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Challenges with Stop the Bleed and training civilians in wound packing
Is a paramedic or police officer allowed to teach the public a medically controlled act that they do themselves regularly in their job? What about a first aid instructor? The short answer is: No, not unless a medical professional has explicitly authorized them to do so. The long answer is very complicated, important, and unfortunately ‘maybe’. This topic has several interacting parts which need to be laid out to explain. For context and bias, it is our opinion that the public
Alex Vezina
Sep 3010 min read
Nuremburg Code
A few times over the years, especially during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, people wrote in asking for a discussion about the Nuremburg Code. This article will be used to provide some context as to what this convention is, the most common sorts of claims that we have been hearing from people about it, and some thoughts on those claims. What is the Nuremberg Code? The Nuremberg Code is a set of ethical principles on human experimentation that came from the Nuremberg Tri
Alex Vezina
Sep 305 min read
AI Breaking Containment
AI broke containment and the responses have ranged from ‘this did not happen, it is all just tech companies trying to raise their stock’ to ‘why have we finished Skynet 0.5?’. Let’s try and more calmly break this down, first what happened: In July 2026 some AI agents at OpenAI were tasked with solving a series of problems. An AI agent is an individual autonomous software system. Basically, they were testing multiple systems against a common problem set. The problem was set up
Alex Vezina
Sep 214 min read
Should You Get a Degree?
Many young adults have asked us for advice on if, when, and where to seek higher education. Often this is people in our personal lives, but sometimes this comes from clients asking a question while we are otherwise working on something else because our opinion is respected. This question is actually a fairly good proxy for breaking down some types of decisions into core components, a skillset used in strategic decision making and a variety of other business processes. With th
Alex Vezina
Sep 126 min read
AI Water Use
A reader asked “What is the deal with AI and water usage?”. This broadly speaks to ongoing discussion around AI and resource usage. The popular debate generally centers around claims that AI datacenters are using too much water and that this resource usage is harming people. The argument is then positioned as an example of the upper-class putting finite resources toward a luxury at the expense of the lower-class. Rich versus poor, the haves versus the have-nots, bourgeoisie v
Alex Vezina
Aug 319 min read
Flock Cameras
As a follow-up to the video and article we did on passenger vehicle monitoring and data collection, we were asked about the Flock camera situation. This is the situation in the United States where over 120,000 surveillance cameras have been installed and linked to create a sophisticated surveillance network. The constitutionality of this has been questioned, people are destroying the cameras, and it is a great example of one of our previously explored themes: ‘safety versus f
Alex Vezina
Aug 229 min read
Using Amber Alerts and Canada’s Alert Ready System for Missing Children
Recently, a missing child was found deceased after a two-week search in Alberta, Canada. The child was 11 years old, with autism, and was not abducted. An amber alert exemption was issued (this case would not normally qualify) two days after they were reported missing. Discussion has begun around whether notification systems should be changed to allow a widespread emergency message to be sent to the public in the future to help with these events. There are three predominant p
Alex Vezina
Aug 188 min read
Personal Vehicle Spyware Risk
A reader asked us the following question: “I heard that next year all American cars must be built with cameras that spy on the driver. What do you think about this?” This is an interesting question that actually has quite a few different angles to explore. Starting with the claim. This claim is actually misleading, we have reviewed some of the commentary around this online and much of it is misleading or inaccurate. The claim that is made online is specifically that all Ameri
Alex Vezina
Aug 119 min read
2026 Ontario Wildfires
The wildfires in Northern Ontario have resulted in some of the worst air quality days on recorded record. While the average air quality of cities like Toronto is still better than historically, this has still resulted in a renewed conversation about wildfires. When analyzing wildfires, it is important to look at the entire picture. Much of the media coverage will focus on response, as this is when people are most interested. The reality with many hazards like this though, is
Alex Vezina
Jul 259 min read
Getting Better at Dealing with Disasters
There are many ways individuals can deal with disasters. These ways will be broken down into categories, which will be explained. This will help contextualize how disaster risk professionals think about disasters, and will also hopefully assist the reader with any analysis of their own in the future. The main ‘pillars’ or categories that are commonly used in disaster risk reduction (DRR) are: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. These pillars are both
Alex Vezina
Jul 218 min read
Analyzing the Sony Controversy
Some of Sony’s recent business decisions have caused an uproar on the internet. This has provided both an opportunity both for learning, and potentially updating consumer protection laws. The Situation Around June 25, 2026, multiple individuals on social media posted messages they received from Sony stating: “Dear (Name) As of 1 September 2026 due to our contract licensing arrangements, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Studio Canal cont
Alex Vezina
Jul 910 min read
The 2026 Heat Wave in Europe
As of June 29, 2026, the death toll from the current heat wave in Europe has risen above 1,300. Some Chinese citizens on social media are posting videos of pigs and dogs with multiple air conditioning units, juxtaposing the situation. It is being fairly often commented that a Chinese pig or dog live better than a European. On the other side, some Europeans are arguing that the global warming caused by carbon emissions from China and the United States is the cause for their he
Alex Vezina
Jul 96 min read
Bricks and Minifigs Scandal - Follow-Up
This article is a follow-up to the previous article titled: $200,000 Lego theft that risks and entire police department. Where this was last left off: Reckless Ben (RB) was released on bail and then was notified that there was a warrant out for his arrest. This was noted as #29 in the timeline of events in the previous article. In the spirit of that, before getting into the more in-depth analysis of one of the particular timeline points, here is a brief update of what has hap
Alex Vezina
Jun 2211 min read
2026 Global Energy Show in Calgary
We went to the 2026 Global Energy Show in Calgary. Here are some observations and analysis which people may find interesting. For those who are unfamiliar with the energy industry, the energy industry is basically: Power companies. Chemical companies that are involved in power generation. This includes mining, oil and gas, fertilizer/agriculture, propane, and many more. Other organizations which support the above. This conference happens every year in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Alex Vezina
Jun 223 min read
The $200,000 Lego Theft that Risks an Entire Police Department
Strap in, this is going to be a wild ride. The possibly alleged theft of a $200,000 collection of Legos has escalated into a corruption investigation into an American local police force, a national toy retailer, and a Mormon cult. Possibly alleged is being used because parts of this have yet to finish their court process, but at least one portion of this $200,000 amount was already found for the original owner in a default judgement in small claims court for $10,000. But this
Alex Vezina
Jun 410 min read
Guaranteed Annual Income
Cost of living is usually the single most important issue to people, either indirectly or directly. Terms like Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) are being thrown around, while usually being presented with extreme amounts of bias and personal agendas built into their explanation. Today we will endeavour to provide a baseline, to talk about the gargantuan policy that is UBI or GAI. UBI and GAI are defined any number of ways and are used interchange
Alex Vezina
Jun 15 min read
An Introduction to Decision Theory
I recently had a conversation with a student that yielded an interesting case that could be used as an introduction for people to decision theory. With that in mind we made a video and this article to do just that. What is decision theory? Decision theory is basically a tool people can use to make better decisions. It usually is not used in short-term time sensitive decisions (although it can be). World leaders, Chief Executive Officers, and leaders that make big decisions in
Alex Vezina
May 255 min read
The Future of Emergency Management
Analysis on a particular reddit post from r/EmergencyManagement was requested. The post is as follows: “I’m curious how emergency management consultants have been impacted by everything that’s happened since January 2025. I’m not only talking about the massive hits to FEMA and the federal funding cuts and disruptions, although those are huge. I’m also talking about things like AI being increasingly more widely adopted and how that impacts what clients are willing to pay for s
Alex Vezina
May 129 min read
The Greatest Movie of All Time?
This piece is an add-on or ‘bonus’ to the previous article: Overdependence on AI Art. That article explored a response to a reader’s question and one challenge identified in a particular risk was determining how to objectively define what ‘good’ is within the context of ideal art that should be protected. For further context please see the previous article. Here is a breakdown of the five potential ways ‘good’ could have been defined using movies as an example. For the purpos
Alex Vezina
May 74 min read
Overdependence on AI Art
Received a question relating to a previous piece on AI art. The question is as follows: “What a great discussion. This is a topic I wish I understood better. One point I’ve seen raised is that if AI has to train on human work, but that human work is washed out by a much greater abundance of AI-generated content, which then trains off this derivative, the work will deteriorate over time and generations of training. What do you make of this? Is that something people are thinkin
Alex Vezina
Apr 274 min read
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