Another Craig Venter video with Richard Dawkins. They discuss his sequencing facility, and his project of building up the capacity to sequence 10,000 genomes in the next ten years. My bet is he will do it in three years.
They discuss just how similar the genomes of critters are. That this piece of information alone is enough to confirm the Theory of Evolution.
Besides being a computer programming genius, he's also a Christian. I like the Infrequently asked questions link from his Home Page
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Knuth's Infrequently Asked Questions
1. Why does my country have the right to be occupying Iraq?
2. Why should my country not support an international court of justice?
3. Is my country not strong enough to achieve its aims fairly?
4. When the leaders of a country cause it to do terrible things, what is the best way to restore the honor of that country?
5. Is it possible for potential new leaders to raise questions about their country's possible guilt, without committing political suicide?
6. Do I deserve retribution from aggrieved people whose lives have been ruined by actions that my leaders have taken without my consent?
7. How can I best help set in motion a process by which reparations are made to people who have been harmed by unjust deeds of my country?
8. If day after day goes by with nobody discussing uncomfortable questions like these, won't the good people of my country be guilty of making things worse?
Two lectures on using the 'dancing links' technique to allow computers to solve pentomino puzzles and other 'cover' problems. The interesting thing is that the same algorithm can be used to solve a whole range of puzzles - for example Sudoku puzzles can be solved by exactly the same code that solves the pentomino puzzles.
My favorite part was near the end when he pointed out that poverty kills way more people than terrorism, yet people are generally far more concerned with terrorism.
There really is a lot of great TED stuff. In addition to watching a number of good TED videos this weekend* I also watched The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED on the Netflix stream. It's a fascinating look at TED from a perspective most of us will never get, that of "TEDsters" (conference attendees).
Tonight, we're thrilled to announce TED's newest initative in sharing great ideas with the world: the Open TV Project. Announced this evening at Web 2.0 in San Francisco, the TED Open TV Project will bring TEDTalks to broadcast TV networks around the globe.
The TED Open TV Project has already signed up dozens of broadcasters around the world, whose collective audience numbers in the hundreds of millions. Built in response to strong demand from TV station managers around the world, TED's Open TV Project allows broadcasters to air TEDTalks for free, and encourages them to create custom programs for their communities.