And so to day 4, day 3 proper of TED2010. Another amazing day, probably the best so far.

It all started with breakfast at 7.30 with Al Gore.

He was outlining the latest updates in the climate change fight. I found it a bit dull to be frank but the upside was that I got to spend half an hour sitting with the amazing Catherine Mohr (great TED talk last year, expert in intuitive surgery and the davinci machine). Lovely lady, and very smart.

Ted started with a few of the Ted University talks. Three stood out:

–  Richard Sears from MIT gave an amazing talk titled ‘oil will never run out’. Taking us through why there is loads of the stuff left, why we’ll find or enhance other sources before it gets near to depletion and why technology always advances faster than we think. Standout phrase of the week: “listen, the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. It ended because we advanced”. Quite.

–  Tim Berners-Lee blew everyone’s minds with the developments in data and real-time web. The real-time Haiti aid map was utterly amazing.

–  The other belter was Eric Anderson taking us through the developments and possibilities of space based solar energy. Its happening and its real, and its something that we’ll all live to see.

Then the real business started with John Underkoffler (technology advisor to the film ‘Minority Report’) taking us through a real demo of the technology that is available. Wearable, Incredible. Truly amazing. It looks like science fiction, but its real and its here and its available.

Shyham Sangar then talked us through the new anti-terrorist espionage frontier – cyberspace. He presented the Chinese government attempts to cyber-shaft the Dalai Lama and how the special ‘Ghostnet’ (cooooooooool) team stopped it. Worrying development – learnt a new term, ‘spearfishing’ attacks. Pray it doesn’t happen to you.

Perry Chen was excellent talking everyone through weird tattoos by virtue of one funny and pretty cool flickr stream. Then a nice little break featuring original music by Thomas Dolby with David Byrne.

Mike Feinberg & Dave Levin presented the KIPP education model – hugely inspirational and very encouraging for all the American parents in the audience I imagine. A great testament to what two motivated people can do to combat twattiness and beaurocracy. Nice one.

I then had a brilliant TED moment. I got to meet, and chat to, one of my all-time heroes: Sir Ken Robinson. Really nice bloke and I nearly fainted eight times. Turns out we have a good mutual friend in common and we might meet up in London in March. I hope so.

Then Bill Gates got up to speak. After changing the face of the planet with computing and philanthropy it turns out he has a new quest – getting us to zero carbon emissions by 2050. The key to this is finding a new carbon neutral energy source and they think they’ve got it – terrapower. It is a form of nuclear energy that burns and consumes the current nuclear waste! It turns out that if it works (and its in trials with a real reactor in Russia) that there is enough material in only one waste dump in Kentucky to power the United States for two centuries!

The amazing Temple Grandin – autistic activist and animal behaviour specialist – hypnotized the whole room with her journey through autism and why we should nuture ‘nerd’ kids. She was brilliant in her explorations of the way she ‘sees in pictures’. Humbling.

Mitchell Joachim took us to weirder side of TED by demonstrating how you can ‘grow housing’ out of trees and also meat. Er…right.

The designer Marian Bantjes kept us the good side of mental with her presentation of her work and the motivations behind it. All incredible: www.bantjes.com

Denis Dutton was great (but his delivery wasn't). But his talk on how we are genetically and physiologically programmed as a species to recognise and venerate virtuouso performance and 'beauty' was super clever. Pity he was such a dull presenter really. NEVER READ OUT A SCRIPT.

Then the utterly brilliant Indian artist Raghava KK stunned the entire place with the journey through his life and work. If you don’t know him then look him up: www.raghavakk.com

And tonight I got to meet him and his supercool wife as well. Lovely people, he is a massive talent.

And the day finished off with a ‘Play’ session. Fun, mostly.

The new powerful and sometimes uncomfortable play by Vagina Monologues author, Eve Ensler. A comedy set by the amazingly funny but ridiculously dodgy Sarah Silverman (I pissed myself laughing, but I was in a minority). And then an amazing and (for me) surprisingly brilliant set by Natalie Merchant.

Another long but totally absorbing day, capped tonight with a big party where everyone drank far too much. The evening had another unexpected TED bonus where I got to bump into Stefan Sagmeister and have chat. Nice.

Last day tomorrow. Eight more talks to go. See you then.