I downloaded a Ricky Gervais podcast once at the persistent urging of a friend and found it funny but distracting - if I'm online, I'm surfing, which means I'm distracted from the podcast. So it's a form that doesn't really work for me.

Twitter is an astounding platform for information, but it's a total blank slate - which means it's an astounding platform for disinformation, too.

I not only work online through my various projects, but I am an avid user of online technologies to connect and engage with friends as well.

Of course the shrieking desire for the scoop can get really strong, but so is the desire to safeguard connections and keep everyone happy.

Flying over New Orleans on our approach, I got it. There was no view of land without water - water in the great looming form of Lake Pontchartrain, water cutting through in tributaries, water flowing beside a long stretch of highway, water just - everywhere.

If you don't know Tom Lehrer, you should - in addition to being a classical pianist, mathematician, songwriter, satirist, researcher at Los Alamos and, he claims, inventor of the Jell-O shot, he is just delightfully funny and graceful.