Weekend America Voices
John Moe
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Before becoming the host of Weekend America, John Moe was Senior Reporter and primary backup host for the program, and also provided the weekly "Little Bit of Weather Everywhere" segment. He was a freelance contributor to the program for several years before coming aboard full time in January of 2007. His radio work has appeared on the public radio programs "Morning Edition," "Day to Day," "To the Best of our Knowledge," and "Only a Game" and his commentaries have appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered." He was the staff writer for NPR's news satire program "Rewind" and hosted several public radio programs dealing with the arts, politics, business, and technology at KUOW in Seattle.
Additionally, Moe is the author of "Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, and Beef Jerky," and his writing has appeared in the humor anthologies "Mountain Man Dance Moves," "Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans," and "More Mirth of a Nation." He's a regular contributor to the Seattle Times and writes about music, TV, and film for MSN. Moe has been a contributor to Dave Eggers' award-winning McSweeneys.net Web site for many years, authoring the popular column "John Moe's Pop-Song Correspondences." He is also a writer of video games, a former Senior Editor at Amazon.com, and has been singing in rock bands for over a decade.
Recent Stories
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Now you can draw state redistricting maps too
Congress begins a new session tomorrow. But some members of the House are wondering just how long they'll be keeping those seats. The process known as reapportionment is being taken up by legislatures in 18 states that will be gaining or losing congressional seats based on numbers in the 2010 census. We look at the technology that goes into guiding that process.
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The coming conundrum of home DNA testing
Technology is always presenting us with situations where there is more known about us than we would perhaps like to be known. Don't believe me, go Google yourself and see what's out there. So as the field of direct to consumer genetic testing begins to really gain traction, we wonder what's it going to mean to our health and our society.
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What mattered this year in technology
A whole lot of things happened in the world of technology in 2010. But when people look back on 2010 years from now, what are they going to point to? What really changed the world this year? To answer that, we talk to Clay Shirky, one of the smartest people we know about how people and technology shape each other.
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Sing along with the top 10 retweeted tweets of 2010
The musical duo We Sing Your Tweets, sets the top 10 most retweeted tweets of the year to music. They call their songs "sweets" because song + tweet = sweet.
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Susan Orlean's favorite apps of 2010
It wasn't that long ago that when you said "apps," people thought you were talking about, like, shrimp puffs or jalapeno poppers: appetizers. But now applications for mobile phones are just part of life for a lot of people who use them. Susan Orlean of The New Yorker magazine joins us to talk about the apps she loved most in 2010.
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Using search to predict the future
Christopher Ahlberg thinks he has a pretty good shot at predicting the future using information that is online today. Next terrorist attack? Next major economic shift? Next fashion trend? Might all be spelled out already. The CIA and Google both think Ahlberg is on to something. They've invested in his company, Recorded Future.
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The travel industry war and you
Remember back before the internet when you'd have to call each airline on the phone to see what fares they were offering for that trip you were taking? You'd write everything down on paper. Recent battles between major airlines and travel websites might make you wonder if those days could soon be returning.
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Are you part of an online psychology experiment?
Amazon.com is known for selling just about anything you might want. But it's also a place where you can make (usually small amounts of) money through their service called Mechanical Turk. You perform small online tasks and get paid. But one Harvard researcher sees Mechanical Turk as the perfect venue for psychological experiments.
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The technology of Santa
Tonight, Santa Claus will be getting a lot of work done. First, he'll go to one house, slide down the chimney, place toys beneath a tree, maybe nibble a cookie, feed a carrot to a reindeer. Then he'll repeat the process ZILLIONS of times. All in a few hours. What technology does Santa use to get all that done?
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Human rights sites being attacked, Wikileaks style
The Internet was set up to be an open marketplace of ideas. But that model is in jeopardy due to Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS attacks. We've been hearing a lot about these in relation to Wikileaks, but a new report indicates that DDoS attacks as a form of suppression are on the rise.
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The coming wave of augmented reality
There's this video going around, 2.5 million hits on YouTube. It's for a new app called Word Lens. You point your camera at words like on a sign and it translates them into a different language. You see Spanish words on your phone where English words are in real life. Kind of amazing. But it may become completely normal.
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What information is your phone sharing about you?
The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed 101 popular apps for iPhone and Android and found most of them to be sharing some user information with advertisers. We talk about what's being shared and what it means to you.
