Jun 2010
29

Spark’s Summer Plans

Posted by Dan Misener under Updates
 

summertime

Photo by kwerfeldein

The final episode of Spark’s third season aired on June 26, 27, and 29. Thanks to everyone who listened and visited us at here at the blog. Spark will be back with new episodes after Labour Day. In the meantime, Spark production is on hiatus.

So here’s our plan for the summer:

On the radio, we’ll air “encore presentations” of our favourite episodes from the past season. A full list of repeat airdates is below. You can hear Spark:

  • Sunday afternoons on CBC Radio One at 1:05/1:35 NT (4:05 PT)
  • Tuesday afternoons on CBC Radio One at 3:05/3:35 NT

You can also listen to Spark over the air on Vermont Public Radio and Puget Sound Public Radio.

If you subscribe to the Spark podcast, please stay subscribed. Each week we’ll feature a different, long-form interview or panel. They’ll come out on Wednesdays, as usual. For a full list, see below.

If you’d like to leave a story idea for next season, we’d love to read what you have to say. Leave a comment below, or contact us by phone, Twitter, or email. Thanks again for listening!

On the Radio

July 3, 4, 6: Spark 101 – iPads, fantasy user interfaces, and workplace surveillance

July 10, 11, 13:  Spark 102 – The mathematics of love, password sharing, and Enterprise 2.0

July 17, 18, 20: Spark 103 – Personalized email scams, anti-human software design, and living Craigslist

July 24, 25, 27: Spark 104 – Online friendship, personal branding, and geoweb privacy

July 31, August 1, 3: Spark 105 – Bringing Sexy App

August 7, 8, 10: Spark 107 – Bamboo bicycles, pig spleen weather forecasts, and sermon stealing

August 14, 15, 17: Spark 108 – Games, play, and technology with Jesse Schell and Kevin Kelly

August 21, 22, 24: Spark 110 – Computers that write music, play chess, and listen to cocktail parties

August 28, 29, 31: Spark 111 – Virtual choirs, virtual mourning, and the story of stuff

September 4, 5, 7: Spark 113 – Vocoders, microfluidics, and hybrid leaders

On the Podcast

July 4: danah boyd and William Deresiewicz on online friendship

July 11: Joe Coughlin on the future of aging

July 18: Jenna McWilliams on New Media Literacy

July 25: Daniel Pink on Motivation 3.0

August 1: Learn to breathe with Nora

August 8: Tina Roth Eisenberg on crowdsourcing a baby name

August 15: Jay Frank on the future of hit songs

August 22: Mary Madden on reputation management and social media

3 Comments

Jul 2010
28

Skype interviews on Spark

Posted by Dan Misener under Behind the Scenes
 

From the Spark mailbag, Terry Kozlyk asks:

[H]ow do you get your skype call interviews so clear? Do you just use one of the several Skype call recorder software & record on the PC or Mac?

We’ve had mixed luck with Skype for recording interviews on Spark. Sometimes the quality is great. Other times… not so much.

Usually, we make Skype calls from a Windows PC in the Spark studio. Recordings are made directly into DaletPlus, the CBC’s audio recording and playback software.

We’ve also had good luck with Audio Hijack Pro for Mac. One thing I really like about AHP is that it allows you to create stereo recordings with the interviewer on one channel, and the guest on another. This can be very handy for editing and post-processing of individual voices. If one side of the conversation is significantly louder than the other, The Levelator can help smooth things out.

For more technical details on how to get the best out of Skype interviews, here’s an excellent how-to video from Doug Kaye:

Skype for Interviews

View more webinars from dkaye.

1 Comment

Jun 2010
23

Spark 118 – June 27 & 29, 2010

Posted by Dan Misener under Audio, Episodes
 

On this episode of Spark: Bursts, Shallows, and Game Changers. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).

You can also listen to individual stories below.

GameChanger

This summer, the Canadian Little League Championships take place in Ancaster, Ontario. And this year, there’s a technological twist. Instead of traditional pencil and paper scorekeeping, officials will use iPhones to score the game. The electronic scorekeeping system is called GameChanger.

Nora talked to CEO Ted Sullivan about GameChanger, and to sports columnist and dad Scott Radley about the professionalization of amateur sport. (Runs 10:27)

Bursts

Albert-László Barabási is the author of Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do. In it, he set out to explore whether our behaviour patterns are random, or whether they can be predicted. What he found is that our daily behaviours, things that we might think we do spontaneously, follow a precise set of mathematical formulas or laws. (Runs 11:57)

So

Every now and then, a verbal tic creeps into the culture. Millions of people begin to say “like” or “awesome” or “groovy.” It’s just how culture goes. But sometimes these tics can tell us something larger about the culture, and that would seem to be the case with what appears to be the latest tic in the English-speaking world: the word “so,” and more specifically, the word “so” as the sentence-starter of choice, in sentences where it would not traditionally have belonged. Spark columnist Anand Giridharadas has given that little word some thought lately. (Runs 7:03)

The Shallows

Have you ever worried that you’re losing the ability to follow a long, sustained narrative in a book? Early on in his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr describes experiencing exactly that. Are our online reading habits changing the way we think? (Runs 18:32)

Episode Details

Nora mentioned several handy summertime Spark items:

Creative Commons sound effects used in this episode:

You can receive Spark automatically by subscribing to any of our totally free podcast feeds:

For more information (and instructions) visit cbc.ca/podcasting

[Original images by stu seeger, jurvetson, Paolo Mazzo, jtravism]

3 Comments

Jun 2010
23

Full Interview: Albert-Laszlo Barabasi on Bursts

Posted by Nora Young under Audio, Interviews
 
bursts

In Bursts, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi takes on a big question: can human behaviour ever be predicted in the same way we can predict other phenomena? He finds that much of human behaviour takes place in ‘bursts’ of activity, followed by periods of minimal activity. Further, he finds that however much we may like to think of ourselves as free-spirited rebels, we’re actually surprisingly predictable, provided there’s a trail of information about our past behaviours. The thing is, we’re starting to generate an enormous amount of data about our movements. That data potentially has much explanatory power, but it also raises privacy concerns.

A shorter version of this interview will air on the June 27th episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 25:51]

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]

Original Image by Bob Jagendorf.

2 Comments

Jun 2010
23

Full Interview: Nicholas Carr on The Shallows

Posted by Nora Young under Audio, Interviews
 
NickCarr

I’ve been noticing something in the last few years. I can’t read books anymore. I mean, really read them….sink into them and lose myself in them. I’ll sit down with good intentions, but I find myself distracted. My mind wanders, I’m constantly taking a break to check my email or look something up online. I used to be a huge book person. I’m really worried I’m losing my ability to follow a long narrative in a book. I was relieved to read Nicholas Carr’s new book, because at least, it seems, I’m not alone. In The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Carr argues that the way we absorb new information online is not only changing our habits, it’s actually changing our neural pathways.

A shorter version of this interview will air on the June 27th episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 25:06]

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]

Original Image by SandyFleischmann

10 Comments

Jun 2010
18

Sticky: Spark 117 – June 20 & 22, 2010

Posted by Dan Misener under Audio, Episodes
 

On this episode of Spark: Virtual Street Corners, responsive architecture, and the future of public libraries. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).

You can also listen to individual stories below.

The future of public library design

What can public libraries learn from retail bookstores?

For a long time, libraries were repositories of a scarce good: information. But now, information online is everywhere, at least for those with access to the Internet. So, public libraries need to think about being valuable as public space, as community hubs, and as places to help navigate the seas of data to find quality information.

One approach to this comes from the New Library in Almere, The Netherlands. It takes many design cues from retail bookstores. Nora talked to Chris Wiersma, the director of the New Library, and Erikjan Vermeulen from the architecture firm concrete about the library’s design. Then, for a Canadian perspective on the future of library design, Nora talked to Gerry Meek, CEO of the Calgary Public Library. (Runs 16:12)

Virtual Street Corners

John Ewing is an artist based in Boston, and earlier this month, he launched Virtual Street Corners. It’s a pair of interactive video screens in two different neighbourhoods: Coolidge Corner, Brookline, and Dudley Square, Roxbury. Each corner has a display, a camera and a microphone. When you look at one video screen, you’re actually looking at a completely different corner in a completely different neighbourhood. It’s like a digital portal. Nora talked to John Ewing about the project. (Runs 7:18)

Gumdrop and upcycling

Each year in the UK, 3.5 billion pieces of chewing gum are disposed of improperly. And that’s something product designer Anna Bullus is trying to change. Anna has created Gumdrop, a chewing gum disposal bin that’s made of used chewing gum.

You might think that Gumdrop is just an inventive, kinda wacky idea, but beyond the issue of chewed gum, it’s an example of something that’s actually a big design trend these days: upcycling. Nora talked to Anna Bullus and product and experience designer Todd Falkowsky about the trend. (Runs 14:30)

Responsive architecture

Imagine window blinds that shut themselves when it gets too sunny. Or a house that knows when you’re coming home from a winter vacation.

Ideas like this are part of a new movement in building design: responsive architecture. Responsive architecture is actually already beginning to become a reality in the actual buildings around us. Lisa Rochon is the architecture critic at the Globe and Mail and she talked to Nora about Canadian developments in responsive architecture. (Runs 11:16)

Episode Details

Additional links:

Creative Commons sound effects used in this episode:

You can receive Spark automatically by subscribing to any of our totally free podcast feeds:

For more information (and instructions) visit cbc.ca/podcasting

[Original images by westher, Virtual Street Corners, Isla Macleod, North House]

4 Comments

Jun 2010
16

Full Interview: Ted Sullivan on GameChanger

Posted by Dan Misener under Audio, Interviews
 

Yesterday, Nora interviewed Ted Sullivan. Ted’s the CEO of Fungo Media, the company behind a new iPhone app called GameChanger, which is aimed at amateur softball and baseball teams.

The idea is to replace traditional pencil and paper scorekeeping with an electronic system. A shorter version of this interview will air on Spark 118, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 15:50]

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]

[Original image by StuSeeger]

1 Comment

Next Page »

  • Send us Stuff!

    • Do you have a great story, guest idea, or tip for Spark?
    • Email spark@cbc.ca
    • Twitter @SparkCBC
    • Phone 1-877-34-SPARK

  • RSS Recent Comments

    • Mark Davis - Spark 110 - April 18 & 20, 2010
      I quite enjoyed the Aug 22 Spark re: computer assisted music composition. I propose that an essential aspect of 'creativity' is 'supply and demand'. Consider the situation when adult Peguins return to their young. Evidently the adult will only care for it's own young, which is identified by vocalization by youngster and remembered by […]
    • steve - Contact Spark
      @dan thanks for the share! i manage lots of photos so this is a great help! […]
    • Denise - Blowing the lid off toilets with Nora Young!
      We have recently moved into a new house, new construction so there shouldn't be any problems with the plumbing. We have a dual flush 3 litre/ 6 litre Caroma (Australian toilet-made in China). It usually takes two full flushes to get all the chunky stuff to go away. […]
    • j Duff - Contact Spark
      To some it might be relevant....while not to you. […]
    • Ewallet - Contact Spark
      I feel like all of these comments are pretty irrelevant... […]