NZFF

What about the notion that technological growth and 'ideas' are actually alive, and that we don't really have any control over them? Sure, ideas for new technology are thought up by people, or A person, but if that person didn't think of it you can bet your bottom dollar someone else would have eventually thought of it... or at least thought of another way of doing it. (eg ADSL vs wireless vs satellite vs cable. It's all the same thing: faster internet). In a sense, you could argue that although the person came up with the idea for something new, it was there all along for someone to merely facilitate the realisation of.

Previous technology, our expectations, our increased use, and the laws of physics are what create new ideas. Take digital storage. First, it was the CD. Then that was too small, so they invented the DVD, then they went dual layer. Now the DVD is getting too small and, thanks to pressure from things such as HD television, we have a need for something bigger. The constraints are always going to be: Must be backwards compatible with existing DVD and CD technology. So in all likelihood, you're going to use the same 12cm disc. So... how to fit more on it... Well there's only so many options. Hence Blu-ray was born. This kind of thing happens a lot.

eg:
The Internet went mainstream.
People started using it
webmasters started enriching content
People got impatient with the speed
Telcos realised this and developed something to use existing cabling to achieve faster download speeds, hence ADSL was born

Think how many technological concepts you can come up with that have just grown bigger and bigger, or faster and faster. Now, stop thinking in the material sense and imagine for a moment that this growth is actually powered by itself, and that we have no control over it. Could you stop the world from needing bigger hard drives? See?

It's pretty philosophical and out there, but it might be something random enough to get some serious attention.

an idea of just how random it can be
The example speeches we watched were the following
Excellent
-vampires
-being a couch potatoe is good
-the dangers of the internet

Merit-
NZ should become a republic
nz should join with australia

Im doing the top english course at lvl2 (6th form). It seems its not the topic, its how well you persuade your listeners

Do something the teacher likes. at my intermediate we had a speech competition every year. In year 8 i did one on wy Wellington weather was great(after someone did one on why it has terrible) and I made syndicate finals, and only just missed out on school final(apparantly) sure only the teachers were laughing the second time around but if they're marking...

So it really depends on what you want to do...entertain your classmates, which will most likely be to bored from the ones in front of you to pay any attention to you, or entertain the teacher who is marking you. I wasn't going for any, tbh i thought mine sucked

Do on on flying of some sort. I did one (in 6th form I think) on fear of flying and how safe is it to fly. opened with the seen from the start of cast away whenre the pane crashes into the water (pretty hard core) but then present stories and facts bla bla bla on why it is infact much safer to fly than pretty much anything else...

Haha I won a speech competition with a speech on farts...The next I got into the finals with a speech about drumming...but I think the only reason I did was because I played the drums in the classroom speech competition.

What about the idea that 'nothing can be proven' or 'nothing can be explained'- I.e. try to explain what a chair is....its impossible

Do something that you know about and put some humour into it!!!!



Jim

GASKA wrote:

QUOTE (GASKA @ May 9 2008, 09:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do something that you know about and put some humour into it!!!!
Jim

This is the best advice here, I do think that it is not so much about finding the perfect subject, but just finding something which excites you enough to rave on about it. A bit of humour helps, but don't force it. Rather than humour, look for something boggling. Last year my son talked about Nicola Tesla, which coulda been a bit boring and technical if it wasn't for the fact that Telsa was a bit of a loony and claimed to have invented the ray-gun...

I've sat through a lot of these over the last few years, and some of the most memorable ones were the simplest -- I remember one kid talking about her hobby of light-weight tramping, and everyone was impressed, even though at first glance it would be pretty boring... but her chatty style and obvious love of the subject made it memorable. Another kid talked about 3D design, which is very close to my heart, but it just didn't interest me or anyone else -- too dry, and it was over-prepared. I do think that the less preparation the better. And nothing kills a talk quicker than spouting a list of facts.

If you did do aviation or flight sim, make sure you didn't get too technical with it.
Lots of people would end up bored and you might end up getting a bit of flak for it (I've seen similar things happen at my school).
But I'm sure there's something aviation/fs related that could get other people who arent plane geeks interested.

Don't do something really obvious and quite boring like people should wear seatbelts. It's overdone and almost cliche.
The only way you could do something like that is if you spiced it up a lot.

Cheers
Anthony

how about healthy food... for better or for worse? Its a good chance to completely bag apples and carrots and raise awareness of the benefits of chocolate, softdrink and other nice stuff. I wouldnt say im passionate about food at all, but i can certainly diss healthy foods.