I recorded this video on February 6th, 2014. Seems almost prescient, and I still think it’s a good idea. Maybe something Apple was already planning to announce? Only next week will tell!
Category: Blog
Rob’s Listening Party – Week 1
Sometimes, you find yourself wanting to recommend cool things to friends and acquaintances. At times like these, I like to blog about them. My music and podcast recommendations of the week are:
John Mayer: Born and Raised – Music on Google PlayI listened to this album again at work this week and it just reminded what an awesome guitarist/soloist this guy is!The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart | Comedy Central
This podcast is only 2 episodes in, so now is the perfect time to start listening! Also, great remixes of the Daily Show theme song every week!!function(a){var b=”embedly-platform”,c=”script”;if(!a.getElementById(b)){var d=a.createElement(c);d.id=b,d.src=(“https:”===document.location.protocol?”https”:”http”)+”://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js”;var e=document.getElementsByTagName(c)[0];e.parentNode.insertBefore(d,e)}}(document);
Future Sci Chat #7 – Public Funding of Science
This week on +Future Chat, we tackled the super-important topic of public funding for science. We had a lot of interesting stuff to say about this, which will affect scientists across North America, possibly for years to come.
Future Sci Chat #7: Public Funding for Science!function(a){var b=”embedly-platform”,c=”script”;if(!a.getElementById(b)){var d=a.createElement(c);d.id=b,d.src=(“https:”===document.location.protocol?”https”:”http”)+”://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js”;var e=document.getElementsByTagName(c)[0];e.parentNode.insertBefore(d,e)}}(document);
Ottawhat #15: Damien Broomes
Check out this week’s episode of the Ottawhat? podcast. New every Thursday!
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Attrell Update – This is not about ALS
Here’s my +Attrell Update for the week. I talk about my nomination for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and why it’s not the only cause we should all do more about. That doesn’t mean I don’t get cold and wet though, so don’t miss it!
If you want to keep up with these videos, click on the “i” in the top right of the video and subscribe!
On Tuesday, Steph gave us all a taste of her road trip to Montana! Yes, the video was a little late, but I guess we’ll forgive her!
Self-Improvement
I’m going to talk to you today about self-improvement. As somebody who makes a lot of stuff and then puts it on the Internet, it is very easy for me to look through my “back catalogue” and see that the thing I did two months ago is just TERRIBLE. I can’t even bother comparing my 8-week old project to the one I just finished, because they are on completely different levels. Take, for instance, a recent episode of Future Tech Chat:
Now, compare that live video to one from April:I “accidentally” listened to the older one last night, and it is absolutely painful for me to compare the first minute of the two shows. Now, don’t even bother comparing the two title cards, as I have recently redesigned them to look consistent and clean, but not in a boring way. I’m just talking about my tone, my purposefulness, and my preparedness in starting the two episodes. I was actually probably a little more excited to talk about wearable devices than I was about bicycles, but it’s no contest if you ask me which is the better introduction to a show.Honestly, what comparing my present self to past versions of me has shown time and again is that if I keep putting effort into improving myself, eventually the bicycles episode will seem just as terrible as the wearables episode does now. I can only improve by continuing to try. The guys over at +AsapSCIENCE, (a GREAT YouTube channel in case you were wondering) made a little video about their first upload this week, and they felt exactly the same way I do.
So, where does that leave me? Basically, I will keep working every single day to get better and to feel more comfortable doing the work I do.I know I’m kind of burying the lede on this one, but frankly I’m a little nervous about asking people to help me out and to continue to improve. I’ve created a profile on a creative support (aka crowdfunding) platform called Patreon, with absolutely no expectations as to where it will go or how much it will help me. I will continue in earnest with all the projects I’ve already been working on (I’m so lucky that basically everything I do on the Google platform is effectively free), but having some funds available will enable the technology I work with to improve, and I’ve tried to include some perks that will encourage you to help me out. The Patreon funding model is either on a per-project, or per-month basis, but I’m told that you can make a donation for a month and then simply cancel your subscription and support me in a small, lump sum kind of way. Honestly, any positives the use of this platform gets me are more than I’m expecting. You can find me on Patreon at the link below, and thank you to all of you who are already supporting me by sharing my work and chatting about important or mundane things with me on a regular basis, it means more than I can possibly tell you. I would also welcome other methods of support, financial or otherwise, if you’re skeptical about crowdfunding but would still like to help. I just really want to keep making stuff.
Rob’s Listening Club – Week 0
Sometimes, you find yourself wanting to recommend cool things to friends and acquaintances. At times like these, I like to blog about them. My music and podcast recommendations of the week are:
Ed Sheeran: x (Deluxe Edition) – Music on Google PlayEpisode 98: Underwear (with Thomas Middleditch)
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Photo: Britt Selvitelle (Flickr)10 Things You Should Try Right Now (In 50 Words or Less)
1. Listen to a podcastEverybody has quiet times during the day when you might listen to music. Do yourself a favour and have a look through the catalogues at podbean.com. There are so many great podcasts to enjoy, and they don’t have to take you away from driving, cooking, or your favourite online activities.
2. Drink a glass of water
Honestly, no beverage holds a candle to simple, clean water. In addition to keeping your joints and blood vessels properly hydrated, drinking water regularly reduces feelings of hunger, goes a long way towards preventing kidney stones, and even though it doesn’t have sugar or caffeine, it tastes amazing!
3. Get and use Twitter
Listen, I know you’ve heard Twitter‘s elevator pitch. But what I’m trying to tell you now is that even if you think you won’t use it, you should make an account and at least see what it’s like. You can follow celebrities, sports icons, news outlets, friends, acquaintances, there is never any shortage of reasons to try it.
4. Go for a walk
Seriously, walks are the easiest physical activity you can do, and they’ve been scientifically proven to increase creativity, reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, and give you the chance to get some much needed Vitamin D. You’ll thank me.
5. Share something
Humans are very community oriented by nature, something that we tend to forget when we are online a lot of the time. Take some time during your day to share something you’ve enjoyed online. It’s also been shown that giving somebody something makes you feel better than getting something you want from them, or for yourself.
6. Allow people to follow you on Facebook
I don’t think I’ve ever written about something as much as I’ve written about allowing people to follow your public updates on Facebook. Going to this link and letting “Everybody” follow you won’t make anything you do on Facebook more public, it just gives you more social clout. And that’s all anybody wants…
7. Have sex
You seriously want me to explain this one? Sex has been shown to boost your immune system, floods your body with painkilling endorphins, and has been Earth’s most popular leisure activity for billions of years. Go have sex right now and then come back and tell me it wasn’t awesome…I rest my case.
8. Talk to somebody
I spend a lot of my day working at a computer alone, speaking to nobody. Humans are social creatures who were not made to do that, so go and strike up a conversation with that friendly looking fellow/lady you see every day, you probably have something in common and didn’t even realize it.
9. Cry it out
There is very little that can make me feel better when I’m down than having a good cry. Aside from the fact that it’s not seen as the manliest of activities, it’s a great way to let out a lot of stress we all build up in our increasingly complicated lives. You did your best, now go have a cry.
10. Dance
I don’t care if you dance like nobody is watching, or if you are very conservative and shy about it. Dancing is great exercise and it’s so easy to find good music these days, it’s usually only a click or button press away. The best thing you can do on any given day is sing and/or dance!
Future Tech Chat #21: Bicycles
Check out this week’s episode of Future Chat, where we talked about bicycles. Live every Saturday at 12:30 EDT!
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Things I Don’t Like About Facebook
In no particular order…1. When you posted a link to a video in previous iterations of Facebook, it would give you a big beautiful image of the thumbnail for the video, along with the title and a little text. NOW, when you post a video, you get a small, square thumbnail that crops out the sides of the image, and the post is mostly text.
This change was made to promote Facebook’s own video service, which isn’t even a video service, but now only videos uploaded directly to Facebook will get a nice, good-looking video player that will play on the site (automatically, by default). Facebook is not a video site, you don’t need to make it one!
2. When you post something as a Facebook page, only about 10% of people who follow your page will actually see it via that post. You have the option to spend money to “promote” that post, but otherwise the vast majority of people who have subscribed to see updates from your page will not see anything you post.
This is actually true of regular people posting things as well. Facebook now curates your news feed so much (because people have so many Facebook friends this is the only way to do it and stay sane), but the result is that because people don’t want to feel guilty about un-friending, we all have such massive friends lists that it’s impossible for you to see all of those updates without being driven insane.
*I haven’t tried this myself, but it seems to me that creating a Facebook group for your brand or product is the way to go, when people join a group, they get notified about every post by default, which I think is the behaviour most people would expect when following a thing on Facebook.
3. Facebook has a system in place where people can basically turn their accounts into Twitter accounts, allowing friends of friends, or strangers, to follow their public updates. Since 99+% of people don’t know about this excellent feature, I’m unable to follow really interesting people I don’t necessarily want to be “friends” with. If this feature were better advertised, Facebook would be a much better social network.
Go to https://www.facebook.com/about/follow to see what I’m talking about.
