Category: Blog

  • Ottawhat 82 – Monica Haberl

    Ottawhat 82 – Monica Haberl


    The podcast this week featured our friend, Monica Haberl. She chatted with us about gender equality, something near and dear to my heart, among many other things (that we chatted about).

  • Future Chat 81 – The Tickets Are Now Diamonds

    Future Chat 81 – The Tickets Are Now Diamonds


    On the show this week, after solving some of Mike’s electrical problems and getting him on the phone, we proceeded to talk about a new form of carbon, the increasing price and rarity of unlimited data plans, and how we might be able to get on student radio.

  • East Meets West 13 – No New Tim Hortons

    East Meets West 13 – No New Tim Hortons


    This week on East Meets West, Nick and I had another fun hour talking about new rules in the Senate, our recent string of underemployment, and the ridiculous political treatment of refugees by governments.

    I always have fun talking to Nick, and even though we’re both nowhere near our possible career potential at the moment, we both keep our heads held high and hopes are at peak values right now.

  • Ottawhat 81 – Natalie Poirier

    Ottawhat 81 – Natalie Poirier


    This week, we had Natalie Poirier on Ottawhat. She did a 6-week hike all alone across Ontario in support of angioma research, and she raised money under the name “The Brain Venture”. It was a really cool story hearing what she put herself through for the cause, and all the interesting things we don’t really think about going home to sleep in a warm bed every night.

    I really like these chats with people who’ve got way out of their way to do things that are really important to them, especially when those people have extremely positive results.

    We haven’t had many people go and check out our Brew Donkey contest in recent weeks, so if you head to ottawhatpodcast.com/brewdonkey, you’ll have a very good chance of winning a free brewery tour ticket (with a $90 value!).

  • A Big Day

    A Big Day

    It only makes sense that exactly three years (to the day) after doing my very first video on YouTube, I would cross the threshold of actually earning real money from Google. Let me tell you the story.

    For a little over a year, starting on July 4, 2011, I had been writing on my blog (which still exists to this day). December 1st, 2012, I made my first YouTube video, a Google+ Hangout live chat with my good friend, Carolyn Higman. You can go watch it, the quality of the video is relatively embarrassing, and a lot has changed since then.

    The first time I exposed my face to the world, three years ago to the day.

    As a point of comparison, here is the latest episode of Future Chat, recorded this past weekend:

    Over the years, a lot has changed. But one thing that hasn’t changed is that I still love teaching, helping, writing, and learning about technology. Here’s a brief timeline of my milestones on the internet.

    July 4, 2011 – I start Living In The Future, my blog, on my birthday. I published the first post the following day.

    December 1, 2012 – My first Google+ Hangout on Air.

    January 14, 2013 – I agree to begin work with Sons of Pluto, a band with my friends. Work includes recording their practices, shows, building their website, making promo videos, and running their social media accounts. Those guys are now working on an EP!

    February 7, 2014 – The first Future Tech Chat takes place. This is the spiritual successor to the first Hangout on Air from 2012, and the podcast continues on a weekly basis to this day under the more general “Future Chat“.

    March 27, 2014 – I make the first Attrell Update video. My sister and I go on to exchange videos on a weekly (or almost weekly) basis until December of 2014.

    May 20, 2014 – The first episode of Ottawhat is released, after Keegan, Amaan and I decide we should start an Ottawa-themed podcast about people.

    December 14-16, 2014East Meets West and Feedback debut, also marking the formal launch of UnwindMedia.com, a media network that is the home of my Internet-related work so far.

    November 5, 2015Ottawhat News, a satirical look at events around Ottawa, has it’s first viral post. In just a few days, over 65,000 people read about Peter Hayes and the Bier Markt.

    December 1, 2015 (Today) – In an inevitability of time, math, and fortune, Unwind Media finally passes the threshold for being paid real money for ads on the sites I run. It is now just a matter of time  now until a cheque from Google arrives. It’s not a lot of money, but it feels extremely good to hit that threshold.

    I really love making things, and being creative. I’ve been doing it for over 4 years and I’m more excited now than I ever have been. I’m looking really hard for a job right now, and the stuff I do on the side is the only thing keeping me sane at the moment, as it’s one creative outlet I have amidst filling out applications and writing cover letters.

  • Future Chat 80 – We’re Not Eating The Bugs Yet

    Future Chat 80 – We’re Not Eating The Bugs Yet


    Mike and I joined up again for another fun episode, despite that fact that Nick was once again unable to join us.

    I talked about the results of my one year plus experiment with personal hygiene. Tune in to hear what I did, and how things turned out.

  • Ottawhat 80 – Chris Bailey

    Ottawhat 80 – Chris Bailey


    This week on the podcast, we caught up with Chris Bailey. He was on the show before, talking about his Year of Productivity and how he was writing a book. Now, he’s done the book and talked with us about the process and how productivity has changed his life. Chris is always a fun guest!

  • Future Chat 79 – Shoving the Gene In

    Future Chat 79 – Shoving the Gene In


    Future Chat this week was a fun chat between Mike and I about genetically modified foods, the Tesla recall, and a recent experiment on self-control with kids and raisins.

    We also got into a good discussion of online forums in the aftershow. Given the recent changes to Google+, we questioned the validity of wild-west type forums where moderators can stake their claims to certain topics, to the exclusion of others, even in a democratic forum. The aftershow starts at 1:01:41, and though we start from a Google+ angle, the discussion is interesting even if you don’t give a crap about G+.

  • Ottawhat 79 – Mayor Jim Watson

    Ottawhat 79 – Mayor Jim Watson


    In a really great series of events in the last couple of months, we got to interview the mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, on Ottawhat this week. It was a really great time and I’m so glad we got the chance to do that. Hopefully it will lead to even bigger and better things for the podcast!

    Go enter this week’s Brew Donkey contest once you’ve listened to the show: ottawhatpodcast.com/brewdonkey.

  • Future Chat 78 – Overrun by Cod

    Future Chat 78 – Overrun by Cod


    This week on Future Chat, we discussed the food industry in some detail, some interesting data on how to change the mind of an anti-vaxxer, and more interesting energy projects going on around the world.

    Future Chat is a ton of fun and if you haven’t listened in a while (or ever), I would strongly encourage you to give it a chance. This weekly podcast is a real passion project of Mike, Nick and I, and we really have a lot of fun with it. It’s a niche show, but we obviously think it’s worth listening to. If you enjoy it, we’d really love to hear from you via Twitter @_FutureChatFM or by way of an iTunes review.