Diplomacy 2.0? State Department Turns to Online Groups

LibertySugar — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:30:06 PST

What do Google, MTV, Facebook, Howcast, and the US State Department all have in common? They're joining forces to fight terrorism, political oppression, and crime. Inspired by a Colombian Facebook movement against FARC rebels, the US government wants to take advantage of online youth groups that promote stability, human rights, and democracy.

In early December, organizations fighting oppression and violence in places like Burma, Egypt, Uganda, Darfur, India, South Africa, Britain, South Africa, and Turkey will meet in New York City to get the Alliance of Youth Movements up and running. The US State Department has donated $50,000 to sponsor delegate travel. Observers from Iraq and Afghanistan will attend, and participants from Cuba will participate remotely.

While they're taking a break from discussing how to build online youth movements, they'll listen to guest speakers, including Whoopi Goldberg. MTV and Howcast will stream the event live. Are you happy to see the US State Department support international movements, started in the private sector, that favor US policy?

Source

Website of the Day: Howcast

GeekSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:02:57 PDT

Share time: A challenge I deal with as a geek is learning to do things by just reading instructions about them. Truth be told, I am totally a visual learner and would rather learn that way, but have long since given up on trying to get everything that way. Mainly because things like the web, manuals, and just about everything else worth learning to do is based on written material (although I completely gave up on learning the guitar this way years ago. Poor, lonely guitar in my closet, I'm sorry).

A great site called Howcast lets me get back to those visual roots, by posting videos of people teaching you/performing how to do something. For stuff like crafting - I want to learn to knit super bad, for instance, but don't have time to find and take a class - there's no better way to learn than by someone actually showing you. Hey guitar, you calling my name?