My 30 day trials

I have recently added the TED app to the IPad. For those of you unfamiliar with the TED Seminars, (according to their website)  

TED was born in 1984 out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design. The first TED included demos of the Sony compact disc and new 3D graphics from Lucasfilm, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals.  

Since then the conference held yearly in Long Beach, California, has been a chance for people with innovative ideas to get their ideas out. When I first heard of the TED Conferences 4 or 5 years ago, I looked into attending a conference because it seemed really amazing. Unfortunately, the current cost of registering for the conference is about $6000. Even so, it's hard to get solid info about the next year's TED because it has been sold out for some time. Luckily, starting a few years ago, the TED website has videos of the seminars. So you miss out on the discussions at the conference, but still have money for food and clothing.    

In the last few days I have watched seminars that dealt with  

"The strange tale of the Norden bombsight" by Malcolm Gladwell, 

"The real reason for brains" by Daniel Wolper,

and a funny speech by Hasan Elahi titled "FBI, Here I Am".


The seminar shown below was one I watched a few days ago and thought was especially interesting. It is short and somewhat simplistic, but I liked the idea.   


     



So I decided to start with playing the piano every day for 30 days. I have a piano system I think will work in which the right hand plays the melody line and the left hand plays only chords that are marked above the staff (no reading of notes for chords - that's too much work). I have some music that is printed like that, so we will see where we go.  

So what's next? The speaker lists both additions (bike every day or take a picture every day) and subtractions (no sugar for a month or no TV for a month - let's not get carried away here - what if the Bulls end up playing this season). So let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions for me or for yourself. My piano playing runs out in mid December. I'll need something new, like cook something new every day or add a new blog entry every day. Let me know what ideas you have. I'll let you know how it works out.