Amy Sterling

Blog

Notes

Mapping the brain, the art around it, and things built along the way. For longer pieces, see my Forbes column.

  1. March 8, 2021 Enter the Brain Zoo Zoo Brains, an exhibit at Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, invites visitors into the brains of a dozen animals.

From my old blog, 2008 to 2016

121 posts from amyrobinson.wordpress.com, the words as I wrote them then: TEDx, the TEDx Music Project, #LifeBonus, MIT, and the early days of Eyewire.

2016 2

  1. Jun 3This Blog Has Moved
  2. Jan 17A Network Map Arranging Itself

2015 2

  1. Aug 16TEDx Music: A Network Visualization
  2. Jul 12Google’s Deep Dream Does Instagram

2014 10

  1. Nov 23Build
  2. Jul 4July 3, 1776 and thoughts on revolutions“The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.” John Adams Last night we watched the fireworks in Boston. I marveled at the pyrotechnics. Color…
  3. Jun 16Robots and Jobs; Man and Machinedo that without a washing machine A recent article in Harvard Business Review hit several key points I frequently find myself debating with colleagues who exhibit less than…
  4. May 5Thoughts in Egypt
  5. Apr 3Map Mysteries
  6. Mar 29Macro Time Lapse: Great Barrier Reef
  7. Mar 29Turkeys went walking down the street in Boston today
  8. Mar 22A 30 Second TEDTalk
  9. Mar 14Video Infographic, 3D
  10. Feb 1Maps of Ideas

2013 15

  1. Oct 1BRAIN Initiative: Thoughts on Interim Report to the NIHWe stand on the verge of a great journey into the unknown—the interior terrain of thinking, feeling, perceiving, learning, deciding, and acting to achieve our goals—that lives within…
  2. Aug 26#HowILostMyGoPro and an open challenge to find it
  3. Jul 31What’s the best thing you’ve spent money on?on Quora (hint: @TEDTalks) Answer by Amy Robinson: TED. I spent every penny I had (and then some) getting to a TED Conference when I was 24. It…
  4. Jul 31What’s the best thing you’ve ever spent money on? ExperienceI opened Quora on my iPhone the other morning and saw this question and suddenly felt an urge to answer. Odyssey on the fly ★ What’s the best…
  5. Mar 18Find Meaning, Not Escape
  6. Mar 18Quantified Curiosity 2.0Back in September I gave a talk at Stanford for Quantified Self titled Quantified Curiosity (summarized in this post , which includes slides and a links to videos…
  7. Mar 15If you sort iPhone photos by size, which images come out on top?
  8. Mar 9Awesome Science GIFs
  9. Feb 23MIT Neuroscience Harlem Shake
  10. Feb 21Getcha Happy On
  11. Jan 24WolframAlpha’s New Facebook Graph.
  12. Jan 22What does the world look like through the eyes of a neuroscientist?
  13. Jan 20Be More Epic
  14. Jan 13It’s human nature to want to explore
  15. Jan 8What if Google ads were replaced with inspirational words? It’s happening to me.

2012 28

  1. Dec 18Live Broadcast from the Shoulders of Giants or How (Funny) Videos Augment Science Communication
  2. Nov 28A bit of what I’ve been up to at MITI recently moved to Cambridge, MA to take the best job of all time helping Sebastian Seung’s Computational Neuroscience Lab at MIT build a game to map the…
  3. Nov 21See the World Differently with Beautiful Photomicrography
  4. Nov 7A Bucket ListUS Presidential Elections 2012 have me thinking about awesomeness. Ironically, the time of year that America divides decisively into two halves, seemingly uniting only in declaring their unfettered…
  5. Oct 22Explore like a hero. #LifeBonus
  6. Sep 26Water Bouncing on Water and Levitation Melting, a #lifebonus
  7. Sep 20#firstworldproblems or An Internet Meme Changed My Life
  8. Sep 15Quantified Curiosity
  9. Aug 23Healthy Mind (and what is a mind, anyway?) Presentation
  10. Aug 12Possibilism and the Power of TEDxOriginally written for the TEDx Blog : TED is an epicenter of the extraordinary and TEDx is one of many examples why. This is how organizing a TEDx…
  11. Jul 11Ben Franklin’s Thirteen Virtues
  12. Jul 6TEDxSummit Prezi on TEDx Music
  13. Jun 24TEDx Music Project on Soundcloud
  14. Jun 14What are the best TEDTalks?
  15. Jun 13crazy awesome, quora“Sweet, intense and cool all in one.” Urban Dictionary thus defines “ crazy awesome ,” solidifying the phrase into infinite internet existence. Yes . It doubles as a…
  16. Jun 8Career Advice
  17. Jun 1Idea flowSitting outside. A storm approaches. Strong air. Thinking about life, ideas, posture, air quality, metabolic networks, connectomics, neuroscience, biomimicry, dynamic architectures, infographics many things. How do I choose…
  18. May 7Be Inspired on Quora
  19. Apr 29Whoa! #lifebonusAbout a month ago I shared #lifebonus , the first installment of an ongoing series designed to incite surprise and discovery in life. Or at least my inbox.…
  20. Apr 2The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?Today featured epic productivity. I sent well over 400 emails working on several global projects with TED. I just wound down by watching a “great!” movie with friends.…
  21. Mar 23Shower with your eyes closed
  22. Mar 19#lifebonusWhat makes you excited to be alive? Open-ended questions like the one above light me up. I personally love it when people lay out the ideas they are…
  23. Mar 18The TED Conference 2012Think of TED as a marathon for your mind . Over the course of a week, roughly 100 presenters from around the world deliver power-packed presentations lasting 18…
  24. Mar 17Curious
  25. Feb 20x worth sharing
  26. Feb 14Live from the Stellarium
  27. Feb 3The Türk Project
  28. Jan 32011 blogging in review

2011 22

  1. Nov 23Google Body: the awesome reportGoogle Body is gone, ladies and gentlemen. It was lost in a changeover from google labs. “ More wood behind fewer arrows ,” says Google. For now, what…
  2. Nov 21Clean, Green, Healthy Eating
  3. Nov 10Relations
  4. Oct 27TEDxHuntsville promo video
  5. Oct 25Hammocks for Astronomical Observatories
  6. Oct 19onformative design
  7. Oct 11Me flying a hydro-powered jetpack
  8. Oct 10Infographic series on the human body
  9. Sep 20Visual guide to general awesomeness
  10. Aug 31Who am I? Variety
  11. Aug 20Explore: Music
  12. Aug 7Brain Infographic
  13. Jul 21inverse dictionary
  14. Jul 14Personal Health Infographic
  15. Jul 13Usernames like Lightning
  16. Jul 8Vegan experiment: day 10 of 45
  17. Jul 4TEDx Global Music Project
  18. Jul 1Spark Google+
  19. Jun 28AC/DC Rocks Rochester Castle
  20. Jun 27Self-Experiment
  21. Jun 6Earth from Orbit
  22. Jan 22010 in review

2010 25

  1. Dec 9Green Tea + Coconut Water + Vodka
  2. Nov 27Share your TEDx experience
  3. Nov 4What is TEDx?
  4. Oct 10Data worth spreading: Why I joined Research Lifestreaming
  5. Aug 25What are you passionate about?
  6. Aug 23smarter planet: an idea worth spreading.
  7. Aug 21Creative Chemistry
  8. Aug 4Subject Lines
  9. Jul 30The TEDy AwardsChris Anderson on the TEDGlobal 2010 stage. afromusing Flickr The future is a beautiful progression when seen through the lens of TED . From cognitive neuroscience to middle…
  10. Jun 29Einstein on Newton
  11. Jun 24Diary of AmbidexterityA musician at TEDxAtlanta taught himself to play guitar with his left hand after a nerve affliction made it impossible for him to continue playing with his right.…
  12. Jun 15Airfare Hack: One-Way v Round-TripToday I booked my flight to London for TEDGlobal 2010 . After tedious searching I am pressed to share thoughts on plane tickets. Fine Print As of June…
  13. Jun 5Grilling over Rosemary Wood
  14. May 20Natural Capital Complexities
  15. May 11We don’t make mistakes.
  16. May 7“Book about the variety of the world”
  17. Mar 30Scholarpedia
  18. Mar 23Language Implications
  19. Mar 1Excel at Innovation
  20. Feb 19Sleep Inspiration: Memory, Relaxation, Sex
  21. Feb 9Art Show Like No Other: Lady GaGa
  22. Feb 3Ladies and Gentlemen
  23. Jan 29Shuffle
  24. Jan 26Social Media
  25. Jan 19Dave Chappelle

2009 7

  1. Oct 12Intricate Language
  2. Sep 14North Shore Waves
  3. Aug 24Treacherous Trail
  4. Aug 5Waimanalo Bay, Oahu
  5. Jul 30NicaraguaDad and I went on a charity trip to Nicaragua this past May for 7 days to build two houses for impoverished families, donate scholarship money to children,…
  6. Jun 9Pandora Radio
  7. Apr 14Red Carpet Update

2008 10

  1. Oct 11socio-political experiment
  2. Sep 25ten minutes
  3. Aug 1Self Improvement
  4. Jul 24Note
  5. Jul 15Interview from Facebook
  6. Jul 15Untitled, July 15, 2008
  7. Jul 11Untitled, July 11, 2008
  8. Jun 6del.icio.us
  9. Jun 2live with passion
  10. May 14First Blog Post.

After 2016 I wrote at amy.world, which is gone now but still in the Internet Archive.