It’s been pretty awesome to watch the roll out of Google Fiber. For those who haven’t been following, Google is piloting a program to deliver gigabit internet service (symmetrical — equal speeds for uploads and download), starting with Kansas City and coming soon to Austin, TX. This is important and...

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law that intends to protect computer systems from intruders and criminals.   For those that haven’t been following, this is also the law that Aaron Swartz was prosecuted under for downloading too many academic papers at MIT. Right now, Congress is considering up...

Today I turn 34. For some reason, I can’t get Fred’s post about turning 17 for the third time out of my head. As I have been approaching this milestone, I can’t help but feel like I’m turning the corner to a new phase. I definitely feel like the last 17 years have been about figuring… Continue readi...

I wrote last week about the Indie Web: the way that the web has the ability to help us grow and connect as individuals in awesome new ways. Here’s my latest entry in that story: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved doing everything by bike.  As a kid, the bike was my favorite… Continue reading

For the past two months, Frannie and I have been doing yoga.  It’s a totally new thing for me.  I was skeptical about it at first, but it’s been totally awesome and perspective changing.  Even though I am completely inflexible and unaccustomed to all of the poses (and perhaps because of this), doing...

Last night at USV, we hosted the latest of several recent meetups on the “Peer Economy”.  We are in the process of organizing a number of companies and organizations that represent a certain sector of the internet economy in NYC, with an eye towards building a more formal coalition (perhaps in the m...

One of my favorite advocates for “open innovation” is Ed Felten. Today, Ed has a post up that looks at some of the positive recent developments in the “freedom to tinker” movement — from advances in cell phone unlocking, to the response to Aaron Swartz’ passing, to the Kiartsaeng case (which affirms...

This week saw the publication of two very thoughtful articles on the impact that networks are having on society, and what that means for the future of governance.  The first was Catherine Bracy and Jim Pugh’s What’s Progressive About ‘Peer Progressives’? and the second was Om Malik’s Uber, Data Darw...

The past three weeks have been really busy. First a trip to SF with the USV team, then to Austin for SXSW to put on We Heart Wifi, and finally to Iceland where we have been helping establish a new institute for internet policy at Reykjavik University. So as is typically the case, I have fallen… Cont...

Today at SXSW, we are launching a Wi-Fi network + advocacy campaign called We Heart WiFi.  Fred and Albert both have posts up about it this morning. Over the coming weekend, folks at SXSW will be able to hop on to one of our free “Super Wi-Fi” hotspots.  The “super” part is that each of… Continue re...

Last week I was playing ping pong with Zander and the topic of conversation (naturally) turned to canal skating in Ottawa. You see, in Ottawa during the wintertime, the city’s canals freeze over and they turn into  temporary frozen streets.  As you can see above, Ottawans turn to using them for thei...

Despite the extent to which I talk and think about car sharing and other newly possible. web-enabled modes of transportation, the truth is I still don’t use too many of them on a regular basis.  Need to work on that. It seems as though I need to travel to SF to get the urge to get around town in new...

I met with an entrepreneur yesterday who, in passing, mentioned Warren Buffett’s method of prioritizing (ruthlessly).  To sum it up:                Jot down a list of the 25 most important things you want to accomplish (in a month, in a year, in life).   Circle the 5 absolutely most… Continue readin...

One thing I’ve wanted for a long time now is a dashboard that helps me track the wide array of tech policy issues I follow. One place where I could check, every morning, to get a sense of what issues are trending & developing, what longer-term issues are brewing, what specific milestones are approac...

This week, the NYC’s black car association (limos and car services) filed suit to block the e-hail pilot that was set to begin today.  The argument is that there has traditionally been a formal divide in NYC between taxis you hail on the street (yellow cabs) and cars you reserve in advance (black ca...

For the past few months I have been seeing an executive coach, which has been really helpful for me. One of my issues is that I tend to keep too much work bottled up in my inbox / in my to do list.  This is a drain on productivity and a source of stress.  Part… Continue reading

I’ve always loved Mozilla‘s mission and tactics – using awesome consumer products as the lever to make the web a better place to be. That’s why I’m happy to join their WebFWD accelerator program as a scout.  That just means that I’m one of many folks who are on the lookout for products and companies...

I consider myself an accidental policy person. In other words: I didn’t set out to study and understand how our policy decisions impact the world we live in.  Rather, I came at it from the perspective of design and experience (both real world and virtual) and ended up backing into the policy implica...

One of the more important, more contentious, and more complicated tech policy issues is radio spectrum allocation. It’s an issue I don’t have a lot of background experience in but have been learning a lot about lately. It’s a hot topic right now because the FCC is about to hold incentive auctions to...

Yesterday I spent the day at Princeton with Steve Schultze and the rest of the team at the Center for Information Technology Policy. The topic of my talk was “Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0” — something I’ve been thinking and talking about over the past several months, but haven’t yet written a to...