Are you guys out of your minds? A treadmill desk. Have you even considered the energy-wastage implications of this? Oh no, sorry, I forgot, as libertarians you've probably opted not to believe in climate change.

The solution to this non-problem is obvious. it's called healthy balance. Get an ergonomic chair for working, and take regular breaks. And then walk home from work. Basta. "Problem" solved. Why does there have to be a technological "solution" to everything? This thread is just crazy.

It is simply impossible to get a handle on modern science, even at fairly basic levels, without a good understanding of mathematics

These sound like "fairly basic levels" for a postdoctorate student, rather than a layperson. I find it difficult to believe that cell division, or sublimation, or even gravity, can be better explained using chalk and algebra than by our much-derided friend the "infographic" or by any kind of decent animation, perhaps with interactive elements to assist understanding. There is just tons of potential there.

But yes, my question lacked clarity on this point. I do not want to understand "complex ideas" completely, just to grasp the basics. I want basic things to click in ways they haven't done so far. I'm not a scientist and never will be (I studied history), I just want to be a little less dumb. Just a little.

They look stronger on humanities subjects, and the course titles seem somewhat arbitrary rather than hierarchically organized. But interesting nonetheless, thanks for the tip.

Udacity looks cool. To you and others, thanks for the tip.

Yada yada yada. Did I ask for advice on how to learn? Please, if you don't agree with the premise of the question, just don't reply. (This could have been addressed to a number of posts, I picked yours at random.)

Yep, mentioned above. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks, there are a couple of small leads in your densely packed advice! In general though, I'm looking for something which forms a coherent whole (i.e., a start-to-finish course, even if short) and has high production values. Hulu rather than Youtube. Wikipedia is, as you say, just way too dry and in-depth most of the time. I believe they have an "Introduction to..." series for complex subjects, but so far there aren't many such articles.

Baking soda is great, but hydrogen peroxide is even better on the bathroom tile grout. Now I just need to understand how it works!

Thanks, will definitely be checking out Crash Course. Sounds great.

Good points. Thanks for the TED link.

Would have written that in the question but wanted to keep things polite. Well put.

Excellent points. This is looking like the definitive answer to my question. "It doesn't exist yet, come back later." You're right that teachers will always be needed as the one-on-one recourse. And that in turn can help towards the design of the next generation of educational material.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I just want to understand what the hell an amino acid (or indeed any acid) is, or how jetsteams work, or what exactly chemical weight is, without having to squint at a small video of someone scraping a barely visible blackboard while burbling jokes and anecdotes to class of students. I figure that there has to be a better way.

Have you never seen a well-made animation, or even simply a graphic, that allowed your understanding to click into place? I have. I'm thinking subjects like plate tectonics, weather systems, DNA, evolution, the structure of molecules (rather than mathematics, which my question didn't mention). There are concepts here that clearly lend themselves to explanation by advanced computer graphics, and yet the market doesn't seem to be offering much.

Is it so difficult to see the difference between computer animation and a video of someone scratching a blackboard with chalk? Come on. Did we really invent computers and the web simply to speed up the distribution of videos? There seems to be a lot of luddism in this thread.

Infographics is perhaps a dumb buzzword, but everyone understood, you included. And no, far from being "someone stuck in traditional academia", I work at the IT end of journalism and I spend my days trying to convince people to adopt newer, more efficient methods of working.

At this point I (as the OP) would be interested if anyone had pointers even to "comic-style drawings". No such luck unfortunately.