TED Community » Tom Rielly

More About Me

I'm passionate about

TED, Books, Science, the Environment, Climate Change, Design, Product Design, Civil Rights, Entertainment in all its forms: Movies, Thrillers, Humor.

An idea worth spreading

TED Fellows: www.ted.com/fellows

Talk to me about

TED Fellows and Book Club, Comedy, Gay Issues, the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Design, Ideas for TED, Travel, Films, Glee, Visual Effects, Consumer Electronics, Computers

People don't know that I'm good at

Being Serious

My TED Story

Been coming since 1990. Have been to every TED since then, including TEDGlobal, TEDMED (with the exception of TEDMED 2 and 3), TEDCity, TEDNYC, TEDKOBE. Worked with Russell Brown of Adobe to make TEDZilla, end of TED Satirical movies from 1991-1999. Started doing live TED Conference Satire in 1995. Founded my company PlanetOut after agent approached me after 1995 performance. TED is my other family.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +726.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Talk: Cesar Harada: A novel idea for cleaning up oil spills

  Jul 6 2012: Gator, Tom Rielly Fellows Director at TED here, if you can email me your contact info to tom@ what you expect .com I'll fwd to Cesar
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Monika Bulaj: The hidden light of Afghanistan

  Mar 23 2012: The amount of hostility and anger in Dennis' comment is palpable. I trust he is working under very difficult circumstances and wish him peace. But the statement "if you come here tomorrow without a security team you would be raped and murdered," is a patent exaggeration and distortion. It may apply in certain narrow situations but to imply that all Afghan men are rapists and murderers is both false and plays into all the crazy stereotypes Monika's work is trying to overcome.
  
  As Polish national, Monika might have encountered less friction in her movements than an American would have. To say that she is a naive romantic is also not true; she's very cautious and prudent about her safety.
  
  Monika earned the trust of her subjects over many months, if not years and her technique involves sitting in silence with her subjects for hours and days to find the right moment and to disappear into the background.
  
  The fact is that she was welcomed into the locations she depicted.
  
  And he asserts "I doubt she even took most of the pictures," without providing a scintilla of evidence that this is true. Would you trust his angry rant or the TED Fellows vetting process? I assure you that not only is she is the artist she represents herself to be, but we need her quiet but powerful voice to counter all the dominant tropes about Afghanistan.
  
  Her pictures' painterly beauty pierces the heart to reveal truths about the universality of her subjects and their goals: peace, food, shelter, worship and a better life for their children.
  
  Ultimately Dennis' screed says more about him than about Monika.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: With the advent of amazing online videos, why are we still so compelled to experience live performance (music, sports games, dance)?

  Sep 2 2011: Robert, I think part of the reason why live performance is superior is RESOLUTION. technical resolution, i.e. size of image, SD vs. HD vs. IMAX vs. unobstructed center orchestra view; frames per second; quality of sound, lighting and projection if any; and how compressed and artifact-filled the image is all affect EMOTIONAL resolution. Experiment: watch a blobby low-rez clip of a music performance on youtube. Then watch the same thing on DVD, then a Blu-Ray, then LIVE. It's amazing the difference. Compressed video=compressed emotion.

• A reply on Conversation: With the advent of amazing online videos, why are we still so compelled to experience live performance (music, sports games, dance)?

  Sep 2 2011: It's amazing how much a live orchestra (or subset; it was Kronos Quartet conducted by Philip Glass) changes Dracula, one of the few sound films without any music. It's thrilling, visceral and fabulous.

• A comment on Conversation: LIVE CHAT With Sean Gourley: What are some of the lessons from war we can apply to other human endeavors? June 17, 2PM EDT

  Jun 17 2011: Sean, I think the mathematics of war (based on Sun Tzu, not but related to your other work) would be an amazing research project then layperson's book. After you get your first one done. : )

• A reply on Conversation: Who is the most interesting TED Fellow you have seen on TED.com or met in person?

  Feb 16 2011: Indeed he is the Alan Greenspan of asteroids : ).

• A reply on Conversation: Who is the most interesting TED Fellow you have seen on TED.com or met in person?

  Feb 16 2011: Evgeny has found himself right in the middle of the Zeitgeist. Is his thesis, which he expounded in the Net Delusion true? or can social media bring about a revolution. I think the answer is probably both.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Who is the most interesting TED Fellow you have seen on TED.com or met in person?

  Feb 16 2011: Have you heard her album? You can find on Amazon and iTunes. It's sublime.

• A reply on Conversation: Who is the most interesting TED Fellow you have seen on TED.com or met in person?

  Feb 16 2011: Each of them in the intersection between art and technology.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Who is the most interesting TED Fellow you have seen on TED.com or met in person?

  Feb 16 2011: Juliana is a force of nature. She's almost done with her Ph.D. Then I give her two weeks to become president of Brazil. : )