Well, Me. My name is Shawn Day and I am a PhD student in the History Department at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Academically, my research interests revolve about nineteenth century Canadian economic, business and social history. Most specifically the role of drink and those who served them in late 19thC Ontario. More broadly I explore the adaptation of technology and information visualisation to the pedagogical process.
Professionally, I earned my stripes in the dotcom boom as jack-of-all trades in co-founded development ventures. Prior to that I was a self-employed journeyman involved in diverse aspects of information architecture.
I have some history in technology and a joy in life is catalyzing the reaction between technology and the study of history.
Is this an up and coming phenom? Zopa and Prosper are two two startups offering to bring together borrowers and lenders and offer . The sense of ‘Simness’ (as in simcity/sim this sim that) is an interesting note. … As the author of this survey on these two services note, they even add fun to the act of borrowing and lending…quite an accomplishment.
Now this is very cool. Was over at the Airbus site after the news came out that they lost the FEDEx order for A380s. Apparently the folks at Airbus have been busy with their virtual cabin tour. If they could channel that productivity…
This is a very well executed virtual world. The transitions between your navigation choices are supremely well executed. The appropriate eye movement to simulate actually walking down the gangway. Well done. I really like this.
Ok. I’ll admit I am rater late to the podcasting thing. I remember when they started showing up in as spoken word commentaries to download to your iPod and of course I had to try them out. They were still rather unformed and experimental and more importantly for me, I didn’t find myself with the time to dedicate to listening to a rant. I wasn’t moving around that much, so didn’t have the longer stretch in the car where these may have worked out. I tried a couple, but didn’t find any that really tickled my fancy, so gradually stopped looking for them. Then Scotty forced me to watch a Video Podcast a year and a half ago and I have started to find podcasts that do warrant a few minutes time. Moreover, they also generate some anticipation between releases. There are the zany ones (TikiBar TV), the informative ones (MoBuzz, GeekBrief) and the Crossovers (zeFrank, RocketBoom), or even the specialty ones (Wine Library TV, Food Guru). I am now subscribing and watching or listening to about twenty shows on a regular basis. For me these have really replaced TV. They are immediately accessible, frequently fresher than cable and certainly much more raw - not profane, often just less refined and thus seemingly more personal. There’s something to these. We can make the obviosu parallels to the printing press and pampphleting, or to renegade radio stations, but these are seemingly more powerful. Today, of all days, ime Magazine has picked its most important inventions of the year and YouTube is at the top of the list. Its there because there has been a shift in the ability of the obscure to rise to prominence and reac an amazingly universal audience.
All I know is that I am enjoying the entertainment and information charge that I can tune into whenever I have a spare moment.
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