Have you met TED?

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. The website, www.ted.com, features video clips of “riveting talks by remarkable people.” It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then, the focus has broadened.
The TEDTalks video site is packed with amazing things. None of the videos is more than about 20 minutes long; speakers are from all over the globe and the topics cover design, creativity, technology, art, inspiration…
Today, I was fascinated by a video featuring David Merrill, a grad student at MIT, who spends about eight minutes demonstrating Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These smart blocks can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. The educational applications are limitless.
I quickly moved to a clip featuring Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian, who makes leaders from our nation’s past seem human and real.
Be warned, the danger of TED is that one could easily end up spending way too much time getting to know this wonderful new friend.