A few more awesome TED lectures:
Aubrey de Grey comes across as a totally crazy guy, but simply the fact that he's been invited to speak at TED makes me wonder. His main point is that we'll probably be able to retard aging enough that the youth of today will likely be able to live to 1000 years or longer. Great talk by a total wackjob looking guy who I suspect is actually totally brilliant.

For Jesse:
Stephen Levitt is a economist who had the unique chance to study the economics of an inner city gang in the height of the crack epidemic. For me, the really interesting part of this lecture was right at the end, when he talks about economic theory that doesn't often apply in the real world, but does seem to have application in the world of inner city gangs.

For my foodie friends:
Malcolm Gladwell talks about how the food industry learned to give us choice in the first place. This talk spoke very directly to me. I am a fiend for good market research, and this is a lecture about market research done right, and a genius who saw the need for a new paradigm in food industry. It used to be that there was only one kind of tomato sauce, and as hard as companies would try to determine which sauce was the best, it was meh to the majority of the population. This is the story of the man who figured out that there is no "best" tomato sauce, because different people like different styles. No "best" coffee because people like different styles.

Right after I watched this video, I watched this one: (for Jeska)
Barry Schwartz (i see your schwartz is as big as mine...) is a sociologist who explains why too much choice makes people miserable (buyer's remorse, opportunity cost, raised expectations, etc).

Living, as I do, with somebody who is CRAZY picky about many purchasing decisions, this lecture really rings true to me. In the 80s they figured out that some choice was good, but they've gone way. too. far. since then. OK, so maybe there are three main styles of tomato sauce that people might like, or even 7, but when we have over 200 kinds of sauce to choose, it is WAY TOO MUCH.

These really are only a selection of these talks that are available. I've watched probably three times more than what I've chosen to recommend here. Ze Frank (who has an awesome video blog that you should all watch called The Show), The Vagina Monologues chick (is this really as boring as it sounds at the start?), Al Gore (worst slideshow ever- I wonder if An Inconvenient Truth would just piss me off...), Tony Robbins (funny parts, but what a slimeball seeming guy, yeesh) even (to a certain extent) Richard Dawkins' talks really don't hold up as well. I also watched two different architects talks, and they didn't inspire nearly as deeply as the ones I linked.

I'm watching more now, I will update if they're also essential. The wikipedia founder, and a few people who I don't know who they are- yet.

Ooh, this is neat. A few minutes ago I posted two different TEDtalks that almost seemed to contradict each other. Choice makes us happy vs. Choice makes us miserable. I just now watched yet ANOTHER amazing lecture in which Dan Gilbert somewhat reconciles the two. At the end he quotes Adam Smith and Shakespeare, and it is great.

I feel like I'm getting smarter just listening to these talks. It's so inspiring and thought provoking and educating and entertaining. This really is the internet at its best ever, IMHO.