Thank you for the comments – it’s good to see intelligent debate around the issue.

It seems to me like some people missed the central point: That it isn’t an either-or situation – it’s an evolving and expanding conception of “education” (and, yes, in the case of TED and the like, “edutainment”) wherein the new complements, rather than replaces, the old. It’s also interesting to note the sort of platform we’re having said intelligent debate on. I fail to see how the very opportunity to discuss such issues in more forms and on more platforms is not fostering the cross-pollination of ideas and the development of a healthier, more well-rounded mind – the quintessential objective most people pursue through education. And while many of the points made are based on good insight, they’d only hold true in an either-or framework.

@Trayan; I like the notion of “interactive expertise” vs. “contributory expertise” – what a great way to intuitively communicate a very important distinction. However, wouldn’t you say that curiosity (underlying the “interactive” kind) is the discovery engine for your area of highest interest, which eventually evolves into an area of high expertise (the “contributory” kind)? Without an active curiosity that leads you to explore diverse and wide-spanning disciplines, you’d resort to the defeatist hope that whatever your true calling is will somehow miraculously land on your passive lap. These new tools are just that – a platform for harnessing curiosity, which can then get channeled into something more focused. No one is saying we should spend our entire lives being all over the map, conversationalists in all but experts in none. Which, of course, goes back to central point about supplementation rather than substitution – I thought I had made that clear, but judging by the number of people who completely missed it, I suppose I hadn’t. My bad.

Thanks again for the feedback, keep it coming.

Kudos to Crispin Porter + Bogusky for backing this program. Sadly, it’s much harder for truly grassroots effort to take root – Philly has been petitioning for Philly BikeShare, a nonprofit version, for over 2 years now. But, apparently, it takes an ad agency and some commercial backing to really get a program started. Good for them.

Excellent collection. Another great set of book and magazine cover designs: Art of the Cover. Check out the Shepard Fairey work for Orwell.

Resisting a lame pun oh-so-very hard right now. Anyway, I was actually in Indonesia last summer and noticed they have a lot of penis-centric elements, many sold as souvenirs. Got my friend a life-sized wooden penis bottle-opener. Makes me not even wanna think about its additional uses once that beer buzz kicks in…

The sad thing is that while we’ve kind of reluctantly accepted the utter environmental inefficiency of the Bush administration as a catalog of fluff-lined phrases and empty promises, we have to remember we live in a capitalist society. And, in capitalism, politics go hand in hand with The Money, which is largely driven by marketing. What are most major marketers doing? The exact same thing — empty promises and “green” bandaids on environmental open sores, hoping to score some publicity points for their cosmetic green initiatives.

With all the downsides of this debacle, it would make a great Al Jaffee fold-in.

Thank you for the comments – it’s good to see intelligent debate around the issue.

It seems to me like some people missed the central point: That it isn’t an either-or situation – it’s an evolving and expanding conception of “education” (and, yes, in the case of TED and the like, “edutainment”) wherein the new complements, rather than replaces, the old. It’s also interesting to note the sort of platform we’re having said intelligent debate on. I fail to see how the very opportunity to discuss such issues in more forms and on more platforms is not fostering the cross-pollination of ideas and the development of a healthier, more well-rounded mind – the quintessential objective most people pursue through education. And while many of the points made are based on good insight, they’d only hold true in an either-or framework.

@Trayan; I like the notion of “interactive expertise” vs. “contributory expertise” – what a great way to intuitively communicate a very important distinction. However, wouldn’t you say that curiosity (underlying the “interactive” kind) is the discovery engine for your area of highest interest, which eventually evolves into an area of high expertise (the “contributory” kind)? Without an active curiosity that leads you to explore diverse and wide-spanning disciplines, you’d resort to the defeatist hope that whatever your true calling is will somehow miraculously land on your passive lap. These new tools are just that – a platform for harnessing curiosity, which can then get channeled into something more focused. No one is saying we should spend our entire lives being all over the map, conversationalists in all but experts in none. Which, of course, goes back to central point about supplementation rather than substitution – I thought I had made that clear, but judging by the number of people who completely missed it, I suppose I hadn’t. My bad.

Thanks again for the feedback, keep it coming.

Kudos to Crispin Porter + Bogusky for backing this program. Sadly, it’s much harder for truly grassroots effort to take root – Philly has been petitioning for Philly BikeShare, a nonprofit version, for over 2 years now. But, apparently, it takes an ad agency and some commercial backing to really get a program started. Good for them.

Excellent collection. Another great set of book and magazine cover designs: Art of the Cover. Check out the Shepard Fairey work for Orwell.

Resisting a lame pun oh-so-very hard right now. Anyway, I was actually in Indonesia last summer and noticed they have a lot of penis-centric elements, many sold as souvenirs. Got my friend a life-sized wooden penis bottle-opener. Makes me not even wanna think about its additional uses once that beer buzz kicks in…

The sad thing is that while we’ve kind of reluctantly accepted the utter environmental inefficiency of the Bush administration as a catalog of fluff-lined phrases and empty promises, we have to remember we live in a capitalist society. And, in capitalism, politics go hand in hand with The Money, which is largely driven by marketing. What are most major marketers doing? The exact same thing — empty promises and “green” bandaids on environmental open sores, hoping to score some publicity points for their cosmetic green initiatives.

With all the downsides of this debacle, it would make a great Al Jaffee fold-in.

Pretty cool: very Happy Feet meets Kill Bill vol. 1. The sound design is just the cherry on top — turns out the tune is Young Men Dead by The Black Angels. Too bad the Zune itself will never transcend its status as a parrot product.