This issue of Starlink Extra is the last issue for 2010. We hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as we've enjoyed gathering the links and snippets you'll find here.
May you have a glorious festive season, a relaxing summer and a wonderful start to 2011!
Cheers
Sue & Chris
BJ Seminars International
Hans Rosling is a rare gem. He's professor of statistics with a joyful passion for his work and a great sense of humour. :)
If you've not yet caught any of his presentations, be sure to watch 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 minutes - The Joy of Stats. A beautifully rendered and hopeful view of world development!
Also terrific to watch is his 2007 TED talk offering new insights on poverty, his 2009 TED talks on HIV: New Facts and Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset - and his 2010 TED talk on global population growth.
Hans Rosling is the founder of Gapminder.org - a wonderful website where you can 'play' with global statistics using the Trendanalyzer software they have developed. The site also has a large collection of teaching and classroom resources.
So whether you are a statistician, a teacher or simply curious about world developments and trends, it's a great site to visit and bookmark. You can also see more videos of Rosling's presentations on the site.
As he said at the 2007 OECD Forum in Istanbul: "...few people will appreciate the music if I just show them the notes. Most of us need to listen to the music to understand how beautiful it is. But often that's how we present statistics; we just show the notes - we don't play the music."
Thank you Hans, for giving us the good news of the decade - and for playing us the music!
One of Hans Roslings talks (above) is included in a collection of TED talks, with the theme Rethinking Poverty.
If you have some 'down time' over the festive season, you may like to view some of these videos - they are both inspiring and very thought-provoking!
As the introduction to this collection says, These speakers' innovative ideas may convince you to forget the traditional models -- grants, aid, charity -- and consider business, technology and trade instead.
And finally, as we wave goodbye to another year and welcome in a new one, here are some great quotations about the passage of time - words of wisdom from across the centuries:
- Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
(Theophrastus, 372 BC - 287 BC)
- Time stays long enough for those who use it.
(Leonardo Da Vinci, 1452-1519)
- But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
(Benjamin Disraeli, 1804 - 1881)
- Time is lost when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945)
- Calendars are for careful people, not passionate ones.
(Chuck Sigars, 2003)
- If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.
(Maria Edgeworth, 2004)
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