A look back at the ideas of the year

The end of the year is always filled with retrospective lists and reviews of the past 12 months. One of the most fun look's back is the New York Times magazine's Year in Ideas (on line now - will be published in this Sunday's magazine). The review covers a number of categories, from arts to social sciences to technology - with business, politics, sport and culture thrown in as well.

One of my favorites is the rise of the "good enough" revolution, where functionality trumps technological sophistication:

High-definition televisions have turned every living room into a home cinema, yet millions of us choose to watch small, blurry videos on our computers and our mobile devices. Cameras capture images in a dozen megapixels, yet Flickr is filled with snapshots taken with phone cameras that we can neither focus nor zoom. And at war, a country that has a fleet of F-16 fighter jets that can cover 1,500 miles an hour is now using more and more remote-controlled Predator drones that are powered by snowmobile engines.
Lo-fi solutions are now available for a range of problems that couldn't be solved with high-tech tools. Music played from a compact disc is of higher quality than what comes out of an iPod -- but you can't easily carry 4,000 CDs with you on the subway or to the gym. Similarly, a professional television camera will produce a higher-quality image than a phone, but when something important happens, from the landing of a jet on the Hudson River to the murder of an Iranian protester, and there are no TV cameras around, images recorded on phones are good enough.

Another is an art by subscription model:

At Kickstarter, creative types post a description of a project they want to do, how much money they need for it and a deadline. If enough people pledge money that the artists reach (or surpass) their financial goals, then everyone is billed, paying in advance as you would for a magazine subscription. For goals that aren't reached, nobody is charged. [I wonder if you could have something like that for research projects?]

All in all, an interesting summary of the intellectual progress of 2009.