Living in the Future

Tag: Media

  • 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.

  • The “Your Child” Test (Society is Changing, Part 2)

    The “Your Child” Test (Society is Changing, Part 2)

    This is the second section of a multi-part piece I’ve been thinking a lot about, which I’m calling ‘Society is Changing’. You can read part 1 here, which will provide some context for this section.

    There has been a ton of energy, brainpower, blood, sweat and tears that has gone into political movements throughout history. As has happened many times in the past, several places in the world seem to have come up against particularly challenging political climates of late. Ideological conflicts like Brexit and the 2016 American election, in addition to armed physical conflicts like the battles raging in several parts of the Middle East, point to the notion that civilization might just be approaching an ideological inflection point.

    At times like these, it can be disheartening to see and hear that about half of your country or region seems to hold such rigidly opposed views to yours. In part one of this story, I discussed how ‘society’ as city folk like me see it is changing, in ways that rural Christian communities 50 years ago would see as unacceptable and sinful. It’s absolutely vital to understanding modern politics that those rural communities still exist today, and many of those same beliefs are still firmly held.

    Those voters have watched Democrats (for the last eight years in the US) shred some of what they consider to be sacred tenets of their belief system. It’s only natural that those voters would be scared about what might happen, especially as their elected officials have been spouting nonsense about racial minorities ‘taking over’ and the government ‘coming for your guns’.

    There’s a lot more to say about the ways society is changing to become more divided, but for the rest of this piece I want to focus on a principle I’ve been thinking a lot about this year. I’ve been calling it the ‘Your Child’ test, and it works a little something like this:

    Before you judge somebody, consider how you would feel about them if they were your child.

    Give them the absolute benefit of the doubt before criticizing or attacking them. Ask questions to make sure you understand their point of view. If your child wants to do something you disagree with, have an open mind and talk about it. The same should be true for any other human, because we’re all just people.

    We all have to share the space on this earth, and we have for the most part agreed on a set of basic human rights (life, fresh water, access to food, to name a few). Taking those as a given, if you’re not hurting anybody, I think most other ideas should be up for discussion.

    Imagine if your child told you they wanted to convert to Islam.

    Imagine if your child told you they were gay.

    Imagine if your child told you they didn’t feel comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth.

    Imagine your child’s skin looked different than yours. Would that really make you love them less?

    Humans make a lot of mistakes. We are inherently flawed. This doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be loved and treated with respect like anybody else. In this divisive time, I’d encourage you to think about how you’d react to your child in a given situation. I’ll bet if we all did this, trading in judgment for compassion, we’d all be a lot happier together.

  • Weaving Social Fabric (Society is Changing, Part 1)
    Photo by: Christopher Bulle (Flickr)

    Weaving Social Fabric (Society is Changing, Part 1)

    In a world where tensions are high, stability is a luxury, and critical aspects of decent society seem to be crumbling before our eyes, it’s easy to rush to angry judgment. The people of the world are becoming more polarized than ever, and this trend shows no sign of slowing.

    Humans are flawed. We are good at spotting patterns (even when none exist), and adapting to change when necessary, but we mostly suck at everything else. One big example of this is large numbers. Humans are astonishingly bad at thinking about numbers larger than a few hundred.

    Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, suggested in the 90s a correlation between primate brain size and the number of social linkages maintained by an average member of the species, now called Dunbar’s Number. In humans, that number of relationships comes out to around 150. Robin relates this number to the typical maximum size of a social circle most people can maintain.

    In addition, this figure of 150 is only for groups under survival pressure, and would require substantial ‘social grooming’ to maintain. That being said, the principles that give rise to Dunbar’s Number likely extend even further than this.

    At least in North America, over 80 percent of the population lives in urban environments. This kind of lifestyle lends itself to a larger range of connections than rural living can, and our social connections bear that out. While a typical city block varies broadly in size and density, consider a block downtown littered with apartment buildings. At any point, one of these blocks could house hundreds of people, all living within minutes of each other on foot. There is no way that any individual person could have time to know and maintain relationships with even a fraction of their neighbours in this kind of living situation.

    Now, take the opposite situation. There are small towns in North America that are populated by members of one or two extended families, where even dating prospects are limited to the one other family, or your own relatively close cousins. In these instances, where your average day might only include interactions with the same 100 or so individuals, it would be easier to keep in touch and follow the lives of almost everyone you see on a regular basis.

    There was a time not too long ago when most people lived in this second situation, and a new person coming to town would be a cause of great interest, because people’s social ‘dance card’ was actually relatively empty. Of course, if somebody new moved to your urban city today (which almost certainly did happen), if you even knew about it, it would not be news, or even interesting to anyone.

    Social relationships are complicated these days, at least in part because our social biology hasn’t yet caught up to the realities of modern life. The horrific act of violence, natural disaster, or political scandal du jour is broadcast all over the internet, through traditional news media outlets, and is the topic of conversation at water coolers and street corners across the country.

    This visibility of news has a way of polarizing those who read it, especially when so much of the media isn’t reporting on news and events so much as running them through a filter. This is a problem in left-leaning media as much as it is in right-leaning media, and since the market for objective, rational media coverage is effectively non-existent, the whole thing is entirely self-sustaining. Pew has done some great research on polarization, and how huge the divide between political ideologies is these days.

    Taking a step back, consider the following: no news isn’t good news anymore. Look no further for evidence of this than in scientific research. Scientists are faced with tightening budgets, increasing accountability for funding, and losing credibility without publishing their work. However, an increasing number of journals are choosing not to publish negative results or confirmation studies.

    This means that research which fits a hypothesis is published, while subsequent studies following up on that research aren’t done, and further research that doesn’t turn up more or better evidence is shelved or thrown out. Anybody with an ounce of sense and a few minutes to think about it can see that this leads to a system that pumps out misleading or error-prone research, and suppresses the error correction that makes the scientific method so appealing.

    The same thing is true in the news media. A sensational story with little fact or evidence will make its way around the world several times before any thought is given to its validity. Later, the story is clarified, parts are retracted or modified, and the much less interesting truth never really filters through major news channels like the original ‘story’.

    Put another way, if there is an interesting angle to a potential news story, nothing else matters. Whether the resulting press coverage of an issue is true or false, whether people’s lives or careers are ruined, none of this matters because everyone is looking for the next scoop already. And when it’s uncovered that a story isn’t as interesting as originally advertised, i.e. there’s no news, there’s no money in correcting that error.

    All of this brings us to an interesting point about the human race as it exists today. At any moment, I could, in theory, get into direct written (or possibly visual) contact with almost anybody on the planet. I would estimate that for at least 9 out of every 10 people, that conversation could begin within seconds. We’ve all become intertwined with social fabric that something happening to a few people on the other side of the world can be the most interesting and relevant thing we hear about on a given day.

    Our ‘family’, in the small-town sense of the word, has grown so quickly that many of us, especially in younger generations, now consider celebrities and people in popular culture worthy of being included in the <150 people we hold in our tightest social circles. That leads directly to the rise of vlogging and podcasting as mediums of growing popularity, because these forms of media draw in their fans so they feel they’re included in the narrative.

    At the moment, I’m not saying whether this revolution of sorts is good or bad for society. I think in general, time will tell and everything will mostly just work itself out. However, since we currently have access to the largest potential number of personal social connections than at any other time in history, we naturally tend to filter our social groups down more and more into the people we have the most in common with.

    The ‘filter bubble’ is a well-known phenomenon caused by algorithms giving you only the news or opinion you want to hear, but there’s a real world version of that as well. Before the Internet, if you met somebody who had a different opinion from you, social norms meant you talked and learned each others’ points of view, and perhaps even changed your mind on something. Increasingly, as social groups become more reliant on communication at a distance, these encounters with different opinions are becoming more rare, and in many instances can be avoided completely.

    As a result, groups of people spending time together tend to all like and think a lot of the same things, and anybody who doesn’t share these views or ways of thinking may increasingly start to be seen as more different, and may perhaps even be scary.

    As for what this means, well…it’s not good.

    Part 2…

    Editor’s Note: When I started this piece almost two months ago, I actually wanted to make a totally different set of points, but when I started writing, here’s what came out. While I think this piece stands on its own just fine, I am already planning a follow-up wherein I address how the changes described above have made us all less empathetic, and what could be done to address that.

  • 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.

  • My ‘New Media’ Obsession (January 24)

    My ‘New Media’ Obsession (January 24)

    These are just a few of the shows I used to watch.

    News broadcasts, TV shows, movies, podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, editorials, thinkpieces, press releases. There are so many different kinds of media, and there’s more than any one person could ever consume of any one of them.

    There are also sciences, sports, arts, technologies, crafts, cooking, celebrities, entertainment, and so much more to pay attention to. If you tried to absorb all the information out there about the tiniest niche subject, there would still be too much to consume to fill a lifetime.

    Most people have a few interests or hobbies that they spend time going fairly deep on. And those priorities are always changing and adjusting as lives change or circumstances evolve.

    For example, there was a time in my life where I watched 25 TV shows every week, in addition to re-watching some shows when I felt like it. Now, I have a hard enough time keeping up with just a few shows. Both It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Mythbusters, have started new seasons, but i’m at now 2-3 episodes behind on each since I missed their debuts.

    Recently, I have moved much of the entertainment I get to fully digital platforms. I listen to a ton of podcasts, and watch a whole lot of YouTube videos. Both of these media have a single spot where I can go (either a website or an app) and see what’s new since I was last there, or what I haven’t watched or listened to yet.

    Compare that to the experience of trying to watch a TV show, where even if I wanted to watch later, I would have to go figure out which TV network aired a show, open the app where the show is, find the TV show, and see if there was a new episode. That model works for Saturday Night Live, because I know it’s on Saturday night, but other than that, I have no idea when shows air.

    So I’m left with digital media consumption, and there’s more than enough of it to fill my free time. I would LOVE to watch Mythbusters, and It’s Always Sunny is something I will almost certainly watch eventually. But their distribution just doesn’t hold a candle to new media like YouTube or podcasts, where you can keep a running list of the things you like and get notified immediately when a new one comes out, and click a link to watch it.

    ps. keep in mind that I currently have a cable subscription, and all the powers that come along with that, and yet I *still* find it impossible to try to keep up with television.

  • 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, 2014 – East 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, 2015 – Ottawhat 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.

  • What’s my weight again?

    What’s my weight again?

    Future Chat is on hiatus this week, while Mike schmoozes with Disney characters in Orlando, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to announce this week!

    I’ve decided to take my health changes even more seriously, and give you real-time (daily) access to how my health changes are impacting my weight. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it might go terribly, but here we go…

    Click through the image (or here) to get straight to the live version!

    I’ve created a special page so if you’re interested in my weight loss progress, you can follow along. Feel free to leave best wishes, or heckle me if I eat way too much on a given weekend. Go check it out!

    It’s a big week for me and my friends, Ottawhat is launching a brand new initiative! We’re calling it Ottawhat News, and it involves us taking a look at the lighter side of news in and around Ottawa. I really hope you like it, and you can learn more here. You can also check out the first story, by our own Keegan On, below:

    Deer Shot in Greenbelt, Refuses to Cooperate with Police

    Also, don’t miss the new episode of Ottawhat:

    Ottawhat? 70 – Jessica Heuther (Ottawa Geek Market)
    This week on the show, we spoke to Jessica Heuther from Ottawa Geek Market. She told us all about the event, going on during October 3rd and 4th at the Nepean Sportsplex. Jessica also works with Carnival Diablo, Canada’s only* carnival sideshow…
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    iTunes 
  • Milestones! Gains! Losses!

    Milestones! Gains! Losses!

    That’s a lot of views (I’m just one man)!

    It’s been far too long since I last wrote something on here, and given that a whole heck of a lot has happened in the last month! First up, around the time of the writing of this post, my blog is going to pass another base 10 milestone, racking up a total of 50000 views! This isn’t a big milestone, but I still consider myself as just getting started, so I’m pretty pleased with it.

    As well, in a follow up to my piece about weight loss/overall health, I’m pleased to announce that although my wedding and three-week vacation caused me to gain back a significant amount of the weight I had lost, as of today I will get back to a new all-time** low weight (**least I’ve weighed in over 2 years). I have been working really hard, and I wouldn’t have been able to get to where I am now without my bike, my Soylent, and the willpower to not go nuts eating snack foods. I’ve also effectively eliminated traditional meals from my diet, relying on snacking and smaller portions throughout the day, which has also been nice for me.

    During your wedding/honeymoon, you may experience mysterious weight gain paired with a complete loss of data.

    Finally, I went almost a month without recording a single podcast, but I’ve been back at work on them now (Ottawhat did have an episode every week while I was on my honeymoon though, so you’ll have to go and catch up on those). Last week on Ottawhat, we interviewed my beautiful new wife, Julia, and Mike and I have been getting into some great conversations on Future Chat. On Ottawhat this week, we talked to the owner and manager (2 people) of a local 1-screen cinema, the Mayfair. It was a really great conversation and you should go and check out their podcast too! Links to the episodes can be found below:

    Ottawhat? 68 – Mayfair Theatre (Josh Stafford & Mel Boyer)
    This week on the show, we met with Josh and Mel from the Mayfair Theatre. These diehard movie buffs told us all about the origins of the theatre, why they…
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    iTunes 
    Future Chat 69 – Malicious Friends of Friends
    On this week’s show, we agree non-Celiac gluten sensitivity probably isn’t a real thing, electric, self-driving cars will be all over our roads soon, and…
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    iTunes
  • East Meets West Returns Triumphantly, And Other Such Things

    East Meets West Returns Triumphantly, And Other Such Things

    On UnwindMedia.com this week, I finally managed to convince Nick to sit down with me for another East Meets West! Thank goodness beer exists to help make that happen! We also had great episodes of Future Chat and Ottawhat? as you’d expect, and those were no slouches either. I should note that in Future Chat, we spontaneously decided to do a moment of silence, which worked surprisingly well until Nick burst out laughing 5 seconds after.

    I spent a lot of time on this blog talking about Soylent, the food product that is literally just a powder you mix with water. I really like it except for the sweetener taste, but I won’t discuss that in any more detail now, you can find out exactly what I think so far here.

    East Meets West 8 – Wild Tundra and Poutine
    Today on East Meets West, Nick and Rob discuss the NHL draft, polling for the fall’s federal election, the mass exodus of cabinet ministers and what that…
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    Ottawhat? 58 – Jacques Breau (End Grain Woodworks)
    In this episode, we chatted with Jacques Breau. Jacques is a woodworker and a vinyl collector, and you can find him all over Ottawa this summer on his tru…
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    Future Chat 64 – Moment Of Silence For Falcon 9
    This week, the latest Falcon 9 launch is unsuccessful, Rob talks all about his week on Soylent, and we revisit mobile phone corner. We also try a moment o…
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