Omar Wasow

What would you say to the teacher who changed your life? @jenbrea movingly gives thanks in this video:

Why is the United States a rich country with the homicide rate of a poor country? I went on the Callie Crossley radio show today to share some of the research on homicide in America.

BlackWeb 2.0 picks up my TEDxBoston talk: “How a $10 Computer Changed My Life.”

Today, danah boyd and I discussed “Race Dynamics In Cyberspace” on public radio’s Callie Crossley Show.

Slate’s article on “How Black People Use Twitter” article quotes me and my colleague Brian Meeder.

At TEDxBoston, my 6-min talk was “How a $10 Computer Changed My Life” & what it means for education:

A clip of my appearance on the WSJ Report with Maria Bartiromo

I was a geek but now aspire to wonk. Joe Walker at Wall Street Journal Careers thoughtfully captures the ups and downs.

“Q&A: The Hacker’s Approach to Education Reform” (My thanks to @losangelista for distilling the interview into a coherent whole.)

Reid vs. Steele? My comments on NPR’s Tell Me More and in a great roundup in New York Magazine.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately told two journalists in 2008 that Obama was more electable because he’s “light-skinned” and lacked a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” While the media is abuzz about “sensational…racially tinged remarks.” Over at The Root, I ask: “Was Harry Reid Right?”

Lost in all the handwringing and shock, however, is any clear explanation of what’s wrong with Reid’s comment. Clearly, using “Negro dialect” is about half-a-century behind the times, but does anyone think Reid meant ill by his anachronism?

About ten years ago, Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, had just interviewed the writer Frank McCourt. McCourt invited Lamb to head uptown on the subway. My mom sees them and introduces herself to McCourt as the mother of a former student (McCourt was one of my HS English teachers). En route uptown, they all chat and it makes such an impression on Lamb that he reached out recently and invited me to be a guest on his show Q & A.

Some tips for saving money this holiday shopping season:

• find the right products with ConsumerReports.org
• find the best prices with shopping.google.com
• find discounts and coupons with retailmenot.com
• comparison shop while in-store with redlaser
• find coupons and discounts for nearby retailers with Yowza
• stay on top of your money with mobile banking
• keep track of receipts from your iphone with DocScanner
• store your notes and paper for ready access with Evernote

Have other tips or suggestions? Send me an email at owasow {-at-} gmail dot com or find me on twitter: @owasow

Five tech gift suggestions on Today in two minutes and twenty-six seconds:

{and in under five seconds: Kindle for readers, Ooma free phone calls in US, Kodak Zi8 for portable HD video, Jawbone PRIME for quiet calls, Samsung LCD TV for couch potatoes}

Oprah’s new favorite jeans + gadgets? See this Thursday.

Department of Shameless Self Promotion: 90 seconds of fall tech trends on Today.

Tavis Smiley and I discuss the evolution of smartphones and growing competition.

The Kindle is great for a curated reading experience but a real pain if you’re one of those crazy people who wants to read your own documents or interact with readers and authors. For more of my beef, see Three Problems with the New Kindle.

Tavis Smiley and I discuss the hype and substance of Twitter on his public radio show.