The Mac Lab

Learn what is true in order to do what is right is the summing up of the whole duty of man.
— Thomas Henry Huxley

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true.
— H.L. Mencken

The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so.
— Josh Billings

Nobody’s going to die for these ideas, but we are going to fight our mental reflexes as we devise, extend, and continue to implement our 2012/13 plans for the TAG and AMP. I’m going to spill my ideas right here and it’s up to you to critique them and add your own ideas to the mix.

But—and this is a really big but—we’re going to be guided by research rather than what we know (that sometimes ain’t so). Agreed?

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Is not the real business of the artist to seek for man’s salvation, and by understanding his ingredients to make himself less an outlaw to himself?
— Loren Eiseley

Had Eisely been born a woman, perhaps she would have written it like this:

Is not the real business of the artist to seek for humanity’s salvation, and by understanding her ingredients to make herself less an outlaw to herself?

Either way, those words are especially thought-provoking because whether you believe it or not, each of you, without exception, is in fact an artist. Michelangelo once said: I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. When I look at you, I don’t see angels, but I do honestly see heroes inside each of you; heroes, patiently waiting to be set free.

All year long I’ve tried to give you the tools to free that hero. Become the sculptor. Begin to taste and feel and understand and most importantly, tap your true potential.

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What will people say?
In these words lies the tyranny of the world,
the whole destruction of our natural disposition,
the oblique vision of our minds.
These four words hold sway everywhere.
— Berthold Auerbach

You don’t have to know anything to be brilliantly negative. Anybody who can speak can be brilliantly negative. The only sign of intelligence is to be brilliantly positive. Anyone can say that there are no solutions; that’s being brilliantly negative. To assert that there are solutions, and demonstrate them, is being brilliantly positive.
— R. Buckminster Fuller

We’re living in a transitional age; we straddle two worlds. The strategies and expectations of the Industrial Revolution still dominate our world view even as the Information Age blossoms all around us. Brick and mortar education systems, for the most part, cling to yesterday’s traditions while free online learning communities proliferate.

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