Living in the Future

Author: Rob Attrell

  • Post a proper linked Instagram photo to Twitter, like a Gentleman

    Post a proper linked Instagram photo to Twitter, like a Gentleman

    When you used to post Instagram photos to Twitter, it would automatically expand the photo in Twitter, to show your beautiful shot in all its glory. However, when Twitter launched its own photo sharing natively, it started blocking the auto-expanding of photos from Instagram, so pictures looked ugly as heck when shared from Instagram to Twitter. Here’s what I mean:

    Sharing images the regular way (like I did above) leaves this text-based tweet, leaving users to guess what the picture is of, because neither Instagram nor Twitter wants to cede ground on letting users of both platforms see pictures from the others’ social network.

    However, I’ve come up with a fix, and it involves a great service called IFTTT. If you’re not using it already, do yourself a favour and go sign up. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is go to this link, and you’ll be able to post directly from Instagram to Twitter, with a full resolution version of the photo, while still maintaining a link back to Instagram in case people want to go check out your other photos. That looks like this:

    As you can see, that’s way better, but you still get the link back to Instagram.

    PS. If you’re using this recipe from IFTTT, you shouldn’t select the native Twitter sharing when posting in Instagram, or you’ll end up with a double post, one with the image, and one without. And nobody wants that.

    Post a proper linked Instagram photo to Twitter, like a gentleman. by robattrell – IFTTT

  • Why Basic Income is so Important

    Canada’s prior experiment with a BIG [(Basic Income Guarantee)], the Mincome experiment in Manitoba in the 1970s, found that a BIG did not cause people to stop working — with two important exceptions. The first was women with infants at home, who effectively used the BIG to purchase maternity leave. We should expect a different response from women in modern-day Canada, where maternity leave benefits are much more extensive. But where child care and other supports for working parents are insufficient, we may see responses to a BIG that will show us those cracks in the system.

    The other group whose employment levels decreased under Mincome was teenage boys. A closer look reveals that with a basic income guarantee, male high school students were more likely to make the decision to stay in school until graduation. Given the Ontario government’s aim of increasing graduation rates and the need for a highly educated population, it will be important to understand how people’s labour market decisions interact with other important decisions, like the decision to improve their skills and buy a better long-term future for themselves and their families.

    > We Should Applaud Ontario’s Plans To Pilot A Basic Income Guarantee | Laura Anderson

  • Communication is Broken

    Communication is Broken

    Communication is unbelievably important for a properly functioning society. And after ranting a little on Twitter this morning, now seems like as good a time as any to break down the best communication tools, why they’re good, and what they’re good for.

    Today’s communication is broken, we can’t talk effectively with the people we’re closest to, and the very services that aim to bring us closer together are keeping us further apart than they need to. We can do better!

    Let’s keep it really simple to start: 1-on-1 communication. It’s really hard to get this wrong, because it’s fundamentally the easiest thing to do. Effectively, communication between two people can be public, or private. There’s a continuum of more vs. less private, but almost every platform has options for private individual communication. Believe it or not, some people ONLY use these kinds of communication. Here are a few examples (they’re all really old school):

    • Phone Call (voice; tied to a phone number)
    • Email (text, with attachments; tied to an email address)
    • SMS (text, maybe photos; tied to a phone number)

    Like I mentioned, some platforms advertise themselves as much more than private 1 on 1 communication, but they do still have that aspect available. These aren’t as limited, but can function in such a narrow way:

    • Snapchat (ephemeral photos/video and text; tied to an account on one phone at a time)
    • Skype (text, media attachments and video/audio calls; tied to an account with possibility of phone number)
    • iMessage (Text, photo/video, audio message; tied to an Apple ID, but can add phone numbers or email addresses)

    Now, the services covered so far have mostly been private (Snapchat now has *public* Stories), but there are also communication methods that let you communicate with one person, but in public.

    • Facebook Wall Post (text, photos/video; tied to Facebook accounts)
    • Twitter Mention (text, photos/video; tied to Twitter accounts)
    • Google Hangout on Air (audio/video; tied to Google accounts)

    These companies all have their respective private messaging platforms as well (Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Messages, and Google Hangouts), which are useful for both individual and group messaging, but they all have their limits, and are easy to use inefficiently.

    Now, instead of getting to the best services that offer the most diverse communication right away, let’s go through an exercise first.

    I’m going to attempt to make a list of all of the communication platforms I make use of in the average week. This is a combination of mobile/desktop, 1-way or 2-way communication, personal/business…this is as exhaustive as I can be on the matter (in no particular order, I’m just going through my phone and computer):

    Google Calendar
    Phone
    FaceTime
    Google Drive
    Nuzzel
    Flipboard
    SoundCloud
    Periscope
    Podcasts
    Reddit
    Google+
    Facebook
    Trello
    IFTTT
    Google Photos
    Facebook Messenger
    Snapchat
    Twitter
    Google Keep
    LinkedIn
    Hangouts
    Email
    Kijiji
    Blogging
    Television
    YouTube
    Slack
    Instagram
    SMS
    iMessage
    Peach
    RSS
    Blogs
    News Sites
    Customer Service Live Chat
    Talking in Person

    I’m sure, even given this exhausting list, that I’ve missed a couple of really obvious communication methods. That being said, they all have various reasons why I use them. I use some more than others, and for a variety of reasons some get used very little (sorry, Peach).

    Having said all of that, The best communication methods I have at my disposal are easy to understand, but have diverse uses. I’m sure I could get by with any of these methods of communication on their own, but it would be difficult. Each has its limitations, and strengths.

    In a perfect world, we would all agree to have accounts for all of these services, and all use whichever one we feel like at a given time. However, for me, the following is (in my mind), a perfect set of tools to satisfy all communications needs. Order in this list is VERY important, and changes/improvements to any of these services could change the order.

    1. Slack
    If I have you on my Slack team, and I know you actually have the app on your phone/computer or visit the website from time to time, this is by far the way I’m going to contact you. The way Slack integrates with the rest of the items on this list makes its prime spot a no-brainer.

    2. Twitter
    I love Twitter (and would only be able to love it more if they got rid of the 140 character limit, though there are plenty of reasons why that’s challenging). Twitter integrates well with Slack, and lets me follow cool people to keep up with the world better than any service I know how to. It’s also a semi-public conversation, and so you can kind of see what everybody is up to.


    3. Hangouts
    Having Hangouts on this list is a no-brainer, simply because of the video chat capability. Hangouts also integrates well with Slack, although I don’t use that feature much, but Slack’s link control is so good that it’s plenty for my needs.

    4. Email
    You always need a fall-back. Sometimes, you’re talking with a stranger, or a distant acquaintance. Sometimes, you just want to be notified of something that pertains to just you. In many cases, email is a good way for people you don’t have on Slack or Hangouts to get in touch with you privately (although Twitter is really fine for that too).

    I’ve extolled the virtues of Slack before, and maybe it’s a failing on my part that so few of the people I’m closest to really get its appeal (since the people I do use it with really seem to get a lot out of it, and I use it extensively even just for my own personal non-communication needs).

    I love Facebook Messenger, but really only because many people have Facebook accounts. If the people I talk to most on Messenger were on my Slack team and actually used the service, I wouldn’t use Messenger nearly as much. And having said that, though Messenger has taken great strides to make messaging fun, fast, and beautiful, it’s INCREDIBLY difficult to keep track of multiple threads, and for groups of close friends who talk about lots of different things, it’s a nightmare. Seriously, use a Slack team for your group of close friends.

    I’m going to keep advocating for Slack and Twitter, because they have been essential to my modern life and I love communicating with them so much. I’m interested to see how communication changes as the online world creeps more and more into our every interaction, and what the next generation of communication services look like.

  • My 2016 (As of January 29)

    My 2016 (As of January 29)

    When I set out to make more in 2016, I did so with the goal of finding work and fulfilling my creative pursuits. It’s only been 29 days so far this year, but I have already learned a ton from this experiment.

    I’ve been taking more pictures, making all kinds of podcasts, and writing every single day. I said I would do this project every day for a year, or for as long as I need to. I put that loophole in there specifically because I knew how much work that would be, and if I started working anywhere near full time again, it’s unlikely I would have the energy to keep up a daily pace (of posting stuff, not of making stuff).

    So far this year, I have done a few really great things:

    1. I hit my weight goal from the middle of last year (that’s 210 lbs, down 40) at the end of this week.
    2. I started writing every day, taking more pictures of cool things I see, and with friends.
    3. I’ve found some work that should be starting quite soon.

    Given all of that, and the fact that my creative endeavours aren’t going to stop right now, I am going to stop posting something here every day.

    I’m planning on continuing to take more pictures (probably posted on Instagram), writing as much as I can (including on this blog), and dedicating my efforts to working more on being creative. It’s been a great year so far, and it’s only going to get better!

  • Ottawhat 89 – Mike Holuj (January 28)

    Ottawhat 89 – Mike Holuj (January 28)


    This week on the podcast, we met our new Ottawhat News writer, Mike Holuj. He’s a pretty cool, and seemingly very busy, dude.

  • 6 Months of Weight Loss (January 27)

    6 Months of Weight Loss (January 27)

    This week, unless something goes horribly wrong, I will formally hit the goal weight that I set back at the end of June. This doesn’t technically count as ‘making something’, but it definitely took a lot of work.

    Anyhow, writing about it and posting about it and talking about it all the time has been incredibly helpful. I don’t know if 210 lbs is where I’ll end up, but when I was 250 lbs just 6 months ago, it certainly seemed impossible.

    At this exact moment, I weigh 210.63 lbs, which is satisfying all on its own. When I started (although BMI is a horribly outdated measurement tool, I was about 15 pounds into ‘obese’ (about a 32 in BMI, 30 being obese). At the moment, I’m at exactly 27 (25 or less being considered ‘normal weight’). If you know anything about BMI, you’ll know it’s horribly outdated, but I have been using an online tool that attempts to make the calculation a little bit more useful for the modern world. By that metric, I’m almost exactly at the high end of healthy weight, and I’m happy already, because I feel so much better than I did.

    I don’t know what the next 6 months will hold, when I can ride my bike again, but I’m looking forward to seeing what happens now that food doesn’t have such a strong hold on me.

  • Damien bowls a strike! (January 26)

    Damien bowls a strike! (January 26)

    I missed a day. Well, I didn’t miss it, but I certainly didn’t post anything here about what I did. I don’t really feel bad about that, because I’ve been making so many things this year that I don’t feel the need (or sometimes, make the time) to write about all of my projects here.

    Anyhow, on Monday, I went bowling with some of my friends. I really like taking a set of photos with my phone, because Google Photos (on iOS and Android) not only backs up photos, but lets you create amazing GIFs like the one above, from up to 50 photos.

    If you don’t use Google Photos, you totally should, you can get unlimited photo and video backup, shared albums, and so much more. It’s amazing. And when I’m older, Damien bowling this perfect strike will be preserved in all its glory.

  • Future Chat 86 – We’re Taking on Vox (January 25)

    Future Chat 86 – We’re Taking on Vox (January 25)


    This week on Future Chat, I talked a lot about the latest stuff going on in and around space (there’s a lot), and Mike and Nick brought me up to speed about mobile news and CRISPR respectively.

  • My ‘New Media’ Obsession (January 24)

    My ‘New Media’ Obsession (January 24)

    These are just a few of the shows I used to watch.

    News broadcasts, TV shows, movies, podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, editorials, thinkpieces, press releases. There are so many different kinds of media, and there’s more than any one person could ever consume of any one of them.

    There are also sciences, sports, arts, technologies, crafts, cooking, celebrities, entertainment, and so much more to pay attention to. If you tried to absorb all the information out there about the tiniest niche subject, there would still be too much to consume to fill a lifetime.

    Most people have a few interests or hobbies that they spend time going fairly deep on. And those priorities are always changing and adjusting as lives change or circumstances evolve.

    For example, there was a time in my life where I watched 25 TV shows every week, in addition to re-watching some shows when I felt like it. Now, I have a hard enough time keeping up with just a few shows. Both It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Mythbusters, have started new seasons, but i’m at now 2-3 episodes behind on each since I missed their debuts.

    Recently, I have moved much of the entertainment I get to fully digital platforms. I listen to a ton of podcasts, and watch a whole lot of YouTube videos. Both of these media have a single spot where I can go (either a website or an app) and see what’s new since I was last there, or what I haven’t watched or listened to yet.

    Compare that to the experience of trying to watch a TV show, where even if I wanted to watch later, I would have to go figure out which TV network aired a show, open the app where the show is, find the TV show, and see if there was a new episode. That model works for Saturday Night Live, because I know it’s on Saturday night, but other than that, I have no idea when shows air.

    So I’m left with digital media consumption, and there’s more than enough of it to fill my free time. I would LOVE to watch Mythbusters, and It’s Always Sunny is something I will almost certainly watch eventually. But their distribution just doesn’t hold a candle to new media like YouTube or podcasts, where you can keep a running list of the things you like and get notified immediately when a new one comes out, and click a link to watch it.

    ps. keep in mind that I currently have a cable subscription, and all the powers that come along with that, and yet I *still* find it impossible to try to keep up with television.

  • I freaking love sunsets (January 23)

    I freaking love sunsets (January 23)

    I’ve mentioned before that I like sunsets. When I have a day where I’m not really making anything, sometimes I just have to look up and see the beautiful colours a setting sun can give me. If you don’t like sky pictures, I’m sorry, because I do. These pictures were about 7 minutes apart, as the sun gets lower, the colours usually get better and better.

    A photo posted by Rob Attrell (@robattrell) on Jan 23, 2016 at 2:02pm PST

    A photo posted by Rob Attrell (@robattrell) on Jan 23, 2016 at 2:16pm PST