Living in the Future

Year: 2016

  • How Much Should Free Tuition Cost?

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    Rob Attrell

    I don’t think many people – other than say, the Canadian Federation of Students and their wilder-eyed allies – genuinely believe that tuition for children of wealthier families should be free. Most people agree that there should be some sort of net price slope, running from zero for students from poorer families and upwards as…

  • Looking into Ottawa’s past

    Looking into Ottawa’s past

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    Rob Attrell

    I’m not exactly sure how I came across this (I think I was seeing how streets lined up and wondering how Ottawa’s streets might have changed), but this morning I discovered a really neat repository of old aerial maps of Ottawa, going back all the way to the 1920s. It’s cool to see how cities…

  • Ed Snowden can say whatever he wants

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    Rob Attrell

    “The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone,” Snowden said. “Respectfully, that’s bullshit.” It must be really nice to be in a position where you can say something like this with confidence, having not a care in the world about repercussions. Not saying Snowden is in an enviable position overall,…

  • The Problem with Homelessness is Poverty

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    Rob Attrell

    I attended college pay-as-you-go for a couple years while working, then left because I couldn’t afford to continue and knew better than to take on student debt. My moderate savings was destroyed in my 30s by health care costs that insurance wouldn’t cover. Within the past several years, full-time work that pays a subsistence wage…

  • Handoff for iTunes | iMore

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    Rob Attrell

    I’d love to be able to start a playlist on my Mac and then walk away, pick up my iPhone, swipe, and keep right on listening. So true. I (and Rene) have been saying this for a few years at least. This is the dream, and it’s sooooo close with Handoff, just not for iTunes.…

  • Is group chat making you sweat?

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    Rob Attrell

    10. Chat reminds you that you’re behind. Group chat feels like you’re chasing something all day long. What’s worse, group chat often causes “return anxiety” — a feeling of dread when you’re away for a while and you come back to dozens (hundreds?) of unread lines. Are you supposed to read each one? If you don’t, you…

  • A Diminishing Willingness to Do or Try New Things

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    Rob Attrell

    The technological inertia of adulthood, signified by a diminishing willingness to do or try new things. I have been trying, without a great deal of success, to get my friends interested in using Slack to communicate with one another. Slack is a great service with mobile apps, desktop apps, and a really slick web interface…

  • I’m probably not allergic to peanuts because I love them so much

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    Rob Attrell

    The early introduction of peanut to the diets of infants at high-risk of developing peanut allergy significantly reduces the risk of peanut allergy until 6 years of age, even if they stop eating peanut around the age of five, according to a new study led by King’s College London. Let’s all talk about something we’ve…

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

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

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    Rob Attrell

    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…

  • Why Basic Income is so Important

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    Rob Attrell

    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…