@KLH sez: "Never mistake what you do for Art. "

I think you've completely missed the point of this article. The mention of Picasso notwithstanding, there was no explicit connection made between design and art. I think that professional designers understand that the endgame of their efforts is commerce, whereas artists are primarily interested in expression for its own sake. The point the author was making, as I read it, was that real creativity is something that triggers genuine emotional responses, and that it's truly difficult to achieve, and even harder to sell.

• 1 week ago

i agree with you, blogging is alive and well. nicholas carr's argument was that the so-called "blogosphere" -- something that used to be this ad-hoc network of individual bloggers finding each other and engaging in passionate discourse on anything and everything -- is slowly being replaced by a more corporate environment of blogs staffed by professional writers, the community aspect is gone, though the blog as a media platform continues to expand. Having run this blog since 1999, i tend to agree with that notion.

• 3 weeks ago

Having a President who's intellectual is a good thing. The problems he faces are complex, and they need innovative and well-thought-out solutions.

• 3 weeks ago

Fair enough. I still think that anything on the Web has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Contributing comments to a social networking site is not journalism. It's more or less a loud conversation in the town square, so I'm not sure one has to expect people to fact-check their statements in that sort of environment. Anyway, you have a lot of fans out there for your tech blogging, hope you'll at least continue to enlighten folks in that channel.

• 5 weeks ago

Oh, I totally agree with you, Jack. Assuming that Obama wins -- an outcome that seems likely, today, but is certainly not guaranteed -- that will mark a significant milestone in American history. But even as the world embraces such a promising signal from the States, it's not going to end racial bias here, and I fear, it may actually deepen the divisions as an entire segment of the populace reels in disbelief at what just happened. It will be a new day, but it will be a step in the right direction, I think, because the world isn't just black people and white people -- and America sure isn't either -- and we all have to figure out how to live together, or we're just going to be at each other's throats, spilling blood...forever.

• 5 weeks ago