ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

  • My WordCamp US Focus Mode

    My WordCamp US Focus Mode

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    iOS Focus Modes are a game-changer! A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how I used them to totally change my relationship to my phone.

    This summer, I’ve taken things up a notch—tweaking my Travel Focus and even creating a Québec Focus for our recent family trip.

    If you’re curious about the ins and outs of Focus Modes, check out that earlier post. In this one, I’m diving straight into how I’ve set up my WordCamp US Focus Mode.

    A screenshot of an iPhone screen showing a dark background with a clock, a profile picture, a QR code, and various icons.

    Lock Screen

    The background. I’ve combined a couple of ideas I’ve seen bandied about for a quick and easy digital introduction.

    • My current profile pic.
      During a recent Laracon, I noticed some attendees posting about how it can sometimes be hard to recognize people IRL and so it can be helpful to instead show a profile pic. I relate to this as well.
    • A QR code.
      It links to ohryan.ca/hi, which contains a brief intro and all my social links. I bumped into someone at WCUS who did this and thought it was absolutely brilliant (sorry, I can’t remember who).
    • Bonus.
      The real lack of pizzazz quickly demonstrates that I am truly a developer and you probably shouldn’t trust my thoughts on design.

    Widgets.

    • Batteries.
      I feel like I’m constantly running low on charge if I’m away from my desk for more than a few hours.
    • Current temp.
      In Celsius.
    • Rain forecast.
      Will it be raining when I go outside?

    Shortcuts.

    • QR Scanner.
      So I can scan your lock screen. Or menus, posters, and whatnot.
    • Shazam.
      I always like to know what’s playing.
    A screenshot of an iPhone home screen showing app icons and widgets.

    Home Screen

    Widgets

    • (Not Boring) Weather. This is my favourite weather app right now, I really like its style.
    • Calendar. With only WCUS ’24 calendar selected. I’m going to populate it with the sessions and after parties I intend on attending.
    • Notes/Folder. Set to a WCUS ’24 folder, empty for now.
    • Slack/Catch up. Set to the Making WordPress slack. I really find this to be a super efficient way to catch up on what’s happening in a given slack.

    Apps

    The Settings

    I haven’t bothered setting any notification preferences. I generally don’t find them too distracting during conferences. Additionally, I wouldn’t want miss a ping from a fellow attendee. And also, with the 2 hour time difference, I’ll be a little out of sync with my normal contacts and so I don’t expect many interruptions during sessions.

    However, I did create a automation to trigger around the convention center! This way, the focus mode will automatically be enabled when I arrive.

    See you soon!

  • Forget Europe. Montréal est Magnifique!

    Forget Europe. Montréal est Magnifique!

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    aka “Oh look, Ryan went to another city and rode a bike. How original!”

    Bicycle people often cite European cities when advocating for more equatable transportation options in our North American cities – Amsterdam as the obvious world leader in cycling infrastructure, maybe Copenhagen, Paris for how quickly they’ve transformed their city or Oulu when it comes to winter cycling.

    I submit we should be looking towards Montréal!

    Detractors and opponents of cycling infrastructure are quick to assume and assert that there is something about the Europeaness of these cities that makes them uniquely receptive to cycling and pedestrian infrastructure investments: cars never took hold, warmer climates, different governments, taxation, etc, etc.

    While it’s true that Montréal is often seen as a little slice of Europe in North America, it is also very much Canada. It has cars, and drive-thru Tim Hortons. It has massive highways. It even has freeway tunnels not seen much elsewhere in Canada. It has 4 – 6 months of winters. Its government, taxation and road funding considerations are (likely) similar to the rest of Canada as well.

    Yet somehow it’s transformed itself into a cycling (and walking) paradise.

    See.

    The image shows a quiet, urban street corner with low-rise buildings, trees, and greenery. A cyclist is walking their bike across the intersection, while another person follows. The buildings feature a mix of architectural styles, including brick and stone facades. The street is lined with parked cars, and there are a few pedestrians walking on the sidewalks. The intersection has crosswalks, and the atmosphere appears calm and residential, with a mix of greenery and urban elements.
    Rue Marquette @ Marie-Anne St E

    While waiting for Odessa to finish up les garçon, we chilled on a bench on this corner. This particular scene gave me Wolseley vibes, maybe it was the red brick and the copious trees.

    I hope the curb bump-outs they’re constructing on Wolseley Avenue this summer have space for plants at the corner. It really ties the street together. If not, I guess we can always build some.

    If it’s not totally visible, what’s going on here infrastructure-wise: the streets are one-way, with one lane for cars, one lane for bikes and one lane for car storage.

    A bustling street in Montreal, Quebec. There are several buildings on either side of the street, including a red brick building with a stone facade. Pedestrians are crossing the street at a crosswalk, and there are parked cars along the curb.
    Rue Waverly @ Rue Bernard O

    Here’s another super friendly corner. This time in Mile End. Once again here we have streets with limited car traffic. The bike “lane” here is a sharrow but I think it probably works OK because these streets are quieter.

    Note also the sidewalk patio extending into what would otherwise be car storage. FWIW I actually think that Winnipeg is doing an OK job on the sidewalk patio front but I’d definitely like to see more!

    So Many Bikes!

    The image shows a city intersection with a group of cyclists waiting at a red light on a dedicated bike lane. The intersection has various traffic lights, including one specifically for cyclists. There are trees and greenery in the background, and the sky is clear with a few clouds. A pedestrian is also waiting at the crosswalk, while a dark-colored car is partially visible in the foreground, about to make a turn. A sign in French reads "Rue Barrée," indicating a street closure ahead, with another sign allowing exceptions for local traffic.
    Av. Papineau @ Rue Rachel

    Bike lanes are often criticized for always being empty, with the implication being that nobody uses them. Setting aside that this criticism is never applied to car lanes, a reasonable person would understand that this is often because the lane is operating efficiently.

    I count approximately 15 cyclists in this photo and they all cleared out — leaving the lane empty — as soon as their light turned green. I’m almost certain I encounter this many cyclists most days I ride towards downtown, it’s just that we don’t have as many scenes like this where a mass is bumped up waiting for a light. Though it is starting to happen around West Broadway.

    Close the streets.

    Av. Mont-Royal near Av. Christophe-Colomb
    Av Mont-Royal E near Rue Berri

    Block and blocks of Avenue Mont-Royal, Avenue Duluth and a few other streets are closed all summer. It’s incredible! And get this, it’s a tourist feature!

    Winnipeg’s Osborne Street feels the closest (albeit much shorter) to Mont-Royal or Duluth (maybe also Sherbrooke or Corydon). The fact that we no longer even close Osborne to traffic for Canada Day longweekend is a huge step in the wrong direction.

    I can’t help but think that an experiment to close Osborne to cars all summer would be hugely successful!

    BTW in Montréal the major street intersections remained open and it was really NBD. So — unlike what used to happen during the Canada Day closures — IMHO it would be fine to keep the intersections at River and Stradbrook open during this closure.

    In Conclusion.

    I don’t know what the heck Montréal did to make this happen. I don’t think it was this good the last time I visited 10 years ago.

    Let’s figure it out and make it happen here.

    PS. Every intersection in Quebec City seemed to be a pedestrian scramble and yet it continues to function as a city.

  • Why would you want to drive behind a slow cyclist?

    Why would you want to drive behind a slow cyclist?

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    Whenever I’m engaged in a conversation and the other party is saying something that doesn’t resonate with me, something I don’t get or something that just seems strange, I make an honest effort to put myself in the other person’s shoes. I do research, thought experiments, bounce scenarios off friends, hypothesize with LLMs, etc.

    I genuinely try to understand the “in universe” reason for a given belief or idea. I honestly and strongly believe that most people are intelligent and most people don’t just believe random nonsense. There’s always some sort of internal logic behind a given belief.

    The question I’ve been trying to answer this week is “why would you want to drive behind a slow cyclist?”

    In the universe of an anti-cyclist, the purpose of city roads is to move private vehicles from point A to point B in as little time as possible. Street lights should be synchronized. Pedestrians should cross streets underground. If a road is congested, we should add another lane to (temporarily) shave 22 seconds off the commute from the the suburbs, even if it costs $1,000,000,000.

    How does crawling behind a cyclist going 20 kph accomplish this goal?

    The anti-cycling universe if filled with some strange math and misconceptions about funding of roads and public infrastructure. These errors often lead to an argument that cycling infrastructure is too expensive; or perhaps too under utilized to justify the expense.

    Or, to put it another way, “I will suffer the inconvenience of crawling behind a cyclist because fixing it costs too much,” just like, “I resign myself to being stuck in traffic congestion because we can’t afford to pay for one more lane that will fix it.” There are only so many one billion dollar bills to go around.

    The big ticket road expansion projects are admittedly rare and the city is constantly spending smaller amounts of money to rebuild sections of road.

    So if the anti-cyclists want to travel in private cars as quickly and efficiently as possible, they should want to spend those precious tax dollars on the most impactful change towards the goal of getting cars from point A to B quickly? They want bike infrastructure!

    I am completely unable to find an in-universe, internally consistent reason to oppose bike infrastructure.

    Why would you want to injure someone?

    The universe of anti-cyclists is populated individuals who believe that cyclists are taking their lives in their own hands, that road deaths and injuries are an unavoidable force of nature. “It may be sad, but shit happens.”

    The same could be said about pedestrians who walk down Portage Avenue to get to their bus stop.

    Oh, wait! Nobody says that because it’s not a thing that happens. Sidewalks exist!

    Humans are small, fragile and slow. As soon as heavy vehicles started to share space with people on foot, we invented the sidewalk. We figured this out over 4,000 years ago!

    When an something has existed so long, it seems obvious. There isn’t a vocal anti-walking lobby on X complaining about wasting money on sidewalks are “always empty.” Or casting doubt on the need for sidewalks because “nobody walks in the winter.”

    You wouldn’t expect your loved one to have to walk in traffic to get around town, why would you expect them to be less safe if they chose to get there by bike?

    As a driver, I never ever want to hurt (let alone kill) anyone. I want the road I’m driving on to be as safe for everyone as possible. Driving near a cyclist in traffic is not only slow, it’s incredibly stressful as I try to avoid navigate around them.

    Reasonable people — by definition — aren’t interested in killing each other, if you don’t want to hurt someone, you want bike lanes.

    Bike lanes are for everyone

    As a cycling community, I think we can do a better job of explaining this. It’s natural to be pissed off at the driver that nearly hit you, or to want to r/fuckcars when you see constant reports of cyclists dying in collisions with giant vehicles.

    I’m not saying don’t fuck cars, there’s plenty of reasons to fuck cars.

    But the enemy is infrastructure that puts drivers in conflict with cyclists. Negligent infrastructure that’s designed to prioritize cars at the expensive of pedestrians and cyclists.

    When a cyclist its hit by a car, it’s not an accident. It’s infrastructure that makes this an inevitable outcome.

    That drivers who’s fuming mad that you’re slowing him down on his way home? He’s actually on the same side. If you were in a bike lane, he’d have to find something else to be mad about.

    “You catch more flies with honey…” or however the saying goes.