I love cities and the Internet.
I grew up in NYC and now live in Boston with my amazing wife and two great kids.
Currently, I'm a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab in the Center for Civic Media, and an advisor to Code for America.
I've spent the past several years with OpenPlans and Civic Commons, building open technologies for cities and advancing urban and technical policy issues.
Projects I've worked on include: Open311, MTA Bus Time, OpenBlock, OpenTripPlanner, TransportationCamp, Streetsblog, Streetfilms, GothamSchools, and of course the world-famous Phone Idol.
I'm more helpful than thoughtful, but working on it.
On top of the World! (by Streetfilms)
Fun short clip from back in the day when we were filming & studying pedestrian movements in times square from a rooftop vantage point.
if Michel is worried about anti-patent agitation from the software industry will “wreck the system” for other industries, that’s an argument in favor of creating a carve-out for the software industry. As long as software firms are vulnerable to patent trolling, they’ll be exerting pressure to weaken patent protections across the board. Freeing the software industry from the burdens of the patent system will make it easier to fine-tune the system for other industries where patent protection works better.
Excellent tag line | @Tumblr’s new Storyboard: tales from behind the dashboard (via: @hellofromcath) »
Regardless of how old you are, it’s the first time you have ever seen a president of the United States look into a camera and say that a gay person should be treated equally under the law. The message that that sends, to a young gay or transgendered person struggling to come out, is life changing.
Fifty years ago, consumers were allowed to hook up only Bell telephones to their Bell phone lines. But in the 1960s, the F.C.C. and the courts forced the Bells to accept any device that didn’t threaten the network. The decision unleashed a torrent of innovation — including the answering machine, the fax and the first device that allowed us to explore what would become the Internet: the modem. Innovation online requires an open playing field, too.
It’s not often you get to be a fly on the wall for an IPO roadshow, let alone the most highly anticipated IPO of all time. Yet, here’s our chance.
So, pull up a seat and listen closely to how Mark, Chris, Sheryl and David tell their story and lay out the rationale for why investors should believe that Facebook is just getting started.
There aren’t many reveals in the video that haven’t been covered ad nauseum so no need to listen intently for surprises. Rather, watch for how the story of Facebook is told from the seed planted in Mark’s dorm room on a $70 a month server to the single most important piece of internet infrastructure upon which all future applications will be built.
Regardless of whether such a wild eyed vision leaves you reaching for your Schwab account or your barf bag, this is 30 min of internet history well worth a watch.
It’s not the weekend, so I can’t make it required viewing, but miss this master class in big picture pitching at your own peril.
“The lessons from Internet school are life lessons. If I can sum them up I would say they are: 1. The Internet and the emergence of networks have disrupted and will continue to disrupt structures that are hierarchical. 2. Learn technologies and use them to build. We are no longer designers or…
list of five specific uses (cybersecurity, cyber crime, protecting people from harm, protecting children from exploitation, and national security)
in other words
you a criminal without rights
we will be watching you
I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that
/via the beast
First soccer game. Sadly, I was away for work and am getting the digital experience just like everyone else :(