TED Community » Sophielihui .

More About Me

I'm passionate about

All aspects of business, reading, dancing, travel/backpacking, art, fashion, swimming, computer and geeky stuff......

Comments

• TEDCred score: +20.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +4

  A comment on Talk: Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff

  Feb 3 2011: Dan’s style reminds me of a quote from Gandhi: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

  Jan 31 2011: I agree with Julian that in case of some major economic crisis, especially if the inflation rates gone out of hand, China could very quickly descend into chaos, given the current level of tension and disappointment towards the government. As a Chinese, I am deeply worried about this, since there are two particularly concerning factors about this potential power shift:
  
  1) With the culture revolution only a generation away, Chinese people do not and cannot openly criticizing the government. But the tension has been slowly building up over the decades, when it finally broke out, it will be very sudden and hard to control.
  
  2) We do not have any opposition party capable of taking over the country. Given the size and population of the country, there will be a political vacuum and things will become chaotic beyond imagination.

• A reply on Talk: Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

  Jan 31 2011: Yes, there has been significant development in China over the last 50 years. But that is mainly due to the science and technology development rather than the communist party's leadership. Thus the current development does not guarantee the future outlook.
  
  While China’s GDP accounts for more than 10% of the world total in 1900, it dropped to 5.7% in 1949 when the communist party took power. It then further dropped to 3.7% in 2000, after 40 years governing. It was only in the recent decade that this percentage started to pick up again, but not yet to the 1990 level. (Data source: IMF) In other words, the communist party, for the most part of its governing, has made the country worse off rather than better off.
  
  Furthermore, those nominal GDP fingers does not necessarily transform into a better life for average people. While salary accounts for 55% of total GDP in the western countries, this percentage is only 8% in China.
• +6

  A reply on Talk: Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover

  Jun 26 2010: I get your point, but anti-schooling is not the solution in modern society. Not everyone has the luxury to home school their kids. Let’s try to fix our education system rather than mock it.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Richard Dawkins: Why the universe seems so strange

  Jun 5 2010: This truly is one of the best science talks on TED. Too bad people are turning it into a religious argument, holding the residual anger from his last talk.
  If they listen with an open mind, they will see that this talk is as beautiful as a poem.

• A reply on Talk: Theo Jansen: My creations, a new form of life

  Jun 2 2010: My guess is: it is using the wind power to move the hammer. The stronger the wind, the deeper the pinning, so it stays put during the storm.
  
  My question is: how does it dig itself out after the storm? (the paddings/"shoes" at the end of its feet makes the coming out process a little painful)
  Can it flip the hammer and use it for the opposite purpose?

• A comment on Talk: George Whitesides: Toward a science of simplicity

  May 31 2010: .
  As one of my mottos goes: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

  May 27 2010: Think about a mother of four, do you think she should be able to take care of her children as a whole WHILE attending to their individual needs? Would you require each child to have his or her own mother so that their individuality could be nurtured? The same goes for teachers.

• A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

  May 27 2010: Winston Churchill, in his “Painting as a Pastime”, wrote that:
  
  Human beings can be divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one.
  
  Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms.
  
  But fortune's favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.

• A comment on Talk: Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce

  May 26 2010: If Howard Moskowitz were alive today, he could have co-authored “The Long Tail” with Chris Anderson.