"Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat." :-) - j1m

BTW, I think Pluto got cheated. - j1m

This is fun: 'She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."' - j1m

"The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London. " - bob

There are currently 884 results for the search ["cognitive surplus"]. It's fun to watch this meme ripple through the web. I wish I had a giant visualisation of the entire web that let me watch this particular concept spread through and between different online communities - Adewale Oshineye

"Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up.... However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter." (b/c for one thing, duh, mary ann) - j1m

What a really, really smart essay. It crystalizes a lot of thoughts I've had over recent years, but mine carry a tinge of backward, residual Protestantism. For example, I often feel guilty that, on the treadmill, while FF'ing through commercials on "House Hunters International", I often ask myself how I could be better self-actualized -- while at the same period in my grandfather's life, he was probably wondering how he'd feed his children on Thursday. - Erik Dafforn

At first I thought you used FriendFeed on the treadmill, and I was going to ask about that, because I've tried a couple ways to surf the net from an exercise machine without much luck. It seems to be hard to type while bouncing about. Then, of course, I realized FF meant something else. - ⓞnor

Oops, sorry! Yes, the "original" FF -- fast-forward. - Erik Dafforn