The Best (and Worst) of Ideas, 2006

Each year, the New York Times Magazine selects the "peaks and valleys of ingenuity — the human cognitive faculty deployed with intentions good and bad, purposes serious and silly, consequences momentous and morbid." The result ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, but almost unanimously fascinating. From proposals for renewed, not to mention redecorated, democracy, to new ways to travel, from changes to our basic assumptions about the economy, to tracking money (and its implication for tracking pandemics), even in virtual economies and online auctions; there's the new pitcher, and the new catcher. A little something for everyone.

[Technorati tags: new york times magazine | ideas | 2006]