Thanks for all the comments guys.  Yeah I really like TED.

I will definitley check out the JJ Abrams talk, I've been meaning to do so for awhile.  

I haven't read the Selfish Gene but that is most certainly on the list too.  I read the God Delusion and I thought it was fantastic.

Interesting talk he gave.. I'd never heard of "memes" before .. bears looking into .. thanks !!

check out JJ Abram's talk on TED.  He's not my favorite director, but he's a real good speaker.

i always wondered what a meme was.  interesting.

and ya, i love ted.

The Selftish Gene is one of my favorite books! I'll get around to reading The Extended Phenotype one day. And thanks for posting the Dennett talk, I'd never been urged to read him but now I might. Good luck to your memes; may they live on.

I saw the documentary "The Future We Will Create:  Inside the World of Ted" and thought what a great idea!  Bring together all these movers and shakers and thinkers outside the box and make things happen.  And then I promptly forgot about it and relinquished all responsibility for thinking on a grand scale.  Thanks for the reminder Jason.  I'll check out the website.  A lot of the ideas are very concrete (like Negroponte with the $100 laptop idea which got legs, maybe from this conference).

I'm not sure what to think about the MEMES message..