That Strange New Zone Between Medium And

If You Look At Where Innovation - Defined As Ideas, Not As Commercial Product - Tends To Live, The University System Is Remarkably Innovative.

The Economics Of Television Syndication And Dvd Sales Mean That There's A Tremendous Financial Pressure To Make Programs That Can Be Watched Multiple Times, Revealing New Nuances And Shadings On The Third Viewing. Meanwhile, The Web Has Created A Forum For Annotation And Commentary That Allows More Complicated Shows To Prosper, Thanks To The Fan Sites Where Each Episode Of Shows Like 'lost' Or 'alias' Is Dissected With An Intensity Usually Reserved For Talmud Scholars.

The Problem Is, There Are Definitely Some Genuinely Lame Things On Television, And There's More At The Bottom Of The Barrel, Because The Barrel In A Sense Has Gotten Bigger.

Chance Favors The Connected Mind.

One Of The Stories I Love Is How Gutenberg’s Printing Press Set Off This Interesting Chain Reaction, Where All Of A Sudden People Across Europe Noticed For The First Time That They Were Farsighted, And Needed Spectacles To Read Books (which They Hadn’t Really Noticed Before Books Became Part Of Everyday Life); Which Then Created A Market For Lens Makers, Which Then Created Pools Of Expertise In Crafting Lenses, Which Then Led People To Tinker With Those Lenses And Invent The Telescope And Microscope, Which Then Revolutionized Science In Countless Ways.