Weekend Thoughts - 12.2.17

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Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. After losing a 19-year court battle with the US Department of Justice, several big tobacco companies will be running advertisements admitting that they violated federal racketeering and fraud laws by conspiring to cover up the fact that their products killed their customers. These ads will run for a full year, and the television ads are going to run five nights a week on multiple networks. Looking at the long view, I'm wondering if this will ever happen with the meat, dairy, egg, and processed foods industries.

2. Meanwhile, the Netherlands has closed prisons because crime is so low. This is partly due to the fact that Dutch judges favor alternatives like fines, community service, and electronic tagging to prison sentences.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.25.17

Image by susuteh, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. It turns out that last Month, astronomers operating the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii spotted a foreign object moving through our solar system. It is the first time that we have observed an interstellar object in our own solar system, and the object has an intriguing cigar shape. The object has been named "Ounuamua", which means "messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian, and it appears to be an asteroid that has travelled millions of miles through space. Due to its unique shape, it's certainly worth taking a look!

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.18.17

Image by maneepoi, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Ever since Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market earlier this year, I've been wondering how that would affect the Whole Foods shopping experience. Now we have our first hint of what's to come—Whole Foods will be offering a set of special discounts for Amazon Prime members. It seems that Prime will become the official rewards program for Whole Foods. As a current Prime member, I'm happy to see yet another perk being added to my membership. It's worth clicking through the link to take a look at the specific items being discounted at this time, and I imagine we'll see more to come soon.

2. Tesla made some pretty cool announcements this week—a new big rig Tesla Semi and a fancy-looking Tesla Roadster that is expected to come out in 2020. There are plenty of nifty features packed into the Semi, like a 500-mile range, Enhanced Autopilot, jackknifing prevention, sensors for blind-spot detection, and data collection to assist with fleet management. It also looks pretty cool—at least I'd be in favor of replacing today's big rigs with Tesla's version, that's for sure. But that's not all that Tesla announced at their event; the upcoming Roadster was a nice surprise for those in attendance. Elon Musk claimed that the car would be the fastest production car ever made, and it boasts a 620-mile range, zero-to-sixty in less than 2 seconds, and a top speed of over 250 MPH. I'm glad to see some innovative products being previewed by Tesla, but I do wonder if they're going to be scalable, because Tesla has recently run into issues with producing a sufficient quantity of its Model 3 offering.

3. If you're like me, it's probably been a while since you've taken a look at how much information you're sharing with others on social media. There is a guide that shows you how to lock down your Facebook account with more privacy that is worth checking out. In fact, there may be some settings that you would've sworn were set differently than they actually are...

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.11.17

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Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. A seemingly unlikely partnership between Uber and NASA was announced this week along with the news that Uber plans to add flying taxis to its line of service offerings by 2020. There are also some concept videos that show how these taxis may work that are worth taking a look at. The vehicles actually look just like helicopters, but imagine being able to call a helicopter to come pick you—and up to three of your friends—up and fly to your destination. All from your phone.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.4.17

Image by azazelok, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. To continue on with the series of weekends that I've linked to articles about self-driving vehicles comes this thought experiment: how would you feel about putting your children on a self-driving school bus? That's what a Seattle-based design studio named Teague is currently working on. Their autonomous school bus concept has enough space for six students, and allow for remote intercom usage for disciplining the kids as well as the ability to reroute to a hospital if there is an accident or fight that breaks out. Ultimately, we'll know when self-driving cars have reached peak acceptability when parents are willing to let their kids ride them to school each day.

2. Germany's wind turbines were able to produce enough energy to power over half of the country this year—and they produced so much excess energy from wind power that they had to pay the German citizens to use it!

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.