Thomas Thwaites: How I built a toaster -- from scratch
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Uploaded on Jan 14, 2011
http://www.ted.com It takes an entire civilization to build a toaster. Designer Thomas Thwaites found out the hard way, by attempting to build one from scratch: mining ore for steel, deriving plastic from oil ... it's frankly amazing he got as far as he got. A parable of our interconnected society, for designers and consumers alike.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.
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Top Comments
Mornys 2 years ago
"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan
Surely applies to toasters too.
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Chronosaur 2 years ago
I'm surprised how many haters you get with this talk. Yes it may be an obvious point, yes it may be an old idea, but if you put it in context by actually DOING something - like making a toaster - you can step back and get some perspective on just how far we've come as a species. I think that's amazing.
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All Comments (195)
Andreas Collvin 1 month ago
awesome !
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smoog 6 months ago
He's just very nervous, you dick. You try standing up in front of hundreds of people knowing that you're being videoed to be seen by hundreds of thousands and see how relaxed and calm you are.
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codenamerishi 8 months ago
thankx for letting me know that dutch are as retard as americans, I didn't knew that,
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whoeveriam0iam14222 8 months ago
now click on my channel
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codenamerishi 8 months ago
How Creative
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codenamerishi 8 months ago
fucking dumbcunt american
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Leo Sanjaya 8 months ago
The important is the JOURNEY and PROCESS that his take to make that toaster!!
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Michael Jackson 9 months ago
When I read the title I thought, "that's pretty simple," but then I realized early in the talk that, when he says from scratch, he means from SCRATCH! We're not talking about going to buy plastic from the store & then fitting it for a toaster case, we're talking going to the mines to mine the original elements! This was a great talk!
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Bert7076 10 months ago
This is why people play minecraft. It takes ten seconds to turn ore to iron in that game. In real life it takes a plane trip and a day and a half of work.
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