Robert Ballard response

Robert started with the question on why NASA gets so much more funding than NOAA. NASA's one year budget would fund NOAA for 1000 years. The ocean makes up 72% of the worlds surface and very little of its has been explored. He showed a map of the world without the oceans and there was mountians in some spots and it was just flat in others. He said it was flat because no survey ship had been there. That amazed me becasue the ocean is on our planet and home and we don't know as much as we can about it. And even in our country 50% of the land is under water and we have better maps of mars than our own country. That seems crazy becasue we can use what is here not what is on mars. It also suprised me that the average depth of the earth is 12000 feet below the sea. The sea is one of the richest places on the planet with huge deposits of ore so why aren't we taping in to these. Robert talked so much about the scietific wonders of the ocean that it reallty made me think about his question on why NASA gets so much more money than NOAA. Why aren't we explioting the recources that are on earth and cheaper to get to than ones that are possibly in space. Robert also talked about how they are using the dicovery and adventure of the ocean to motivate kids and get them interested in science and other subjects so that they can compete with kids from other countries. Robert ended with another question: Why are we looking to colonize the moon but not the ocean? Again it would probably be cheaper to habitate the ocean than the stars.
I've read every book Clive Cussler has written and all of his series have something to do with the ocean. I thought that he had used writers licsence to write his books but this talk made me realize that most of it is true. The reason I bring this up is becasue I would actually consider having a carrear in ocean research becasue I like science and the prospect of discovery. This talk really made me think about the what ifs in the world and that just makes me want to learn more.

Shai Agassi electric car response

When Shai opened with the question on if a country could be run without oil it really made me think. After he worked through several ways that he thought would work but wouldn't he figured that eletricity would be the best way to achieve the goal of no oil. I agree with this becasue other methods just don't seem to have the abundance to sustain an entire population. Electricity however has many ways to be produced that are sutainable including wind and solar that are another way to get off oil. One of my main problems with electric cars is that they don't go very far. Shai had a fix for that in a network system. When you park you plug your car in and when you are driving if your battery gets low you swap it out at a store. This really reminds me of gas stations today where when you get low you just fill up. With the battery swap system he figured that it would cost 8 cents a mile compared to $1.50 a mile to gas  today. If you think like the average american whats not to like about saving money. And it would get even cheaper becasuse of the life of the battery. If it got that low a 40 mpg gallon car and the whole Pacific of oil could not compete. When he started talking about islands of electricity I didn't think that was good becasue you could only stay in a limited area. That seems to be one of the bigger problems with this concept. I really agree that the U.S. will be one of the last areas to get this system. Without a large tax on gas like Europe or places where gas isnt as cheap as it is here.
This was by far my favorite talk so far. It was a really good topic and the way he spoke gave it a lot of flow and made it really easy to follow. This topic made me think a lot about how cars and oil impact the economy and environment and how if changed there could be a lot of ups and apperently from this talk few downs. Oil is one of the resons our economy is bad so why don't we just get rid of it and its problems.

Dave Eggers response

His talk seemed very rushed and unpracticed. He was very nervous and talked really fast with a lot of ums and a's. He used a lot of hand motions and looked around a lot when he paused. His presentation was very choppy and unflowing. However he seemed like he was having fun and the audience seemed to like him. The way that they desinged their centers as joke stores with the tutoring in the back is cool because they might make a little money along the way from traffic that goes to the tutoring center. It is a really good model to use anywhere because the kids can have some fun and learn at the same time. 
The topic that he talked about was a really good idea because he and his friends love writing and want to use that to help kids that get no one on one help becasue of class size. Many of the kids they help do not speak english at home so they struggle in classes that require english. You can see how this would be good even here in Denver there are schools that are not mainly english speaking and they seem like they do not do as well as schools that are more english. Something like this would help kids becasue if you don't speak a language primarily then it would be really hard to do good at it in school. If every city had a place like this then a lot of kids would really bennifit because if they went at a younger age then they will get a solid base for later life in writing and english.

Pete Alcorn response

Pete Alcorn talked about the world in 2200 he opened with figures from the U.N. that showed how the worlds populaton would grow to about 10 billion and then decrease over time. He stated that although this may not seem like a good thing it actually might be. First he stated that it would lift a burden from the poor becasue it would mean less people in a limited amount of space. That would cause less crowding and would eventually lead to better conditions. The other reason he said declining populatoin would be good is becasue it would cause scarce labor. That in turn drives up wages, another benefit for the poor and working class. Pete stated that history shows when population drops conditions go up. After the black death Europe saw many benfits including higher wages and land reform as above stated but also a birth of a middle class. In todays society where there is already a middle class I think that it would cause an increase in the middle class which would mean less poor people. Because we have no madern equivilant to this he states that we always lood back at the "good old days" but we should look foreward because there is another upturn coming. Another European Enlightenment and Rennasance for the whole world all we have to do is make it over the speedbumps along the way.
Pete's prenentation style was very succient. His whole talk took about four minutes so it was very easy to listen to the whole thing attentivly. This was a talk that I was more interested in becasue I love the outdoors and the thought of a huge population covering the world doesn't make we want to live forever.  I agree that a slight decrease in population could be good for humantity as a whole and end up benifitting the planet from the innovation that could come from a second Rennasance of sorts.

Clay Shirky response

Clay talked about cognative surplus or the ability to volunteer free time to work on projects. He mentioned the wall cats as a project of this type becasue it is what someone does in their free time and makes public no matter how bad it is. Ushidi is also an example of this because some programers just gave their time to this cite to get the word out about what was happening. He separates these by labeling them communal and civic. The cats are communal because they are for the makers by the makers. But Ushidi is civic because it is by the makers for the world. The cats are fun to make but don't really make a difference for anyone except if you get a laugh out of them. Ushidi is different because it makes a difference and gives quality information to the world. This can be a reflection on the type of person who is using cognative surplus. The cat person might just want a laugh while the Ushidi person wants to make a differnce and change something.
 This was deffinetly not my favorite talk becasue I didn't know what he was talking about until it was half done and the whole peice with the daycare didn't seem to relate to the cognative surplus topic to me. He didn't really have any good tie-ins besides Ushidi and the cats so it got old when he kept going back to the same examples over and over. If he had more developable examples or if he just had more this talk would have been better. This connects to me becasue I spend a lot of time watching T.V. and laying around. The only part of this talk that made me think was when he said the the world has a trillion free hours a year. I wonder what we could do if we all put some of that time to use.

Daniel Pink response

Daniel Pink talked about drive and how it affects us. With the candle problem you are driven to get the candle on the wall but to do that you need to think outside the box to find the solution. The rewards sometimes offered destroy the creativness that is needed to complete the task. This is because when a goal is offered for a simple task we will do fine but if a task is more complex then the reward makes us do worse. This is becasue the reward makes us focus so much on the goal that we lose the big picture and therefore lose the ability to see the solution. But when a system like the ROWE is used the focus is big and you can do what you want to as long a you do your job. This leaves a lot of space for creativity and open-end work which makes us better at a job because we are not focused so much on a goal and a schedule and a deadline that can cloud our focus.
The way that Daniel Pink talked was good becasue he had a lot of facts on his ppt and kept the presentation lose. He had a good tie in with his opener and that made the talk better because of the connection.

Nick Bostrom, problems

This speaker took a look at what are humanities biggest problems with the human race. He stated that age, risk, and that life isn't always the best it can be. This talk made me think about these topics and ponder the impact of them on my life. This speaker had a very standard style. He stood behind a podium and had a power point that went along with his speech. The first two topics deffinetly made me think more because they seem to apply more to me. Every second I am alive I get older and every time I get out of bed I take a risk. I could fall down the stairs or burn myself on the toaster. The final point also made me think that life can't always be like vacation where there is no responsablility and there might not be something new to do or an extra piece to something for extra entertainment. This talk made me appreciate what I have because: 1.The darkness is slowly closing in. 2. I could be grossly injured at any time. 3. It could always be worse.

Ted Talk Sir Ken Robinson

He seems like he has a very strong belief that education takes away creativity. He has kids so he has experience with what can happen from a different perspective than being a kid. He kept the mood light and kept the crowd and me engaged even though it was a long talk. This was good becaue when I heard the topic I thought it would be boring but the way he told his story made it a lot better. His presentation seemed very loose and free flowing even though I'm sure it was very well prepared and practiced. This video matters to me because I am in the education system and I am at the age where I need to find creative ways to get ahead to compete in an ever changing world. I also think that he is right because the way that we work and are expected to be is structured and composed which can be good for some things but other topics can be better expressed with an open approach. His talk showed and open approach no notes and he was just walking around on the stage not just standing at a podium and that approach worked great for this talk.