Here are three TED Talks with a slightly weird connection. The first one is by Melissa Marshall, “Talk nerdy to me”. This is about scientists and engineers struggling to communicate technical matters, a well recognised phenomenon, which she attributes to jargon (so what about technologists and other nerds?).
The second talk is by Ben Goldacre, author of ‘Bad Science’, and more recently “Bad Pharma’ – a first rate, self confessed nerd, who demonstrates that it is possible to get the message across, even if it does contain some big words.
The third is by Heather Brooke, but the connection isn’t nerdiness; the connection is with Ben Goldacre and the quest for openness and truth. Heather Brooke was the journalist who did more than anyone to expose the Parliamentary Expenses scandal, although the Daily Telegraph, to whom a copy of the expenses records were sent, got most of the credit.