Today's Ted Talks: Blogs, Bread, & The Working Homeless
1. Mena Trott: How blogs are building a friendlier world - In a humorous manner, Mena Trott, the founding mother of the blog revolution through Movable Type, talks about the early days of blogging and the positive impacts it has for a friendlier, more connected world. One blogger she came across, wrote about his early born baby at 25 weeks and documented everything that happened at the hospital every day. Another blogger she knew of, wrote during her last months of battling cancer until she passed away, to which many people, including Mena Trott, responded emotionally. Mena Trott emphasizes the inspiring connections that can be made through blogging and the possibilities it could lead to.
#community #blog #software #storytelling #business #communication #mediawithmeaning #thecreativespark #longwinded #funny
2. Peter Reinhart: The art of baking bread - Peter Reinhart, a master baker, explains the twelve steps of bread making - in the literal sense. Then he talks about the figurative sense of four transformations that take place during bread making.
harvesting the wheat: alive --> dead
adding the levening agent: dead--> alive
bread reaching the thermal death point in the oven: yeast alive --> dead but dough --> bread
It was a totally random video, but it was cute, haha. "Bread is yeast burps and sweat."
#science #food #chemistry #life #thecreativespark #talesofinventions #foodmatters #informative #inspiring
3. *** Becky Blanton: The year I was homeless - Becky Blanton, a newspaper editor, shares her story of when she started off a year-long camping trip in her van but ended up in homelessness due to depression. She is now back at her job, successful, as a writer and journalist, but for a year, she used employee showers, suffered extreme heat and extreme cold, along with her cat and dog who she refused to give up for a place to rent. During the course of her year as a working homeless, she learned three things:
society equates living in a permanent structure, even a shack, with having value as a person
negative perceptions of other people can quickly impact our reality if we let it
homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle.
She explains how everything about her had stayed the same - her talent, IQ, values, integrity - but by the end, she had changed somehow.
Thousands of people work full and part time jobs and live in their cars, but society continues to stigmatize and criminalize living in your vehicle or on the streets.
The human spirit can overcome anything if it has hope.
People are not where they live, where they sleep, or what their life situation is at any given time.
#poverty #socialchange #adventure #storytelling #happiness #personalgrowth #life #society #masterstorytellers #rethinkingpoverty #whatmakesushappy #unconventionalexplanations #inspiring #courageous
