Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 99

The Tech Swan Song – Saying Goodbye To CHOM FM’s Terry DiMonte

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am on air at CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – to decode the future. We discuss everything that is happening in the world of technology, digital media and culture. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more about what’s happening in the transformation of our digital world. I’m really excited about these weekly hits, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

CHOM Morning DJ, Terry DiMonte, will be leaving the station after decades of rocking the airwaves at the end of this month. This was our last segment together. I am wishing Terry all of the best, looking forward to our friendship off of the air, and even more curious where his voice will wind up next.There has been a lot of excitement in the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFT space to understand/unpack this past week. Elon Musk’s Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin and eBay is about to start selling NFTs.Twitter (like Clubhouse) is also trying to build out what is being called, the Creator Economy (or Passion Economy). How? By compensating creators. Twitter has introduced a “Tip Jar.” Like a tweet? Love it enough to retweet? Why not support the creator of that tweet with some actual cash? App of the Week: ISS Spotter. We were fortunate enough to watch the International Space Station zip over our house on Saturday night. Here’s a way to know if you can catch it too.  

You can also listen in via I Heart Radio. 

Mitch Joel · CTRL ALT Delete – CHOM 97.7 FM – May 17th, 2021

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George Dyson On Nature, Human Beings And Machines – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #775 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

FHere is one of the more fascinating humans that you can connect with. George Dyson fancies himself as someone who makes boats, but he is also a technologist, historian, and one of the true polymaths in our world today. Dyson is the son of the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson and mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson, the brother of technology analyst Esther Dyson, and the grandson of the British composer Sir George Dyson. Dyson’s early life is described in Kenneth Brower‘s book The Starship and the Canoe. When he was sixteen he went to live in British Columbia to pursue his interest in kayaking. From 1972 to 1975, he lived in a treehouse that he built from salvaged materials on the shore of Burrard Inlet. Dyson became a Canadian citizen and spent 20 years in British Columbia, designing kayaks, researching historic voyages and native peoples, and exploring the Inside Passage. He nows lives in Washington state where he makes kayaks and writes about history, science and technology. His books are Baidarka, Project Orion, Turing’s Cathedral, and his latest: Analogia – The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation #775.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

SPOS #775 – George Dyson On Nature, Human Beings And Machines

Welcome to episode #775 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #775 – Host: Mitch Joel. Here is one of the more fascinating humans that you can connect with. George Dyson fancies himself as someone who makes boats, but he is also a technologist, historian, and one of the true polymaths in our world today. Dyson is the son of the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson and mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson, the brother of technology analyst Esther Dyson, and the grandson of the British composer Sir George Dyson. Dyson’s early life is described in Kenneth Brower‘s book The Starship and the Canoe. When he was sixteen he went to live in British Columbia to pursue his interest in kayaking. From 1972 to 1975, he lived in a treehouse that he built from salvaged materials on the shore of Burrard Inlet. Dyson became a Canadian citizen and spent 20 years in British Columbia, designing kayaks, researching historic voyages and native peoples, and exploring the Inside Passage. He nows lives in Washington state where he makes kayaks and writes about history, science and technology. His books are Baidarka, Project Orion, Turing’s Cathedral, and his latest: Analogia – The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 55:12.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on Twitter.Here is my conversation with George Dyson.Analogia – The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines.Turing’s Cathedral.Project Orion.Baidarka.This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #775 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #568

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

Interstellar communication network. III. Locating deep space nodes – Michael Hippke . “When humans want to send messages over long distances, we use dishes that focus our transmissions, because the more focused the transmission, the less energy you need to send something, and the higher a transmission rate you can achieve. If you were a galactic civilization, you’d want ways to communicate over incredibly long distances and timeframes. But instead of dishes, you’d probably use the gravitational lensing of stars. This tells us where we should look for such communication nodes. ‘Because of the large gain for communication, it appears likely that our own first interstellar exploration probe (perhaps to Tau Ceti) would be accompanied by a second probe in the opposite direction, to be used as the communication receiver. Perhaps this step of technological development constitutes the ‘readyness’ of a civilization required to be granted permission into the galactic club.'” (Alistair for Hugh). To be more tech-savvy, borrow these strategies from the Amish – Psyche . “Contrary to popular opinion, the Amish aren’t anti-technology. They’re just thoughtful, deliberate, and solving for a different outcome: That which brings us closer together. So many of their lessons can be applied to our own attempts to be mindful of tech; here’s a great piece on how their culture has resisted—and selectively embraced—the ubiquity of our digital lifestyles.” (Alistair for Mitch). Trees Talk To Each Other. ‘Mother Tree’ Ecologist Hears Lessons For People, Too – NPR . “I’ve posted about Suzanne Simard and her research around the ways trees communicate, including diverting resources to stressed brethren through a network of roots and fungus. Let’s listen to her and the trees.” (Hugh for Alistair). The War on Critical Race Theory – Boston Review . “Have you heard of Critical Race Theory? The former President of the United States tried to ban it, Sam Harris thinks it will lead to madness, the right loves to hate it, and no one who’s all excited about it seems to have read much about it at all.” (Hugh for Mitch).   A Conversation With a Dogecoin Millionaire – The Daily – New York Times . “First off, let me just state that I really enjoy listening to The Daily podcast (via the New York Times). It’s always a different angle on a current affairs story, and it goes really deep… real journalism. It’s quite the feat that this comes out daily. This episode was particularly fascinating. If you’re wondering about cryptocurrency and what the crazed excitement is over Dogecoin (which really was started as a farce), this show will add lots of color to the story. This will either make you start wanting to sniff out the alt coin world for your next big score, or it will make you question everything that you thought that you know about investing.” (Mitch for Alistair). Tears For Fears – Spotify Landmark . “Tears For Fears was never a band that I searched out. Even during the eighties, their music was so ubiquitous that they just always seemed to be around. I had many of their albums, and prior to them hitting it big, my brother introduced to the band with their album, The Hurting, in 1983. I came across this intimate and interactive live performance a few years back, and I seem to keep coming back to it. Yes, it’s seven years old, but this shows a more mature and reflective band… and… just wow… what a performance this is. Even if you were never a fan of the band, this will both impress you and captivate you. Watch it. Promise.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends).

Are You Cheugy, Bestie? – Tech Tuesday In Two Minutes

There’s nothing like an Internet meme to make you feel old (or feel like you’ve still got it).

I won’t lie.
When I heard the term “cheugy,” I had to both look it up and watch a video on YouTube to hear how to say it.
I am the purest definition of the word.
I am (apparently) a little “off-trend.”
Or, so it seems.
You feeling me, bestie?

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya – The Princess Bride.

Internet culture can funny.
Internet culture can be complex.
Internet culture can be brutal.
That’s the problem, opportunity, and hilarity of our language as it evolves online and into our daily lives.

Many phrases are now non-binary.

A phrase or word can be both a compliment and a snide retort.
Don’t believe me?
Take a listen, Girlboss…

The full story is here: Hey bestie, why is everyone saying “hey bestie” online? (Vox).

This is what Heather Backman and I discussed this morning over on Jack 103 FM for a couple of minutes.

What is Tech Tuesday?

If you ever find yourself wondering… What, exactly, is the point of TikTok? How can I make myself look better on a Zoom? Reddit? What’s that about? How do I help my kids be safer online? Who’s the latest creator and streamer that I should be checking out?

You are not alone.

Every Tuesday – for just a few minutes – I join Heather Backman (my old buddy from her days on CHOM FM) on the air at Jack 103 (Rogers Sports & Media) to give a quick blast about the current state of technology, media and Internet culture. We’re calling the segment Tech Tuesday (and we do it in just a few minutes).

Mitch Joel · Are You Cheugy, Bestie? – Tech Tuesday – Jack 103.1 FM – May 11th, 2021

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Clubhouse vs. Twitter Spaces And More On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am on air at CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – to decode the future. We discuss everything that is happening in the world of technology, digital media and culture. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more about what’s happening in the transformation of our digital world. I’m really excited about these weekly hits, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Everyone has been super-excited (still) about Clubhouse (the drop-in/social audio app). Twitter has launched their competitor, Twitter Spaces, and it is very comparable (and, quite a different experience). Plus, Twitter Spaces has always been open to Android users (which Clubhouse is just now slowly rolling out in the US). Now, anyone with 600 followers can open a Twitter Spaces.The news was filled last week (again) with Donald Trump. Will he be allowed on Facebook again (for now, the independent oversight board seems to have punted the decision back to Facebook). What’s happened with Twitter? Well, this was interesting: Twitter has shut down accounts that were attempting to work around the ban. How? Trump launched an area on his website called, “From The Desk of Donald J. Trump” where he posts messages (you know, a blog!) that can be shared by his audience on both Twitter and Facebook. And they are. Many Twitter accounts have been suspended for simply copy and pasting his mini blog posts. App of the Week: VirtOcean – Ambient sounds of the ocean.

You can also listen in via I Heart Radio. 

Mitch Joel · CTRL ALT Delete – CHOM 97.7 FM – May 10th, 2021

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Nancy Giordano On Leadering – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #774 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

First off, Happy Mother’s Day! This week’s guest and I do similar work. Maybe that’s what attracted me to this conversation? Nancy Giordano built her career in the marketing agency business at several companies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. For more than a decade, she has been the Founder of Play Big Inc. (a strategic inspiration company). Her current work dives deeply into the emerging intersection of tech, business and society. More recently, she has helped build the team for an artificial intelligence start-up, produced a conference on the seven most disruptive technologies for enterprise, is a board member for a non-profit trade organization focused on the future of retail, and is working with a leading fintech/martech provider to ensure the survival of community banks and credit unions nationwide. Nancy is committed to advancing societal structures and new mindsets necessary to effectively harness the significant technology innovations heading our way… and ensure a safe and thriving future for us all. This culminates in her latest book, Leadering – The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation #774.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

SPOS #774 – Nancy Giordano On Leadering

Welcome to episode #774 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #774 – Host: Mitch Joel. First off, Happy Mother’s Day! This week’s guest and I do similar work. Maybe that’s what attracted me to this conversation? Nancy Giordano built her career in the marketing agency business at several companies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. For more than a decade, she has been the Founder of Play Big Inc. (a strategic inspiration company). Her current work dives deeply into the emerging intersection of tech, business and society. More recently, she has helped build the team for an artificial intelligence start-up, produced a conference on the seven most disruptive technologies for enterprise, is a board member for a non-profit trade organization focused on the future of retail, and is working with a leading fintech/martech provider to ensure the survival of community banks and credit unions nationwide. Nancy is committed to advancing societal structures and new mindsets necessary to effectively harness the significant technology innovations heading our way… and ensure a safe and thriving future for us all. This culminates in her latest book, Leadering – The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 54:02.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on Twitter.Here is my conversation with Nancy Giordano.Leadering – The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger..Play Big Inc..Follow Nancy on LinkedIn.Follow Nancy on Instagram.Follow Nancy on Twitter.This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #774 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #567

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

Exploiting vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer from an app’s perspective – Signal . “I’m sharing two links this week with very technical descriptions, that are actually simple and awesome. First up: Signal. You probably know this messaging app, which many people use to communicate securely (particularly since most big messaging apps, like WeChat and WhatsApp, belong to large companies with commercial and government interests). When law enforcement or investigators want to read your messages, they turn to tools from a company called Cellebrite, which ingests everything on your device and tries to make sense of it. In an interesting twist, Signal now includes malware that hacks Cellebrite. Basically: Signal can hack the software trying to hack Signal. Ah, arms races. Of course, they don’t come out and say this directly—but this blog post from Moxie Marlinspike, the person behind Signal, may be the best piece of technical trolling ever.” (Alistair for Hugh). Easily Transform Portraits of People into AI Aberrations Using StyleCLIP – Max Woolf’s Blog . “Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) try to make pictures that can fool us—fake portraits, computer-generated art, and more. And Contrastive Language-Image Pre-Training (CLIP) can give text classifications of images (happy, sad, angry, etc.). Two great algorithms that, when you smush them together, let you type a sentence and generate an image. ‘Take this face and make it look like a troll/robot/serious.’ To their credit, the researchers also point out the inherent bias in the algorithms—’make it look like a teacher’ produces a female face, for example. And mostly I’m sharing this because of the clipart.” (Alistair for Mitch). Norm McDonald – Moth Joke – StandUpy PoPolskuPowróciły – YouTube . “I’ve been on a bit of a Norm Macdonald/YouTube kick lately. Here is one of the great jokes of all time.” (Hugh for Alistair). In Quebec, Child Care Is Infrastructure – Bloomberg CityLab . “It’s not all that often that Quebec is seen as a leader in policy and programs these days, but our subsidized daycare program has been a real success. Bloomberg takes a look.” (Hugh for Mitch). ‘I seek a kind person’: the Guardian ad that saved my Jewish father from the Nazis – The Guardian . “We are becoming very myopic and lost, as a humanity. We’re worried a little too much about ourselves and not enough about our community. This is normal. It’s a pandemic still (for most). It feels like we’re also confusing ‘freedom’ with ‘what I want’. This, in turn, makes us less concerned about how we all move forward in a positive and sustainable way. So, yeah, people have been bumming me out lately. Vaccine hesitancy, our inability to hit any form of herd immunity, how we correct a world where some people did great and many more are really suffering? Maybe we need to go back in time and read a story about a time and place when some people thought more about the future and their global community than what was easy or their rights and personal freedom. I dunno… this article really made me think and wonder…” (Mitch for Hugh). NHØP – Jaco before Jaco…The GREATEST Bass Player You’ve NEVER Heard Of – Rick Beato – YouTube . “There are a couple of things going on here. First, if you like music and don’t subscribe to Rick Beato‘s YouTube channel, you do not know what you’re missing. Second, no matter how much you think that you love something, you will always uncover something new and different. I’m weird. I like weird music. I like weird instruments. Case in point: the electric bass is my favorite instrument. I have a podcast where I interview bass players (you can listen to it here: Groove – The No Treble Podcast). I’d like to think that I’ve heard of almost all of the cool cats who play bass. Then, this video about Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, comes into my feed. And, I’ll admit this here, I had not heard of him. Then I watched this. Then my jaw dropped. Then I went deep (very, very deep) down the NHOP rabbit hole. I think that you will too…” (Mitch for High).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends ;): 

Todd Kerns On This Month’s Groove – The No Treble Podcast

Todd Kerns is this month’s conversation on Groove – The No Treble Podcast.

You can listen the new episode right here: Groove – The No Treble Podcast – Episode #77 – Todd Kerns.

Who is Todd Kerns ?

One of the hardest working musicians in rock n’ roll is Todd “Dammit” Kerns. Currently, he’s the bass player for Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, but I’ve known Todd since the late eighties when his band, The Age of Electric, was about to hit the scene. The band after AOE was Static In Stereo, but Todd would go on to do a solo album and then form Sin City Sinners with Brent Muscat (from Faster Pussycat). Todd is a dynamic Canadian (now living in Las Vegas). He took a bunch of his ex-Pat rocking buddies and formed, Toque, a band of former Canadians who cover Canadian bands. Todd grabs all kinds of interesting gigs and has managed to extend his work beyond bass duties. He’s got his own podcast, his own signature model bass (and guitar), he received a star on the B.C. Entertainment Walk of Fame, and his own clothing line (Dammitwear / Anti-Star). Beyond all of that, we get on so well because we’re both huge comic book/science fiction nerds. So, if you want to know what it’s like to rock with Slash from Guns N’ Roses or roll with with former KISS members on the KISS Kruise, you won’t want to miss this. Enjoy the conversation…

What is Groove – The No Treble Podcast?

This is an ambitious effort. This will be a fascinating conversation. Our goal at Groove is to build the largest oral history of bass players. Why Groove? Most of the content about the bass revolves around gear, playing techniques, and more technical chatter. For us, bassists are creative artists with stories to tell. They are a force to be reckon with. These are the stories and conversation that we will capture. To create this oral history of why these artists chose the bass, what their creative lives are like, and where inspiration can be found.

Listen in:  Groove – The No Treble Podcast – Episode #77 – Todd Kerns.

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends ;).