Today I'll talk about Fight Club: IDEAS Cage Matches. I am reminded of Monty Python's "I'd like to have an argument..." skit. From its name, I am certainly reminded of the movie Fight Club. Think of a cage match as a civilized combination of the two. The nickname for the matches is Grey Matter Smackdown.

The Self-Assembly Line is a large-scale version of a self-assembly virus capsid, demonstrated as an interactive and performative structure. A discrete set of modules are activated by stochastic rotation from a larger container/structure that forces the interaction between units. The unit geometry and attraction mechanisms (magnetics) ensure the units will come into contact with one another and auto-align into locally-correct configurations. Overtime as more units come into contact, break away, and reconnect, larger, furniture scale elements, emerge.

"Virus hunter Nathan Wolfe is outwitting the next pandemic by staying two steps ahead: discovering deadly new viruses where they first emerge -- passing from animals to humans among poor subsistence hunters in Africa -- before they claim millions of lives."

"It's been 25 years since the first PC virus (Brain A) hit the net, and what was once an annoyance has become a sophisticated tool for crime and espionage. Computer security expert Mikko Hyppönen tells us how we can stop these new viruses from threatening the internet as we know it." one of my favourite talks of TEDGlobal 2011

"The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who's reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED's Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished -- and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad." interesting description of how wikileaks works, examples and how some material is authenticated.

"When first discovered in 2010, the Stuxnet computer worm posed a baffling puzzle. Beyond its unusually high level of sophistication loomed a more troubling mystery: its purpose. Ralph Langner and team helped crack the code that revealed this digital warhead's final target -- and its covert origins. In a fascinating look inside cyber-forensics, he explains how." good intro presentation to Stuxnet and the implication of the virus.

Summary of lunch meeting that Stuart S attended during TEDGlobal

The guys from Nissan during TED

Advert seen during TED intro - very cool - "Japanese agency Drill Inc. got back to nature in this stunning spot promoting the wood-encased NTT DoCoMo SH-08C phone, set for launch later this year. The agency created a giant wooden xylophone in the middle of the forest. A wooden ball rolls down the instrument to play the keys, each of which make up individual notes of Bach's Cantata 147, aka "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire."

A video i took of the flight of the Festo Smartbird

Talks from TED Global 2011

"Many things are going on in the visual thinking community and the blogs (see the blog role along the side) have been capturing much of it. Two of our facilitators and one of our attendees from VizThink ‘08 were involved in a significant visualization effort for one of the most famous conferences in the world, TED." we are aiming to do something similar at an internal TED event this July

"Markham's team created a 3D simulation of around 10,000 brain cells to mimic the behaviour of the rat neocortex. The way all the cells connect and send signals to each other is just as important as how many there are. 'You need one laptop to do all the calculations for one neuron, so you need ten thousand laptops,' Markham told the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford."

Eric Giler, chief executive of US firm Witricity, showed mobile phones and televisions charging wirelessly at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

"He points to the software company Atlassian -- a few times a year, they tell their engineers to go off for 24 hours and work on anything that is not their regular job. Then they all come back together and present their work. They call these Fedex days, because they have to deliver something overnight." Heard at TED Global - potential name for the Arup Hackday

nice example of letting users vote for the ideas that should be developed first.

amazing demo of photosynth