What’s a “holy shit visualization”? It’s a way of looking at data that makes turns a statistic you might have flipped past in a book or skimmed by on a web page into something that you can’t forget. It’s a visceral reminder of the power of images and the power of looking at dry numbers in human terms.

Hundreds of State Department employees had to know Hillary Clinton was breaking email protocol; if Clinton read the State Department employee manual she should have known better; Axelrod calls the mess a "ball of wool"; and much, much more. Read More

The Clinton email brouhaha continues: Network Solutions, Clinton's domain registrar, was hacked in 2010; faulty encryption left the Clinton system open to hacking; @clintonemail.com a status symbol; "Jeb Bush did it too"; and much, much more. Read More

Trying to influence Congress is hard work. You have to know who cares about what issues so you approach the right people. It also helps to know who has the power to actually make waves so you don't waste your time with ineffective members. In January, two Harvard seniors launched an online platform called Quorum that does the bulk of that work automatically, using a number of public data sources.

Hillary Clinton's "homebrew" email server; everything else you wanted to know about Clinton's personal email; a Romanian hacker called "Guccifer"; "Nothing is actually private"; and much, much more. Read More

Hillary Clinton stumbles on transparency; Jeb Bush chides her but he's too transparent; how Janet Napolitano got around that pesky gov't email rule; meanwhile, New York puts expiration dates on state workers' emails; and much, much more! Read More

In every country, fiscal policies are a mystery for the majority of citizens. This often generates the feeling that, somehow, the tax money is not well used by the public administration. BaniPierduti (Romanian for "lost money") is the name of a project that aims to increase awareness and understanding about local budgets. Read More

"Snowdenites" may have the "upper hand" in surveillance politics; ten lessons from the "underdog" net neutrality win; "Europtechnopanic"; ISIS threatens Twitter founder; and much, much more. Read More

Tim Wu says we shouldn't be so pessimistic about lobbying; Obama writes a thank you note to reddit; Ted Cruz wants to be the Uber of politics; Llamas!; and much, much more. Read More

A week ago, digital ethnologist Mark Pesce gave a talk here at Civic Hall on the topic of "Hypercivility." As you will see from watching the video, it's an extension of years of research and thinking he has done on the effects of hyperconnectivity on our world. Be forewarned, this is not an "easy" talk to watch or digest. While Pesce definitely has our social-media-powered "Age of Outrage" on his mind, he grounds his talk in a much more serious place: post-genocide Rwanda, which he recently visited. Read More