To Achieve Something Tremendous

David Blaine is a famous magician, who looks just funny and cheerful. However, he is a very hard worker who has strong fortitude.

After some mind boggling challenges like, keeping standing on top of a hundred foot pillar for 36hours, he decided to challenge a world record―holding his breath more than 17 minutes. As we knew, it was very dangerous and that was why doctors stopped him. Nevertheless, he never changed his mind and through a lot of trials and errors, he achieved the goal.

In the last of this video, he said "Magic is practice, training, and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be." How strong his remark is! He was able to say so, because he himself made a tenacious effort for his goal and succeeded in it. I think we can apply his remark to our lives. To achieve something tremendous, practice, training, and experimenting are absolutely necessary. What is more, I think, a life without these is boring and worthless.

Using Our Ingenuity Is Fun!

A lot of people tend to think that being fashionable and unique cost a lot. We apt to think we can get nice clothes only from big‐name shops. Needless to say, they are expensive.  Can't we  get gorgeous coordinates from really reasonable shops? 

Yes, we can. Actually, she does. At first glance, the speaker looks just a very fashionable woman, but she has a secret; She never buy anything new. She always buys some secondhand clothes only from flea markets or thrift stores and coordinates them effectively.

Before, when I heard of the word "secondhand clothes", I didn't have good images on them; It would be a bit dirty, out of date, and useless. I had been thinking that wearing such a kind of clothes would make me feel less confident and uneasy, until I watched this video. Here, she looked very stylish and sophisticated with them! What was more, how happy she looked!

I think her message was that we could make the most of anything by using our ingenuity. Besides, exercising ingenuity is kind of fun. I really enjoyed not only her fashion show but also her way of thinking.

Dennis Hong: Making a car for blind drivers

Accepting a challenge from the National Federation of the Blind, Mr. Dennis Hong, together with his team, started to invent vehicles for blind people.


For this goal, his team had to take perception, computation and non-visual interfaces into account. Needless to say, the drivers weren't supposed to see, so something had to perceive the road condition or obstacles on it instead. Then his team invented very sophisticated sensor. Next, they needed a  computer to accumulate this information and instruct the drivers how to drive. Hence, they devised a special one that was able to consolidate and organize the information, and instruct the blind.


For his team, the problem was how these instructions were conveyed to the visually impaired. To solve this problem, after a lot of trials and errors, finally they made a special interface for non-visual users. This gadget had many holes where compressed air come out, which made blind people image the shape of the roads or the existence of obstacles.


Later, their effort were rewarded. Even though it was just a prototype, but they succeeded in achieving their goal. However, according to him, what is more important is the wonderful technologies that come from their experiments. They may be able to use these technologies to make safer cars for sighted people. They may be able to utilize them to make home appliances for blind people. 


Honestly, the saying ”making a car for blind drivers” sounds unrealistic. Many people must have thought he was kind of mad. However, no one could say that it was 100% impossible and actually, they succeeded. I hope he will develop his study more and the vehicle will be made into a product.

Amy Lockwood: Selling condoms in the Congo

A marketer named Amy Lockwood was wondering; why didn't people in the Democratic Republic of Congo buy condoms even though donor agencies provided them cheaply?


In the DRC, the HIV prevalence rate is 1.3%, it means there are 930,000 people that are infected. To improve this situation, donor agencies provided condoms at low or no cost. However, people didn't buy them. Instead, they prefered the generics. Curious as she got, she started to look over the reason for that. Then she figured out donor agencies made a big mistake in their way of marketing; failure of understanding customers.


In the first place, donor agencies named their condoms like "TRUST" or "VIVE(LIVE)".  Besides, the packages of them were filled with a lot of decent pictures, like red ribbon or ones of a husband and a wife, which reminded people to behave prudently. Who buy these things before they are about to sex? These things are not likely what people think when they buy them. On the other hand, generic condoms showed the pictures like sexy girls or things to tempt people. In short, these private companies understood the customers better than donor agencies did.


Her conclusion was that; to move or affect people, what we should understand is who the customers are and how they are likely to feel. I was totally convinced by her explanation and her insight.

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now

According to her, we are all cyborgs. The traditional definition for this is "an organism to which exogenous components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments". Thanks to the advancement of technology, we can travel faster than before, we can communicate with people wherever we are. She explained these tools, planes or mobile phones, were the "exogenous components" and without them, we were not able to live our lives. I agree with her opinion, but is being a cyborg good thing?


I think, it is absolutely not. Needless to say, our life is getting convenient exponentially, but the  excessive convenience makes us lazy and dull. For example, now, when we encounter problems, we can easily solve them by asking our friends through mobile phones. Before we had these gadgets, we had to think them out by ourselves. Surely it was tiring, but by thinking a lot, we were able to mentally grow up.  Next, since the appearance of text messages, we have been writing hand-written letters lesser and lesser. Disappearance of these warm letters has been making our lives a bit cold to some extent. Taking these facts into account, sometime I wonder whether we should pursue the technological advancement more.

Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives

The speaker Jane Chen and her team invented wonderful stuff. It was a new incubator. Although it looks like just a sleeping bag at first sight, it can save lives.

According to her, 20 million premature babies are born every year around the world. They are so tiny that can't keep their temperature warm, so 4 million of them die annually. However, the more serious problem is that the survivors tend to cause long-term health problems like heart disease or low I.Q. Of course if they are kept in incubators, we can avoid these sad consequences. Yet, in developing countries, the number of incubators is absolutely insufficient.  

To improve this situation, her team came up with this new incubator. It doesn't require electricity at all unlike traditional incubators. Furthermore, it is much cheaper and much easier to handle. Until they finally invented it, they always tried to understand end users and exerted all their powers into it. She believes it can reduce the infant mortality.

It is a wonderful thing that such a kind of small stuff can save a lot of lives. More than that, however, I was impressed with her. The reason is that it was not common that a young woman like her went to developing countries, tried to understand the people there, and put her heart into saving lives. I got envious of her, who had a great job that she was able to devote her passion.

Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color

The greatest biologist, Charles Darwin made a big mistake. He mentioned that the differences among the variety of skin colors didn't attribute to climates. As most people know, the fact is that skin colors unquestionably vary according to our environments.


Strictly speaking, the intensity of ultraviolet radiation governs the degree of skin pigmentation. This is why people who live around the equator have dark pigmented skin and the degree of pigmentation becomes lighter as they go toward the poles. At first, our ancestors, who lived around equator, got melanin to protect their skin. Then as people dispersed into high latitudes, they decreased its amount in accordance with the decline of the intensity of ultraviolet radiation. In short, this differences are the proof of evolution.


 Hence, by just looking at our skin, we can easily recognize our evolution. As this speaker mentioned, it is wonderful thing. After watching this video, I thought people really shouldn't discriminate others by their colors of skin, because this differences are gifts from our ancestors. 

Michelle Obama's plea for education

This is the video when Michelle Obama visited a London girls' school in her first official trip to the UK. Here she explained how important education is. She was born in an ordinary family. Both of her parents didn't attend university. Her father was suffering from severe health problem, and her mother was just a stay-at-home mom. Thus what lead her to the first lady was not wealth or social standing, but her wonderful family and her enthusiasm towards the education.


She loved studying and getting good scores. Furthermore she liked to be punctual and finishing her work perfectly. What drove her like this was her principle "being smart was cooler than anything in the world".


Honestly, this principle of hers deeply touched me. I have known being smart was good, but I have been thinking it was more important to make myself look better than studying hard. How much I wasted my time! After watching this video, I swore I would be more hungry to learn a lot of things.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers

Sadly, there are some schools that teach children how to die. Now the Taliban runs their own schools, which tell their pupils how to become suicide bombers. Their trick of getting and brainwashing students are stated below.

1. The Taliban ask poor parents to exchange their children with resources. Then they promise the parents that they would provide food, clothing and shelter to their children. Later they transmit the children to remote and isolated area.

2.The children are forced to learn the Koran. At first, they can't understand it because it is written in Arabic. Hence the children ｇet to heavily rely on the Taliban teachers, who distort its meanings. Furthermore the children are absolutely prohibited doing what the teacher don't permit, like reading newspapers or listening to radio. If they break this rule, they are severely reprimanded.

3.The Taliban manipulate the children to hate this world they currently live. For that, they beat them up, feed them really frugal meals and rarely allow them to play games. 

4.The old members of the Taliban tell the children how glorious martyrdom is. Moreover they keep on brainwashing saying that after immolation wonderful afterlife will be waiting for them.

5.During the education, the Taliban use videos that intentionally edited to make them believe that Western powers are cruel. They also tell the children that this wars are fair game.

In this presentation,  about 10 children appear. Some of them are ones who already died as suicide bombers. The others are waiting for the go sign of  martyrdom from the God. Why can the Taliban exploit such little children? Why do such the children have to become the victims of wars?  Honestly, I didn't want to know this fact.

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

Although I knew that babies are good at learning languages, but I didn't know why. The reason is that they have open mind toward all of the languages unlike adults. According to Patricia Kuhl, we adults are "culture-bound listeners" , which means we unconsciously shut out other languages. On the other hand, babies, especially under 1 year old, don't have any barriers, so they can easily acquire all sounds of all languages.
I am just envious of them babies. Even though I have been struggling to improve my English skill for couple of years, I haven't mastered it yet. If I had a baby's mind or brain,  I would be already a fluent English speaker at this moment. Can I adopt this baby's way of learning to mine? Can I have an open mind like them?
Actually these are very difficult because my mind is already packed with a lot of fixed ideas and prejudice. In short I am not clean slates. Therefore I think all I can do for acquiring English is just trying to immerse myself in Englihs world and absorb it as much as possible. 

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

Iｎ Hinduism, there is a famous maxim.

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The action changes if consideration changes.

The custom changes if the action changes.

The character changes if the custom changes.

The fate changes if the character changes.

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In short, whether our lives are fruitful or not depends on our habits.

Even if the habits are minor, it is difficult to get rid of our bad ones and to add good ones in our lives. It is because we are basicallylazy. Once we fix and are used to our lives, it is Herculean task to change them.


According to Matt Cutts, 30days is right amount of time to alter our habits and our lives. With his only 30days challenges, he has been able to become from a geek to a adventurous guy. Needless to say, his life has changed in good way.

We can live our lives just one time, and at most it is only around 80 years. Then what more important thing in our lives than enriching them.  As he said,  the days are going to go by so fast whether we like it or not. So shouldn't we work on it as soon as possible and lead our destiny into wonderful one?

Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education

Nowadays, the summit of mathematics is considered as calculus. Needless to say, it is a important subject that can express the laws of nature. In addition, the university students  not only who study mathematics but also who are engaged in economics, science, and engineering must learn it. However, as you know, it is also very tough subject to acquire.


A famous mathematics professor Arthur Benjamin is advocating the top of math should be not calculus but probability and statistics. According to his theory, very few people can use calculus in conscious, meaningful way. On the other hand, a lot of people could use probability and statistics on a daily basis. He also added that these subjects were absolutely parts of our lives.


I totally agree with his opinion. When it comes to ordinary people, even if we fully get it through big efforts, there are only few opportunities to use it. In contrast, probability and statistics are useful for us, because we can avoid risk, get reward, and understand data with them. I truly want him to change this calculus supremacism.

Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects?

His stupid T-shirts fulled with a lot of insects must be a token of his love for them. Anyway, Marcel Dicke , a professor of Entomology highly recommends us to eat insects instead of mammals. Some of the reasons are below.


1.Mammals are quiet like us, so we can easily share some diseases with them. On the other hand, insects are so distantly related from us that this doesn't happen. I think they are safer than mammals.
2.Growing up mammals costs a lot. For instance, getting 1 kg beef requires us almost 10 kg of feed. By contrast, with same amount of feed, we can get 9 kilograms of locust meat. It sounds really reasonable.

3.Most of the waste is manure, which emit ammonia and greenhouse gas. Needless to say, it is not kind to our environment. Meanwhile, when it comes to producing insects, the amount of muck out of them is much less. Furthermore insects' muck gives out much less ammonia and fewer greenhouse gases.  

4.Insects meet is full of nutrition. Where calorie is concerned, 1 kilogram of grasshoppers has the same amount of calories as 10 hot dogs, or six Big Macs.

In the midst of fear for food crisis, this idea sounds truly helpful. However how can we solve the problem ---severe prejudice against insects? Almost all of us have common mind-sets like that insects are dirty and gross and they can't be food for civilized people. Then it would be tough to change them. Hence I think it might not be until we severely suffer from shortage of food that we earnestly start to try them.