TED Talks to the Windy City

• Planet Green
• Ben Roche and Homaro Cantu

The Internet is not available at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Well, OK—that’s not entirely fair. There is Wi-Fi to be had . . . once you talk to three different volunteers and one of them trots off to track down someone affiliated with the largest science center in the Western Hemisphere, who can then relay the 26-digit password that the volunteer will then kindly text to your nonsmart phone.

I thought this was funny on Wednesday night, given the forward-thinking context in which I was trying to connect: the first in a series of TEDx Windy City events, a local spin-off of the high-profile TED Talks in California. TED Talks started out in 1984 as a celebration of cutting-edge thinking in technology, entertainment, and design, and now address just about anything the TED brain trust dubs an “idea worth spreading.”