I was about 6 years old when I saw a display of kids' licence plates for bikes or tricycles. I didn't ride a bike until years later, so it must've caught my eye for my tricycle.

They had a floor-standing 4-sided rotating display of names--two displays--one of boy's names and one of girl's. I looked for "Austin" but couldn't find it. There were even variations of common names like David, Dave, Davy.

I looked at the girl's names, thinking they might've run out of room on the boy's names display. It wasn't there, but that display also had variations of names like Cathy, Kathy, etc.

The name Austin has recently become popular. When I recently saw this printed notepad I bought it. I bought two.  ¶ 4:14 PM (0) comments

  Speciesist?

Is there something special about us humans? Are we as a species unique and somehow different than the animals? The first time I heard that chimpanzees and gorillas are less similar (less common DNA) than humans and chimpanzees I felt shocked and affronted. (Don't know if it's true. Heard it on a TV documentary.)

There are lots of interesting people giving short talks on what drives them, what interests them at a conference of technology, entertainment and design (TED). Lots of sessions on a range of ideas at ted.com.

Among the talks rated jawdropping is one on bonobo apes. They are not as familiar to us because they were only recently discovered and they don't put them in zoos often because sex is not a separate part of their lives.

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html

It's 17min. Watch at 15:50 on for something amazing, unexpected, and yes, jaw-dropping.

I could tell you some of my favorites, but discovery is the essence of something or other.

I did stumble upon this clip about "Starting TED" which inspired me to do this post I'd been mulling about for a while.

http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=51547  ¶ 11:57 AM (0) comments