{"id":739,"date":"2010-07-11T22:54:57","date_gmt":"2010-07-11T20:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/?p=739"},"modified":"2010-07-11T22:54:57","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T20:54:57","slug":"lies-damned-lies-and-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/?p=739","title":{"rendered":"Lies, damned lies and statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-752\" title=\"ted_logo\" src=\"http:\/\/complexitymaze.poulfoged.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/ted_logo.gif\" alt=\"TED\" width=\"280\" height=\"53\" \/><\/a>As a geek I love going META &#8211; and a TED talk about TED talks is a hit with me.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian Wernicke analyzed TED talks and concludes that when you deliver one you should talk about how &#8220;french coffee spreads happiness in your brain&#8221; because that is the top words from the most popular talks. He also concludes that if you want to make a bad TED talk the top 5 words you should mention are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>So<\/li>\n<li>Oxygen<\/li>\n<li>Aircraft<\/li>\n<li>Project<\/li>\n<li>Girls<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Considering how popular a topic number five is in other places of the Internet that is quite funny. Other unpopular words include &#8220;computer&#8221;, &#8220;feet&#8221; and &#8220;design&#8221; (and I conclude from that, that you shouldn&#8217;t be giving TED talks about how you designed a creative way to control computers with your feet)&#8230; et cetera, et cetera&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Watch the video:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"669\" height=\"489\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"bgColor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/dynamic\/SebastianWernicke_2010A-medium.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/SebastianWernicke-2010A.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=649&#038;vh=389&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=846&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=lies_damned_lies_and_statistics_about_tedtalks;year=2010;theme=words_about_words;theme=a_taste_of_ted2010;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TED2010;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted\/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"669\" height=\"489\" src=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\" flashvars=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/dynamic\/SebastianWernicke_2010A-medium.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/SebastianWernicke-2010A.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=649&#038;vh=389&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=846&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=lies_damned_lies_and_statistics_about_tedtalks;year=2010;theme=words_about_words;theme=a_taste_of_ted2010;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TED2010;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted\/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" wmode=\"transparent\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>I wonder if these facts are transferable to any kind of talk &#8211; like maybe a thesis defense? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a geek I love going META &#8211; and a TED talk about TED talks is a hit with me. Sebastian Wernicke analyzed TED talks and concludes that when you deliver one you should talk about how &#8220;french coffee spreads happiness in your brain&#8221; because that is the top words from the most popular talks. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[237,328,352],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-meta","tag-ted","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complexitymaze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}