Fingerprint ID Is Becoming A More Popular Currency Among Consumers Than You Can Even Imagine

There is an eerie form of technology that 5 years ago would have shivered one's spine, but today seems to be already widely accepted: the fingerprint ID.

When Apple first came out with Touch ID on its iPhone 5, I was struck by the ease with which it was accepted--hundreds of thousands of people everywhere just giving up their fingerprints to a company known for its backdoor to the NSA and other surveillance organizations. Now, such technology may be close to ubiquity. 

According to The Japan News, the government of Japan will be implementing "a system in which foreign tourists will be able to verify their identities and buy things at stores using only their fingerprints." The way it will work is tourists will register their fingerprints, credit card information, etc at airports and other kiosks, thus allowing them to make payments without carrying any currency, simply by "placing two fingers on special devices installed at stores." 

A passport verification is required at certain hotels, but the government plans to substitute the fingerprint ID, thus facilitating ease of booking accommodations. Japan hopes to introduce the program throughout the country, including Tokyo, by 2020, thus, the government hopes, increasing overall foreign tourists to 40 million.

But where do all these fingerprints go? To third party consultants, of course. The reasoning is to "devise policies on tourism and management strategies for the tourism industry." There are attempts to put similar systems at a bank and a theme park in Japan. By the end of this month, Tokyo-based Aeon Bank "will become the first bank in Japan to test a system in which customers will be able to withdraw cash from automatic teller machines using only fingerprints for identification and omitting the use of cash cards." One official of the bank claimed this increases security for its customers, especially against those seeking to impersonate another identity. 

As we're living in a very tumultuous time of security breeches, particularly throughout Europe, one can see how fingerprint ID could become ubiquitous as people and governments are searching high and low for systems of protection. Many will be willing to hand over their fingerprints to any group promising security and protection, whether of bank accounts, identity, or other aspects of personal privacy. The one caveat--and it's a big one--is the high price of personal information one must pay for such protection. Prior to all this fingerprint ID, the only time one gave up one's fingerprint was under incarceration--one's identity added to the multitude of files of those offenders who for the rest of their lives will be kept under watch. Now, we're willing to give them up for the freedom of buying things, eating at restaurants, and finding suitable accommodation on our travels--all in the name of convenience.

The Self-Driving Vehicle May Just Be Way More Complicated Than You Think

There is a lot of attention being paid to the future of driving. We seem to be at a cusp point in the development and ubiquity of EV (electric-vehicle) and AV (autonomous vehicle) technology--especially with Elon Musk's launch of the Tesla Model3 as outlined in a previous post. But how close are we to electric vehicles and their emergent sibling the autonomous vehicle?

Google is working hard to get road laws changed in time for the launch of its autonomous vehicle, including the help of US Congress. Tesla's vehicles can easily upload software updates that render the vehicle fully autonomous at the drop of a hat. And Germany is far down the road in autonomous transport trucks completely overturning the transportation industry.

With all this excitement around EVs and AVs, there remain a host of issues that need to be thought through and designed for.

One issue is how cities will accommodate the interaction and activity of these vehicles. For, at least as they're currently designed, you'll be dropped off at the office, and the vehicle will drive away. Will it be driving around aimlessly, parked in parking lots, or picking up other passengers? Will the individual own the car, or will it be more like a mass taxi service? Elon Musk has sought to answer such questions with 'Summon', the feature that allows the owner to call the vehicle from anywhere--even across country--and it will pick the individual up. This is an issue that will put tremendous pressure on cities to design their roads and parking lots for.

What about congestion? Will driverless vehicles create more or less? If your car drives you to work and then picks up someone else in your drive-share program, one could see a scenario in which there is less congestion. However, the cool-factor and ease of an AV, coupled with the continued drop in price, could create a bizarre surge in traffic congestion as more people hop on board greater freedom of transportation.

Another issue is the design of cities in general that become more and more 'carless', provided the EV/AVs are parking themselves outside the city gates as it were. Jane Jacobs, a well-known urban theorist, made the distinction between cities designed for cars, and cities designed for people. A city designed for people has many ways for people to walk, bike, and generally move around the city; conversely, a city designed for cars is heavy on freeways and roads, and light on human-friendly places. With EVs and AVs taking up less city space, urban planners will be in an advantageous position to re-design cities to accommodate the movement and flux of people. But there is an underbelly to such a utopian dream: what happens during a time of catastrophe and your car is parked across town and can't get to you, or you can't get to it--lock down. And that gets to the important issue of control.

China is poised to introduce EVs and AVs en mass at a faster pace than North America. This has many people complaining about the lack of American innovation and ingenuity to beat out the Chinese, but there is a reason why China is so gung-ho about these vehicles--control. In an article in Market Watch, titled "Police Could Be Controlling Your Self-Driving Car," Martin Libicki--a senior scientist for the Rand Corporation--argues that self-driving vehicles (AVs) will have very sophisticated communications systems that will allow them to drive safely on roads. As the case with any system, they can be controlled, monitored, and hacked. For safety purposes, the majority of drivers will want their systems 'over-ridable' (for instance in the case of your son or daughter returning home drunk from a party); however, in the wrong hands, your vehicle could be wielded like a weapon against your will. Even if police officers are given authority to over-ride the security system of the vehicle, that's hundreds of thousands of people across North America with such power--a breeding ground for corruption (and, if you think about it, warranting the demand for Minority Report behaviour prediction technology that I covered in a previous post).

To me, this is a significant deterrent to self-driving vehicles and their ubiquity. I like to have control when I drive. I like to know I can lock the doors, drive wherever I want--within the boundaries of the law--and not be harassed unless I have broken the law. I liken such over-riding technology like the frustration I experienced in driving lessons when the instructor had the second brake at his disposal that he could hit at will--it drove me nuts! In an age of autonomy, we seem to be lulled into giving up control of our transportation for the false-promise of convenience. Don't get me wrong, I really like Elon Musk, and think Tesla's are the hottest vehicles out there; but there are flags being raised for me when I see the power third parties can have in the over-powering of these vehicles.

Putting dystopia aside, there is an opportunity here to explore new urban possibilities and design new kinds of urban spaces more facilitative of people over against cars. As the legal and logistical barriers continue to hold, there is an element of time for urban planners, designers, and even community folk to rethink and re-create their cities--something that's been an issues for decades since the advent of the automobile. What will these new cities look like? How will they be designed? Will there be enough time to do so? These remain critical questions in this limbo period of present and future.

Massive Cloning Factory In China To Manufacture Cows, Sheep, And Humans

I remember reading a short story once about a guy who invented a clone of himself. He was feeling tied down at home, and wanted to spread his wings a bit at the bar with the guys, while keeping his wife pacified--the clone was going to be the great fix. Things went well at first: the clone did its chores, sat with the man's wife in front of the tv for hours, until she went to bed. But then the clone caught on--he, it, learned. The story ended with the man returning home to the locks changed and the clone having stolen its creator's life--including the wife. The story struck me as sinister and far-fetched--that was 30 years ago. As with many other technologies that seemed outrageous in the past, cloning is emerging in a rapid and rather eerie way.

China is poised to open a mass-cloning factory by the end of this year, the 'products' of which will be cows, sheep, and even humans. The futuristic facility has a goal of creating one million cows every 12 months by the year 2020. Along with that, the factory will be cloning police dogs and thoroughbred horses.

The factory will be built by BoyaLife Genomics, a subsidiary of BoyaLife Group. With an investment of 200 million yuan ($31 million USD), the centre will be jointly built by Sinica, Peking University's Institute of Molecular Medicine, the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine, and the Republic of Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation--in sum, a powerful cohort of researchers and investors. What is not possible with such research and development potential.

The facility was designed to accommodate the growing demand for meat to feed the surging Chinese population, and has emerged out of the success of 2014 in which a couple of Bull Mastiff puppies were cloned.

But there is an underbelly to this facility: the technology is ready for humans to be cloned once a mass market emerges. There are so many ethical issues with cloning, especially in a country such as China whose human rights compromises are myriad.

What will they be cloning humans for--a giant army? Greater workforce? And what kind of market will be created that human cloning will fill? Will human cloning be the milestone on the way to AI? Will the clones be super-powered with AI capabilities? Will the clones be the resurrection of those who have passed away under the facilitation of companies specializing in cryogenics? Where is all this going?

Regardless, we have a massive factory designed to in the near future manufacture 1 million cows. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, the meat manufactured from cloned cattle and pig is considered safe to eat. Would you eat cloned meat?

And what about the dude whose clone took over his life? Could such a scenario may be commonplace within the next 5 - 7 years?

Why Tesla's Model 3 Will Completely Disrupt The Auto Industry

In a distant post, I critiqued the Tesla Model X as a vehicle that may be smart in its design, but elitist in its price. But Elon Musk is moving in on the affordability EV market, and thus poised more so than ever to completely disrupt, and even destroy, the current automobile industry. The result of this new edition to the Tesla line will be an order of magnitude more EVs hitting the market, not unlike the launch of the first iPhone, or the cheaper iPhone 5c, that saw millions of consumers putting Apple's products to their ears. 

This past week, the visionary CEO announced the next wave of his vision to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport with the most affordable Tesla to date: the Model 3, priced at $35,000 US with a $1000 deposit. It boasts the ability to run 346 kilometres (215 miles) on a single charge, the efficiency of which will likely increase before its release in 2017. Apparently there are several ways to charge the Tesla, from a simple at-home extension cord plug-in to having a level 2 charger in your home to actual charging stations; and the price to charge is typically free at most charging stations across Ontario, although an hour charge may only get you about 80kms of driving. 

The vehicle has much of the same features as the more luxurious older sibling, including the really cool 'autopilot' feature that will be standard on all vehicles. According to FastCompany, the biggest competitor to the Model 3 is the Chevy Bolt--I'd take a Tesla hands down.

But Tesla really has no choice--the EV market is being charged up by the likes of Chevy, Google, and even Apple who's car is the stuff of intrigue and rumour. 

As maintained in previous posts, EV technology is going to radically change transportation, especially when the vehicles, as in Tesla's and Google's case, are equipped with self-driving capacity. The pressure to make these technologies ubiquitous will drive prices down, not to mention all the political pressure around fossil fuels. The vehicles, however, will wipe out driving as we know it, driving up insurance prices for human driving, slashing jobs in the transportation sector, and marginalizing human autonomy. 

While I continue to really like Tesla, and admire Elon Musk's ingenuity and brilliance, I remain concerned about what self-driving technology will do to the future of driving as a (former) symbol of human freedom. Musk is to EVs as Steve Jobs was to the iPhone--he is the face of the future of transportation, and thus by launching an affordable EV he's further disrupting the current system that is rapidly on its way to obsolescence. 

Why Procrastination Is So Easy And Getting Down To Business So Hard

To procrastinate is defined by Webster's as to put something off intentionally and even habitually; but a better way to understand it is not doing what you think you should be doing, as noted in a lucid article in the New Yorker by James Surowiecki. 

Procrastination is one of the easiest things in life to do, and yet can be terribly stressful (for instance when you have a deadline and are glued to your Wii player) and even costly (such as when you take months to file your income taxes and have to pay a larger fee). Whenever you have something important to do, you can always put it off for a period of time--until you can't put it off any longer. 

Why procrastination is so easy, and getting down to business so hard 

1. We often have to do things we don't want to do: This is a simple one. You've got to put a report together and you're totally uninspired, not interested, and the Leaf game is on TV. Or you are obligated to cook dinner that evening, but you would much rather surf the internet for the umpteenth time. You need to purchase and write your mother in-law a birthday card and find yourself instead cleaning your coffee maker. 

2. We have at our finger tips unlimited choice: It would be easier if we didn't have so many things vying for our time at a given moment. As humans with free will, we can instantly think of innumerable things to do with our time--rather, that is, than that which we think we should be doing.

3. Technological distractions: How many times have I sat down to 'get something done' when "Bling!"--a notification goes off from one of my favourite news feeds, and down I go into an abyss of current events; or, worse yet, a Facebook notification that someone's just commented on one of my posts, and down I go into the social media abyss. Technology is brutal for trying to get things done. For real hard tasks, I will turn off any connection to the internet--and if I have to, will work in ink. 

4. Fear: In Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, procrastination is the Grim Reaper of productivity--he calls it resistance. We resist for many reasons, but when we're having to get down to creative work or work that requires vulnerability, our fear can cause us to procrastinate. Every time we get down to a creative task, we are struck by what we want to create and what we believe others want us to create. This tension can cause anxiety which we try to overcome through avoidance and deflection, namely procrastination.

5. The gap between effort and reward: If you are to perform a task whose deadline is in the distant future, you're more likely to procrastinate on it. It's like the person who has several months to complete a major report and ends up freaking out the night before trying to put it together. 

Can anything good come out of procrastination? 

Enhanced productivity: There was a paper I read once that argued for a practice called productive procrastination, which involves getting something done when you should be getting something else done, like completing a major report when you should be completing a different one; or like vacuuming out your car when you should be preparing dinner for guests.

Greater inspiration: Some things just take longer to cook up. If you are pushing the boundaries of an idea or a body of research, the answers could take much longer than you or a superior are prepared to admit. Some questions take years to answer; some projects don't come by banging your head against the wall but walking away from it and waiting for a moment of clarity. 

Higher performance: There are times when you just need a fire lit under you to get a job done. I find that when the pressure's on, I'm at a heightened state of focus and creativity. Some people need this--they feed off it. The problem is that it can come back to bite you: you could miss a deadline, buckle under the pressure, or just not put in your best effort. 

If you're a procrastinator there is a technique you can try, called the Pomodoro Technique, which involves choosing a specific task and setting a timer to work on it for 25 minutes, followed by short breaks. If a distraction enters your mind, jot it down and keep working. After longer periods of work, you can take a longer break. The whole purpose of the technique is to shorten that effort/reward gap that often breeds procrastination. 

The only problem is you first have to choose to work on that task--but what if you...

5 Ways To Work Harder, Get Better, And Avoid The Perils Of Success

Most people want to succeed in life. They want to have dreams and accomplish them. There are few who want to be failures. Now there is importance in failure, which I have written about previously and will do so again in later posts; nevertheless, that is not my focus here. 

We live in a karaoke culture--a stage culture in which overnight success is a reality show away. It is the age of the ordinary person having an extraordinary night on stage and becoming 'successful', which means a mere moment in the sun followed by a plummet back into the abyss of the ordinary--the reality show giving way to the big reality check. 

Who wants success anyway? Hasn't anyone read the Catastrophe of Success by Tennessee Williams? Published in the New York Times on November 30, 1947, it is a letter by the great writer lamenting the success of the Glass Menagerie and how it nearly destroyed his life. Living in a hotel in New York waited on hand and foot left him listless, cynical, lazy. He underwent several eye surgeries simply to have an excuse for gauze to be put over his eyes so he didn't have to look at what his life had become. In the process of success, he had lost the work ethic and diligence and authenticity that got him there in the first place. Here's Williams himself:

"I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed. I was out on a level plateau with my arms still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted. This was security at last.

I sat down and looked about me and was suddenly very depressed. I thought to myself, this is just a period of adjustment. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up in this first-class hotel suite above the discreet hum of an East Side boulevard and I will appreciate its elegance and luxuriate in its comforts and know that I have arrived at our American plan of Olympus. Tomorrow morning when I look at the green satin sofa I will fall in love with it. It is only temporarily that the green satin looks like slime on stagnant water."

Eventually Williams left New York for a small part of Mexico where the swimming was good, and he could live without being noticed; a place he could find the hard work and struggle that created the famous play that nearly destroyed his life. He wrote another work that become his famous "A Streetcar Named Desire"

What's William's main point? We need hard work, menial effort, and a life of relative discomfort to accomplish our goals. That it is in the hard daily work that we find our authentic selves. We need a place of routine and discipline that the place of final arrival can shake out of us, leaving us slaves to our past success rather than pushing our boundaries into greater ideas and personal expression. 

"There's no substitute for hard work," a professor of mine once said--those words changed my life. Persistence, tenacity, sweat and tears--without them we don't create, we simply conform. 

So with this in mind, here are a few take-aways:
 

1. Discipline yourself: If the only time you can get real work done is at 5am, this is your top appointment of the day. Does it suck? Sure. Could you use the extra sleep? Maybe. Does it mean you can't stay out late with the boys every night? Yup. But what would you rather have, the accomplishment of your goals or yet another beer? If getting up at 5am requires you to get to sleep at no later than 11 o'clock, then that's your new bedtime.

2. Befriend discomfort: We are bound by comfort in these modern times. In fact, if we don't have comforts--all of them at our whim--then we think there's something wrong with us. But that's not the life of hard work. This kind of work requires discomfort, sacrifice, pain. If you want to sit on the beach your whole life, that's your choice--but chances are, there's something nagging inside you left unfulfilled. When J.D. Salinger went to write, he put on cover-alls and carried a lunch box into his writing room--he knew the struggle of hard work.

3. Don't compromise: Your work will require something very specific at each moment--how authentically you adhere to that demand will determine the quality of work. If you compromise for one moment to save time or effort, you're hooped--and you'll know it. If your work demands 4 iterations and you only give it 2, you'll know it. 

4. Forget the last success: You're only as good to the public--whatever that is: boss, co-workers, clients--as your last success; but you're only good to yourself as your next effort. Have you earned something or received accolades for something you accomplished? Good. Now move on. Get up that next morning with the eye of the tiger, the discipline to create again. 

5.  Become who you are: Think of Michelangelo's David: that massive piece of marble that no one else wanted, that the majority of sculptors shunned for being too foreboding, too difficult, too massive to take a chisel to--but not Michelangelo. To create David, he famously claimed, he had to remove everything that wasn't David from that mass of marble. The story goes that he went at that piece of stone with a vengeance: bleeding from his hands, sweating from his body, his boots left undone for weeks on end, until the sculpture was completed. In this effort, the sculpture of David wasn't the only thing to become--the artist, through the toil, became further himself too. One interpretation of David's gaze in the sculpture is that toward the great Goliath: he faces the beastly cannibal with determination and confidence. This is how we ought to approach the Goliath of our work, ourselves, our failures and success each day.

6 Ways You Can Find Forgiveness That Will Totally Change Your Life, Health, And Relationships

A man languishes on the couch--for days. He's listless, riddled by chronic pain. Everything hurts. Mentally, he's been depressed for months. He's on sick leave from work, and doesn't know when or if he'll ever return. He's all bound up in anger, bitterness, remorse--a relationship with a family member broke down, and ended in hostility; things were said that shouldn't have. The man has been angry ever since--can't sleep, can't eat, can't work. His life is closing in on him. Why is he feeling so bad? Why is his life going down the toilet when the family member is still attending all the family parties, Facebooking his Caribbean vacations, and appearing like the father of the century? The anger burns. 

Here's how to make a monkey trap: take a coconut, cut a hole in it--just big enough for a monkey to stick its hand in. Tie the trap to a tree, and wait. Here's what you'll notice: a monkey will smell the coconut in the trap, stick its hand in the hole and grab a handful of delicious pulp. But, when it attempts to pull its hand out, it gets stuck--the hole is only big enough for a hand, not a fist. As the hunters are storming after it wielding spears, the monkey is trapped. All it has to do is let go of the coconut, and pull its hand free. 

Forgiveness is an easy thing to talk about, but its exceptionally difficult to do. When we do not forgive, when we hold grudges against others, we suffer mentally and physically. According to Dr. Karen Swartz of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorder Clinic, chronic anger can put you into a fight or flight response, which can lead to numerous physical ailments: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and rapid heart beat; and these increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and depression.  There's a lot of research being done on the importance of how we control our thoughts. When we are in toxic thinking--holding grudges, staying angry, thinking bitterly about someone--our whole being is impacted. When, however, we let go of toxic thinking and embrace the errors of others and find ways to reconcile, we can be freed from mental and even physical toxicity. 

What do you have to do to forgive? Here are a few things to think about:

1. Forgiveness is a matter of the heart: When we think with our mind, we think in analytical terms. We think about pros and cons, checks and balances, and cost benefit analysis. When someone offends us, we hold it in our minds: we replay the incident(s), and set up courts of law in our imaginations taking the role of the prosecuting attorney. But, when we think with our hearts, when we listen to our hearts, we experience something else: the heart wants communion with others; the heart wants to experience joy; the heart wants to childishly (or child-like-ly) forgive, the heart wants to trust. Forgiveness first and foremost is a matter of the heart; and until you look into your heart and find what it wants, you'll never be able to forgive.

2. Forgiveness takes humility: It's hard to admit to being wrong by being in the right. It's difficult to swallow what you feel the other deserves and embrace them anyway. It takes tremendous courage to give someone a second, third, umpteenth chance when you've been hurt so often before. It takes humbling yourself, swallowing your pride, and reconciling.

3. Ask forgiveness yourself: One of the big problems with finding forgiveness is we think we're innocent; and when the other shifts blame to us, we become defensive--we dig our heels in deeper into resentment and don't let go. But what if you approach the person whose done you wrong willing to admit your own wrong? What if you lower yourself to the person who's wronged you--or you feel has wronged you--and shift the blame to yourself? It's often that conflicts take two to tango. Admitting you were just as wrong in the tango can go a long way to releasing resentment and can quicken the healing process.

4. Seek help from others: Often we dwell alone in our resentment. We don't know how to go about the process of forgiveness, and are thus impeded further from entering into it, which drives us back into dwelling alone in resentment. Seeking out someone you trust to talk to about the situation is important. Seeing a therapist or a wise friend can help you bounce your feelings off someone else, and even put a plan together for how you are going to forgive the other. This takes vulnerability, so it's important you are careful with whom you trust in this regard.

5. Don't expect a particular outcome: Just because you choose to forgive someone, doesn't necessitate that all will be well with that person--all you're ensuring is you are no longer going to hold onto the resentment and anger. In fact, it could be that the person continues to hurt you, or refuses to re-enter the relationship, or even ridicules you for letting go. It could be that healing comes when you leave the situation or create distance or boundaries between you and other. Having a good therapist, depending on the intensity or complexity of the relationship, could be very helpful. You can choose to forgive, but you can't force the other to choose to forgive.

6. Remember your own forgiveness: We all hurt people at one time or another. We have all faced those times when we were recipients of forgiveness. We've all been forgiven. This should give us pause: How can we refuse to forgive the other when we have been forgiven? How can we withhold forgiveness from someone else, when others haven't withheld it from us? Knowing you've been forgiven can open the door to your own desire to forgive. 

Let's get back to the man. As he's languishing on the couch, he watches a talk by a woman, a neuroscientist, who shows images of a brain in a state of forgiveness versus that of one in resentment. He hears about the health ramifications of resentment, which explains his seemingly deathly illness. He knows what he has to do. He looks in his heart: it wants to forgive, it wants to trust, it wants to reach out to the other let go of the past--even reconcile. He realizes he doesn't' have to live in the anger anymore. He makes a decision for reconciliation. The moment he does, the moment he chooses forgiveness, he begins to feel better. He even finds within his heart compassion and empathy for the other--he sees the other as a person, just like him, with stresses, pressures, vulnerabilities, brokenness. 

He forgives. 

Within a day, he's off the couch; within a week, he's back to work; and that Easter, he and the family member share the first hug in years. His heart is full, soft, healed. 

This is forgiveness. 

10 Easy Ways To Prepare For That Major Storm Warning You've Been Totally Dreading

Power outages can happen anytime, especially during ice and other storms. In a previous post, I provided tips on how to survive a nuclear attack, which incidentally can cause power outages (among other, more dreadful things). You can also check out how to prep for a hostage siege.

So let's say you're checking the weather, and there's a storm warning in effect that forecasts possible power outages, what do you do? How do you prepare? Here are a few tips:

1. Gather anything that creates light: Get your flashlights, candles, even glow sticks from the Dollar Store. Keep them in one place that can be easily accessed. If you have time, you can find headlamps at Costco and other such stores for such a time--nothing like being down a hand when you have to move around the house.

2. Get plenty of water: You should be stockpiling water in your home in case of emergency. If you don't have any, go get some. Bottled water has a pretty long shelf life, so you can keep it around. You should be storing a gallon (3.75 litres) of water per day per person for up to 3 days. 

3. Have a First Aid Kit: This is important, especially if you're moving around a dark house. I've covered the basics of a first aid kit in another post, but the basics should be bandages, gauze, tape, scissors, isopropyl alcohol, and pain medication.

4. Batteries: There's nothing worse than going to fire up your flashlight and you're out of batteries. Keep a supply of them on-hand, preferably with your first aid kit and other sources of alternative light. 

5. Keep gas tank full: In the event you need to go somewhere or travel up to your folks or in-laws where there is electricity, it's important you're gassed up. In emergency situations, you never know what it will be like at the pump--you could end on the wrong side of a gas shortage. This is good advice for any emergency situation.

6. Stock up on non-perishables: You're going to need to eat. Canned food can work. If you have a gas stove, then good on you. If you have an electrical stove, then you might be eating peanut butter for the next two days--could be worse. Add some chips and crackers to the peanut butter and you're golden. Energy bars are handy things to keep around that have a longer shelf life and can deliver quick energy. Simpler fare can be canned fruits, vegetables, and tuna--just make sure you have a mechanical can opener. If you have a propane BBQ or hibachi, you'll be eating well. 

7. Heat source: The simplest way to stay warm is to layer clothing and blankets. If you have a hibachi grill or propane camping stove, you're good, but don't use them indoors. 

8. Good tools: A good multi-tool, like a Leatherman Wingman or a basic Swiss Army knife will be invaluable during such outages and other such emergency situations. You'll want a couple on hand in the house and in your vehicle. Check out my MacGuyver survival kit for more information.

9. Stay informed: If you don't have a battery-powered short-wave radio, get one. You need to stay informed of any changes in weather, electrical power, etc. If cell phone towers are damaged during a storm, you'll be able to use neither your mobile device, nor computer for wifi. 

10. Get books: Yes, there are games, sing-a-longs, and other things to keep you entertained, but going old school with candles and books is a great way to spend your time. Here are 5 books that are simple must-reads. Just imagine if anything were to happen long term to the internet: how would you learn? We've relied so heavily on ebooks that we've only got a single point of failure for human learning--think about it...

Of Millennials, Gen X'ers And Withered Family Ties

A recent article in the New York Post claimed that Millennials are the stressed out generation--a far cry from my generation (Gen X) known as the slacker generation. Millennials are made up of those who are born from roughly the 1980s to early 2000s. According to one study by the American Psychology Association (APA), there isn't a notable increase in stress claims in Millennials (39%) compared to Gen X'ers (36%) and Boomers (33%). In that same study, Millennials and X'ers complain of being stressed by work, money, and job stability, while Boomers tend to complain of stress about health personal and familiar health issues. 

One explanation is that Millennials are more anxious because they lack the close geographic family ties that earlier generations enjoyed and perhaps even took for granted. Academics such as Jean Twenge of San Diego State University made this observation in her studies of why stress is at an 80-year high.

"She thinks the primary problem is that “modern life doesn’t give us as many opportunities to spend time with people and connect with them, at least in person, compared to, say, 80 years ago or 100 years ago. Families are smaller, the divorce rate is higher, people get married much later in life."

Indeed, there are many complexities when attempting to make claims about family life. Nevertheless, Twenge maintains this tension between the independence of modern times and the overly close proximities of 80 to 100 years ago. As families move more toward individualism and independence, we are seeing a possible correlation with higher rates of anxiety and depression, as Karol Markowicz of the New York Post explains:

"But the real change comes in the freedom of movement that has made it easy for people to leave families far behind. Studies have shown that having limited family in close proximity can lead to anxiety and depression."

As one who lives thousands of kilometres away from parents, I resonate with Twenge's observation. I have realized over the years there is something very important about having close family ties, especially in times of struggle or hardship. Even in my 40s I still look forward to holiday meals at my aunt's house when most of my extended family is together and we're sharing a meal--even so, it's not the same when my parents and brother aren't present. Nevertheless, there's a sense of connectedness to a broader community, to family, that makes me feel more human. The same feeling is present when I spend the week-end with my in-laws, sharing food and conversations together, even about the two no-nos like religion and politics. I feel a sense of rootedness and connectedness--a sense that I am going through life with these people, and, to a large degree, they have my back and I have their's. 

But there is a pervasive mentality that we want our kids to be independent, competent, leadership-driven; we want them to get out into the big bad world and blaze their own trails. And if that means moving thousands of kilometres away to a booming country or province, then that's just part of it--no pain, no gain. We want our kids to go to the best universities, which often means leaving the cities and towns we live in. If my child got accepted tomorrow to Stanford, I'd be tempted to send them there. 

Indeed, according to the Post article, almost half of Millennials live away from their hometown: 

One recent survey found that about half of millennials live away from their hometown. That’s a significant number. A different study found 85 percent of adults 45 and older think it’s very important to live near their kids or grandkids. Boomers have figured out the happiness that comes with living near family.

This phenomenon is not surprising, given the growth of cities, the rise of competitiveness, and the illusion that climbing the corporate ladder will lead to greater happiness. 

In Richard Florida's book Who's Your City, the famous urban theorist argues for the importance of moving to cities that have higher levels of innovation and creativity, even if that means leaving your home town. According to his research, you'll be happier, have a better job, make more money, and have greater social mobility. What we might be seeing in the APA study cited above is the unintended consequence of that way of thinking and living. 

We often believe that Skype and FaceTime will mitigate the yawning abyss separating us from our children, or from our parents and siblings. We falsely believe that texting a number of times per day can fill the void. But it doesn't. 

We often believe that our children want success at all costs; that we're doing them a service by encouraging them to take work elsewhere, or travel across the globe to attend the London School of Economics or some other prestigious school. 

We often believe that with greater independence comes higher levels of joy and fulfillment. We fall into the assumption that climbing the social-economic ladder of modern society will make them happy, regardless of the price. 

But what happens--young people move away from their home towns, take jobs in other provinces or states or countries, and start having families; and then grandparents see grandchildren only sparsely, and the family ties are stretched beyond efficacy. Families have to choose between flying out for a big birthday, a wedding, or a funeral, especially with the high cost of flying these days--they can't blithely drive to see their children anymore and vice versa. It becomes more complicated than that. 

We can most certainly claim other factors to the high stress levels of the younger generations: technological advancement, social upheaval, political-nuclear tensions, the breakdown of religious belief, the brittleness of cultural interaction, and so on. But perhaps this is precisely the point: that in a world rife with tension and unpredictability, where systems and norms and traditions are breaking down, there ought to be greater emphasis placed on those natural family ties that provide a strong sense of kinship, rootedness, and identity. 

Why Google Will Get Self-Driving Cars To Market Faster Than You Think

Technology is known for speeding things up--just think about how fast you process things in a given day with your mobile devices, or how fast you get news, movies, and other kinds of media, or speed at which you can connect 'face-to-face' with someone across the world. 

Now we're seeing the emergence of autonomous vehicles at a quicker pace--thanks to both technology and the leaders of the big companies that create it. 

Google is now urging US Congress to help get self-driving cars on the roads faster, as this quote from their prepared testimony states:

We propose that Congress move swiftly to provide the secretary of transportation with new authority to approve life­saving safety innovations. This new authority would permit the deployment of innovative safety technologies that meet or exceed the level of safety required by existing federal standards, while ensuring a prompt and transparent process."

One of the big issues impeding this process is there are various safety standards in place that are impeding the adequate testing and development of these vehicles. If rules aren't able to stretch and bend to accommodate self-driving cars, then how in the world will they be adequately tested and readied for general use? For instance, just last year California put out a law barring self-driving vehicles from the roads if not equipped with with human controls and a driver. Moreover, Google maintains there isn't a set of unified rules across states that would allow for travel to be adequately tested across long distances. A big argument is that human rules simply don't need to be applied to self-driving cars because, well, they're not operated by humans. But there may be light at the end of the tunnel for Google.

According to Streetwise Journal, "In January this year, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it could waive some safety rules to allow more driverless cars on the roads as part of the push to speed up their development." The NHTSA also stated it would put safety rules in place for testing self-driving vehicles within the next six months.

But why this rush? Do you not find it interesting that Google would go before US Congress to somehow strong arm the NHTSA into compliance? Google's answer is they want to get their vehicles to market quickly--but in whose interest? Are we ready for self-driving vehicles and the world it will create? Are we ready for the transportation industry to be shaken up this quickly? Are we ready for insurance policies to be adjusted? Are we ready for the mass number of jobs lost as cabbies are forced to find new means of employment? It sounds trivial, but this will shake things up considerably, as I've written before.

And why is Google wanting to move so fast it needs US Congress to get involved? What are its plans? Trying to preempt a big strike from Apple and its emergent iCar? Could be. There have been some interesting things happening around some of Apple's R&D plants that suggest a vehicle of sorts.  Who knows. What we know about Apple is that it is poised to destroy major car manufacturers--but Google will want to be first in that disruption.

I enjoy driving. I enjoy the freedom of getting behind the wheel and driving to my destination. I like the feel of the gas under my foot, and winding roads, and cruising along the left lane of the highway--even in my van! Mind you, I have thought many times of having a driver take me around so I could spend my time doing other things; however, there's something about the freedom of the open road and the ability to navigate my way unmitigated or facilitated by a computer. 

As I've written before, what we'll see from self-driving vehicles is a target on the backs of human operators--that self-driving vehicles will prove to be safer, and thus a solution that will become ubiquitous. It will then be more expensive to insure a human operator. Driving a vehicle will then be relegated to specialized tracks where you park your toys or rent out a human-operated vehicle for a period of time to feel what was commonplace only several years ago.

In this new world created and pushed by Google and Apple, driving a vehicle will be just another nostalgic experience like the smell of newspaper, the rap of typewriter keys on your finger-tips, or the sound of vinyl on a turn-table. A sweet memory of days gone by when humans took manual control of their lives.