Socrates the Blogger
I have just read a passage in "Things That Make Us Smart" that refers to Socrates and his hatred of writing things down. Socrates beleived that the way to teach something was to have a dialogue with that person, not to simply have them read something without opportunity to reflect and question. "Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who takes it over from him, on the supposition that such writing will provide somting reliable and permanent, must be exceedingly simple-minded; he must really be ignorant of Ammon's utterance, if he imagines that written words can do anything more than remind one who knows that which the writing is concerned with." Norman points out that book discussion groups serve as a counter-example to Socrates' point about books being a stagnat way of learning.
I can see parallels in technology available today (which, incidentally wasn't available even in 1993 when Norman was writing). A traditional website represents the form of learning that is experiential - the type that Socrates would have hated. Anyone can read the information available, but rarely is there any opportunity to reflect. Indeed, the vast amount of text available on the web probably encourage a user to continue to read more and more rather than relect. The only way for a user to interact with the author is to send an email and cross their fingers for a response.
On the other hand, Socrates would have absolutely loved blogging. Blogging is designed to be reflective. It is also a great medium for those who question what is written on the web, and leads directly to questioning of which Socrates would have approved. Commenting and discussing ideas are exactly the point of blogging - and are the modern-day equivalent to Socrates group of philosophers. Socrates never wrote a book, but I'm willing to bet that if he were alive today, he would be an avid blogger whose ideas would be refected upon by thousands more people than he ever could have met in person.

Things That Make Us Smart
I have begun reading "Things That Make Us Smart" by Donald A. Norman. The book was published in 1993, and is interesting in that it identifies patterns in technology that had yet to become prevalent at the time. One theme that Norman explores is the use of technology to create artifacts. He describes a psychology study he was performing in which subjects were supposed to memorize a list of words. He caught one of the subjects "cheating" by writing down words on the list. He realizes that this is only what an intelligent person would do. Technology is adding greatly to people's ability to create artifacts. People no longer need to memorize phone numbers, as cell phones do the task better than a person can. As technology becomes more and more ubiquitous in our lives and available at any moment, certain skills will become antiquated. In the book, Norman gives the example of someone who is extremely good at remembering long lists of numbers. This suddenly becomes much less notable when one considers that any simple database can do the same thing incomparably better. The lesson to be learned from this is that creativity and seeing patterns are skills that can not be emulated by computers. By freeing up our mind-power to concentrate on being creative, computers will indeed help us to become smarter.

Toulouse-Lautrec

I recently attended the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago. It was quite interesting from the perspective of a web designer. His lithographs were in a sense the websites of his day. They were posters advertising venues and events which were inteded to be distributed widely, just as many websites do today. Because of the lithograph technique used, his prints were limited to only a few colors - a style that many web designers adhere to out of choice. Because of the limited number of colors his limited use of texture, his works lend themselves to having text written directly on the artwork. Much of his work is reminiscent of modern magazine covers in which part of the image covers parts of text. While he is careful to leave the "Ambassadeurs" title at the top legible, by covering the "s" partially he draws the users eye, and cleverly draws attention to the title.