Dr. Rick Kopak stuck around for a second episode to discuss the power of highlighting in digital text, urban fantasy, cyberpunk and the staying power of iconic books. Rick is an educator & researcher at the iSchool at the University of British of Columbia.

• e-readers like the Kindle offer some good tools to highlight and make notes about the information we’re consuming. However, copyright and other legal issues may be limiting usability. Copyright is a funny thing.
• Rick tells us about the Open Journal Project.
• Paul reminds us that Amazon and Netflix used to be the alternate business models and now they are the established norm.
• There are loads of reading recommendations in this show:
  • Cory Doctorow often offers his books for free at Craphound.
  • William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer.
  • Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Anathem, Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle).
  • Charles Stross (The Atrocity Archives, Saturn’s Children).
  • Asimov
  • Heinlein
  • Larry Corriea, Monster Hunters International.
• William Dufris is a voice actor who has narrated several audio books from the authors above.
• Scribd now offers a subscription service to audio books & ebooks. It’s like the Netflix for books. $8.99 for as many books as you can read in a month.
• The 007 Reloaded audio books are a series of James Bond audio books read by famous British actors like Hugh Bonneville & David Tennant.
• Hachette vs. Amazon.
• Rick recommends Roam Mobility an inexpensive way to use your mobile phone when traveling.

Thanks again to Rick for making the time to join us! If your interested in learning more about information design, check out the iSchool at UBC.

On this show the fellows were joined by Dr. Rick Kopak from iSchool at the University of British of Columbia. There he researches information design and human computer interaction. Paul & Chris get schooled on the interesting concepts behind information design and how much the field is changing thanks to all our handheld digital devices.

• An example of structuring information might be Hypertext.
• Making information more useful might be as simple as laying it out with CSS, adding interactivity with JavaScript or perhaps ratings, a comment system or a way to monitor social capital.
• Schemas are at the core of information design. From there designers can create Personas and shape the information presented in a document to make it more usable.
• Rick is currently researching On The Measurability of Information Quality.
• Paul & Rick reminisce about HyperCard, an Apple app that predates the World Wide Web.
• Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project started in 1960 and continued development even after the creation & adoption of the World Wide Web.
• iOS Design Guidelines create consistency in the way information is presented and may be responsible for their popularity.
• Flat vs. Realism, an interactive exploration of digital design.
• We discuss the complexity & expectations of Facebook vs. the simplicity of Twitter.
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is often used in business & academic worlds.
• The perils of social networks, How I Became Amazon’s Pitchman For a 55-Gallon Drum of Personal Lubricant on Facebook.
• The blue light from your digital devices may affect your sleep. In fact, there’s loads of information on getting a good night’s sleep. Rick is curious to try some amber glasses to block the blue light.
• Is the Jawbone collecting useful data or just a nag? Depends on your personality.

Thanks to Rick for sharing his time and knowledge with us all. He’ll be back in the final show of next season to talk fiction and audio books.

Part 2 of our chat with 3D Generalist, Christian. We relax and chat television and movies. Could the budget for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. be $5? Would you lose your British accent after 200 years?

• Podcasters & guest all agree Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is more like Agents of Sleep.
• Christian & Chris are still trying to like Constantine.
• For whatever reason, we all love Forever.
• Paul says Lucas from Forever is playing the same part he played in Bones. While Chris compares him to Johnny from Airplane!
• Christian digs The Flash, the newest superhero TV show because of the main villain who was the lead in a past TV show called, ED.
• The crew lament the scripts, dialogue and drama of Arrow.
• Christian recommends The Killing.
• Paul and Christian talk about Gracepoint which is based on a british show called Broadchurch. Both shows have the same star and previous Doctor Who, David Tennant.
• Chris recalls that an actor from The Killing was a topic of conversation in a recent Flophouse podcast episode.
• Christian says we should all check out Manhattan.
• Paul’s wife chooses to watch Salem over our bad movies on the other podcast, FilmFrown.
• Christian is happy with the Marvel films, but not big on the other studios with Marvel products, like The Amazing Spider-Man and X-Men films which are currently owned by Sony & Fox.
• Chris, Paul and Christian agree the first Captain America film is a Marvel misfire. They don’t even begin to discuss the awful that is the Wolverine films.
• When Gwen Stacy died, Marvel comics went from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age and it was a big deal.
• Christian & Paul talk Ultimate Spider-Man while Chris risks getting political to wish a listener in Mexico well.

Thanks again to Christian for joining us. You can see samples of his work from his “old site” at christianday.net. Thanks for listening, we hope you’re in the Pole Position this week.

Our guest on this show is a 3D generalist. That’s a fancy term meaning Christian can do it all: modeling, texturing, rendering, lighting, animation, FX, effects and whatever else they throw at him. On the show we chat about the harsh realities of working in 3D, a rebel 1968 Dodge Charger from Hazzard County and get lost in the math of rendering.

• Evernote would like to update during the show. Oh noes!
• What is this 3 on the tree Chris speaks of? Dig the pic.
• Reminiscing about Christian’s first computer, maybe this and the Avid hardware that looked something like this.
• Christian says if you’re passionate enough you should be able to learn 3D on your own, though he studied at the Savannah College of Art & Design, SCAD.
• 3D tools & platforms mentioned by Christian, Maya, Unity & Oculus Rift.
• The conversation turns to Life of Pi and the effects company that made it, Rhythm & Hues. There’s a free, short documentary called Life After Pi, telling the story about how that successful movie bankrupted and shut down the company.
• Another large 3D company, Digital Domain has had similar problems to Rhythm & Hues.
• Chris has used the free & open source 3D application, Blender.
• Paul remembers using POV-ray many years ago to code his own 3D Enterprise.
• TinkerCAD is a 3D application you can use in your browser.
• Amazon’s failed Fire phone with 3D?
• Christian has been listening to podcasts from Sam Altman on How to Start a Startup.
• Silicon Valley reference! Montreal Sauce hasn’t had one of those in a while.

Thanks to Christian for sharing his story and teaching us about the world of 3D animation.

Dan Hogan briefly re-joins us to discuss his process, the workflow of his webcomic and why being weird is winning. Tina, Chris & Paul review TV shows and create a new line of products for bald men called Pauld.

• Dan describes his process for creating a webcomic digitally using a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and Clip Studio Paint Pro.
• Ryan Estrada has a few posts on Medium that can help you get your webcomic workflow together. Dan especially recommends Speed Comicking.
• Dan shares a self help book that he enjoyed, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.
• Chris butchers a quote from Nicole Belanger’s blog.
• Dan reviews his Microsoft Surface Pro 3.
• Hit the Clattertron Store and support our friend Dan Hogan.
• Tina shares her love of The Oatmeal.
• Chris is still waiting to like the Constantine TV show.
• Imagine that, we chat about Doctor Who and companions of companions.
• Tina enjoys Continuum because of its camp.
• Time travel is a fun plot device to completely change your television show like Eureka.
• Chris talks about his recent experience in 3D printing. He printed a Pizza Cutter Display Stand for his Enterprise.
• The printer he used at the Edmonton Public Library was made in Edmonton by Machina.
• Paul reviews Lincoln, at least the last half.
• Chris recommends Was It Something I Said, a hilarious game show.