Is TED the best website ever?

No, of course not, HCwDB is the best web site ever. Or maybe Hype Machine...

Seriously though, if you haven't been to TED you're missing out. The premise is simple, it started off way back in 1984 with the first Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Long Beach California, and has since expanded far and away past that original scope. But back to the premise, TED is an annual conference that brings together great minds and speakers to talk about the idea or ideas that have really made a difference in their lives.

At first, this may not sound that exciting. But when the list of speakers includes figures such as Dave Eggers and Malcolm Gladwell a few more of us tend to put our ears up. But the famous names are not the stars here. In fact, a huge amount of the talks on TED — and almost all of the most inspiring and hilarious ones — come from names you probably haven't heard of, or only in passing at the most; scientists of all descriptions, academics, writers, survivors, philosophers, sociologists, statisticians, artists, economists, explorers.

To be honest, it's not really worth writing much more about it here, because you should just go and check it out yourself, but what we will do is drop in a couple of links to our favourites.

Jill Bolte-Taylor's stroke of insight
When neuroscientist Jill Bolte-Taylor suffered a massive stroke, she was afforded a rare — if undesirable — opportunity to study a stroke from the inside out. What she did not expect was what she'd discover about our conciousness as a result of it.

Ken Robinson on how schools destroy creativity
Education expert Sir Ken Robinson offers an inspiring and often hilarious talk on the genius of youth and why we can no longer afford to squander it.

Robert Sapolsky on the uniqueness of humans
Primatologist and neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky sets about debunking almost every myth about human exceptionalism you could think of, before coming to a conclusion that's worth the wait.