[According to Twitter] 24 percent of American Twitter users are African-American. That's about twice as high as African-Americans are represented in the population.

I fear that I can no longer travel without technology. Twenty years ago, I loved getting on a bus in West Africa and taking off for a city I'd never been to before, relying on advice from out-of-date travel books and fellow passengers on the bus. Now, I end up using TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Maps. I probably eat and sleep better when I'm on the road, but I miss the mystery of travel when it was more random and unpredictable.

The Internet is corporations all the way down.

It's fine to have social media that connects us with old friends, but we need tools that help us discover new people as well.

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

People who know me well have learned to insist that I commit to obligations by opening my laptop and putting them onto the appropriate calendar or list - a verbal agreement and a promise to remember won't work.

Twitter is my main tool for ensuring news balance.