Yup, it happened, Algoma University College is now Algoma University. Same school of course, but now we are independent. Dave recorded the first reading of the Algoma University Act as well as the third reading and passage of the bill at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. After that he talked with Episode 1's Dr. Arthur Perlini about what independence means. A special thanks to everyone that made this day possible. Music in this episode is from Hell or Highwater and Jonathan Coulton.

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On February 28 Flex and Strik9 played the Speak Easy at Algoma U to help celebrate black history month and well, to have a good time with everyone present. Well, before his arrival, Flex contacted Dave and the two Canadian hip hop artists sat down before the show and talked hip hop, they talked music and file sharing, and, of course, they talked about hwo they are all from London, ON... Thanks so much to Flex and Strik9, it was a great time guys.

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A belated Happy New Year to everyone from all of us here at T6 (and by all of us, I sorta mean Isabelle and Dave...) Yeah we have been away for a long while, sorry about that, life manages to get in the way now and then... This episode was recorded at FuturePlay 2007 in Toronto. Diane Devenyi, an MA student in education at York was distributing flyers around the conference, and it sounds like a cool project. Basically she is trying to put a book together on the 'Chicken Soup' model. Do you have game stories? Has gaming changed you? Has it changed your friends? Let Diane know at fearlessmaster@hotmail.com. Music in this episode from Battery Life and Jet Pin Army.

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During the conference I recorded a couple of interviews, so besides the keynotes I got to hang out with some cool people and talk games. One of those cool people was (well is, I am sure he is still cool...) Eitan Glinert. Eitan and others have been working on a game that is equally playable for sighted and visually impaired people. Having low vision myself, this game is pretty interesting to me. The game is called Audiodyssey, it is available now as a free download, check it out. He is also getting going on a startup in May called Fire Hose VIdeo Games, so if you need a job in May or so, perhaps you should contact Eitan.... Music in this episode is from Uncle Seth, (whose bass player I hung out with at the Toronto Podcast Meetup on Thursday, November 15) and The Mark Harold Band.

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In episode 55 Dave interviews Illusionist Ryan McFarling. Ryan is a graduate of the Algoma U psychology honours program (which immediately makes him one of the cool kids) and he put up with Dave teaching him advanced theoretical statistics, which makes him one of the patient kids.. Ryan and Dave talked about how Ryan got into magic, who influences his act and what magicians he likes. Here's a hint, Penn and Teller. Ryan tours all over North America, often at college campuses, so if you get a chance to see him, don't pass it up. Music in this episode is from Black Lab and Freddy. More content is on the way as Dave will be off to FuturePlay 2007 in Toronto. Be sure to check out the official FuturePlay blog, with your correspondent, umm, Dave

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Season three opens with a bang as Dave and Mike Beualieu chatted over skype. Who is Mike? Well he was one of the lead animators on a little film called the Transformers, perhaps you have heard of it... Mike is from Canada but moved to the States a few years back to pursue his career in animation. He has worked on a number of films, including The Wild, and is currently working on the film Alvin and the Chipmunks. Mike is a hockey fan, though like any sensible Leaf fan, he is looking for another team.. This was a real pleasure for me Mike, come back on any time. Music in this episode is from Amerikan Made and Dice.

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An interview with John Nordlinger of Microsoft Research. Dave and John pretty much talked about how gaming can change everything from computer science, to university curricula to the whole darned world. If you are at all interested in such topics you can find out a lot more here. John Nordlinger is currently Program Manager at Microsoft Research. John got his start with computers earning money to pay for his Philosophy degree at Northeastern University. [in between or during classes he played arcade games] He was then hired by Digital Equipment Corporation to troubleshoot and work on VAX/VMS and DEC OSF/1 as a Principal engineer. [inside Digital, folks in engineering, including John, played Moriah on VAX/VMS]. Around the time Digital management thought adding posix to VAX/VMS justified the rename to OpenVMS, John coincidentally left to live in North Conway, NH, where he hiked, climbed ice and jumped started friend's cars for all but the three weeks of summer - he also played Tombraider and Pitfall during the long dark and cold nights. One muddy spring day in Northern NH, John found a copy of the new magazine Wired in a convenience store, next to the beer and hunting ammo, he decided to return to high tech and sent a mail to his friends at Oracle. As a technical director for the Digital product line, John was hired by Oracle to work on 64-bit Oracle and then to launch the Oracle 64-bit VLM database (on Digital's Alpha) using SAS Insight on the frontend. The event, at the Equitable in NYC, was a huge success, largely due to the successful demos and Larry Ellison's stage presence. . Microsoft's SQL Server marketing group noticed that event, and invited John to do a similar (but much larger) event a year later, including the 64-bit SQL Server database, special supporting versions of WindowXP and SAS Insight, again on the front end. Also this time there were five other high end Back Office demos, (again in the Equitable building in NY) at Microsoft's now renown Scalability Day. There and elsewhere John, working with MSR's wizard Jim Gray, launched Terraserver; Thousand of Billions byte database and map of the US and other KGB interested regions. Despite early predictions of its demise, Terraserver remains a very popular web resource. John had little time for games while in SQL Server, so he left Microsoft, and traveled in India, Thailand and Italy for a couple of years, eventually returning 2.5 years later to work in MSR University Relations. John now is responsible for influencing CS curriculum to inspire future cs students with the use computer gaming themes and technologies. On the weekends or late at night, he sometimes plays Everquest2. John will be speaking at the upcoming FuturePlay conference in Toronto. Music in this episode from Unlce Seth and the Robert Farrell Band. Both bands performed at PAB 2007.

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An interview with 2007 FuturePlay conference speaker Mia Consalvo. Mia does research into video game cheating and is the author of several papers and books on the subject. She has also recently began to look at the interaction of Japanese and American culture in the gaming industry. Mia is a prof in the telecommunications department of Ohio University. Funny, two professors talking about how much they both cheat. However, it is in video games, not on papers... Music in this episode from Quickie and Redefining the Moment.

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In episode 51 Dave sat down via skype with comedian/blogger/podcaster/youtuber James Whittingham from Regina, SK. James has been in the comedy biz for a long time, and has experimented with blogging over the years as well as podcasting. Earlier this year he switched to youtubing, and never looked back. James is, in fact, a bit of a youtube celeb. James has worked on Just For Laughs as well as a number of other projects. Of course his most important work was his coverage (along with Dave and Isabelle) of Podcasters Across Borders. Thanks for this James. BTW, coming soon Tangential Convergence. Music in this episode is from Caffeine.

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In part two of our two part series on podcast production, Dave, Glyn and Isabelle talked about content. Is content king? Well if not, it is clearly some sort of prince regent. OK, so you have webspace, you have gear, you have to talk about something. Dave, Glyn and Isa covered the use of music in podcasts, how to publicize your podcast (like getting listed on iTunes, Podcast Alley, CanadaPodcasts.ca and of course the Buffet) and meeting with other podcasters like Matt and Andre or Mark and Bob (not to mention James WHittingham or the Dude). Podcasting is social and it is fun. Do NOT let it take over your life. Have fun, and if you do get a show up and running drop us a line and we will plug it on T6. Music in this episode from Rotten Bark and the Phantom Sleuth.

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You know we have been doing T6 for almost two years and we have been asked many times "How do you guys do a podcast?" Well, in this the first of a two part series Dave, Glyn and Isabelle talk abou the technical end of things. How do you record? What do you use to record? What sort of mics do you use? Where do you get webspace? Mics? Well this episode was recorded with two little lapel mics and an iRiver FP 700 (which you can score on ebay for under 40 bucks nowadays). What about recording software? Well if you have a Mac you are in luck as garageband comes with all new Macs. However try out audacity, wild voice, pod producer or castblaster for cheap or free alternatives. As far as webspace, well if you have a .mac account again you are in luck. (Broca's Area uses .mac). You could get an account at libsym, which many people use. Music? Hey Garageband.com is great for tunes. Music in this episode from Kingsomniac and Uncle Seth. Next time, umm, well we have the gear, what about content?

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A conversation with psychology Honours thesis students Lindsay Page and Celia DiMicoli about their thesis research, and the whole thesis project. Oh Skye, just turn the tap to the right... Music by Less Than Jake and Pat Robitaille.

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An interview with independent game devlopers/producers Jonathan Blow and Kelee Santiago. Kellee "...was born in Caracas, Venezuela and grew up in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. At the age of 18 I escaped to New York City. I danced, clowned, performed, and scared my parents a lot. I traveled (and continue to do so) around the the world. At the age of 24 I became delusional and thought moving to Los Angeles was a good idea. Now I design and produce video games." Kellee's company developed the games flow and cloud, two innovative and fascinating games, and they are developing downloadable content for the PS3. Jonathan may be best known for his game "Braid." For many years he wrote the Inner Product column for Game Developer Magazine. Blow is the primary host of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop each March at the Game Developers Conference, which has become a premier showcase for new ideas in video games. In addition, Blow is a regular participant in the Indie Game Jam. We discussed how they got their starts, the indie games industry and the perils of doing a four person conference in skype and how many damned edits you have to do (OK, Dave just thought about the last one after the fact...) Music in this episode is from Skinner and Tenpenny Joke. Oh, and we got a gizmo message from Russell!

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GLyn and Dave sat down via skype with Cory Doctorow of boingboing. Cory Doctorow is a blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is in favor of liberalizing copyright laws, and a proponent of the Creative Commons organisation, and uses some of their licenses for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, Disney, and post-scarcity economics. Doctorow moved to Los Angeles, California in mid-2006 from London, England, where he worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation for four years, helping to set up the Open Rights Group, before quitting to pursue writing full-time in January 2006. (Upon his departure, Doctorow was named a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and now teaches at the University of Southern California) He is a frequent public speaker on copyright issues. (The above two paragraphs are from Cory's wikipedia page, just thought it sensible to cite our sources when talking to Cory...) As you would probably guess, Dave, Glyn and Cory talked copyright, DRM, and hockey. OK, not so much hockey. Music in this episode form Jamie Strange and Gone For Good. Thanks so very much Cory!

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Cayenne Chris Conroy of the Tekdiff podcast talks comedy with Dave

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Glyn is back and better than ever. Well perhaps he is just the same... Glyn and Dave sat down at the SpeakEasy for a pitcher of Rickard's Red and a list of the Top 12 Tech Stories of the Year (compiled by Dave) and the Too 12 offbeat tech stories of the year (compiled by Glyn). Google was mentioned, so was youtube and a guy with like 1.8 m arms. Music in this episode from Quickie with Movie Star Soldier and Sinking Spells with October.

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From FuturePlay, the guys from the Log2N team talk about how to win a game design competition. We featured their video back in the summer, well they did well and made Algoma U proud! They carried away the awards for most innovative game and for best team leader. If you are interested in game design, you will love this episode. Music in this episode from Anti Flag and the Descendents.

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Well perhaps we at T6 are doing this ass backwards, but what the heck. In our last episode Dave interviewed Clint Hocking at Futureplay. Well, as usual Dave takes his little MP3 recorder everywhere (as his students know...) and of course Clint's keynote at Futureplay was recorded. Well after some audio work on the file it seemed ready for prime time, or at least, ready for podcasting.... Clint is a visionary, and if you are a designer or an aspiring one, you have to listen to this talk. Music in the episode by Bubble and CCA. Both of these songs have been featured on Dave's Lecturecasts.

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From FuturePlay 2006 an interview with Clint Hocking. Clint has been working for Ubisoft in Montréal for five years. Most recently he worked as scriptwriter, lead level designer and creative director on SPLINTER CELL: CHAOS THEORY. Before games he worked in the web industry and experimented with independent filmmaking while earning a masters? degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. He lives happily in Montréal with his fiancé and his dog. Dave and Clint talked about the future of game design and the fact that games need not just be fun, they could also be what Clint calls 'engaging'. There is a whole other market out there beyond the 18-34 year old males. Clint is working on a project currently for Ubisoft, but Dave could not get it out of him. Perhaps Sam Fisher knows.... Music in this episode from The Rantings of EVA and Battery Life.

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Marc Pelletier of Futures in Biotech from the twit.tv network joined Dave over skype. Marc and Dave started off by talking a little bit about hockey, they are Canadian after all, and then moved on into Marc's career as a graduate student at McGill and now his position as a postdoc in the Physiology Department at some school called Yale... Marc is doing bleeding edge biotech research at Yale and he and his colleagues will one day allow us all to live to be a thousand. OK, I made that part up. That said, biotech is moving so fast that you never know what is coming around the corner. Not only is Marc a top notch scientist, he is also the host of the twit.tv podcast Futures in Biotech with the legendary Leo Laporte. Each week Marc and Leo interview different scientists in biotech and allied fields. From the twit.tv website: "Explore the world of genetics, cloning, protein folding, genome mapping, and more with the most important researchers in biotech" Thanks a lot Marc, that rocked. Music in this episode "You Don't Need an iPod" by Uncle Seth and "Toys on a Shelf" by A Step Beyond.

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Dave sat down with Algoma U library director Ken 'Kenny' Hernden. Ken and Dave talked about how librarians have to be super tech savvy, how they have to understand everything from linux to RSS feeds and how the library is about information, not just books. Sounds geeky, which of course, is why Dave and Ken get along.... Ken shared his opinions on DRM (aka copy protection) and the imprtance of the free flow of information. They also talked a little Battlestar Galactica (I said they were geeks...) Music on this episode "For Fiona" by No Use For A Name and "To Be an Angel" by Uncle Seth.

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Episode 38, or Season 2, Episode 1, take your pick. Yup, we're back and as good or better than ever. Episode 38 features an interview with Quebec film producer Bernard Lajoie. Bernard was one of the producers of the Oscar winning 2000 IMAX short film "The Old Man and the Sea." Dave and Bernard talked about how Bernard got into the biz and what lead up to the Oscar winning 200 film. They also talked about the future of film and media in the youtube era. Bernard figures that distribution mechanisms like youtube will allow for more democratization of film making, which will help more people get their art out. That said it will get more of all art out, good and bad. Bernard was way cool to sit down with T6 and we thank him a lot. Merci beaucoup mon ami. Music in this episode is from www.garageband.com Songs featured are 'More' by Amerikan Made and 'First Semester Freedom Fighter' by Hell or Highwater. Special appearances from this episode by Isabelle, Maddie and Noella.

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In the final of our three part mini series on Second Stage, Dave and Isabelle talk to and listen to Big Wheel and the Spokes. These guys are a funky blues power trio, if that makes sense. They are really tight and, of course, are local. In their interview outside of loplops they talked about file sharing, the reason people do music in the first place, the issue of steroids in music and the challenge of playing original music in a small(ish) city. The guys are a lot of fun (though it is hard to tell about Frank and Cliff as Jay does not oft let them get a word in edgewise....) and T6 encourages you to go pick up their new CD "Barley Soup for the Funky-Ass Soul" (mmmmmm soup). Thanks guys. Look for more from blogelation soon.

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During the Second Stage event at Loplops on July 14 Craig West stepped out back with Dave and his (Dave's) shiny new portable MP3 recorder. Craig and Dave talked music, media and the effects of online distribution on music. Craig is one of the founding fathers of blogelation and a member of the band Startlefish. He describes their music as Pink Floyd meet the Police, but grittier. Now matter how you describe it, the music is great. You will hear two tracks from Startlefish during the episode.

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Episode 35 was recorded at Loplops in Sault Ste. Marie on Friday July 14, 2006. Curt o'Niel of Betterthancrabs.com fame along with Craig West have set up an alternative media empire. OK, it is a loose affiliation of some bloggers and a podcast. The group is known as Blogelation. All of us are out of the Sault Ste. Marie area and the first event that was covered, indeed the impetus for starting blogelation was the Second Stage at Rotaryfest. The second stage features original music from local bands. So, why did we record the episode at loplops rather than outside? Well err umm err the second stage blew over in a gust of wind. Seriously. Happily we were able to relocate to loplops. This episode includes two tracks off of Chris Belsito's new CD Fade Dissolve.

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Dan Misener from Collective productions and Dave sat down over skype to talk about Jim Dupree, Enthusiast, the Canaries and the future of podcasting. Jim Dupree: Enthusiast is quite simply the funnies show on the interwebs. The vidcast follows the trials and tribulations of Jim Dupree (Misener) who is enthusiastic about different topics every episode. Enthusiastic, yes, knowledgeable, no..... Dave and Dan talked about the future of content being delivered through RSS aggregation as Dan's production partner Tristan Homer would say, and decided podcasting and vidcasting are not nearly as big as the people you see at meetups think they are. Their discussion then moved to the realm of music. Dan is the bass player in the band the Canaries. Oddly enough, Dave plays bass. Even more oddly, they share the same birthday, June 23.... ENjoy. And Thanks Dan.

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Log2n is a video game design team comprised of five students from Algoma University, in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. The team is currently taking part in the Dare to be Digital competition at the University of Abertay-Dundee, in Dundee, Scotland. Also joining the team in Scotland, a sixth member, an international student from India.

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Jeff MacArthur and Brian McKechnie from CommandN.tv talking vidcasting, tech and the future of both.

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Jenn Cutter of OpenAlpha.tv. Jenn hosts one of the coolest vidcasts on the web, OpenAlpha. OpenAlpha covers gaming from a persoanl angle, Jenn covers the gaming world, does the odd review, but mostly talks about stuff like hacks and rarely covered games like her upcoming special on music games.

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FuturePlay 2006 - Be There

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Record Producer Dan Brodbeck

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Pat Robitaille and Aaron Garner

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Hacking and security with RSnake

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Mashup vocalist Katie Enlow and DJ/Producer Luke Enlow.

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A conversation with the band High Holy Days.

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Seth Shostak of the SETI institute

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Mr. Caines goes to Korea

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Dan Gowans, the Howdykid

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Cory Ondrejka, VP of Product Development for Linden Lab of San Francisco, the creators of Second Life

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Conversation with archaeologist, Beatles fan and Webulator (tm) Luke Dalla Bona

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Interview with Drew Hayden Taylor, author of 'Me Funny'

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Jim Parker on serious games

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An attempt at video, let us see how this goes.

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Episode 19 with the host of the Geekcast, Aaron Crocco.

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The student gourmet, episode 2, PIZZA!

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A conversation with bee researcher Mike Boisvert

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Interview with the band Das Macht Show/The Dust Poets

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Terry Guertin, chef and Algoma U psychology grad joins Dave for the first installment of the Student Gourmet.

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