Tuesday, July 31, 2012

A TED video I think you should watch

In this post I would like to share a video from TED, that I think anyone even remotely interested in computers should watch.

Every now and then I like to watch videos that teach me something and/or inspire me when it comes to innovation. I used to limit myself to Channel 9, which is a great source for anything even remotely (and sometimes not) related to Microsoft. It has been inspiring and educational. Remember this post I wrote back in 2009?

Last year I was pointed to TED. As TED says on their website, they are a ‘nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading’. Find out more about TED here. You should note that most videos on TED are presentations or talks. Sometimes there are interviews and sometimes there is a video with some kind of performing art.

The video I’d like to share with you is this one. It is a talk by John Graham-Cumming and it’s about the first ever design for a computer by Charles Babbage. I don’t want to give you to much information on the details, but you should definitely watch it. It’s only twelve minutes long, which is a common thing about these talks, they usually are not very long, which makes it easier to find the time to watch some of them.

One thing I took away from this is that although it is ok to doodle around with a whole bunch of different ideas, we should every now and then execute one of them.

If you have other great places where you find inspiring and/or educational videos, feel free to share them with us in the comment section.