Living in the Future

Author: Rob Attrell

  • Abduction As Romance is Just Weird

    I’ve posted about this channel before, as they make a lot of great videos shedding light on some weird, regressive tropes in media, and this one is no exception. Portraying kidnapping situations as ones where two people are equals, and are therefore might lead to romance, has always struck me as a little weird.

    There are lots of things you can do in movies or TV where characters can partner up in creative ways, and many don’t require a character to threaten or hold somebody against their will. Enabling female characters to be more than just victims or valuable objects isn’t difficult, but it typically requires a more diverse writing team. With more voices at the table, these kinds of problematic storylines can usually be avoided, and audiences will usually be more interested and invested in what happens if the stories they see make more sense than a victim immediately developing feeling for their captors.

  • Stuck in the Past: Projection Woes

    Next week, I will be heading to Montreal, where I’ll be giving three different presentations to three different audiences in three different rooms. I’ll be bringing my laptop, my iPad, and my phone with me, any of which has the built-in capability to show a PowerPoint presentation. I’ve given these kinds of presentations before, and I’m not particularly nervous about the content of the talks.

    However, there is something about this weekend that is causing me serious bouts of anxiety, and that’s showing the actual presentation. Like I said, I’ll be bringing 3 different computers to the conference, which connect to other display devices via Lightning adapter (iPhone and iPad) or mini DisplayPort (my MacBook Air) to DVI or VGA or even HDMI, or via screen sharing if there was an Apple TV/Chromecast(?) involved.

    However, what I *don’t* know is what display technology will be available on the other end, connected to the projector. I am aware that many universities are starting to make sure projectors have connection options for Mac, which means one or more of these options may just be ready and waiting for me. But since I want to actually know at least one of these options WILL be available, does that mean I need to go and buy at least one adapter for VGA/DVI/HDMI just in case any of those is all the projector works with? Should I just buy an Apple TV for the weekend, hook it up, and share my screen to it (again, hoping the projector has an HDMI hookup). The Apple TV method means I’ll also need access to a stable Wi-Fi connection to run the screen share, which isn’t always the case.

    I’m very risk averse, but I also like to be prepared for any possibility when it comes to this kind of thing, but it feels like there should be a better way when it comes to giving presentations in an unfamiliar environment. Conferences are a VERY common thing, and it just seems like there’s no good way to do things consistently with so many moving parts.

    Side note: don’t even get me started on using a secondary device as a remote to control the presentation. This technology has existed for a decade, but the only software integration that currently exists for PowerPoint is that a presentation on the iPhone can be controlled via the Apple Watch. It just feels like these kinds of things should be further along than they are.

  • The Sounds of Sports (At Home)

    I’ve always liked sports, and in the last few years when I’ve spent quite a bit of time as an audio engineer, I’ve been noticing more and more just how much goes in to making things on TV and in movies sound good.

    However, nothing could have prepared me for just how much audio equipment and microphones are embedded in and active during sporting events. This video gives great insight in to just how much work is done live during sporting events to make them sound great. It’s been getting clearer and clearer to me that you often get much more out of watching a sport on TV than you can from attending one live, and this stuff is a big part of why.

  • Foreign policy is a literal minefield

    Growing up, learning about geography and studying the world and the countries in it, we fail to really capture just how transient some parts of the world can really be.

    I definitely had no idea just how in flux this area of the Middle East has been, since our maps don’t really update often enough to capture the new areas popping up, and even if they did, Google Maps isn’t going to send a push notification saying ‘New Territory Settled – Click to view’. It’s terrible and fascinating, all at the same time, considering the reasons for this particular set of borders.

  • Another Positive OC Transpo Experience

    Another Positive OC Transpo Experience

    Three years ago, I shared a story that was similar to this, and I like to point out when somebody clearly really cares about their job and makes my day better because of it. I know, not all bus drivers are amazing, but I think it’s worth recognizing when you have a really positive experience.

    This morning shortly after 7 AM, my bus (the #12 towards Bank/Slater) was rumbling down Montreal Road towards Den Haag, and I was stuck on the wrong side of the street, willing the light to change faster so I could catch my bus. It has been a snowy morning, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait another ten minutes getting colder if I missed this bus due to bad timing.

    I’ve been hearing the announcements on the bus recently about how you shouldn’t run across the street in traffic against a light to catch your bus (obviously, because that’s super dangerous), and so I resisted that urge and stood helplessly stranded, hoping the light would change faster.

    Fortunately, I managed to make eye contact with the bus driver, who I recognize as I arrive on time for this bus about 25-50% of the time. The crosswalk had already started counting down, and when the bus pulled up to the stop, the count was at about 10 seconds. At this point, I was fully prepared to wait for the next bus, and I would not have faulted the driver if he had just continued on his route. However, he let the last few seconds of the light run down, waiting for me as I hurried across the street.

    As I got on the bus, he thanked me for not running across the street against traffic, and I thanked him for letting me cross the street and get on his bus. It made a difference of a few seconds to the other passengers (if they even noticed anything out of the ordinary), but it absolutely made my morning! Bus drivers can get a bad reputation sometimes, but they are people who have good days and bad just like everybody else, and I think it’s worthwhile to point out and share stories about the good ones.

    I’ll be submitting this story as part of a report to OC Transpo giving positive feedback about my driver this morning, and I hope this gets back to him. It’s very uplifting having somebody recognize that you did something nice for them, and we could all use a little uplifting these days.

  • New Crash Course – Media Literacy

    This series is going to be really interesting to me, and I think since most of us never really learned this stuff in school, it’s good to finally open minds to it. And if you did learn it in school, it’s probably worth a refresher, since the media landscape is changing SO fast!

  • Seeds of Thought – Basic Income

    Seeds of Thought – Basic Income

    This past weekend, I sat down to put some of my thoughts about basic income in to words, and to share my proposal for a basic income plan that might work in a country like Canada.

    I made a video (embedded below) that discusses my idea in some detail, as well as going through some of the reasons I think it’s a good idea. The spreadsheet shown in the video can be found at this link* (cleaned up for ease of use compared to the one in the video): Basic Income Tax Plan.

    *The only cell you can adjust in the sheet is the green one at the top to adjust the basic income tax rate.

    I’d love to hear some thoughts or counter-arguments to the idea, or the concept of these brainstorming sessions in general. I really found it a useful way to crystallize what I was thinking on the topic, even though it may not make for the most exciting listening.

  • WTF Society

    WTF Society

    Ignoring important issues for too long can lead to very self-reflective videos. I apologize, but at the same time…I think it’s necessary.

    Here’s an article about the ‘distracted walking’ bill I discuss: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/transportation/2017/10/27/toronto-mpp-wants-to-ban-people-from-crossing-the-street-while-using-their-cellphones.html

  • The Pizza Diet

    The Pizza Diet

    To be clear, before we begin, weight is just a number. For me, this is about how you feel. This may be less likely to work for you if you feel like you HAVE to lose weight, it’s much easier to keep doing something if it doesn’t require effort. I went from 250 pounds down to my current 195 while eating pretty much all the pizza I wanted, but the only time it ever felt like ‘work’ was when I had to convince myself my hunger was an illusion (which is usually is when we’re surrounded by readily available food).

    Sorry for what sounds like a click bait headline, but this is an important lesson. What you eat, overall, is important for your health. Eating broccoli, salad, and less-processed food on a regular basis is really good for you. But if you’re concerned about your health or weight and want to change either, it doesn’t mean you have to stop eating the food you’re more likely to crave (like pizza).

    I first started focusing on my overall health back in the summer of 2015. I had slowly put on about 40-50 pounds in the 2-3 years previous, and was considered obese (I weighed ~250 pounds all the way from summer 2014 to 2015, despite playing soccer that summer). No matter how active I was, my weight never went below 245.

    It turns out, as I learned in the fall of 2015, the only thing that matters is being aware of how much you eat, and being able to control it (at least, for most people… medical conditions notwithstanding). Through a portion controlled diet, wherein I limited my intake of things like fries, pop, and other typical ‘unhealthy’ foods, I was able to hit 215 pounds by December of 2015, and by the summer of 2016 I was 190, lower than I’d been since middle school.

    Keep in mind, while I did ‘limit’ my portions, and stop eating certain foods, I didn’t limit myself in any other way. I ate burgers, pizza, and snacked pretty much the whole time. But at a restaurant, I would get a soup or salad instead of fries, and if I indulged one day or for a weekend, I doubled down on my efforts the next few days after.

    By doing this, I didn’t lose weight every day, but I did drop 2-3 pounds a week while I was biking, and continued to lose 1-2 pounds a week once it got too cold for that. I had a strategy that worked for me, and I felt better, looked healthier, and needed to buy a whole lot of new clothes.

    Now, in 2017, I’m still biking to work every day I possibly can, and I’m ranging from 192-197 pounds depending on the day of the week (I’m not as strict on weekends). I have been weighing myself every day since July of 2015 (except on vacation), and I’ve still never felt better. I know exactly how much I should eat in a day to maintain my weight, and if I’m enjoying a good meal or snack, I let myself enjoy it!

    So, this brings us all the way back to the title of this post. It really isn’t clickbait. I eat pizza around 6 times a week, and it isn’t the reason I weigh more on some days than others. I probably shouldn’t eat pizza as much as I am for my general health, but in terms of keeping my weight where I want, the type of food I eat has almost no bearing on that.

    It’s all about being aware of how much you’re eating, and reasonable portions once you figure out how easy it is to overeat. For me, even more than calories in/calories out, it’s much more s matter of grams in/grams out. And it’s been working for over 2 years now.

    I’ll have more on how I got to this point in future posts.

  • Oh yeah, empathy.

    Why do I care so much that millions of people in another country, only a handful of whom I’ve ever met before, might lose their health care very soon?