Weekend Thoughts - 10.28.17

Image by Mydhili Bayyapunedi, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. A big change is coming soon to New York City's Metro: the MetroCard will be replaced with a more modern way to pay transit fares. The new payment options will support Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay in addition to "contactless cards" (credit and debit cards that use near-field communication technology). Not only will this be a more seamless method of paying for a ride on the Metro, it will also be more secure than traditional credit and debit cards, which do not use the same level of encryption as the modern forms of payments do.

2. If you're looking for some guidance in your own self-reflection practice, it may be worth checking out these thought-provoking questions from clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson. The goal is to spend some time thinking about your own answers for each question, thus becoming more in touch with the person that you currently are and the ideal version of yourself that you would like to strive to become. 

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

Weekend Thoughts - 10.21.17

Image by Pexels, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. After some victories in the Chinese market, investors in the U.S. are hoping that bike sharing will be the next Uber. The key to the success in China has been the use of a dockless system that allows users to unlock a bike with an app on their mobile phone. That means when a user is done with their rental bike they can leave it wherever they would like—which will automatically lock the bike—and then the next renter will be able to unlock it with their mobile phone! This is pretty exciting for me as a regular cyclist because anytime the friction between renting a bicycle is decreased, it means that more people will be interested in renting them, which means more cyclists on the roads, which is a good thing for cyclists everywhere. Let's hope that the accomplishments in China translate to the United States, where cycling is not as common and the vast majority of roads are not designed with bicycles in mind (yet).

2. There are certainly tons of challenges to think and work through before autonomous vehicles on the roads become the norm, but the former Google self-driving car project Waymo is already starting to train police officers on how to respond to accidents involving self-driving cars. Cops and first responders will need to know how to access an autonomous vehicle after it is involved in an accident, which will be brand-new experience for them, and the cars will need to know how to navigate to a safe place on their own—out of the path of moving traffic. I'm encouraged to see so much work being regularly done in this space, and greatly anticipate the days when hopping in an autonomous vehicle is no big deal at all.

3. Speaking of cars, Electric Vehicle chargers are starting to pop up at Shell stations in the UK. Access to charging stations is an important problem to solve, because without them electric vehicles will not be able to go very far! Being able to pull into a "gas station" to plug in your self-driving electric vehicle is a vision of the future that I can get behind.

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

Weekend Thoughts - 9.30.17

Image by Frank Lindecke, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Moscow's local authorities are upgrading the city's massive CCTV network of security cameras with facial recognition technology to assist police with identifying criminal activity on the streets. A collection of 170,000 security cameras have already been monitoring the city and recording millions of hours of video since 2012. During a six-month test run of the new system, the cops were reportedly able to catch six suspects that would've presumably evaded capture without the assistance of the new technology. There are privacy concerns with facial recognition technology—just think about what would happen if the system is infiltrated by third-parties who use the information to know where Moscow's citizens live, work, and the specific routes that they normally take. And it's worth mentioning that the city cannot afford to upgrade all of its security cameras at this time—the plan is to upgrade the ones that are located in areas that have the greatest need. It would be wise to anticipate the eventual spread of facial recognition technology to other locations in the future.

2. I'm a pretty big fan of efficient, inexpensive public transportation, which is why I enjoyed this analysis of why public transportation sucks in the United States. Strap in for a short history of the streetcar, bus, and personal automobile.

3. Here's an entertaining video clip of Robert Anton Wilson calling Donald Trump "fucking crazy" from back in the day.

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

Weekend Thoughts - 1.14.17

Image by inefekt69, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. In the early 1970s, a Rutgers University environmental science student named billy barr (he spells it lowercase) returned to Gothic, Colorado after graduation and has lived in the ghost town as its sole resident for the past several decades. The location is supposedly a ghost town built around a silver mine. barr didn't just stay for the sights—he has meticulously collected snowfall and temperature measurements that have proven quite valuable to climate scientists.

2. The Netherlands has been an early adopter of renewable energy technologies for centuries, using wind power for centuries. As of now, the Dutch railways network will be using it to power 100% of their electric trains. Even though that is extremely impressive, they even did it one year ahead of schedule! The electric trains shuttle 600,000 people in around 5,500 trips per day, and it only takes an hour for a wind turbine to generate enough power to run a train for 120 miles. And they're not stopping there—the railways network will continue researching ways to reduce their machines' consumption of energy by 35 percent before 2020 as well!

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