Living in the Future

Tag: Technology

  • Is group chat making you sweat?

    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 might miss something important. So you read up or skip out at your own risk. All the while you’re trying to piece together interleaving conversations that may refer to other things you haven’t seen yet. And just when you’re caught up, you’re behind again. It’s like your working two jobs — the work you’re supposed to do, and the work of catching up on what you missed that probably didn’t matter (but you won’t know until you read back).

    I write a lot about communication. It’s something that is very important to me. There are a lot of good points about chatting in large groups of people (like in Slack). I totally agree with the points raised, but I think chat apps like Slack are doing well to actually cut down on noise in group chat, because not everything has to be sent to every person, but there’s still a lot of transparency in what messages are being sent where.

    Slack also offers 1 on 1 chat, and ad-hoc small groups for chat, so it’s the best of all worlds when you want to communicate with a team or group of people.

    > Is group chat making you sweat? — Signal v. Noise — Medium

  • 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.

  • Future Chat 85 – Like racism, but on the Internet (January 19)

    Future Chat 85 – Like racism, but on the Internet (January 19)


    This week on Future Chat, we had a really great time chatting about cable packages (I go on a bit of a rant), talk more about alternative energy in various places, and talk about kids learning code.

  • 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.

  • A healthy dose of skepticism (January 11)

    A healthy dose of skepticism (January 11)

    Today, I got to be a real journalist (or pundit, I guess, depending on your perspective). I got to read a report from a source, think about it critically, and comment on it. And I turned out to be right in the end.

    On Saturday, there was a report in the Telegraph saying Apple was being asked to make a tool to let iOS users export their data so that they could switch away from iOS. It seemed like a pretty dumb story (and has now been confirmed false), so I thought about it. You can read the full piece over on MobileSyrup.

    Apple wouldn’t make a product to let their customers switch to Android, even if the EU was pressuring them to do so for anti-trust reasons. And even if they were, it wouldn’t be in the manner described.

    While a set of tools to allow iOS users to easily move their data to other platforms has seemingly obvious benefit, the actual implementation of such services are not straightforward. It’s worth keeping in mind that if users have access to a laptop or desktop computer, it is already trivial to export contacts, or copy music and photos to a new device.

    Contacts, music and photos are not the data keeping users on a given platform. Not to say there aren’t reasons to stick with what you have:

    Perhaps the most overlooked part of this entire story is the fact that data like photos and contacts are not actually the biggest concern for locked-in users on either iOS or Android. Apps, especially those that cost users money, are the biggest reason many users will stay in the ecosystem they’ve invested in. If a service from either Apple or Google could import third-party application data or download and purchase history, then perhaps the reasoning behind this argument would be more compelling.

    It’s a fun game to play, thinking and talking and writing about Apple, and other tech companies. But you have to take what you read with a grain of salt, and not believe everything you read. I’m not great at it, but I’m learning, and this was a really great experience for me.

  • I Still Hate Facebook

    I Still Hate Facebook

    I have written a LOT ragging on the various things I hate about Facebook, and though some of my concerns have been addressed over the years, there is still a lot I just really don’t like about the social network. Today, I’m going to detail what has always been one of my biggest nuisances with the website, and try to articulate exactly why it’s so bad, and what they can do about it.

    Part of me knows that the biggest “problem” with Facebook, the one I’m going to describe below, isn’t actually a problem with Facebook. The problem lies with us, the idiotic users who are using it (or not using it) in ways its designers never expected. But as any good engineer knows, anticipating your users’ needs and interactions is arguably even more important than creating an internally consistent and compelling product.

    Pictured: Facebook Users

    To put it simply, Facebook exists to make money for itself. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it’s a business after all, but in that pursuit the company ends up making decisions that are openly hostile to new and experienced users. I think this hurts the platform and actually ends up meaning that people will use Facebook less.

    When you open Facebook, you’re presented with a timeline called the News Feed, a stack of cards that can show status updates, photos, videos, links to websites, blog posts, events, pages, or crucially, advertisements. When the social network was just getting started, the thing that became the News Feed was essentially a linear timeline of the things people were saying to one another. You couldn’t really “miss” an update because everything was in order and scrolling more, or clicking through to the next page, would simply show you the next item chronologically.

    Today, that timeline has been completely distorted by Facebook trying to make money for itself. In case you haven’t looked on the right side of the Facebook website lately, there are ads all over it. Facebook is fundamentally an advertising network now, because all semblance of time and chronology is lost when you are on the website today. Now, I’m not saying I mind ads on the side of my timeline, or even in between stories from my friends or sites I follow. I don’t even mind Facebook highlighting stories it thinks I might want to see from friends its algorithm considers close to me.

    The problem I have with how Facebook operates is that it plays fast and loose with the updates my friends, family and acquaintances actually want me to see. This is never more painfully obvious when I am talking to two people, and one of them tells the other about something they posted on Facebook. As is so often the case, I frequently haven’t seen the story in question, even though historically I have enjoyed roughly 95% of the stories that those two friends have shared with one another.

    This leads me to one of the problems with Facebook’s treatment of relationships between humans. Even if you go through the effort to catalogue your friendships, and put your friends into groups, becomes obsolete shortly after you finish the initial grouping. Our relationships are in a constant state of flux, and our connections are constantly changing and increasing in number. No human alive with a job and a life could possibly keep up with fine adjustments of their friends list in order to actually monitor what they see first on Facebook, and since many people can end up posting several things to the network every day, there are just too many stories to realistically see all of them.

    When you make a new friend and add them to Facebook, the site or app could easily prompt you to categorize them as a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, etc., and perhaps even ask you if you want to see all, most, or none of their updates. This would be a completely voluntary grouping procedure, but it would be really helpful to be able to keep your Facebook friends organized.

    One of the results of the network as it is today is a phenomenon called a ‘filter bubble’. This is when you spend so much time communicating with a subset of people that you tend to fall into a group where the views of the people in it all tend to be the same or very similar. As an example, if you’re friends with a bunch of Conservatives on Facebook, over time you will see more and more conservative viewpoints and posts. Eventually, you can start to develop a bubble around you, and more liberal viewpoints will stop showing up in your feed, even though those viewpoints still exist around you.

    Now, many people may actually WANT this, as most people don’t want their viewpoints challenged, but when this happens totally invisibly to the user, it would be easy to start to think that maybe other viewpoints just don’t exist, or are the extreme minority of the overall culture. Unfortunately, at the moment, it seems like Facebook’s algorithms tend to favour this kind of extremist and filtering, and most people aren’t aware this is happening.

    Using a linear timeline (something that is not available on Facebook’s main site by default) and exposing users to the built-in grouping tools would go a long way towards removing some of the friction people have when seeing ALL the things their Facebook friends post, as well as making it much more transparent to users that this kind of filtering and sorting of posts is happening. Facebook will continue to make money off its ads, and off Facebook Pages paying to show their posts in others’ feeds, but I think all parties will benefit if everyone is aware of what’s actually going on.

  • Taylorette1989 is Over, and What is a Podcast?

    Taylorette1989 is Over, and What is a Podcast?

    #Taylorette1989 is done. No, we weren’t able to get Julia into Taylor’s inner circle (although this did happen), but I think both Julia and myself learned a lot about life, love, and what’s important to us in the last 6 months or so of trying. I’ll be writing a bit in the near future about my experiences trying to capture the attention of probably the most widely recognizable entity in the world at the moment.

    Pictured: 6 months of hard work and dedication, and we get some pixels hosted on taylorswift.com!

    There are a couple of really interesting secret things I had been doing for Taylorette that I’m excited to share in the coming weeks, but for now, I’m looking to the future. I have some big plans once the summer is done and all the wedding and honeymoon craziness is behind us. I miss making videos every week, and it’s obvious to me that I haven’t done enough to let my friends in on what I’m working on these days, so I’ll be trying to do more of that too.

    Another fun project that I think it might help me to talk about is sharing some of the things on the internet that entertain me on a regular basis. Most people I talk to bounce around viral videos and things that pop into their Facebook feeds, whereas I tend to follow the work of individuals and groups of creative people on the Internet, keeping track of what they’re up to on a regular basis. I’m excited to talk about those people and what I’m able to learn from them, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    I’m still going through my week’s supply of Soylent. As expected, it isn’t something I think I can realistically have to replace ALL of my meals. That being said, I do like it (minus the artificial sweetener) and I have been able to not bring lunch to work for the last 2 weeks and get along just fine.

    In the meantime, Ottawhat? and Future Chat continue to soldier on with their usual episodes, you can subscribe to them and listen to the latest episodes down below. It has come to my attention that even people who are close to me are not aware that Future Chat is a podcast. First of all, it seems like those people probably just don’t actually know what a podcast is (really any episodic video or audio conversation or documentary could be considered a podcast). Second of all, if it’s been a while, I would encourage you to check out one of these two shows, we have a lot of fun making them and really try hard to put together something anybody can enjoy.

    Ottawhat? 59 – Jessica Dubois
    This week, we sat down with training librarian and new mom Jessica Dubois. She told us all about her experiences with part-time online learning, her…
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    Future Chat 65 – A Leap Second Issue
    This week on the show, we discuss all the latest goings on around Pluto, the ramifications of the leap second, and how you might not get Windows 10 for a…
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  • Things to look for when buying a laptop

    I’ve bought many computers, and I’ve helped friends shop for many more. They don’t always take my advice, but when I do, they’re generally happiest with the following things:

    Must Haves

    • 8GB+ of RAM
    • Newest or 2nd newest generation Intel processor
    • More than 1366×768 px display
    • Battery life rated for more than 4 hours (preferably much more)

    Important but I guess not critical for all people

    • 256-512 GB SSD (So worth the slight extra money)
    • 1080p or better display
    • Backlit keyboard (this is such a crucial feature more laptops should have these)
    • HDMI port is really convenient unless you’re all about the wireless
    • Get a light computer, weight is pretty important unless you plan to just plunk it on a desk
    • Touch screens are pretty affordable and they will be nice to have in the future

    Other Tips

    • Spend $100-200 more than you think you should (you’ll thank me in 4 years when you’ve spent $50 a year on a better computer)
    • Buy from a place that will accept returns, and preferably a place that will service the computer in their store (man the Apple Store is great for this)
    • Don’t be afraid to return a computer if you don’t like the way it feels
    • Start a backup plan for your important files today. If you computer falls in a lake, you should be sad/angry, but you don’t need to lose anything
    • Talk to your friendly neighbourhood tech guy. Odds are he’s bored of his computer and will have fun looking at what’s new and talking to you about it.
  • Startups and Summertime (June 18-23)

    Startups and Summertime (June 18-23)

    Not a whole lots to say this week, except that my order of Soylent has made it to Ottawa, and is waiting for me at the Canada Post office by my house for pickup. I am excited to give it a try, and hope to write and talk about it a whole bunch very soon!

    Here are the shows on +Unwind Media this week, we had a very popular episode of Ottawhat where we talked about startups, and Nick missed +Future Chat but we had fun anyways! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a show!

    Ottawhat? 57 – Franco Varriano (Startup Grind Ottawa/Hack to Start/etc.)
    This episode features our conversation with Franco Varriano. He helps organize and run networking events for young entrepreneurs all over the city. He’s w…
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    Future Chat 63 – Maybe I Like Selling Myself
    This week, storing electricity like plants do, we try DuckDuckGo, and no more trans fats. And, find out how Mike trying FlexDelivery has gone so far, and…
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