Just in case you weren’t already worried about the government using surveillance to monitor you, now you have to wonder about your neighbors. To be fair, this is a story about a family that was trying to track down the people that maliciously defaced their property. Not surprising, then, that they used everything they could … Continue reading Citizen surveillance and teen pranks
Outdoor magazine has a long but amusing story about risk and recreation: In sheer numbers—including canoeists, kayakers, and rafters—the most common way someone dies boating is in a canoe, on flatwater, with no PFD [personal flotation device], drinking alcohol. “Fifty percent of people who die in canoes and kayaks are out fishing,” Dillon continues. “They’re … Continue reading Outdoor risk calculations
Here’s a true story of poetry in action. Heather Wagner, a 26-year old mother of three in Texas, had her husband deployed to South Korea in 2005. She describes on her website how she felt when she watched a news broadcast soon after her own goodbyes where the “camera kept focusing in on all the … Continue reading Keep Living
Over the years, people have pointed me to the theory of risk homeostasis, as put forth by Dr. Gerald Wilde, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Queen’s University. How do we balance risk and safety? The synopsis of Wilde’s theory is that if you perceive a change will make you safer, then you actually may be prone … Continue reading Risk Homeostasis and the Paradox of Warning