"Where do they find the time?"

Ever wonder about the relationship of gin to the industrial revolution and sitcom televsion? Well, wonder no more. Outstanding 15 min [or so] presentation on the advent of the "new media." And why blogging and endless navel gazing on the internet is still preferable to watching reruns of Gilligan's Island.

To paraphrase, all our free "time comes from the cognitive surplus TV has been masking for 50 years..."

And the key bit... "Here's what 4 year olds know - a screen [media] that ships without a mouse is broken...]

Via Warren Ellis » Gin And The Cognitive Surplus

Clay Shirky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Clay Shirky (born 1964[1]) is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He teaches New Media as an adjunct professor at New York University's (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). His courses address, among other things, the interrelated effects of the topology of social networks and technological networks, how our networks shape culture and vice-versa. They consistently are among students' top choices, and accordingly, fill up quickly.

Shirky also popularized the phrase 'the internet runs on love.'[2]

He has written and been interviewed extensively about the internet since 1996. His columns and writings have appeared in Business 2.0, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review and Wired."