TED Community » Matt Hintzke

More About Me

I'm passionate about

The world around me, how it works, and how I will be influencial to it.

Talk to me about

Anything at all. Especially physics and modern technology.

People don't know that I'm good at

Guitar

Comments

• TEDCred score: +3.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: A comical social experiment that would solve many problems in society

  Jul 28 2011: I guess you can never be too sure haha. And thanks for the feedback

• A reply on Conversation: A comical social experiment that would solve many problems in society

  Jul 28 2011: Very interesting. What is the name of that movie?
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  A comment on Conversation: What is time?

  Jul 28 2011: Time is just our perception of how entropy unfolds in our universe. As the entropy gets higher, which it always does, time unfolds within our minds. You could almost say time is just a figment of our imagination. However, how do you interpret this famous theory:
  
  If there is no one to see the moon, no instrument, person, or animal, then does it exist? If yes, prove it.
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  A comment on Conversation: Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?

  Jul 27 2011: With a narrative, things can become too general and teachers may start picking favorites and adding in a little bit of extra pizazz to the students grading feedback than they deserve. It is much easier for a teacher to get away with giving a few undeserved comments then to mess around with the numberical grading book to alter a student's grade. The narrative may show what the student has done and what they need to work on which would be great for K-12 grades where the actual cirriculum is not very intense. However, any university teacher/professor should grade using some sort of scale to reflect that individual's intelligence and prowess. I am going to a university to get my degree in Mechanical Engineering and have worked very hard for my A's and B's. I would not appreciate it if all that hard work was not as noticeable because it was lost in translation because of these feedback reports. All it could take is one professor to get it in with a student for a number of possible reasons and that student would be at the whim of the professor's judgement rather than being able to see physical grades based off a numerical score.

• A comment on Conversation: A conversation with GE: Why do we avoid making tough health choices? And, what could motivate us to behave differently?

  Jul 22 2011: I think a lot of why people do not always get proper medical advice and treatment is because of the lack of knowledge for the common every day person. Only doctors and other specialist really understand the risks and causes of most serious diseases and whatnot, so getting screened for things like TB do not make it very high on an individual's "To-Do" list that day. Most people tend to take the "it won't happen to me" philosophy and use it to make up excuses to not get proper medical care. Many cases of serious disease and disorders do not get publicized very often expect for special cases, so it is only these special cases that make a scene to the rest of society and individuals subconsciously compare themselves with these people and realize they are very different people, meaning there is no connection between themselves and that disease/disorder. This is the wrong logic to use but it is used nonetheless. If people become more informed on probabilities of obtaining certain diseases and illnesses then I think it would draw more attention to screenings and precautionary measures.

• A reply on Conversation: A new kind of social network

  Jul 22 2011: I feel as if you did not even read my idea...the whole point of this idea IS to get people to go out in the world and physically do something they are passionate about..it may involve digital communication, but the overall goal of the site would be to encourage people to go outside and make something for themselves, not sit on their arses in front of a computer screen.

• A reply on Conversation: A new kind of social network

  Jul 21 2011: I actually use to code some flash, mostly games as a high schooler, but I am sure I could hone the skills into allowing me to create super user friendly apps to help with the organization of the website seeing how I already sense that this project would be huge.
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  A reply on Conversation: A new kind of social network

  Jul 21 2011: Well the underlying principal of the website would be to encourage new accomplishments and goals, however getting ideas from other's past experiences is never a bad idea. Theres so many fascinating things in the world that I think most people don't even know about, but if they find out about it from another's experiecne then it might lead them to pursue a new goal. Thank you for your feedback. If I am to begin this project I am going to have to spend alot of time reading up on website design and development because I know next to nothing about creating a website. However, I will keep posting my ideas and I encourage all others to do the same if they would like. If anyone with experience is willing to help me it would be much appreciated.
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  A reply on Conversation: A new kind of social network

  Jul 21 2011: David,
  You have brought up some good points. I have been thinking about how I would keep people interested and not lose sight of their goals, but at the same time keep the website fairly simple. Thats why I would think it would be interesting to bring work and play together by letting it be a serious place where people can express their desires to do things in their life, but also a place to just chat with interesting people, post videos, photos and write small blogs about their experiences.
  
  I actually thought of a cool little feature that could be implemented; a fully interactive timeline of each persons life that would appear at the top of their profile page. The timeline would show all major events that that user wants the world to see including education, jobs, vacations, and other important moments in his or her life. Visiting users could then hover over and click on parts of the timeline which would link them to a more detailed description of the event.
  
  Another idea, to implement a StumbleUpon-like feature that allows users to check mark interests and then be allowed to randomly browse the thousands of events other users have done that correlate to that specific interest. Example: Say one person is interested in Guitars and they build an electric guitar out of scratch as a project in their life, they then post this project on the website with pictures and details of what they did. Metatags would then be used to place that "event" under specific tags like DIY and Guitar. Now another member gets on this feature and checks the box saying they are interested in Guitars. Now when they, for lack of a better word, "stumble" through that interest, the first users page about their guitar building experience will pop up and can be viewed.
  
  I would see this as a great way to not only give people new ideas that others have done, but also motivate them because they can say, "Hey, if he can do it, why can't I".

• A reply on Conversation: The death penalty is unjustifiable

  Jul 20 2011: Thomas, it is not that I want the person to just die and that be the end of it. I just would choose that over them getting the kind of life they get in prison.
  
  Have you ever heard of the new Halden Prison in Norway? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html
  
  Here is an article about it. 1.5 Billion dollars to create this prison. At an estimate of 4.9 million people in Norway. Lets say 60% are adults. That is 2.94 million adults getting taxed for this prison's construction alone. That is $510 per adult living in Norway. This is all just speculative because I do not know how Norway's tax system works and how much of the prison funding was from taxes, but my point is made either way. I wonder where all this money came from. Then another couple million a year to run and maintain it I would assume. I think money like this should go to things like education, hospitals, welfare, not murderers and convicts...If murderers were sentences to a low profile prison where they were not tortured or anything but just left to work to pay for their OWN meals, room and board, etc then it would be another story. However, not all prisons do that and the ones that do still use millions of dollars worth of taxes every year.