The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “TED”

The Fluid Dynamics of “The Starry Night”: How Vincent Van Gogh’s Masterpiece Explains the Scientific Mysteries of Movement and Light
The Fluid Dynamics of “The Starry Night”: How Vincent Van Gogh’s Masterpiece Explains the Scientific Mysteries of Movement and Light

“In a period of intense suffering, Van Gogh was somehow able to perceive and represent one of the most supremely difficult concepts nature has ever brought before mankind.”

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Click Like You Give a Damn: The Politics of Linkbait and How Feeding on Buzz Ensures a Malnourished Soul
Click Like You Give a Damn: The Politics of Linkbait and How Feeding on Buzz Ensures a Malnourished Soul

“We have to start shaping the world we want with our clicks, because clicking is a public act.”

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Visionary Neurologist Oliver Sacks on What Hallucinations Reveal about How the Mind Works
Visionary Neurologist Oliver Sacks on What Hallucinations Reveal about How the Mind Works

“We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well.”

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Maira Kalman at TEDxMet
Maira Kalman at TEDxMet

What teenage Vladimir Nabokov has to do with the spiritual power of shoes.

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We Are Made of Dead Stuff: Amazing Animation Made of Leaves
We Are Made of Dead Stuff: Amazing Animation Made of Leaves

“You and most of the matter in your body are just two or three degrees of separation from things like pond scum.”

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The Language of Lying: Animated Primer on How to Detect Deception
The Language of Lying: Animated Primer on How to Detect Deception

The four most reliable telltale signs of the 10 to 200 lies we tell and are told each day.

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Why We Ignore the Obvious: The Psychology of Willful Blindness
Why We Ignore the Obvious: The Psychology of Willful Blindness

How to counter the gradual narrowing of our horizons.

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The Psychology of Your Future Self and How Your Present Illusions Hinder Your Future Happiness
The Psychology of Your Future Self and How Your Present Illusions Hinder Your Future Happiness

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”

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Grit and the Secret of Success
Grit and the Secret of Success

How to cultivate the character quality that predicts excellence more than any other.

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Neil Gaiman on Why Scary Stories Appeal to Us, the Art of Fear in Children’s Books, and the Most Terrifying Ghosts Haunting Society
Neil Gaiman on Why Scary Stories Appeal to Us, the Art of Fear in Children’s Books, and the Most Terrifying Ghosts Haunting Society

“Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses.”

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