2007/10/27

Timeline Maps: Empires and Religions

Noticed the first chronological map (on empires) in a presentation by Juan Enriquez. Either of these animations could be useful to show in many a course. They have not necessarily been created from a neutral point of view but they both bring together interesting data, making it easy to take a broad perspective on such issues as global interactions, cultural contacts, and human diversity.

Imperial History

History of Religion

2007/10/26

Le Café d'Oldelaf et Monsieur D

Pas très réaliste, mais conçu à la Sylvain Chomet (Triplettes de Belleville). Ça me donne soif pour un bon petit espresso bien complexe et pas très caféiné.

Le Café

Le Café via Koreus

2007/10/21

VUB and ULB Pillow Fight

Perhaps the most efficient form of student activism, a pillow fight between French-speaking and Flemish-speaking universities.

BELGIUM
At the end of the fight, the fighter of the both speaking communities reconcile around campfire having a beer and a barbecue. Let's hope the negotiation about Belgian government could end in the same way. (Reuters)

2007/10/19

New Ways to Access Comedy Central Content?

What's going on, here? We can't access ComedyCentral.com from Canada? Apparently, that same content is available on TheComedyNetwork.ca, thanks to a special agreement between CTV and Viacom. However, the two comedy television networks' sites work quite differently from one another. In fact, Comedy Network's media player seems to be having problems and I personally haven't been able to watch more than a few seconds of anything on that Canadian site. Worse yet, that site makes my computer (H3070 with 1GB of RAM, running XPSP2) while using IE7 and consistently crashes Flock 0.9.1. Pity.
Meanwhile, Viacom is offering all clips of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since 1999. That content is now hosted, in a beta version, on TheDailyShow.com (that site is available in Canada). Unfortunately, some features of ComedyCentral's well-known "Motherload" player are absent from the new site's player. For instance, clips can only be viewed in a single format and there's no playlist feature. On the other hand, the new site does make it easy to rate, share, and comment clips, bringing the show closer to the YouTube crowd Viacom might want to woo.


Funny that TheDailyShow.com should use Google for search... ;-)

2007/10/11

Nomination for Best Title for a Podcast Episode

Mothers against Windows Vista (Buzz Out Loud 580)
Literally LOLed!

Redesign of Concordia University's Website

Tour of new Concordia University Website - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Though I know there are people out there who are certainly complaining loudly about this new design, I think I like it. Granted, I'm no design expert. In fact, I usually don't react very strongly to page designs. But this one has a nice effect on me. I think it strikes an appropriate balance between simplicity and content. It's also a step in the direction of consistency in design, which seems to be a much more effective approach than what was previously available.
I also like some of the new features, including microformats and, more relevant for my use of the site, the new map. I used the new map just today to make sure the GM building was the one I thought it was (it is) and found the mapping system quite efficient. I do like Google Maps.

Vieux média et blogues à Montréal

J'ai plus tellement l'habitude de visionner du contenu formatté aussi clairement télévision que ça, mais c'est amusant à voir, surtout pour ceux qui étaient présents à cette rencontre.
montreal.tv - Blog Montreal, les blogueurs de Montr�al se rencontrent mensuellement au bar La Quincaillerie sur la rue Rachel sur le Plateau
(Piston, piston, piston...)

2007/10/02

Zotero as Webware?

More as a reminder to myself that it'd be fun to experiment with some use of Zotero as a Google-type Webware reference manager including the actual texts (indexed PDFs, etc.). Kind of an integration of features from RefWorks, Spurl.net, Plum.net, Google Browser Sync, Del.icio.us, Firefox Scrapbook, Facebook, Moodle, GTD, and Windows Live Writer. Sounds like a weird mix but I see a pattern, there. Kind of like the "optimal bookmark manager" I've been thinking about. It'd take a bit too long to flesh it out just right now. Ah, well...