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Listen to NPR story

My wife tried to influence our newborn’s taste preferences by eating flavorful foods while pregnant. NPR featured her in a story about the research behind this approach to encouraging children to enjoy various food flavors. Listen here.

Born Thursday at 6:11 PM in Pittsburgh! Josephine is here and we are so happy!!!

For the folks who saw me talk at Pecha Kucha Pittsburgh, here are some links I assembled put together to resources for people interested in rethinking the drug war. Yes my talk was called “The War on Sugar,” but it wasn’t really about sugar. It was about what happens when criminalize something lots of people want. Yes, over consumption of sugar is bad for you, but do we want to throw people in prison for it? Is that the best way to deal with the problem? I don’t believe so.You’ll have to make up your own mind about it. What do you think?

I will be appearing at a couple of great community events in Pittsburgh in the next couple of weeks (assuming that our baby is not born early, in which case, I will be out of action for a bit.)

1. Pecha Kucha Pittsburgh, Volume 8

Pecha Kucha is an event which happens in cities all over the world where people give 6 minute talks along with timed slides about whatever they want.

I will be giving a talk called “The War on Sugar” accompanied by my own hand-drawn illustrations. The talk is a thought experiment musing about what would happen if we banned sugar the way we banned a variety of other substances like cannabis, heroin, and methamphetamine. After all, sugar is very bad for us—over 71,000 people in the USA had diabetes listed as the cause of death in 2007. In the same year over 161,000 death certificates listed diabetes as a contributing factor, and surely over consumption of sugar was a contributor to many of those deaths. But would we want to criminalize consumption and production of sugar? Hmmm….

When: 8PM, Thursday, June 30

Where:
Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)
5125 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Map:

View Larger Map

Price: $5 at the door

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2. The Good, Bad, and Unique of Your Neighborhood, Illustrated

In this event, attendees will describe what makes their neighborhood great, not so great, and just plain distinctive as I render their descriptions as illustrations on the wall so everyone can see the stories unfold with pictorial accompaniment. This should be a great way to learn about different parts of Pittsburgh and meet some community minded folks.

When: 7:30 PM, Thursday, July 7.

Where: Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)

Where:
Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)
5125 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Map:

View Larger Map

Price: Free!

When people hear that we are expecting a child, they are always very happy for us, which is nice. Then they ask, “boy or girl?” To which we reply, we don’t know. Then, inevitably people go, “Oh, you want a surprise!” Um. No. I think the stress and intensity of the birthing experience will be plenty without needing an extra bonus surprise.

We are NOT doing it for the surprise factor. Here is our motivation for not finding out the sex of the kid:

Basically, it doesn’t matter to us what the sex is. We’ll find out when we find out.

Whew. Not that complicated, is it? I mean, people have been having babies for tens of thousands of years without knowing the sex of the child before it is born. Do we need to start filling our house with pink tutus or monster truck toys before the kid is even born?

I don’t blame people for asking about the sex of the kid and then the “surprise” comment. I would have done exactly the same thing in their shoes a year ago. But now as an expectant parent, I have a different perspective. Is that a surprise?

Last night I was honored to meet Dan Piraro, creator of Bizarro. Bizarro is the best strip on the comics page. Dan was in Pittsburgh to do a standup comedy performance benefit for Pittsburgh’s museum of cartoon art, the Toonseum. Dan mixed projected visuals, freeform monologue, real-time drawing, and musical performance in a comedic tour de force. One of the many high points for me: Dan’s reading of hate mail he receives from disgruntled readers. If Dan ever performs in your town, go check him out. Jonny endorsed and recommended!

Also really enjoyed his warmup act, Nathan Mazur, who dazzled us with his hilarious animation exploits.

Tip of the hat to local cartoonist superstar and all around good dude David Coulson for telling me about this excellent event.

My wife and I are expecting a child somewhere around the end of July! Yay! So far, so good. We are super excited. Looking forward to rocking out with this young ‘un. Unexpected bonus side effect: I already find myself developing a more forgiving attitude toward my own parents!

OK kid, seeya in a couple of months! We can’t wait to meet you.

Hi. I have been remiss in keeping this blog updated. Been very busy the last few months.

Here are a few recent highlights:

• Co-organized and emceed Ignite Pittsburgh 2, a community event where people share interesting ideas and projects emanating from the smartest and most creative minds in Pittsburgh.
• Video of me doing large scale visual notes at Maryland Society for Educational Technology Conference.
• I have been brought on board as an advisor to early stage tech companies at AlphaLab a startup accelerator which was recently ranked in the top 15 by TechCocktail.
• Illustrated and cowrote a video about the surprisingly prevalent problem of child identity theft for the AllClearID initiative of Debix Inc.
• Created large scale visual notes at the Spring 2011 Making Sparks event which prepares people to create successful technology and media projects to foster early childhood development.

If you are going to be at South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin be sure to get within high-five distance and slap me some skin.

I love SXSWi because so many people from so many networks converge on the mega event and it offers unparalleled opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

I will be doing graphic recording for two events about opportunities and pitfalls for nonprofits in the networked age:

2) The Future of Nonprofits : Thrive and Innovate in the Digital Age (Book reading: more info about the book.)

Speakers:

David J. Neff
Randall Moss Social Media & Digital Mktg Mgr MWV

Time
Saturday March 12
9:30AM

Venue
Austin Convention Center
Ballroom G
500 E Cesar Chavez St

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But wait, there’s more!

Nonprofits and Free Agents in A Networked World

Time:
Sunday March 13
3:30PM

Venue:
Austin Convention Center
Room 6AB
500 E Cesar Chavez St

Paneleists:

Beth Kanter CEO of Zoetica Media
Danielle Brigida Digital Mktg Mgr National Wildlife Federation
Jessica Dheere Founder/Dir Social Media Exchange
Mark Horvath

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In addition to these events, I am excited to reconnect with my friends from ITP, IFVP, VizThink, IndyHall, PhillyCHI, the Yahoo Videoblogger Group, and my now defunct but formerly awesome interactive web TV show Jonny’s Par-tay. And don’t forget Kroosh.

See you in Austin!

Dear Rosetta Stone Team,

I hear that Rosetta Stone is a great language learning system. I appeal to you to create a package that teaches Cantonese. I notice that you support languages like Welsh: number of total speakers: about 700,000. Irish: 400,000. Danish: 6,000,000.

Cantonese is spoken by around 80 million people. Furthermore, there is a substantial diaspora of Cantonese speakers in the Anglosphere–North America, the UK, and Australia, who have children and grandchildren that are a promising market for a Cantonese version of Rosetta Stone.

Yet you do not offer your system in Cantonese, the 18th most widely spoken language in the world?

What’s my interest? I am married to a Cantonese-American woman and would like to have a grasp of the language she uses to speak with her family. I am sure there are enough people in my shoes to support development of a Cantonese product. Stop neglecting this promising market segment.