Rick Sturch Blog

If you're planning on taking your phone and computer with you on vacation this summer (or any season for that matter), this article is for you. Have you ever tethered your computer to your mobile hotspot, browsed a few data-light websites (such as news sites for example), then all of a sudden you've used a gigabyte of data? The reason this sometimes happens is that background apps and updaters can run while you think you're being careful not to consume too much data. Thankfully, there are some solutions to this. If you're using a Windows operating system, you have a couple easy and free options to curtail this unwanted updating. The first is to specify the network connection that your mobile device is creating as a 'metered connection' in your computer's wifi settings. This is a pretty easy way to turn off automatic Windows updates - your computer will wait until you are on a network that isn't a metered connection before downloading any updat...

There have been a lot of major data breaches recently. Facebook is the most recent one in the news, and for good reason. "I am really sorry that happened," said Mark Zuckerberg, referring to the Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal. I can’t help but wonder if we would have received this apology if a whistleblower hadn’t stepped forward and brought the situation into the public eye. Since this story came to light, there have been newspaper articles detailing how you can download all your Facebook and Google data, and the amount of data these services have on you is in the Gigabyte range (which is a scary amount of data). Google probably has a lot more data on you than Facebook. Remember, their business model is essentially the same as Facebook’s. You are not paying for any of the services they provide you; Gmail, Maps, Photos, Calendar, News, Drive, YouTube, Docs, Hangouts, et cetera. What does this mean? It’s very plain. You are the product. Al...

I recently read an interesting article in the February 2018 Report on Business magazine titled "Driverless follies". It explores the implications of self-driving cars - specifically, some of the ways it will affect traffic. If all the vehicles on the road are self-driving, traffic lights will disappear. Instead, intersections will be orchestrated using wifi. Pedestrians will become "hyper-aggressive" once they realize that these cars will do almost anything to avoid hitting them. These are interesting things to think about, as it will almost certainly happen in the relatively near future. However, there are some pretty significant details to get wrinkled out first. There was a scene in I Robot where Will Smith's self-driving car is suddenly hijacked. His car tells him "You are experiencing an accident" and it tries to crash him into a wall. Naturally, he outwits the AI and gets away, but what happens if your car were hacked in real life? Wit...

Friday's sell off in U.S. equities was one of the largest in recent history, with a 2.1% drop - a drop this large not seen since June of 2016. A correction could be expected after such incredibly strong growth, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 26% over the last 12 months. Whether or not this is a blip in a continuing bull market is unclear; what is clear is that the Canadian market is lagging. Over the last 12 months, the TSX Composite Index is almost exactly even (down 0.25% at the time of writing). That is a significant difference from our neighbours south of the border. The year-to-date figures paint an even more challenging picture. This has been the toughest January for the S&P TSX since 2010. The market is down almost 4% YTD in Canada, whereas the S&P 500 is up more than 3.3% even after Friday's sell-off. Every major sector in the S&P TSX has underperformed its U.S. counterpart this year. Finding a reason for this uncoupl...

I wasn't even aware this device existed, and not only does it exist but it works really well. Recently I had the chance to test a Muse Headband out, and I thought it was very cool. Let me first explain how it works. After powering the device on, you put it on your head. It connects via bluetooth to your phone, controlled by a free app made by the manufacturer. You then connect a pair of headphones to your phone and put them on. The app will first check to make sure the  electroencephalogram (I copy and pasted that word) sensors are reading your brainwaves properly. It uses the same technology that hospitals, clinics, and researchers have used for decades.  If there is an obstruction, like your hair or a band-aid or something, the app will detect that and ask you to re-position the headband. Once the calibration is finished, the real experience begins. There are a variety of mindfulness meditation features available, but I will outline the basic one h...

Daylight savings ends this weekend, which ushers in a new phase of the year: early darkness. While you may get a little bit of sunlight on your commute in to work, you will be leaving in the dark if you work typical 9-5 hours. Even though we don't live farther north, where it is always dark at this time of the year, it can kind of feel like it sometimes. I read an interesting article  that suggests we should think about abolishing daylight savings altogether. Originally, it was started in an attempt to save energy during WW1. However - there has been no evidence to suggest that it actually saves energy. So why do we still do it? Personally, I would rather keep our clocks forward an hour so that daylight lasts longer into the evening year-round. Daylight can have a positive psychological effect, so why not use it so people can maximize their enjoyment of it? From a health and safety perspective, this seems to make sense. During the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, o...

Is a cashless society a good thing? Certainly, it is convenient. If you only need to worry about carrying around a credit or debit card, you will never be without purchasing power. Cards are lightweight and easy to carry around. According to the BBC , only 1% of the value of transactions in Sweden were cash last year. That compares to about 7% in the US and UK, which is a fairly significant difference. I see three potential drawbacks of doing away with cash. They are: 1) It can increase the cost of doing business for the merchant. Typically credit card companies take a percentage of the value of the transactions, of which the merchant has the absorb. These costs will typically be passed on to the consumer. (Debit cards can also cost the consumer if they go over their plan limits). 2) Privacy. Recently, hackers stole the personal information of more than 140 million Americans from Equifax. This includes social insurance numbers, addresses, birthdays, and very private finan...