Happy weekend to you! Whoever you, where and whenever you are, and for whatever reason you’re checking this out in any way, shape, form or context…. we appreciate you!
As per the video, I’ve had some reasons lately to rethink my whole position on technology as a practical, functional entity within my day-to-day life, versus the higher-level conceptual stuff as per an ed tech doctorate and the Ed Non-tech Podcast for three years, and so on!
At this point, as a forty-seven year old basic middle-class Canadian dude… I could well have another full half of my life left! Could. But statistically, that’s unlikely!
Listen, I’ve been laid off three times in as many years from roles that were meant to last much longer. That speaks to a tough professional sector, i.e., Canadian higher education and training, but it also speaks to a narrative wherein I’ve had to reset financially, personally, and professionally each time! The whole mode of adapting to change… to disruption, to use an overly hyped term related to tech discourse!… can be reactive or it can be proactive.
At this point, I have to assume all bets are off.
At this juncture, it feels like I could have a reasonable learning or training or educator kind of role by this time next week… or never again!
And so, I have to proceed on the basis of what I can control and how to reduce exposure to liability not just for myself, but for my kids who depend on me in ways myriad, varied, and limitless.
I am now at the point where I am trying to reclaim some of my interior life, my mental space, whatever you want to call it, from apps generally! The architecture of the contemporary commercialized internet and associated mobile apps and attendant digital ecosystems… is disproportionately a driver of culture! I am taking steps backward from technology platforms, generally and strategically, for the benefit of my own mental health and wellness, upon which everything I do is predicated.
A Tale of Two Flip Phones (Rest in Power)!
My two flip phone narrative is an interesting (?) one! The CAT flip that I purchased from Amazon whilst during a tumultuous trip to Kamloops BC ended up frying out from my Virgin mobile SIM card interacting with it improperly is the nearest explanation that I can come up with! I looked at repair, and to restore the motherboard would cost significantly more than the $100 (Canadian) or so that I paid for the phone back in late May! Furthermore, the CAT phone was, in fact, a smart phone on a flip phone body! It had the full Android suite of apps and a touchscreen interface and it ran multiple social and streaming apps, along with Bluetooth…
That unfixable, nonworking device with a highly sturdy CAT hardbody… was improperly placed in a McDonald’s garbage bin after I finished a McChicken BLT, fries, and strawberry-banana smoothie, and before embarking on a roughly four-hour walk across Timberlea, and clear across the entire city of Fort McMurray, Alberta to reach my apartment downtown!
My new ZTE Cymbal 2 is capable only of phone calls and texts! Due to no way to stream music, I’m finding myself more weirdly attenuated to the sounds of the city around me! Including through a fairly significant wooded trail stretch during my four-hour trek across Fort Mac a couple days ago!
Text messaging on the Cymbal 2 is challenging! No floating or soft keyboard on the screen! So you have to thumb through three letters on each number key of the flip phone’s dial pad in order to compose texts! It’s actually really time consuming! My workaround for this is to record voice notes and add those as attachments to texts! The record audio feature lets you record for up to 12 minutes! I left a five and-a-half minutes message for my older kid the other day… you’re welcome, son!
As a result, the messages I send are voice memos and video memos, which can all be sent on the limited data plan I use with Telus prepaid! It is a fact that back in the early 00’s, I actually bought a flip phone from Telus, prepaid, to bail on some telecom bill or other! And I then used nothing but prepaid mobile non-smart devices until like 2020 or something? The voice memos and videograms are all way more personal forms of communication than text, in my opinion… based on significant lived experience and general tech-sector experience over the years!
Finally, on the Flip Phone Tip (tm) I successfully moved photo and video files, including downloaded attachments, from my Cymbal 2 to my basic Acer Windows laptop using the same USB cable which charges the phone! I call this level of streamlined interface ideal for a man who has less time in front of him to waste with tech chicanery generally!
Like the Purple Man said, man!
…and the Gnarly
I’d harboured aspirations of doing a sort of comprehensive “full personal tech review” with regards to the significant changes in various areas! And may yet do so! But in actual fact, I’m hoping to write a post about Canadian comic legend Norm MacDonald and his awesome book Based on a True Story (2016) starting tomorrow and maybe into next week! A way more ostensibly fun thing to write! And so, some general observations!
Fuck Off Spotify: I’ve completely removed the plugins from all the WordPress sites associated with 506 Consulting websites so that no recordings will go to Spotify. My hope is to remove all episodes of all podcasts and interviews from Spotify completely, but if that proves impossible or overly complicated then I will be satisfied that nothing I am involved in from the 506 Consulting endeavor will have anything to do with a platform that fundamentally debases the music-audience dynamic, criminally underpays artists, and is involved in massive investments in militarized/weaponized AI applications! Fuck that noise completely and utterly, I suppose!
Microsoft Office Cloud / 365: Man, I’m glad I have a subscription to 365. For $12 Canadian per month, regardless of machine or device, it is reliable unlimited cloud-based backup of everything from my laptop! All the files are set to auto-synch to OneDrive! Plus the ongoing email and calendar stuff in Outlook integrates with what jobs are sending for meeting invites and the like! Essential for a job-seeking knowledge sector dude, to be sure!
WordPress and Reclaim Hosting: For the $200 USD or less that I spend on this per year with Reclaim Hosting, it is mission-essential. One of the major reasons being, that you can export all your content from your WordPress sites… including all media elements, uploads, and the like… as flat files; i.e., Excel-like documents… that can be uploaded into any other WordPress installation, including self-hosted on your own server! The $200 with Reclaim includes domain registration for my two primary sites and all subsites, i.e., holding the place on the web as websites with specific URLs! As such, the cost associated with robust, flexible hosting with a reliable provider is essential! And the WordPress files being portable means it’s easy to archive or reconstitute the work elsewhere, cost-free or otherwise!
The Ed non-Tech Book: Listen, Dr. Doug Reid and I have been doing this stuff for three full years at this point! In the summer of 2022 we knew we were going to do an “off-centre” kinda take on educational theory, practice, and praxis! And it was going to be fairly personal and fairly inclusive of wider culture, popular and otherwise! At this point, the EnT is a significant, ongoing cultural enterprise! I know for sure we’re reaching people, and I know for sure that people are reaching out to us! I’m grateful to be in this position, honestly! After three years of building a platform and establishing a wide-ranging media imprint… we’ve reached the natural point to review everything associated with the EnT… and to have a proposal for a book publisher for either a book… or a series of books… on tech and adjacent topics as per the EnT viewpoint or whatever… before the new year! With full manuscript completion taking place before or during the summer hiatus after season 4, i.e., summer 2026, or around a year from now! It was awesome checking in with Dr. Doug mid-summer a few days ago, cause he is one of the best people I know as a friend, collaborator, colleague, educator, and as an awesome human being generally!
YouTube Music Premium: At this point, I will pay $30 Canadian per month or whatever in order to stream music ad-free! It sucks that we are in such a hallowed-out era for music! When I have reliable income again at a certain level, if ever, than you bet your bottom dollar that I will be face down in vinyl bins in all my free time! It’s happened before variously in my life, and I’m sure it will happen again! Fun (?) fact: my weird, socially insignificant YouTube playlist for 2025 has crossed 18,000 views as of today or yesterday!
As ever, the question remains: How to monetize this anomaly? How to get some monied click on the thing? How to re-platform that nascent internet cultural clout into something tangible with which to buy food for my kids and so forth? And so, my position on clout chasing as a thing… is relevant only to the extent that it helps me achieve tangible, personal or professional or cultural objectives! All of which are adjacent to monetized clicks and/or other types of cultural and/or financial contracts!
Adobe Creative Cloud: I inadvertently (lazily!) allowed a free trial of ACC to turn into a paid subscription which only allows me to cancel by paying the balance of a year’s subscription! So far it’s more economical to swallow the $25 per month in the interest of experimenting with their basic AI content enhancing and/or creation features! However, it was a reluctant, inadvertent purchase until… last week when I needed to add a signature to a PDF for a job-related HR process! At that point, I was glad to have the basic product which allows that kind of easy modification! Lots of time saved, and for a work-essential thing!*
* As far as it goes, the AI-powered video creation tools… which include human representations… via textual prompt are, for me, nightmare fuel! Lots of cool creative potential… but in 5 years, I can say to a certainty: it will be visually impossible to distinguish a film shot with real human actors… compared to a feature film with completely AI generated counterparts! Same with music, as far as it goes. Human input is increasingly optional, at least from the vantage point of these toolsets… as near as I can tell!
As ever, I’m finding Facebook as a thing to chase clout and to communicate with a few key people in my life who it would be difficult to reach on a regular basis otherwise… and Substack being, ultimately, the place where all things lead for me, from a writerly or cultural standpoint or whatever! Podcasts and interviews aside!
Thanks as ever for any interest you have or have had! The next one of these is gonna be about music or Norm MacDonald, or possibly both! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and/or week!
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Dr. Matt is, among other things, unemployed for the 3d time in as many years, and a Dad to two teenaged boys!
Matt is also happy to discuss custom media projects, or writing projects, or other kinds of work… with just about anyone! That is the purpose of 506 Consulting Limited, and associated ventures generally!
matt.stranach@outlook.com is the best way to reach out for this!
Much appreciation and respect to anyone reading this in any way, shape, or form for any reason(s), and with any intention(s) whatsoever!
Dr. Matt Stranach, Ed.D
Founder & Principle Consultant
506 Consulting, Ltd.
Fort McMurray, Alberta
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