Report from the first full day of TED 2011 in The Guardian.
People called Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists. But call your son Lawrence and there’s a far higher than average likelihood he’ll become a lawyer.
We are unconsciously drawn to things we sound like, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks in his excellent talk on man, the social animal. He joked that he’d named his daughter “President Of The United States”. But then he lives in a country where he’s been blessedly under-exposed to the antics of Princess Tiaamii Andre Price.
Brooks makes the case for emotions: that the idea that we are rational beings is a fraud. “The conscious mind hungers for career and prestige, the unconscious mind hungers for transcendence.” (And that in certain neighbourhoods where people pick up their kids from school in Volvos, BMWs and Saabs “owning a luxury vehicle is considered socially acceptable as long as it comes from a country hostile to US foreign policy”.)
Other interesting (to me anyway) fact:
A study of baseball cards found that the players who had the broadest smiles lived the longest lives, according to Ted University speaker, Ron Gutman. So, yeah. Chew on that.
The Incisal Edge 