Our 2008 session at the Allied Media Conference with Dean Jansen last month covered the use of open source tools to create professional-level multimedia content. We explored the benefits of shooting in the RAW file format if you're printing a 'zine, used Audacity to create an audio podcast, put together a stop-motion slideshow from photos taken at the conference using command-line tools, and created some video to share on the AMC site. Then, Dean showcased Miro and explored different ways to distribute your content.

Most importantly, though, we all got to know each other. Depending on the audience, I like to pass my camcorder around during my sessions so that the audience can interview each other (the AMC audience is fully and completely awesome, as always). Here is the video that we all created so that you can get to know us too. Spread the word!

Here is a short slideshow from the 2008 Allied Media Conference.

Music: Flobots - We Are Winning

Vanessa Miller has posted a great set of pics from the Allied Media Conference over on Metromix Detroit - they really capture the spirit of the conference. Click the pic to see the rest.

Pictured here is the amazing Grace Lee Boggs.

A little slideshow I made from photos taken at the 2008 IS4CWN.

- Software used: image2raw and avidemux.
- Music: Lykke Li - I'm good, I'm gone.

This is pretty long overdue, but I've finally put up a calendar section in the sidebar for my upcoming talks, events and conferences.

While I'm not yet quite hipster enough to post something like this, I've been enjoying the opportunity to discuss work-related topics with people other than techies and web gurus. It's far more gratifying to talk about policy, ethics and technology to students and community leaders than to people who already have a narrowly-defined view of the subject matter (academics / developers / UI folk).

I still have lots to add, but the next couple of upcoming publics events / appearances are listed here.

Tonight, I'm giving a small informal talk at University of the Streets. It's at the Atwater library (1200 Atwater).

During one of my trips to Cuba just over a year ago, I recorded several hours of interviews, scenery and other footage. Along with the web project it was supposed to complement, it was a casualty of prioritization. It got left on the backburner, a victim of someone's attempt to do too much by himself.

... he was a damned fool - arrogant, ambitious, and very much in need of seasoning.

Doing some more video work now, I unearthed some of the footage that I had taken, and rather than let it collect dust here, I've put it up in three slightly edited clips over on my Cuba blog.

You can also download the full (captions are deprecated now, though) version over at the Internet Archive.

Finally, unlike the rest of my blog, I've decided to put all of it not under a Creative Commons License, but straight into the Public Domain. You can take the video, remix it, edit it, use it for your own purposes, etc. It belongs to the Public Domain. It would be cool if you could drop me an email or a comment if you do decide to use it for your own work, though - just to satisfy my curiosity.

As per my usual modus operandi, I'm writing about Medellin after I've been back in Montreal for a few days. The various memories 6 or so weeks I spent in The City Of Eternal Spring have had enough time to soak amongst the various synapses that connect them to each other.

I'm going to write about some random, disjointed events I happen to remember from my trip, and then some overall impressions on the city and the country. I will limit my thoughts to those lucid enough to make sense when written down. This generally - but not always - excludes those wherein I'd already consumed a certain amount of Club Colombia or, more unfortunately, aguardiente.

... from cocaine and hand guns.

So, Medellin, Colombia is a pretty hot place. Not temperature wise though, the weather is quite perfect all year round from my point of view.

Like I'd mentioned, we found a pretty sweet flat up in the El Poblado barrio of Medellin (if you're in Montreal, think economic scale of Westmount but urban development style of Ville St-Laurent). We've got 2 nice bedrooms (I let David have the master room, since I'm such a caballero and all), 3 (!) bathrooms, and a nice full kitchen, along with a big, shared dining / living room and a couple balconies. It costs not much more than a third of what a place like this could cost in Montreal, I imagine.

After having settled in some, I was able to get (finally) getting some work done, when all of a sudden my laptop stopped charging. Turns out the power supply for this $120 Toshiba Portege overheated, and I spent the next day or so trying to find a place that could help me, finally giving in and paying the $80 to a repair shop for 10 minutes of work in the Monterrey shopping center down by El Poblado metro.

A few days ago, we had some considerable snowfall in Montreal. It came down pretty hard and didn't let up for nearly three days. I probably ended up shoveling 4 or 5 normal snowfalls worth of snow, some light, some heavy.

As the first real snowstorm of the season, it was enough to shut down most schools and non-essential services. While this didn't affect me directly very much since I can work from home, the indirect effect turned out to be that I ran into lots of my neighbors who I hadn't seen in ages, shoveling the fronts of our homes together.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, Montreal, Tuesday November 6th 13:30

Are plane seats getting smaller and smaller, or am I get bigger? I mean, I'm not a big person, but the width of my shoulders spills out past both edges of my seat. Sitting on a Delta Airlines flight from Montreal to New York - the first half of a trip to Budapest for the World Science Forum, thanks to of UNESCO and the World Academy of Young Scientists - I'm in a aisle seat (utterly necessary, as I get up as often as prescribed by my claustrophobia and small bladder), near the middle of the plane. Oddly, I'm in a very good mood, though I'm uncertain as to why exactly. I found a great power suit foraging through my Dad's old closet that turned out to be a perfect fit, the weather was beautiful, I'm looking rather dapper if I don't say so myself, and the very cute, latin-looking flight attendant keeps smiling at me. Preparing for takeoff, she approaches the people sitting a couple rows in front of me...