In many parts of America today, it is a cliche to say that it is raining information. I try to keep some perspective on the situation by recalling Charles Kenny's contribution to the Time magazine issue in March 2010, where he said that the great communication invention that will save the world is television. He said that, at least for now, we should forget about Google, Facebook and Twitter. Much of the world still has no electricity and no television. When there is television, it may be sporadic, trite or only propaganda. (At least, ours is more or less continuous, which may not be such a good thing.)
Personally, I find a well-written document or book a better, faster source to the heart of a matter than a video. I admit I did learn to tie a bow differently from a video and might not have grasped the change in my procedure had it been described in printed words. I learned from a video how to trap voles (voles, with a "v"). I learned from "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson that the ideas and coding that make short quick video streaming on a web page and brought us YouTube have very much changed what can be done online.
I am a fan of the well-known TED talks. TED stands for "Technology Entertainment Design" and the talks are part of the TED mission. The non-profit organization is devoted to "ideas worth spreading". The TED talks include excellent thinkers and speakers presenting short talks which can be viewed online. Online can include on your tv set if you have a computer or Roku connected to it. (I haven't tried Google TV or Apple TV but I imagine they can provide access to TED talks, too. So far, my computer has been fine for watching TED talks as I am confident a tablet or smartphone would be, too.)
Today, I looked over some collections of TED talks, beginning with the one assembled by Tim O'Reilly, well-known publisher of computer related books. His company also supports the O'Reilly Radar website, followed on my blog. Here is a link to nine TED talks that he recommends as very educational. It is a good idea to at least look at the link to see what the talks are about.
A few years back, I sent a friend a link to a good YouTube video. He told me not to send him such things as he was already spending too much of his life looking at YouTube videos. As I wrote, I know information is raining down on us and much of it is not worthwhile. However, there is far too much to pay attention to, even if you limit yourself to sources known to be high quality.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
