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

WAYS (the World Association of Young Scientists) and PYRN (the Permafrost Young Researchers Network) are two projects among many other science-focused social networking initiatives I work on. They are featured in this video (German only) on wisskomm.tv. On one hand it's great to see our networks start to gain some critical mass and exposure, and on the other it's mostly just fun for me to hear my buddy Hugues speaking German...

May 21st is UNESCO World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.

Wednesday night Tonight! in the Viger Atrium of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec - one of the nicest lecture rooms I've seen so far in the city - I'll be giving a short lecture on the use of technology in the context of culture, knowledge and dialog.

I'll demo three videos as well, two of which are mine and another from the participants of Convergentes.

My talk runs from about 7:15pm until 8:00pm, though I'm also participating in a round table about "Issues of Identity" and "Cultural diversity and building bridges between cultures" from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.

Then from 8:00pm until 8:45pm we'll be treated to a sure-to-be-awesome multilingual spoken word performance hosted by my good friend Elizabeth Robert featuring Endre Farkas, Pauline Michel, Judith Munira Avinger, Alejandro Saravia and Dwayne Morgan.

BAnQ Auditorium
Centre d’Archives de Montréal
535 Viger Street East, Montréal

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Photographs are funny things. They tell us things that videos can't. I like the theory that at any single moment, there are an infinite number of possible next moments - the one that we move into is dependent on a multitude of factors, the most important of which is (I'm hoping) our own decision-making process, and that of all living things around us. It's the Butterfly Effect on steroids - the ultimate existentialist question for me.

Are there really an infinite number of realities, every moment multiplied by another infinite number of choices?

Doing some cleanup on one of my servers earlier today, I came across this photo; which was my 'corporate photo' for most of the time I ran The Strict Machine Foundation, which I had established over 5 years ago:

My hair was a longer, my glasses were hipsterer, my body frame was narrower, my swagger was haughtier and my sweaters were turtlenecker. In other words, I was your typical Mac user. Other than that, I don't really look all that different today.

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.