Nov 12 2011: Some observations from Richard Beaudry (@RBeaudryLTA) on Twitter:
  
  Democratic:
  Social media success - Examples: Elections in Iran, and people revolutions in the Arab world this year.
  
  unDemocratic:
  Internet Censorship still a problem in countries led by single political parties: China, Syria, Burma.
  US Sen. tried to overturn the FCC's rules on Open Int. intro. in 2010. Corp. interests over democracy.
  US Sen voted 52–46 to defeat S.J Res 6 which would have overturned the FCC Commissions Open Int Rules.
  
  Can you think of other examples in which the Internet is becoming less Democratic?
• +4

  A reply on Talk: Roger McNamee: Six ways to save the internet

  Nov 12 2011: The Internet has been once of the most Democratic tools for communications we've ever had on this planet. It's not itself Democratic, but it can facilitate it. Democracy is about conversation (and debate), and that will be curtailed if corporations control how we access the Internet.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Roger McNamee: Six ways to save the internet

  Nov 12 2011: Where are those apps he's talking about going to be embedded? How will we access them? If we embed them in Facebook, aren't they subject to the algorithms Facebook uses to deliver information to us?