ted talks

An Onion Talks satire in which a faux animal behaviorist gives a pompous TED-style talk about ducks quacking and chickens clucking. It parodies the vacuous style of TED talks.

Thai farmer Jon Jandai talks about leaving Bangkok to farm and build his own house, arguing that food, shelter, clothing and medicine are easy to provide and that modern life is made needlessly complicated. He founded the Pun Pun Center for Self-reliance.

An Onion Talks satire in which a young media professional pitches compost-powered cars, offering the idea itself and leaving all implementation to others.

Will Stephen's humorous six-minute TEDx talk shows presentation techniques that make you sound brilliant while saying essentially nothing.

Sir Ken Robinson argues, with humor and stories such as that of choreographer Gillian Lynne, that education systems undermine creativity and should be changed. It is one of the most viewed TED talks.

A short excerpt from Werner Herzog's film Lo and Behold in which Ted Nelson lays out his ideas about hypertext and interconnection. Herzog concludes that Nelson is the only sane person in computing.

A four-minute Onion Talks parody in which a social media consultant pitches never putting any effort into social marketing. It lampoons TED-style talks and marketing consultants.

A CBC satire sketch in which a self-proclaimed thought leader gives a talk full of empty gestures and nothing-saying inspiration. It parodies TED-style conference talks.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz argues in this TED talk that abundant choice makes people more paralyzed and dissatisfied rather than freer and happier.

Gary Wilson's TEDxGlasgow talk argues that internet pornography hyperstimulates the brain's reward system and can cause symptoms that reverse when people stop. TED notes that several claims are not supported by respected academic studies.

A short TEDx talk by Joe Smith teaching how to dry your hands with a single paper towel. It shows a simple technique for cutting waste.

A surreal multimedia TEDxSarasota performance by Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz, held on 12/12/12, mixing performance art with talk about imagination and creativity.

Dr. John McDougall argues at TEDxFremont that starch-based diets are what humans were born to eat, drawing on 40 years of nutrition and disease work.

A TEDxNashville talk by uBeam founder Meredith Perry about becoming a technology innovator and her plan for wireless charging of phones.

Reggie Watts performs at TED 2012, blending vocal looping, beatboxing, poetry and comedy across musical genres in a larger-than-life improvised set.

David Mazieres presents the Stellar Consensus Protocol at Google, introducing federated Byzantine agreement. The model lets participants choose whom to trust rather than assuming fixed membership.

The first lecture in Martin Kleppmann's 8-lecture distributed systems series from the University of Cambridge undergraduate course. It introduces the subject, and accompanying lecture notes are available.

Dr. K of HealthyGamerGG argues that gifted kids can be seen as special needs, tracing a path from the gifted label to burnout and perfectionism.

An AWS re:Invent 2014 talk on the core distributed systems primitives behind AWS and Amazon.com, such as consensus, key-value stores and transactional logging. It describes how AWS builds large services from a few common building blocks.

A four-minute 2006 explainer on trusted computing, describing what it is and whether users should support it, with a skeptical DRM angle.

A one-minute NVIDIA research demo of foveated rendering for VR using SMI eye tracking. It renders at full detail only where the eye is looking, matching the physiology of human vision.

Lawyer and musician Damien Riehl argues that music is math with a finite number of melodies, and describes how he and programmer Noah Rubin generated every possible melody and released them under CC0 to avoid accidental infringement claims.

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that US democracy is corrupted by money, since a tiny fraction of the population effectively funds who gets elected. He says fixing this must come before addressing issues like climate change or student debt.

Cardiologist James O'Keefe argues in a TEDx talk that moderate running confers the best longevity benefits, while extreme endurance training can damage the heart. He draws on data and his own experience as a lifelong runner.

Chris Lonsdale presents a TEDx talk on how adults can learn a language in about six months, centering on immersion, comprehensible input and a practical learning methodology.

In this TEDxBerlin talk, environmental activist Michael Shellenberger explains why he changed from opposing nuclear power to advocating it, after looking at the evidence on Chernobyl, Fukushima and air pollution.

Ruben Meerman presents a TEDx talk on the stoichiometry of weight loss, showing with lab demonstrations where fat goes when it is lost. He argues that most of it is exhaled as carbon dioxide.

Eduardo Briceno gives a TEDx talk on mindset, contrasting fixed and growth views of ability. He argues that believing abilities can be developed encourages challenge, deliberate practice and grit.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen explains in a TEDx talk why Germany has lower crime and far fewer prisoners than the US, and what American criminal justice could learn from German prisons.

Michael Shellenberger argues in a TEDx talk that solar and wind need huge amounts of land and mining, and says nuclear power is a better path to protecting both the climate and nature.

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how astroturf, fake grassroots campaigns funded by corporate or political interests, manipulates media messages. The TEDx talk is about 11 minutes.

TEDxStanford talk by Bill Burnett, executive director of Stanford's design program, on applying design thinking to your own life and career. He offers five practical tips such as getting curious, talking to people and trying things.

Nina Paley's TEDxMaastricht talk arguing against copyright and for copyleft and free culture. She argues that restricting ideas harms creativity and that culture belongs to everyone.

Lieutenant General Mark Hertling gives a TEDx talk arguing that obesity and poor youth fitness are a national security problem because too few young Americans can meet military physical requirements.

A TEDxBangalore talk by The Ugly Indian, an anonymous collective, asking why Indians tolerate filthy public spaces. It describes their volunteer approach of quietly cleaning up spots and turning the tragedy of the commons into a victory.

Mel Robbins gives a TEDxSF talk on why people sabotage themselves and how to push past hesitation. It is the source of her 'count backward from five' technique.

A TEDx talk arguing that battery electric vehicles are not as environmentally friendly as commonly believed and that the rush to adopt them is misguided. TED flagged it as containing claims that lack scientific support.

Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues in this TED talk that evolution shaped perception to track fitness rather than truth. He uses evolutionary simulations and the Australian jewel beetle as examples.

Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, gives a TED talk on the blurry line between sane and crazy and on psychopathy as a spectrum, with stories of how the label gets applied.

Bill Gates's 2015 TED talk, given after the 2014 Ebola outbreak, argues the world is unprepared for the next fast-spreading epidemic. He calls for scenario planning, vaccine research, and trained health workers, in the way countries prepare for war.