Imagine, Laugh, and Celebrate.

I have a collection of video links for this post. You'll need sound for all of them. Grab your headphones or turn on your speakers.

The first is for TED talks. TED is a conference held anually in Monterey, California with a goal of spreading ideas. They have started putting videos of the talks online for people to watch. I try and watch a presentation about once a month, because I find them so inspiring. The people that give the presentations have amazingly creative ideas in technology, entertainment, and design (TED) that make me think more creatively about the problems I face in my work. Most of the talks are very short, some are a bit longer. This talk (at just under 8 minutes) blew my mind. It starts with the rapid and seamless display of enormous quantities of visual information, and then shows the integration of this technology into a photogrametry application. I can't really describe how incredible this is, you have to see the presentation and play with the demo. It only takes 8 minutes, go watch it now.

OK, are you back (shame on you if you're skipping ahead)? Think of the amazing implications of this. Normally, as a research scientist, I think in terms of "How can I gather this information?" This technology challenges me to instead think "Who else is gathering this information, and what does it tell me that they weren't expecting to find out?" The people gathering the information aren't even aware that they are contributing a piece of the puzzle. Each of the photographs of Notre Dame were taken by ordinary people, none of whom thought, "Gee, if I take enough photos, then I have enough information to reconstruct a realistic 3D model of the cathedral." But many researchers in my field have thought, "Gee, if I had enough photos, I could reconstruct a 3D model of the cathedral" and then set off to take a ton of photos all with proper calibration artifacts, etc. etc. etc. The brilliant part, the truly creative part, was the person who thought, "If I had enough..." and then realized, "But the world does have enough photos of Notre Dame!" and instead solved the bigger and more interesting problem of how to find these photos with all their flaws and work with them anyway. Brilliant. Now extend that network thinking to other areas! Genius.

The second is the first of two commercials that have been airing on UK television lately. One is a surreal commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It made me laugh. I like it.

The third video is for a Woolworth's commercial. "It's a bit on the dark side".

Finally, I found out last week that I was selected for Associate Technical Fellow. So yeah me! I'm glad it's over, and I really feel proud about this accomplishment. It was a lot more work than I probably thought (especially since I did the process from the UK while still being classified as "Central"). If you care to join me in celebration, go find a bottle of Black Sheep Ale. And if you do, please let me know where I can get it when I get back to St. Louis.