I am reading two excellent (and related) books by two talented authors: Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. They both belong to a relatively recent genre of writing which attempts to explain the impact of the Internet on society. Other recent examples include David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous, Jonathan Zittrain’s The [...]

After my presentation at Ars Electronica, someone in the audience asked the question I get most often when presenting Global Voices: “How do I decide what to read on Global Voices when I already have too much to read about my own community and country?”
It’s a good question and it doesn’t have a neat answer. [...]

After all my dramatic agony and breathless complaining, I am glad I endured. The Argumentative Indian is neither easy nor fun to read. The first three pages of every chapter and sub-chapter are essentially wordy justifications of why the topic is deserving of discussion in the first place.
Throughout the book I was constantly thinking, Amartya, [...]

Sauntering.
That, above all else, is this bear’s favorite pastime. Sin duda. If I visit your ‘hood and you ask me what I’d like to do, be prepared; ‘let’s saunter’ will be my answer.
I know what you’re thinking: Sauntering? Oso, what kind of psuedo-poetic bullshit is that? We call it walking. To which I respond with [...]

Sign of my life: the friend I’ve seen the most over the past few months does’t even live in my country. Georgia and I have been seen liming lately in Miami, Jamaica, Hungary, Austria, and now here in Madagascar.
For the past couple days we’ve been doing some outreach work in Antananarivo and Toamasina:

You can hear [...]

Greetings from Madagascar. So far I love it. And I’m not the only one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West

When we speak about our identity I believe that we are referring to four different things: 1.) how we see ourselves as we relate to society around us, 2.) how we want others to see us, 3.) how others see us as we relate to society, and 4.) how we perceive others’ perceptions of who [...]

I am going to do something I never do and copy and paste an entire op-ed piece by David Brooks from the New York Times. It sums up much of my thinking about governance and politics over the past year. Of course, you can also read it on the New York Times website.
You probably won’t [...]

Jonathan McIntosh is a creator and curator of political remix videos. His presentation style – three or four open tabs on his Firefox browser – reminded me a lot of another creator and curator of online video, Jay Dedman.

Photo of Jonathan McIntosh by Joi Ito
I have seen a lot of political remix videos, both online [...]

With the air-conditioning rushing out like a vacuum cleaner in reverse, Mohamed and I trade tips, quips, and gripes about modules, nodes, and frameworks. The lethargic waters of the Persian Gulf slap lazily along Doha’s empty concrete boardwalk. Across West Bay, the skeletal ambitions of New Doha’s vacant skyscrapers reflect blindingly on the water. It [...]