The data election: High tech and mundane tools in the American election

If the 2008 election campaign was all about CHANGE we can believe in, is 2012 all about DATA they can believe in? Why does it matter which cars Republican voters drive or which beer Democratic voters drink? The candidate who microtarget the voters best, might end up winning the election, which is why it is … Continue reading »

Skulle gjerne sett norske journalister og programmerere på dette kartet

Norge er ennå ikke på Hacks/Hackers-kartet. Burde ikke vi gjøre noe med det? Hm, hva er det egentlig jeg snakker om? Hacks/Hackers er en meetup for journalister, programmerere, grafikere, etc som er interessert i datajournalistikk i en eller annen form. Og årsaken til at de kommer sammen er: “The worlds of hackers and journalists are … Continue reading »

Listen over “collaborative journalism”-prosjekter du bør kjenne til

“Collaborative journalism” eller dugnad/samhandlingsbasert journalistikk begynner det etterhvert å bli mange gode eksempler på. Matt McAllister (Director of Digital Strategy at Guardian Media Group) har samlet en imponerende liste med eksempeler (primært fra amerikansk og britisk medier), men vi har sett noen eksempler på den formen for journalistikk i Norge også: VGs prosjekt med Departementenes … Continue reading »

10 grunner til at åpne data og datajournalistikk stagnerer i Norge

 Foredrag holdt på GoOpen-konferansen i Oslo, 24. april. Merk – jeg ønsker en diskusjon på dette, kom gjerne med motargument og innspill i kommentarfeltet. Fortell meg hvorfor jeg tar feil!

Derfor skriver jeg om datajournalistikk

Advarsel – jeg kommer til å legge ut en del bloggposter om datajournalistikk de neste dagene. Hvorfor det? Jo, fordi jeg mener det er på høy tid det skjer mer på dette området i Norge. Jeg kommer til å forklare i mer detalj i de følgende postene, men foranledningen er at jeg holdt et foredrag … Continue reading »

Evgeny Morozov and “Why the KGB wants you to join Facebook”

Mark May 11 in you calender if you are interested in social media, Facebook, cyber optimism and surveillance. That’s the day for a very interesting discussion in Oslo with Evgeny Morozov, author of “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom”. Morozov argues we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as … Continue reading »

How Norway’s right wing horror will be fought

Horrible atrocities took place in Oslo and Utøya last friday. I was asked by a journalist friend, Daniel Basteiro to write an article for the Spanish publication Publico. Here is the English version I sent, which was translated into Spanish. The bombing in Oslo and the slaughter of more than 80 teenagers at Labour’s youth camp … Continue reading »

98 days before the Norwegian election – some social media tendencies

Social media is the big buzz word in the Norwegian election campaign. 2005 was the election year when the parties competed on having the coolest, flashiest website, 2009 is the year when the parties are competing about being everywhere (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Nettby, Origo, etc), communicating.  We’ve seen it on TV, read about … Continue reading »

Masculine Facebook and feminin Twitter – or was it the other way around?

Are there any gender differences in online behaviour and why so? That’s the topic in an article at CNNMoney, even though it never discusses gender differences on Twitter and Facebook (annoying when the title is “Men are from Facebook, women are from Twitter?”). However, I forgot that when I saw that my good friend Mary … Continue reading »

Don’t we just love the spring?

Shot in Brussels with my iPhone, while I was biking over to the brilliant bookstore  Cook and Book (with free WiFi).

The Gaza tragedy – and some online tools

The horror in Gaza continues. I’ve written about Gaza and EU’s inability to get anything done in my column for the next issue of Morgenbladet (out this Friday), and as I was writing the piece, I looked around online for different ways to offer some help to the trapped civilians in the warzone and get … Continue reading »

Swedish surveillance of Norwegian emails

Two new Norwegian reports about the Swedish surveillance law, the FRA-law, are available today. You find both here (in Norwegian). I haven’t had time to look at them yet, but will do that later.

Blogging basics

I gave a seminar about blogging in an academic context in Norway recently, arranged by Forskning.no and as I promised the participants, I will publish my notes here on my blog. They are in Norwegian, so if you are not able to read Norwegian, use Google translate, it will give you a little clue of … Continue reading »

Super duper calculations – the grids are coming

I wrote an article (in Norwegian) about CERN’s Grid (a super network of computers) for Forskning.no earlier this week. This Grid, which is probably the world largest, was built in order to handle and compute the incredible amounts of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A short explanation – on the Internet, you can … Continue reading »

Facebook as a film

You can’t get enough of Facebook? Or is Facebook “so yesterday” that it makes you puke? I’m still on Facebook and like it, even though I don’t spent so much time there anymore. But I got really surprised when I saw that Aaron Sorkin (who created the fantastic West Wing) is making a film about … Continue reading »

Racing the streets of Brussels, listening to Vampire Weekend

Yes, I did it! Finished Brussels 20K. My first race ever (except from the Icelandic 3K Kvinnalaupur I did in DC, where we were not allowed to run…). I’m really proud of myself. Since this was the first time I ever ran 20K (I haven’t even done it while training), I was not sure what … Continue reading »

Kurt Oddekalv’s advice regarding food and CO2 footprints

Another follow-up on my blog post about The moral dilemma of eating pumpkin outside the season, this time from Kurt Oddekalv, leader of Norges Miljøvernforbund (Green Warriors). The previous answer was from Bellona. “Hei Bente, ikke enkel den der. Kortreist mat er alltid best på alle måter. Du kan si at det en nasjon ikke … Continue reading »

Report about EU’s ICT policy

I got myself some a nice piece of bureaucratic reading this evening. Today, the Norwegian EU Delegation published a report about EU’s ICT policy. I’ll get back when I’ve done some further reading – just one quick observation – why is this report published in Word, instead of PDF?

Why can’t there be a female EU president?

Everyone is talking about a female American president, but seems to have forgotten that EU has never had a female top leader. Why not? Because the male leaders are chosen undemocraticly by other men, says Margot Wallström, Vice President in the European Commission in a very frank interview in Times. Nikolas Sarkozy was quick to … Continue reading »

Top 100 low carbon pioneers

Three Norwegian companies has been included in the CNBC’s magazine European Business yearly list of  “The Top 100 Low Carbon Pioneers”. They are Norsk Hydro (aluminium production), Rec Group (solar energy) and Statoil (oil). Statoil and Hydro have merged their oil and energy business, and they are called StatoilHydro. I think the list is a … Continue reading »