TED Community » Jonathan Riedel

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Language, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, evolution, sociology

An idea worth spreading

I'd like to see if Jevons' paradox is true.

Talk to me about

Almost anything. I've rarely been disappointed with a TED talk if that tells you anything about the scope of my interests.

People don't know that I'm good at

Math, although I was a Humanities major.

My TED Story

The first TED video I saw was Ron Eglash on Fractals. Two years later I was referred back and I watched all of the videos marked "ingenious" and "fascinating" within a month.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +2.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide

  Sep 14 2011: Do these data churners take in information gathered from surveys, or just volunteers' input? I always wondered how we could use data to solve the problems that people always bring up in conversations. How long do Macs last versus PCs? Surely there's a way to ask people to submit how long their computers have lasted (with all the repairs they've done, etc.) to put an end to the debate.
  
  Japanese- vs. U.S. -made cars?
  iPhones vs. Blackberrys?
  
  It'd be nice to see a real, "neutral" source for these things instead of listening to sales pitches or reading them on google searches.

• A comment on Talk: Marco Tempest: The magic of truth and lies (and iPods)

  Sep 10 2011: Great artwork, I really enjoyed it!
  
  By the way, there's a mistake in the transcript: He says: "That's "Clair de Lune." Its composer (called) *Claude* Debussy said that art was the greatest deception of all."
• +4

  A comment on Talk: Juan Enriquez: The next species of human

  Nov 23 2010: Fascinating but scary as hell.

• A reply on Talk: Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers

  Nov 16 2010: But didn't knowing how they make flour make you appreciate the process more? I get a spark of inspiration every time I learn how a particular product is made or created, and I think that's what learning the calculations of math are all about. And, this was most of what I remember from Bill Nye the Science Guy's show!
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers

  Nov 16 2010: There seems to be a problem, though, that the kids who struggle with the concepts don't really care either way whether they'll use it in the real world or not. What D student do you know would say, "wow, now that I know calculus is applicable to my life insurance plan, I'm going to start getting A's!"?
  
  My recurring thought throughout watching the video was just this, that this method might work for bright students, but only for the right kind of bright students -- ones who are willing to think critically and accept math as a useful tool even if their passion is English or Biology -- and not for 95% of kids learning math. If you're especially interested in math OR you're the general non-excelling populus, you won't learn more by his method. But if you're at a magnet school, say, there might be something to it.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers

  Nov 16 2010: Totally right. I agree that kids should be taught why they're learning math but that doesn't necessitate computers.
• +7

  A comment on Talk: Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers

  Nov 15 2010: I almost entirely disagree. As a math major once, the intriguing part of math for me was the calculation. I hit the real-world application topics and snoozed through it. Especially if you're talented at math, the part you like best is the page full of integrals, not the "which life insurance plan is most advantageous?" part.
  
  You certainly get a lot more out of driving a car if you know what's under the hood, and you can better troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Greg Stone: Saving the ocean one island at a time

  Nov 3 2010: I was expecting this to be kind of dull but wow. Every Blue Voyage talk is about how dire the situation of the oceans is but this shows what can be done. It's a drop in the bucket but I'm inspired!

• A reply on Talk: David Bismark: E-voting without fraud

  Nov 3 2010: Agreed Jannes, but that's a red herring. The point Michelle's making is of no relevance to how many trees get killed due to petty advertising. It's like one person saying "we shouldn't go out for lunch today" and another saying "do you know how many people in the world go out for lunch today?"
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Dimitar Sasselov: How we found hundreds of potential Earth-like planets

  Oct 30 2010: 13:53-13:56; because nobody laughed, I say yes, yes you are.