TED Community » Peter Ma

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Art and Technology

An idea worth spreading

A hackathon for art, a hackathon for writing

Talk to me about

Technology, Art, Creative Ideas

People don't know that I'm good at

I am good at being persistent, being resilient, risk taking

My TED Story

I solo hiked the Johm Muir Trail. I was alone throughout the entire trail but I didn’t feel lonely. The wilderness can be a scary place but I was cleansed of all my fear. The hike was the most exhausting trip I’ve ever had but I was not exhausted. I was out of food, and when a trail maintainer shared some of her food with me I cried because I knew I was in the presence of human nature at its best. Having scraped rock bottom, I know that when human fallibility is met with kindness, it is to be acknowledged.
I was so tired sometimes that simply sitting down became a luxury. After finishing the trail on the summit of Mount Whitney, I finally understood what it meant to truly appreciate life. I became aware of my ignorance towards the wonders of living, but I know better now.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +45.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +4

  A comment on Talk: JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out

  Mar 5 2011: I'll sure help out his wish by making an application that allows people to take art piece everywhere they go =) This project's idea is really brilliant, and everybody in this world can join, literally, everybody!

• A comment on Talk: Nic Marks: The Happy Planet Index

  Aug 30 2010: This was one of my favorite talks at TEDGlobal, it was even more interesting when you talking to him in person. He has given one way to solve the problem of well being without consuming much natural resources. Majority of the resources are being made into products we buy get us temporary satisfaction, but very few products actually grants us long term well being. Just like the toys for the kids, they get old pretty fast, sadly that's what people cares about and that's what drives our GDP in the west.
  
  If we can follow his 5 steps and test out whether that will achieve "well being", this planet will be a lot more sustainable and we'll all benefit from it.
  
  He gave me 5 cards, which says the following
  
  1. Connect
  2. Be active
  3. Take notice
  4. Keep learning
  5. Give
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Jamil Abu-Wardeh: The Axis of Evil Middle East Comedy Tour

  Aug 24 2010: Giorgio, great job at TEDxDubai =) you guys really attracted some top notch peacemaker/speakers! Now 2 of them are speaking at TEDGlobal!

• A reply on Talk: David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

  Aug 23 2010: If you buy his book "Information Is Beautiful" it has a lot more interesting info graphs.
  
  He only has 18 minutes, so he has to make his point. And the best part is that when we get the point, we'll be influenced to create info-graphs such as the one you are talking about =)
• +2

  A comment on Talk: David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

  Aug 23 2010: This is one of my favorate talk at TED Global 2010, I've always been influenced by his work and it was such an honor to meet him in person.
  
  He was able to compress the most complex form of information into most simple representation, which allows the viewer to learn something within matter of 2 to 3 seconds without information overload. The Data Visualization allows users to finding patterns and meanings within the data which would otherwise not been seen, such as breakup time from facebook's data. It also can change someone's perspective when they see the unbiased information from the opposition.
  
  I hope this talk would encourage others to create more visualized information. This is the one of the best solution for information overload. "Data is the new soil!" - David McCandless
• +5

  A comment on Talk: Maz Jobrani: Did you hear the one about the Iranian-American?

  Aug 19 2010: He's one of my favorate comedian at TEDGlobal. It is genius to try to bring western humor into middle eastern world. We need to find more common grounds between each other rather than differences, we need to find how we can new ways like comedies to engage middle east with laughs and happiness rather than hate and threat. We all live in the same world, and it'll be a lot better for all of us if we can live happily with each other side by side, with laughs and joy.
  
  I am going to his Comedy Show in Pasadena, CA next Friday, cheers to Maz!

• A comment on Talk: Peter Molyneux demos Milo, the virtual boy

  Aug 18 2010: What Peter Molyneux was showing was not only to create movement through technology, but internal feelings as well. He is trying to create a way for make the humans and machine interact not only physically, but emotionally. There are a lot of games out there where you interact with the machine physically, a lot of wii games, a lot of kinetic games, but none of them you would invest your feelings towards it. This talk gives us a brief glimpse of what its like when you connection your emotions with the technology, and if this becomes successful, I think more innovations will come =)
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle

  Aug 11 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
  
  HOME is on youtube now, just watched it, one of the greatest documentary ever made. I suggest everybody to watch it to get informed, and become a more environment responsible citizen of this planet =)

• A comment on Talk: Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours

  Jul 29 2010: She pointed out the flaw of human being on taking risks because humans do not want to take risks when there is gain, but willing to take risks when there is a loss. And from her speech I've recognized my flaw about taking risks, and this will help me to overcome it. I'll find out more flaws about myself in the future, I'll recognize them, and overcome them. I hope everybody else will do the same =)

• A reply on Talk: John Delaney: Wiring an interactive ocean

  Jul 28 2010: Totally agreed, I hope this brings awareness to people and we'd be able to bring more research into it.