ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

  • TIL William Gibson wrote an episode of The X-Files

    TIL William Gibson wrote an episode of The X-Files

    in

    I’ve been re-watching The X-Files on Netflix. 1997’s season 5 has an abnormally high number of good monster of the week episodes.

    Today I watched Episode 11, “Kill Switch,” a story in which rouge AI has sexy-time with Mulder. I was pleasantly surprised (then not surprised at all in hindsight) to find out that the episode was written by William Gibson (and Tom Maddox). Directed by Rob Bowman, director of some of my favourite Star Trek: TNG episodes (like the on where Wesley Crusher falls in love with a girl who turns into a giant monster, literally).

    Anyways, check it out if you have the Netflix.

    PS. This is what email on TV looked like in 1997. Not sure exactly why they felt the need to make it look worse than reality.

  • Tim Hortons printing news tweets on sleeves in the UAE

    Tim Hortons printing news tweets on sleeves in the UAE

    in

    OK. This is cool.

    Gulf News (the #1 English language newspaper in the region) is partnering with Tim Hortons to print breaking news on coffee cup sleeves. The campaign is the brainchild of Y&R Dubai, who claim they’ve increased website traffic by 25% and subscribers 1.5% [case study. video].

    I have to admit, this is a pretty clever campaign all around. It’s a good use-case for QR codes and the custom built tweet printer’s pretty cute!

    via my wife > foodbeast > psfk

  • Joe Black Coffee – Laptop Friendliness Rating

    Joe Black Coffee – Laptop Friendliness Rating

    in

    Website: joeblack.ca
    Address: 2037 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg
    Hours: M-T: 8a – 10:30p; F-S: 8a – 11p, Sun: 8a – 9p

    Joe Black is located on Portage Avenue, across for the foot path to Assiniboine Park, I imagine this keeps them extremely busy on warm evenings and weekends. To my knowledge, the storefront has been a cafe for over a decade. Joe Black itself only opened a few years ago. The food, decor and atmosphere similar to Daily Grind. They offer a large variety of food, including ice cream (or something ice cream like) and hot meals. In my introduction to this series, I promised to note any exceptions to food or coffee quality. Joe Black is one of these exceptions. The coffee definitely sub-par.

    In short, Joe Black is not a great place to work. A lot of the tables seem to be wobbly (typing on a wobbly table gets old fast). I was only able to find 2 electrical plugs, one buried behind a couch in the back and one under a service counter (the thing holding the milk, sugar, etc) at the front of the store – I didn’t really feel right using that one. Most of the tables near the front of the restaurant are essentially next to a giant patio door, making them too hot to sit at for extended periods of time. I honestly don’t remember the wifi situation, I was too busy burning up in the sun – I assume that it was totally open and fast enough…

    Rating

    • Busyness: Fine.
    • Seating: Poor.
    • Noise/Ambiance: Fine. Though, I’d expect most evenings to be far too busy to work.
    • Power: Poor.
    • WiFi: Fine.

    Overall Rating: Poor.

    Mathematically, 3 “fines”, 2 “poors” should equal a “fine.” But I really didn’t like this place as an office.

    That said, as a place for an icy beverage after a day at the park I’m sure it’s excellent.