In memory of Mick Ellis

 

In memory of Mick Ellis, whose influence shaped a generation in the media world.

Mick had a huge impact on my life – he was the reason I deviated from Catholic school into the “sinful” path of multimedia. His work on TV Soul Time was a defining moment for me, helping me decide which high school to attend. His media studies program from grade 9 drew me in, and I became one of his mentees, hooked from the start. Mick and I worked countless events together – pep rallies, plays, sock hops – creating hours upon hours of media that built my skills and passion for this field.

Russ Ramsden - Tony Kuzub  - Mick Ellis

Russ Ramsden – Tony Kuzub – Mick Ellis

Mick, Russ, and I tackled at least a dozen Gateway plays, and every project we took on was filled with lessons that stuck with me. Mick introduced me to multi-track audio recording, even gifting me a copy of “SAW” so we could push our audio-visual work to new heights. That experience shifted my career, opening my eyes to what was possible in media, and to this day, I wouldn’t be where I am without those early projects.

Mick helped me understand the media landscape – how to tell stories, to motivate, and to wield the art of sound and visuals in ways that captivate audiences. I often reached out just to say hello and to thank him for the countless opportunities, encouragement, and wisdom he provided. Even now, with each new experience, I’m brought back to those days in his classroom.

Mick, you were not only a mentor but a true friend. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and everyone lucky enough to have known him. He will be greatly missed.

It is with broken hearts that we have to say goodbye to our beloved Mick. Our husband, father, friend, grandfather – our rock, Mick. Mick died on August 18 after a short illness from cancer. He loved life and his family beyond measure. Mick is survived by his wife and best friend of 54 years, Lorraine; his children, Erin (Dany), Mike (Kathleen), and Dan; grandchildren, Malcolm and Gillian; brothers, Peter (Maria) and Colin (Susan); sisters-in-law, Linda and Lynne; and 9 nieces and nephews along with their children.

Mick has been an actor, a woodworker, a musician, a consummate fix-it guy and DIY dude, an artist, a media studies pioneer, a beer-maker, a gardener, a student, a teacher, and above all a dad and husband. He had an appreciation for everyday joys, every day. “Oh man, that’s good!” he would exclaim over each evening cup of coffee. If he could creatively salvage something into usefulness the whole day was “great!” Relentlessly positive and gifted with seemingly endless energy, nothing was ever too much trouble for him. He showed his care through action, perpetually willing to lend a helping hand, especially to his (sometimes needy) family.

He was an educator who left a lasting impression on students and colleagues. Many former students from his years teaching at Evan Hardy Collegiate and running audio-visual programs through the Saskatoon School Board have sought him out to reconnect and share the ways he impacted them as a teacher. He truly was a pioneer in his field, creating lasting programs such as Telemedia.

Mick was a dedicated environmental steward, and ingrained the ethos of reduce, re-use, recycle into his children. More recently, he described saving energy as his hobby, and he derived great joy from checking the energy production of his solar panels every day.

We are bereft, but Mick loved life and so we will strive to carry on that tradition, at times through bleary eyes, however working to live with joy in our hearts, one scrap piece of wood re-purposed or quiet morning savouring a good book at a time.

A Celebration of Mick’s life will be held at Glass and Lumber, 432 20th St. W, on Sunday, September 15 from 1-5 p.m., presentation at 2 p.m. Mick had an intense dislike of formal wear, so please wear whatever you’re comfortable in.

Charitable giving was important to Mick, so rather than flowers, if you would like, his family suggests that a tribute donation is a loving way to honour him. Some of his favourite charities included: Doctors Without Borders, Meewasin Valley Authority, and EGadz. (Also, hug your loved ones and unplug your not-in-use appliances.)

Audible Book list 2024

1 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos By: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD
2 48 Laws of Power By: Robert Greene
3 A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity By: Sally Kohn
4 A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas By: Warren Berger
5 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man By: James Joyce
6 A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility By: Mark Schwartz
7 A Time and a Place By: Joe Mahoney
8 Agile: The Ultimate Guide to Agile Project Management and Kanban for Agile Software Development: Including Explanations for Lean, Scrum, XP, FDD and Crystal By: James Edge
9 Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions By: Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
10 Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Cannabis: Regain Your Drive, Health and Happiness By: Allen Carr, John Dicey
11 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business By: Neil Postman
12 Anger Management for Explosive Parents: How to Parent Yourself, Manage Your Emotions, and Raise a Confident and Warm-Hearted Child By: Grace Cohen
13 Anger Management for Parents: How to Be Calmer and More Patient with Your Children By: Katherine Guzman
14 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
15 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones By: James Clear
16 Autism: 25 Ways to Manage Sensory Disorders, Special Needs, ADHD/ADD, ASD, and Asperger’s Syndrome By: Margaret Seeker
17 Autism: Sensory Overloaded by Emotions By: Travis Edward Breeding
18 Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World By: Christopher Steiner
19 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother By: Amy Chua
20 BBC Classics Children’s Library: A Timeless Collection of 21 Tales for All Ages By: Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, E. Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Louisa May Alcott, Oscar Wilde
21 Becoming By: Michelle Obama
22 Beyond the Goal: Theory of Constraints By: Eliyahu M. Goldratt
23 Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps By: Gene Kim, John Willis
24 Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting By: Pamela Druckerman
25 Capital in the Twenty-First Century By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer – translator
26 Céline: Understood By: CBC
27 Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World By: Clive Thompson
28 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain By: Jason M. Satterfield, The Great Courses
29 Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life By: Emily Nagoski
30 Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition): Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration By: Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace – contributor
31 Crucial Confrontations By: Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
32 Customer Success Is Key: How a Small Manufacturer Transformed into an Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions Provider and Unlocked $2 Million in SaaS Revenue By: Christian Shaffer
33 Customs of the World: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are By: David Livermore, The Great Courses
34 Data Analytics: 7 Manuscripts: Data Analytics Beginners, Deep Learning Keras, Analyzing Data Power BI, Reinforcement Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Text Analytics, Convolutional Neural Networks By: Anthony Williams
35 Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World By: Bruce Schneier
36 Decoding Boys: New Science Behind the Subtle Art of Raising Sons By: Cara Natterson
37 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World By: Cal Newport
38 Design Smart Mistakes and Succeed Sooner By: Anjali Sastry, Kara Penn
39 Dinner with the Heelers – A Bluey Podcast By: The Bluey Podcast
40 Domain Driven Design: How to Easily Implement Domain Driven Design – A Quick & Simple Guide By: Jason Scotts
41 Double Entry By: Jane Gleeson-White
42 Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software By: Scott Rosenberg
43 Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within By: Kenny Werner
44 Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting By: Janet Lansbury
45 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future By: Ashlee Vance
46 Emotional Intelligence By: Daniel Goleman
47 Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less By: Greg McKeown
48 Every Tool’s a Hammer: Lessons from a Lifetime of Making By: Adam Savage
49 Everyday Meditation By: Aaptiv
50 Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics By: bell hooks
51 Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy By: Tim Harford
52 Finite and Infinite Games By: James Carse
53 Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House By: Michael Wolff
54 Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things By: Jenny Lawson
55 Gentle Discipline: Using Emotional Connection – Not Punishment – to Raise Confident, Capable Kids By: Sarah Ockwell-Smith
56 Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: 20th Anniversary Edition By: Harville Hendrix Ph.D.
57 Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity By: David Allen
58 Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In By: Roger Fisher, William Ury
59 Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk By: Justin Tosi, Brandon Warmke
60 Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance By: Angela Duckworth
61 Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies By: Jared Diamond
62 Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity By: Jamie Metzl
63 How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between By: Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner
64 How Non-Conformists Move the World By: Adam Grant, Sheryl Sandberg – foreword
65 How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness By: Fumitake Koga, Ichiro Kishimi
66 How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection By: Charles Duhigg
67 Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will By: Geoff Colvin
68 I, Robot By: Isaac Asimov
69 If I Have to Tell You One More Time: The Revolutionary Program That Gets Your Kids to Listen Without Nagging, Reminding, or Yelling By: Amy McCready
70 Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life By: Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
71 Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion By: Robert B. Cialdini
72 Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men By: Caroline Criado Perez
73 Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone By: Mark Goulston
74 Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead By: Sheryl Sandberg
75 Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence By: Max Tegmark
76 Life After Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life By: George Gilder
77 Life and Meaning in a Solved World By: Nick Bostrom
78 Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX By: Eric Berger
79 Living in Data: A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future By: Jer Thorp
80 Machine Learning 2020: The Ultimate Guide to Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Networks in Modern Business and Marketing applications: The Data Science Guide, Book 1 By: Bill Hanson
81 Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads By: Roy H. Williams
82 Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor By: Layla F. Saad
83 Memoirs and Misinformation: A Novel By: Jim Carrey, Dana Vachon
84 Mindset: The New Psychology of Success By: Carol Dweck
85 Miracle Creek: A Novel By: Angie Kim
86 Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics By: Richard H. Thaler
87 More Bedtime Stories for Cynics By: Kirsten Kearse, Gretchen Enders, Aparna Nancherla, Cirocco Dunlap, Dave Hill
88 NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity By: Steve Silberman
89 Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It By: Chris Voss
90 No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame By: Janet Lansbury
91 Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness [Expanded Edition] By: Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
92 Outlander: Outlander, Book 1 By: Diana Gabaldon
93 Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering By: Malcolm Gladwell
94 Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting By: Laura Markham
95 Peter Pan: An Audible Original Drama By: J. M. Barrie
96 Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager: A FranklinCovey Title By: Kory Kogon, Suzette Blakemore, James Wood
97 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Rudolph Shines Again By: Robert L. May
98 Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us By: Michael Moss
99 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind By: Yuval Noah Harari
100 Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive By: Peter M. Vishton, The Great Courses
101 Set Your Voice Free: How to Get the Singing or Speaking Voice You Want By: Roger Love, Donna Frazier
102 Shantaram: A Novel By: Gregory David Roberts
103 Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work By: Matthew B. Crawford
104 Sleep Better By: Aaptiv
105 Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking By: Christopher Hadnagy, Paul Wilson – foreword
106 Summary: Adam Grant’s Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success By: Ant Hive Media
107 Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction By: Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
108 Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies By: Nick Bostrom
109 Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know By: Malcolm Gladwell
110 Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology By: Neil Postman
111 Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World By: George Gilder
112 The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure By: Grant Cardone
113 The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing By: Al Ries, Jack Trout
114 The 3-Day Effect By: Florence Williams
115 The Art of Thinking Clearly By: Rolf Dobelli
116 The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World By: Niall Ferguson
117 The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology By: William Mougayar, Vitalik Buterin
118 The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation By: Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson
119 The Circle By: Dave Eggers
120 The Closer’s Survival Guide – Third Edition By: Grant Cardone
121 The Conversion Code: Capture Internet Leads, Create Quality Appointments, Close More Sales By: Chris Smith
122 The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business By: Erin Meyer
123 The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics By: Tim Harford
124 The Design of Everyday Things By: Donald A. Norman
125 The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations By: Gene Kim, Patrick Debois, John Willis, Jez Humble
126 The Diamond Age By: Neal Stephenson
127 The Easy Way to Stop Smoking By: Allen Carr
128 The Elements of Style (Recorded Books Edition) By: William Strunk Jr., E. B. White
129 The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon By: Brad Stone
130 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable By: Patrick Lencioni
131 The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts By: Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind
132 The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement – 30th Anniversary Edition By: Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox
133 The God of Small Things By: Arundhati Roy
134 The Great Courses (Teaching Company) By: The Great Courses
135 The Handmaid’s Tale By: Margaret Atwood
136 The History of Philosophy By: A. C. Grayling
137 The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future By: Kevin Kelly
138 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution By: Walter Isaacson
139 The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed. By: Benjamin Graham
140 The Laws of Human Nature By: Robert Greene
141 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing By: Marie Kondo
142 The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy By: John Gottman PhD, Julie Schwartz Gottman PhD
143 The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World By: Pedro Domingos
144 The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Rich By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., William D. Danko Ph.D.
145 The Mueller Report: The Findings of the Special Counsel Investigation By: Robert S. Mueller III, Special Counsel’s Office U.S. Department of Justice
146 The Myth of Normal By: Gabor Maté MD, Daniel Maté
147 The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense By: Gad Saad
148 The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win 5th Anniversary Edition By: Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
149 The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery By: David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
150 The Reluctant Dragon By: Kenneth Grahame
151 The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter By: David Sax
152 The Rise of The Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life By: Richard Florida
153 The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership By: Bill Walsh, Craig Walsh, Steve Jamison
154 The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains By: Nicholas Carr
155 The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power By: Desmond Cole
156 The Soul of a New Machine By: Tracy Kidder
157 The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism By: Kristine Barnett
158 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions By: Thomas S. Kuhn
159 The Testaments: A Novel By: Margaret Atwood
160 The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds By: Michael Lewis
161 The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind By: Daniel J. Siegel MD, Tina Payne Bryson PhD
162 The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power By: Jacob Helberg
163 The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires By: Roy H. Williams
164 Think Database By: Ryan Jarvis
165 Thinking in Systems: A Primer By: Donella H. Meadows
166 This Is Your Mind on Plants By: Michael Pollan
167 To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design By: Henry Petroski
168 Transforming Professional and Personal Life By: Rosamund Stone Zander, Benjamin Zander
169 Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power of Civility at Work and in Life By: Lea Berman, Jeremy Bernard
170 Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek By: Manu Saadia
171 Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders By: L. David Marquet
172 Verbal Judo, Updated Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion By: George J. Thompson PhD, Jerry B. Jenkins, Lee Fjelstad – foreword, Pam Thompson – foreword
173 Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions By: Temple Grandin PhD
174 Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion By: Sam Harris
175 What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing By: Ed Finn
176 What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People By: Joe Navarro, Marvin Karlins
177 What Happens Next? Conversations from MARS By: Adam Savage
178 Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet By: Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon
179 White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism By: Dr. Robin DiAngelo, Michael Eric Dyson – foreword
180 Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact By: Chip Heath, Dan Heath
181 Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World By: David Epstein
182 Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams By: Matthew Walker
183 World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech By: Franklin Foer
184 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future By: Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

The aesthetic of quality

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Something that appears to be of high quality or sophistication but lacks true substance or craftsmanship. It’s the idea of presenting an illusion of excellence—through design, branding, or superficial elements—without the underlying integrity or value. In other words, it’s a deceptive or inauthentic display meant to mimic true quality, often relying on surface-level attributes rather than genuine merit. This can be seen in products, services, or even experiences that seem premium at first glance but ultimately fall short when examined more closely.

 

 

“Access is the medium”

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“Access is the medium” describes the shift from physical ownership of media (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) to a digital world where the primary way to consume content is through access, typically via subscriptions or paywalls. Instead of purchasing individual pieces of media, users now gain temporary access to vast libraries of content, often behind paywalls or through streaming services. In this paradigm, access itself becomes the medium through which content is delivered and consumed, emphasizing convenience and immediacy over ownership.

TWiRT 712 – Fun with AI Inspires Broadcast Engineers – Matt Aaron & Anthony Kuzub

The rise of AI-generated lyrics and music is giving engineers something to chuckle about. But could this “easy creativity” inspire other engineering solutions? Kirk drew a comparison with photographer Jeremy Cowart and his use of an LED wall to produce 60 different portraits in 60 seconds. Anthony Kuzub, an engineer at CBC in Canada, pointed out the AI that’s involved with lighting a new studio, matching accent lights to the video monitor feeds. Matt Aaron is programming a fully-AI streaming station that’s playing “Broadcast Engineers Gangster Rap”. Are these just passing curiosities? Or are they signals of technologies and techniques to come for broadcasting and content creation?

Show notes: “The Legend of Chris Tarr” from suno.com https://suno.com/song/ecb43422-a9a0-4…

And another version of “The Legend of Chris Tarr” https://suno.com/song/9f924c42-c5b7-4… Matt Aaron’s AI-music streaming station https://broadcastengineeringgangsters…

And if Kirk had a radio station, KIRK, this could be the theme song https://suno.com/song/7e61f354-34e0-4…

Anthony mentioned ElevenLabs for text-to-speech and AI voice generation https://elevenlabs.io/

Anthony noted the Roland VC-1-DMX video lighting converter https://proav.roland.com/global/produ…