Living in the Future

Tag: Internet

  • SNC-Lavalin And Why It’s So Hard To Watch The News (For The Truth)

    I’ve noticed recently (maybe it’s just because I’m paying more attention to political news lately) this very annoying trend when it comes to news stories that get even a little bit of attention. This video by Vox is talking about the Green New Deal, but I feel like I feel the exact same way about the SNC-Lavalin incident, to name just one recent example.

    I’ve been feeling for the last year or three that whenever a big news story breaks where opinion could potentially break across political lines, all the news spends all of its airtime just talking about the political impact and outcomes of the story, and if the story still has traction in the days or weeks afterwards, you’ll hear endlessly about what other people are saying about it now.

    I really don’t like when this happens with the news, because it does nothing to inform the public about the actual issue at hand, it just applies a partisan lens to every news story.

    With the SNC-Lavalin ‘scandal’ news story, the Liberal government’s alleged pressure on the attorney general’s office to avoid prosecuting the company directly, we see a great example of this, in my opinion.

    How I have experienced news coverage of SNC-Lavalin

    When this story first came out, the narrative was that of a ‘scandal’ from the highest echelons of the federal Liberal government, with the office of the Prime Minister being accused of applying pressure to the attorney general in dealing with a bribery case with SNC-Lavalin and the Libyan government.

    From the time details started to come out, I was already looking to journalists and the news to understand what actually happened, to figure out if anything improper had taken place. However, what I found on the news, on Twitter, and from every pundit and opposition politician, is outrage that the Prime Minister would do something like this.

    Even the sparse details I put in the paragraph above were pieced together over a few days, and I still don’t feel like I really fully understand all that actually took place leading up to and after the events of the ‘scandal’. I am not of the opinion that absolutely nothing improper took place, or that an investigation should or shouldn’t happen (it probably should).

    I actually feel like I still don’t have enough details about the case to know whether I think deferred prosecution was the right call in the original case, much less whether anything unusual or improper took place afterwards. My main point in talking about all of this is that in spite of trying to stay up to date on the news surrounding this story, I feel woefully uninformed and end up hearing “Politician calls for Trudeau to resign” as the much bigger headline that “Here’s how deferred prosecution works, and the attorney general needs to remain independent”.

    I don’t know about you, but hearing that the head of the opposition thinks the current Prime Minister should step down (especially when it’s a conservative saying that about a liberal), is not a headline that should really exist (because he says it all the time). That’s a separate conversation altogether from considering what I would say is a more reasonable headline, which is “Should The PMO Get Involved In Federal Prosecution Cases?”, or something like that.

    What Can We Possibly Do About This?

    There’s no easy answer to this question. Staying informed is key, but it’s difficult to get partisanship on an issue out of your head once it wriggles its way in. The best thing I can think of to try is to be very careful when reading news to think about who is paying for it, how they are funded, whether the writer or editors might have a reason to be biased, and whether the objective facts are likely being described in the story.

    Using any social media to follow the news, whether you follow news organizations, or just friends and family, is very difficult, because many people are just there to push their preferred version of a story, or end up reinforcing biases and digging in even deeper on opinions and positions formed emotionally.

    Reading the news in general is easier than ever with the internet, but it’s also easier to write and publish anything you want, and otherwise legitimate news organizations can get caught up in this kind of bad journalism too from time to time. Nothing is black and white here, and pretending it is damages journalism and divides us in ways we don’t even consciously realize.

  • A list of the apps on my phone that can make calls

    Doesn’t require phone number:

    • FaceTime
    • Phone
    • Contacts
    • Facebook Messenger
    • Snapchat
    • Google Hangouts
    • Messages
    • Whatsapp
    Can/does use your phone number:
    • Phone
    • FaceTime
    • Messages
    • Chrome
    • Safari
    • Mail
    • Notes
    Announced, but hasn’t shown up yet:
    • Slack
    As it turns out, pretty much every remotely social company has a way that people can talk to one another in a phone call-type manner. Many of these apps also let you use video chat, but people have no idea. For instance, you’ve been able to make phone calls (and recently, video chats) with any of your Facebook contacts on your phone, for such a long time. But I can routinely blow people’s minds by telling them that, because approximately nobody* knows about this feature.
    Snapchat updated their app yesterday to revamp chat, and added the ability to send video clips or make voice calls to any of your Snapchat contacts who’ve added you back. But none of the features in the update are actually new capabilities your phone didn’t have before, and I’m betting people aren’t going to be making use of this feature any more than they did, no matter how good it is. 
    If I were a gambling man, I’d put money on Snapchat continuing to grow at a rapid pace for quite some time. But people who already have a predefined way of communicating, like my generation and those older than me, won’t use Snapchat for voice calls because to us, the way you make a phone call is by calling a phone number.
    But the kids, they don’t obey these rules. They do whatever their friends are doing, and their friends don’t make phone calls to a phone number. That’s not cool anymore, at least not until their parents stop doing it.

  • Ed Snowden can say whatever he wants

    “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, but he can say what he really thinks even better than the current American Republican front-runner (and he’s much more likely to be telling the truth).

    > Snowden: FBI’s claim that it requires Apple’s help to unlock iPhone is ‘bullshit’

  • 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

  • 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.

  • The Internet’s Gatekeepers can do better (January 18)

    The Internet’s Gatekeepers can do better (January 18)

    Another internet company took an unlimited plan and added asterisks to it. This time, it’s Karma Mobility.

    We made a mistake. We modeled Neverstop usage to be much higher than usage on Refuel. But we never anticipated that some customers would use over 1,000GB a month.

    They aren’t the first company to choose to throttle mobile data after a certain usage threshold, and they won’t be the last. But time and time again, these companies obviously overpromise, or there’s something horribly wrong with the whole cellular industry and the way mobile data works.

    In the company’s blog post, they note that some users were burning through 1000 GB of data, something they never envisioned happening on cellular hotspot. Certainly, that is a lot of data, and video presumably contributes most of that. I would imagine that if even a small percentage of your users are using 1000 GB of mobile data that you wouldn’t be able to make money overall unless you had a massive customer base.

    However, the infrastructure associated with cellular data is the hardest part. It doesn’t make any sense why the cap they would need to put in place would be so restrictive (they set it to 15 GB, before slowing speeds way down). If 1 TB is abusive on the system, then set reasonable limits. But if you’re selling a mobile hotspot company, and you’re pledging unlimited usage for customers, 15 GB is just not enough for a month.

    The Internet is composed mainly of video these days, traffic-wise. You need to expect that most users will want data, and cellular companies have been pushing 1080p and UHD screens into users hands for the last couple of years. This kind of computer is going to use more data than even the best iPhone could in 2008.

    When I was working outside my home last year, I consumed most of my media on the way to and from work, and sometimes while listening to music or podcasts at work. I used between 35 and 50 GB consistently for several months doing that, and I was not doing any kind of tethering or downloading of massive amounts of media. I used WiFi when I was at home, and I just went about my day normally. I wasn’t even trying to use massive amounts of data (although I was a proud nerd when I saw how much I’d used).

    If you offer or are planning to offer an unlimited plan, but want to set limits to prevent people from using a terabyte of data per month, that’s fine. But make sure your limits aren’t unreasonable, because people are using your product to connect to the internet.

    15 GB is incredibly low use for a mobile hotspot in a month. If you want to set reasonable limits, start off at 500 GB (half of what you considered “abusive”). If your network or business can’t handle that traffic, you’ve obviously made some miscalculations in offering “unlimited usage”. Even a limit like 100 GB would still solve customers problems while keep usage ‘reasonable’. We’ve seen internet companies make this same mistake again and again, but nobody seems to offer a useful solution outside of companies who keep people on restrictive grandfathered unlimited data plans (like the ones I’m on).

    I use a lot of data, I’m not doing anything nefarious, and I want to keep doing that. Nobody wants to get throttled, and slowing down the internet for your biggest customers is not a good experience for anybody.

    If you need a new generation of network to be able to cope with internet traffic like fiberoptic networks have been doing for a few years now, let’s work on that. But the solution to the internet’s biggest customers isn’t “use less”, it’s figuring out ways we can all coexist with more.

    The Internet is awesome, and everybody deserves to be able to access it at full speed on an unlimited plan.