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Santiago Swallow is "a Mexican-born, American motivational speaker, consultant, educator, and author, whose speeches and publications focus on understanding modern culture in the age of social networking, globally interconnected media, user generated content and the Internet," and has "dedicated himself to helping others know more about how media and personality can manipulated in the 21st Century." Though completely fictional, he boasts a Wikipedia biography and a Twitter account with tens of thousands of followers. Making up-or at least "enhancing"-an identity like this is something real people do to increase their reputation, look popular, and sell themselves. There are equally real people who profit from this by selling fake followers created by software at the push of a button. Be afraid.

Article shares 23 maps and charts that can hopefully illuminate small aspects of how we manage to communicate with one another. In the mix: linguistic diversity around the world, where the plurality of Wikipedia articles are authored, endangered languages, which countries boast the most languages...

On Thursday nights near the Brooklyn, N.Y., waterfront, an old firehouse turns into a schoolhouse, where the drills are in Chinese. About a dozen firefighters, EMTs and paramedics are taking the first Mandarin classes, funded by the New York City Fire Department Foundation. New York City boasts the largest Chinese population of any city outside of China, therefore "first responders" want to communicate with more of the New Yorkers they serve. The founder of the language program also states that "It's also to show the communities that we embrace them as citizens of this city, that we are in acceptance of their culture and the transition that they're going through," he says.