thunderbird six

Tom Merritt of CNET skyped in with me for this episode. Tom, of course, co hosts the best (IMHO) etch podcasts out there, Buzz Out Loud. As an executive editor at CNET Tom also co hosts the Read Deal, CNET Live and Top 5. Tom also has a couple of personal shows, East Meets West with Roger Chang and the Sword and Laset with Veronica Belmont. We talked about the community of BOL (or BuzzTown as it is often known) Tom's early days with NPR, and his Tech TV days. Tom has also published a really good novel, Boiling Point, through Lulu.com. Music in this episode is by Jonathan Coulton. Thanks again for this tom, it was great to have you on T6.

Check the polls, then download Dave's conversation with Gerry Kirk of votepair.ca. Gerry is a software guy from Sault Ste. Marie that decided to take strategic voting in the recent Canadian election to new levels with his aforementioned website. The basic idea was that if you thought your vote might have more in effect in a different part of the country you could sign up at Gerry's site and be paired with someone else. You would, in essence, swap votes. As idealistic as it sounds it turned out that vote swapping probably affected at least two ridings in the country. Pretty cool. You never know when there will be another Canadian election as this is a minority parliament, so if you are interested, check Gerry's site out, oh and follow him on twitter... Heck follow Dave and Isabelle too. Music in this episode from Startlefish and Chris Belsito

On September 4, 2008 our University, Algoma, had an official coming out party of sorts. The president, Dr. Ross, the Dean (a two time T6 guest) Dr. Arthur Perlini, the Healing Lodge Singers from Garden River (they were great) and even the Premier of Ontario, the Hon. Dalton McGuinty all came together for our grand opening. It was excellent. You have to listen through this, you will hear a few speeches, all passionate, but the highlights of the day were The Healing Lodge Singers and the Premier testing out some new material. He could do standup if this whole being the Premier of Ontario thing doesn't work out... Thanks to everyone that was there, especially the out of towners, alumni, students and staff. Music in the episode from Sound of a Revolution and Jet Pin Army.

this episode features an interview with Tim Coyne of the Hollywood Podcast. Tim is an actor and writer living in LA, oh and he has this cool show that is most certainly NOT about the stars' relationships and substance abuse problems. It is a series of interviews with people working in 'the industry' and Tim's personal journey throughout the world of acting and writing. The show is truly amazing. Do check out the corn muffin bit, it rocks. Music in this episode is by City Redefined and Hazelden, both LA bands.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?