Hey I’m Andrew and I’m hanging out at Spark for a couple of weeks. And I need your assistance. I promise, I’m not asking for money, nor am I a Nigerian prince. I’m simply a music lover in distress.

At the start of 2012 I gave myself a goal to to discover a new band/musician/composer/ensemble every day for the rest of this year. I’ve been trying hard since then to follow through, with mixed success. My criteria is that if I was sitting in a bar, and this band comes on stage, would I stay for the whole set? If the answer is yes, they go on the list. If the answer is no, I move on and find another band.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the internet is big and there are a lot of songs on it. Lots of songs means lots of crap. Lots of crap means Andrew’s spending a lot of time searching for bands fit for the list.

Sure, there are many websites to help. You’ve got Pitchfork, NME, the Guardian’s band for a day page and loads of blogs, online radio stations and the like. But after searching these pages, I’ve noticed something. In the quest for finding the next big thing, they’ll write about anyone and their banjo. Music overload. When one of these sites does happen to stumble across something really great, the other sites jump on it days later (just search “Devin Therriault” as an example). This ocean’s one thousand miles wide and about an inch deep. What’s a new music hound to do?

There are a few notable exceptions, and one I want to highlight here. Laurie Brown’s Radio 2 program The Signal is, in my not so humble opinion, one of the greatest show on the FM dial or online when it comes to new music. If you haven’t, check it out.

So here’s where I need your help [Webmaster’s note: FINALLY!]. I want you to let me know if you have the same problem I do. Do you find it difficult to find new bands? Where do you go for new music? Get lost in the online music world? Also, I lied. I am a Nigerian prince, and I want to share my vast wealth. All you need to do is let me know the names of some new bands I can add to my list, and I’ll wire the cash to your bank account. [Webmaster’s note: Andrew is not a Nigerian prince. He’s a radio producer.]

This week, we’re working on a story about whether our obsessive gadget use is at the expensive of giving ourselves time to think and create, to be idle, to daydream.

As a parent of a young child, it made me wonder – if we don’t leave ourselves much daydreaming time, then what about our kids? I know how easy it is to hand over the Leapster or portable DVD player to my 4.5 year old if we’re in the car or in a restaurant. And I see parents all around me doing it too, shoving tech into their kids’ hands at the first sign of boredom or, more often than not, well before, as if in some kind of boredom/tantrum preemptive strike.

Now not only are we never idle thanks to our devices, we’re filling our kids’ empty spaces with them too.

Here’s the thing: I’ve found lately on car trips with my daughter, that if I just leave her back there without any tech she ends up telling fantastical stories, singing creative songs she makes up on the spot, or asking questions about things we pass on the street. But as soon as we put any kind of screen in front of her, she is essentially “gone” for hours, and it becomes difficult to get that vibrant, creative kid back.

So what do you think? Are parents contributing to a decline in creativity by not allowing our children the space to daydream? Are you a parent who hands your kids a tech gadget to keep them still and quiet (and then worries about the impact later)? Or do you do it with no regrets at all? Maybe you think kids need these tech tools to be part of the digital world. It’s not so black and white is it? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and we may include them in our show this week.

You can leave a comment below, or better yet, leave a message at 1-877-347-7275 (toll free in Canada) to let us know your thoughts.

We often refer to people as “tech savvy” (or not), but we’ve been wondering what the term really means. After all, I might be an avid gamer, but not really understand anything about programming; you might know how to build a computer from parts, but not be very skilled at conducting an effective search. Is “tech savvy” a mindset? A myth? Or maybe it’s about confidence and a willingness to explore.

I’ve been thinking about this because of a study I came across the other day, suggesting that students who are so-called “Digital Natives” are not necessarily very good at searching library resources. They overuse Google, and they aren’t very good at Googling either.

Let me know your thoughts!

Do you know anyone who staunchly refuses to carry a cell phone? Or simply won’t sign up for a Facebook account?

Turns out, there’s a name for that: “technology refusal.” And for an upcoming episode of Spark, Nora will interview researcher Alice Marwick about the phenomenon. Alice recently wrote a blog post about opting out, where she cites several examples of technology refusal:

…teens who’ve committed Facebook suicide because it causes too much drama; off-the-grid types who worry about the surveillance potentials of GPS-enabled smartphones; older people who think computers are just too much trouble; and, of course, privacy-concerned types who choose not to use Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, websites with cookies, or any other technology that could potentially compromise their privacy.

We’d love to include some of your personal examples in the conversation. If you or someone you know has made a conscious decision to not use a particular technology, please let us know. You can leave a comment below, or better yet, leave a message at 1-877-347-7275 (toll free in Canada) to let us know what you don’t use, and why.

Or, of course, you could opt out of blog comments and phone calls, but that’s not very helpful to us for making the show.

Christian Heller likes the book The Road to Reality, though he’ll probably never finish it. He is 5 foot 8, drinks socially, and makes less than 20 thousand dollars a year. Oh yes, and his sleeping patterns are very irregular. We’ve never met Christian Heller. We’ve never even spoken with him! He lives on the other side of the world in Germany. So how do we know all of these intimate details about his life? Because they are all just a few clicks away.

Christian is posting everything he can about his daily life online. This includes financial information, phone records, work productivity and love life (he’s 26, straight and single). It’s an experiment in something he calls post-privacy because he believes privacy is dead.

There’s a profile of Christian Heller on Spark 152. Nora also talks with Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart. The commissioner has just published a report about online privacy.

Spark Community Survey on Personal Privacy Online

In the meantime, we wanted to hear from you. What are you comfortable revealing online? What do you feel is imperative to keep private? In other words, when do you start to get a little queasy?

So we tried  something new–a survey about online privacy. It’s not scientific, to be sure. Just a way to see where some of you are at. (By the way, thanks to all of you who took the time to fill it out. It was fascinating to watch the results pour in.)

This was the question:

Where are your boundaries when it comes to sharing personal data online? Check all those that apply.

These were the results:

Are you kidding? I would never share any personal info online. – 15%

I won’t post info like status updates and favourite movies on social networking sites. – 27%

I won’t post my birth date (including year). – 46%

I won’t share personal photos. – 35%

I won’t post moment-to-momentlocation information on sites like Foursquare and Facebook Places. – 79%

I won’t use a web site to do my banking. – 5%

What’s the big deal? I share everything online. – 13%

Other, please specify:

I share personal but non-identifying information, where I can avoid it.

I never email important numbers (credit card, passport, driver’s license, etc.)

I won’t post a status update that says when I’m out of town – may as well write “come on over and rob me!”

I guess we’ll consider this an exception…

I won’t post pictures of my children.

I’m transgender, I don’t try to “hide” that fact but on some online domains I try to avoid bringing it up

I have a blog, but I decide what information I post!

I post my birthday on FB, but I also monitor my privacy settings. I wouldn’t put anything up on FB that would ‘ruin my life’ if it went truly public. As for internet banking — I just make sure I’m on a secure internet connection (no free wifi!)

I’m quite open online but still try to be mindful about what I share.

I share mostly everything, but keep contact details discrete when possible. I lock down my FB profile and pics

I never posted pictures of my kids on networking sites (rethinking that, now that they have their own pages…)

financial, location information – I do not post them and give them only to sites I trust (mostly those I do business with.)

I tend to strip EXIF data from photos I plan to post online.

I only allow cookies to remain on my computer during the session and delete them every time I close my browser.

I do not share my physical location online. I rarely share any personal info. I use a pseudonym for social network sites.

I use pseudonyms for my personal social media platforms but use my real name for professional accounts

I won’t share everything with my real name. (teachers are always teachers)

i don’t talk about my feelings or my boyfriend, online

i think it sucks how many people post my photo on their sites without asking my permission. even if i pose for the picture, i don’t do it thinking this will be online for everyone and anyone to see (including my employer, my mother, my ex, my dog-walker, my kids’ teacher, the police officer down the road…)

I won’t publicize information that is commonly used to verify identify (mother’s maiden name, birth date). I won’t post my physical mailing address. I won’t post anything in a status update that I wouldn’t want to be completely public and seen by coworkers, friends, and family.

I avoid putting my home address and phone number on social networking sites.

I’m careful about what I post online. If it has my name on it, I imagine what a potential employer might think. Other than that, I don’t use my daughter’s real name.

I won’t put anything even remotely related to my family or physical whereabouts.

I won’t use, give my personal information to, or keep my personal information with a service that makes it harder than necessary to restrict it, distributes it too freely (commercially or otherwise), treats my privacy as if it were dead, or carelessly releases or loses my personal private information I trusted with them (Yes Facebook, that was largely, but not only, pointed at you. No matter how good the cause or great the contest I am not returning to you either)

I limit who can see my information in Facebook.

I do share some information, but I am quite discreet about what I share.

I made a big mistake a year ago sharing too much. S.B.

I wonder how identity theft takes place. I won’t use my credit card online.

That got me thinking about the ad campaigns of days gone by; you know, when a campaign would last for a long time, and the ad would be come a part of broader popular culture for years. I’m thinking of Coke’s iconic “I’d like to teach the world to sing” ads, for instance. What are your memories of iconic campaigns gone by? Do you think there’s any room for that kind of advertising in a narrowcasting, social media world? Perhaps it’s Old Spice Guy?

Please leave your comments below. Even better, call the Spark toll-free (in Canada) line, so we can get as many voices on the air as possible: 1-877-34SPARK

So this week, Nora will interview Seth Godin about his new publishing venture, The Domino Project, which has the lofty ambition of redefining “both what it means to be a publisher and what we think of as a book.” You can read more about The Domino Project here.

We’d love to include as many of your questions as possible in the discussion. If you have a question for Seth about the future of books and publishing, please leave it below in the comments below, or on our voicemail: 1-877-34-SPARK (1-877-347-7275 toll free in Canada).

We’re preparing a special episode of Spark on the economy of coupons and group-buying, and what it might mean to you the consumer and to small businesses. Just how useful are they for you and me? Just how disruptive might they be for pricing? As part of that, if you’ve signed up for any of these group-buying programs, I’d love to know if you’ve experienced ‘coupon fatigue’. Is it worth the barrage of emails for products and services that you may not be interested in, or has it been genuinely useful to you?

You can leave a comment below, or better yet, call our toll-free (in Canada) listener line and tell us your experiences. That way, we can try to get as much audio as we can on the show. The number is 1-877-34-SPARK (1-877-347-7275). Thanks!

The question is, if we have 3D printers at the corner store, or even in our homes, and those printers can extrude customized shoes, clothes, toys, or food, what does that mean for the future of manufacturing? What would a future of 3D printers look like? I’d love to include your thoughts on this week’s episode, so please leave a comment below, or better yet, call the Spark Hotline (toll free in Canada) 1-877-34-SPARK (1-877-347-7275). Thanks!

If you like, you can follow the RCMP on Twitter. Or “Like” the Calgary Police Service on Facebook. Individual police officers (like Toronto’s Constable Scott Mills) often have their own personal social media accounts as well.

On an upcoming episode of Spark, we’ll tackle the topic of how police should use social media — everything from posting online descriptions of people wanted in connection to crimes, to monitoring the buzz on Twitter. Nora will talk to Toronto’s Deputy Chief of Police Peter Sloly, and Lauri Stevens, organizer of the SMILE conference.

If you have observations or questions about how police should—or shouldn’t—use social media, we’d love to hear them. Leave your questions for Deputy Sloly or Lauri Stevens in the comments below, or send us an email: spark@cbc.ca.