My write-up about this year's SXSWi is on Popular Mechanics' website now, should you care to see what I was up to last weekend between parties. (Actually, it's a testament to how much I enjoy SXSWi panels that I tend to turn in early, despite Austin's inherent propensity for all-night ridiculousness.)

I'd like to take a moment to talk about one panel in particular, since I ended up getting more involved in it that I expected. Here was how I described it in my PopMech thing:

One of the last talks I attended asked, "Where Are the Black Tech Bloggers?" Some suggested that programming and design have become more economically favorable of late—and thus more and more attractive compared to, say, the doctors and lawyers of the world. And while no quorum was reached per se, the sharp panelists, including Newsweek's brilliant games and technology writer N'Gai Croal, made it clear that despite whatever barriers may impede the black community from engaging in the world of technology, lack of ability is not one of them.

An additional point was removed in the edit process, in which I had pointed out that the first generation of black people who went to college probably had strong external pressure from their parents to go after traditionally lucrative careers instead of more creative, financially risky positions. Or at least that's what the panelists guessed. Not a big omission, just an interesting aspect that is probably endemic to all cultural groups that are sending their best and brightest to college for the first time.

My self-quote above, while safely twee, more-or-less sums up how I feel about it: there are tons of overarching cultural issues that have come into play to prevent or retard the addition of black people to our relatively cloistered world of tech punditry, but the only thing those of us who are part of the white, male majority can do in the immediate space is to just make sure that the best work rises to the top regardless of the race or gender of its creator while not discounting discussion of "black" issues as being unnecessarily or uncomfortably niche—especially if they overlap with subjects that we're all otherwise interested in, like games and gadgets.

Does that make sense? In short, I love working out my perceptions and opinions about race and our shared history, because sometimes I uncover some latent racism that I didn't know I was dealing with and sometimes I discover I've been too timid about sharing my opinions out of fear of the label of racism. Discussion is part of the way forward.

So to answer the question here is a small sampling of some of the black tech bloggers out there, pulled from panel host Lynne D. Johnson's page.

The panelists, :

Angela Benton - BlackWeb2.0
N'Gai Croal - Level Up
Darla Mack - Darla Mack: Days In The Life of a Mobile Diva
Ronald Lewis - 24/7 with Ronald Lewis
Lena West - Social Media 360 and TechForward
Craig Nulan - Subrealism: Liminal Perspectives on Consensus Reality

Another list of black tech bloggers from Lynne:Blackhacker
Bwana.org
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
jeepbastard: Entertainment Technology
MARS Magazine
Media Mafia Think Tank
The Meshverse Journal
The Michael Hurdle Show
NerdwithSwag.com
Nigga Know Technology [Okay, I perused this one because of the URL and I can safely report that the blogger thinks it's okay to call people "faggots" and asian girls "sleepyheads, them oriental, them horizontal pussy having Gochi Gochi Yagatochi bitches." The lesson? Anyone can be an asshole! Which, you know, duh. – Joel]
Rochelle Robinson
Roney Smith
Teradome
Terry White's Tech Blog
tiffany b. brown
Wisdump
w4 network

And who could forget Gearlive's Andru Edwards?

Beyond that, black tech bloggers, what should the rest of us do, if anything? That's something we didn't really get time to talk about at SXSWi.

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at these 1929 plans for tiny cars that are only 60" long and weigh roughly 600 pounds. Designed to be small and light enough to be loaded onto airplanes of the era these cars came in a shipping crate that also served as parking garage. At some point after the publication of this 1924 Popular Mechanic piece about vocational school training for workers, someone must have realized that making craftsmen wear neckties in a shop full of machines that spin and cut is a really bad idea. We also looked at a record breaking diesel car, an "ultra-modern" office from 1932 that is crammed with all sizes of microphones and speakers, a looping carnival ride, a marketing gimmick involving a 150 foot tall pile of tires and a brief article about the death defying tricks performed by aerial stunt men. I love the ghostly image of death used to imply that the fairly mild stunts shown are really, really dangerous.

I caught Jonathan Coulton at the Popular Science party in Austin last week at SXSWi, playing far-too-few of his well-known classics. I snapped these videos which, if I must be honest—and I don't have to be but I will—sound a bit shit. But for the JoCo completist they are essential. Three more videos after the jump; I've got a few more to upload later.

Above, "Still Alive," the closing theme to Portal. After the jump, "Skullcrusher Mountain," "Shop Vac," and "IKEA." Directly below, a sponsored mobile post widget from Microsoft.

This "Lungs" ashtray from designer Chi-Ja Ling would go great with my liver shot glasses. Sadly, it does not appear to be for sale. Guess I'll just keep my ashes and butts where I normally do: in my actual lungs.

Product Page [FindingCheska.com via Curbly via Core77]

Hungarian company "Rehab, Rt." is showing off this "Kenguru" concept vehicle for the wheelchair-bound. The back flips open and the operator pulls right inside, then putters down the highway using a joystick controller.

I speak Hungarian about as well as the next American, so I have no idea how far into production this concept might be, but I really like it, combining as it does both the efficiency of small cars and mobility for those who need it.

When I was a kid my parents managed a live-in assisted-living facility for mentally retarded and ill patients, so I spent much of my childhood wheeling people around, loading them into the backs of extended vans, and helping them get into bed. It was a lot of fun. I can say with no snark and only fond recollection of genial spirits that most mentally handicapped were great playmates for a young boy. Plus the state often bought them really expensive construction toys that they'd share with me.

It's also where I first learned to get poop stains off of drywall and how to staunch the flow of blood from an arterial knife wound before I was 10, but those are stories for another time. I mention it only to say: I find products and research to assist the disabled fascinating and if you ever run across interesting or clever inventions, definitely pass them along.

Product Page [RehabRt.hu via Remikz via Jalopnik]

P.S. I know that "retarded" and "disabled" may not be the preferred nomenclature these days, but having personally seen the labels for those affected change at least half a dozen times in my childhood alone, I just sort of go with what I consider to be the most direct and universal terms. I'm amenable to change, though, if you've got a better suggestion.

I wasn't entirely sure Pontiac was still around as a car company—and there's no way the original Spy Hunter car was a Pontiac—but hey, nice commercial! I look forward to more slightly obscure videogame references in car commercials, with Frogger shilling for Hummer and R/C Pro Am pushing the Honda Fit. [via Pontiac]