It's easy to find fault in the world, listen to the news and you can easily become depressed. Even though study after study shows most if not all pundits on tv are wrong with their predictions, we still find it easy to be swept up in the artificial drama we call the news. This week a TED conference was held just down the street. The first 2 hours was an open exhibition of several local startup companies showing their stuff. Older companies also had a few booths showing their technology and looking for talent. Everything from hand made post cards to robots to dairy free ice cream was on show. The main event was six speakers each having a 15 minute talk on their research. Both Cindy and I were "blown away" with the ideas. A data scientist from the city of Boston talked about how they use data to make the city better. I had no idea all the solar powered garbage cans actually call in to report how full they are each day, so they can be emptied when necessary. They use Waze data to dispatch police to hand out tickets for double parking. He showed the dashboards they use to monitor and control many parts of the city. Forget the news, forget going to the opera, these TED talks gave us a brand new healthy outlook on life. It was transformational. Yes Virginia, there are people doing great things for this world.
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