jadero @ jadero @lemmy.ca

Just a Southern Saskatchewan retiree looking for a place to keep up with st

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2 yr. ago

I remember as a kid in the 1960s having a mobile vaccination clinic show up in our small village in SK. They even had a fluoroscope as part of the TB screening program.

Going further back, I remember when that watts per square metre (the 2200 in your weather report) was introduced as a replacement for whatever windchill calculations they were using before.

One thing many people I know get wrong about windchill is the effect on needing to plug in a vehicle's block heater. If you normally are good down to -20C on a calm day, you'll also be good down to -20C on a windy day, despite windchill being far below -20. The engine will cool faster, not farther.

No matter how fast the engine cools off, it still won't get any colder than the actual air temperature. Of course, that also means that if you are good for 4 hours at -20C on a calm day, starting with a hot engine, then adding wind means you might only be good for 2-3 hours.

🤞

I've managed to learn that even without taking classes. Yet here we are with people supposedly so much brighter than my high-school grad ass who can't or won't figure it out. That's fine on the surface of it, nobody knows everything. But the people in government who have the responsibility to manage the country to the benefit of the population have no excuse for why they don't have the basics figured out.

... more consistency with our competitors...

They don't sound like competitors, but partners; collusion, no competition.

What happened to "competition lowers prices"?

From what I read in this article and what I've read elsewhere, the police knowingly broke the law. How do we create a system in which police can and will be charged when they break the law? As long as they can act with impunity, they will always be above the law.

On a related issue, how much did this cost? Would that money not have been better spent on a few hot meals and maybe a warm-up shelter with washrooms and shower facilities?

Depending on where you drive and the current state of the streets, old rails occasionally show through pavement in Saskatoon. Ave H and 20th Street is one location that comes to mind from my days driving truck in the 1980s and early 90s.

In the late 60s, I rode the electric buses that replaced the trolleys. Then those buses were sold to Vancouver, where I got a chance to ride them again in 1986.

I don't know how other provinces operate, but I like Saskatchewan's actuarial model. Instead of a bunch of demographic slicing and dicing, the only thing that matters is your driving record.

No record means you're a new driver. Whether you're 16 or 80 doesn't get considered, just that you have a "new driver" risk profile. There are also a variety of driving restrictions that gradually come off over a few years of driving with a good record.

Build up a bad record and your premiums climb pretty rapidly. Depending on the nature of the infractions, even your driving license itself can start getting pretty darn expensive and possibly even revoked.

Build up a good record and your premiums go down and your driving license stays inexpensive.

Well said!

Whenever I read something like that, I can't help thinking of my son, who has paid zero attention to any advance since first hearing about the EV-1 or some shill with an agenda.

Personally, I'd love to have a business taking batteries no longer fit for purpose in cars and building off-grid wind and solar systems. That'll never happen, though, because at 67 I'm too old to ever see used batteries in enough volume to justify trying it.

My personal opinion is that the need for large scale recycling is still decades away. If a vehicle's battery pack isn't completely physically damaged, it is more likely to end it's life in use for stationary power or split into smaller packs for short range, occasional use vehicles, like boats, ATVs, small farm and yard equipment, and, of course, golf carts and "city cars".

Yes, good points.

I was born during the baby boom era. I've concluded that "boomer" has long since lost its literal connection to "my" generation. It is now used as a metaphorical disparaging label that means "selfish and clueless because of age."

It's kind of like the trope of technologically clueless grandparents. At this point, the only grandparents who are technologically clueless are those with the same mindsets and experiences as all the GenX and Millenial people who are technologically clueless. And there is certainly no shortage of them.

Your "installer financed" system is sort of like what is available from some solar panel installers. I don't know if it's just a plain lease or rent to own, though.

A not so minor correction. The heat pumps are not free. The maximum payout is $5000. That has to cover the equipment, installation by a certified professional, and any necessary electrical upgrades. A ballpark estimate for my place comes in at over $6000. If I hold the total cost to $5k, the system will not be fit for purpose under the requirements of the program, making me ineligible for anything.

In addition, your dwelling must be eligible. That sounds easy until you realize that mobile homes must have the axles removed. Hitches, too, but axle removal is the big one. For me, that's another couple of grand to remove skirting, shift blocking, pull the axles out, and replace skirting.

The fact that those axles are useless because of other modifications and additions doesn't change the official designation as a mobile home. I suppose it might be possible to appeal that designation, but I'm not sure that would be less expensive.

For the heat pumps to be truly free, they'd have to nearly double the current subsidy and allow for non-electrical expenses like axle removal.

I'm not sure about guarantee. That implies perfection which is never attainable in anything. But requiring transparent evidence of due diligence is certainly doable. As are penalties for failure to meet some kind of standard.

It's past time to institute "grading standards" on large datasets. I have in mind the same kind of statistical standards that are applied in various kinds of defect and contamination analysis. For example, nobody ever guarantees that your food is free of animal feces, only that a fair and representative sample didn't find any.

So the McCarthyism playbook?

The biggest difference I see is that this time it's running as a mostly decentralized and possibly grassroots initiative. But people are still losing their jobs and possibly their entire careers for opinions and activities that have literally nothing to do with their employment or education or even legitimate constraints on their freedom of expression.

Let's face it, Hamas wouldn't even exist if the Israeli government wasn't being a big dick about sharing or at least caring.

The letter I'm sending to my MP:

I urge you to fight against this proposal on moral grounds. That might sound like an odd point of view, but hear me out.

One of the greatest challenges facing us with online activities is not what we or our children have access to, but how companies are handling critical permanent identification. Every day there is a new report of some entity that has lost control of information that has a major negative impact on those whose information was exposed.

There are ways to effectively manage such information and there are companies and government departments deploying those systems. However, there is currently no legal or regulatory framework making those systems and methods mandatory. Until that legal and regulatory environment exists, it is not just a bad idea to expand data collection requirements, but immoral.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the possibility that some person is exposed as a consumer of pornography. I'm talking about those whose incompetence and/or low standards of care allow criminals to gain access to the identifying data for use in criminal activity.

I don't know about you, but the porn industry is the last industry I would ever trust to properly secure and manage identifying information.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

This cannot work safely in the current legal and regulatory environment.

In principle, there seem to be ways to securely, anonymously, and privately handle age verification. To the best of my knowledge, no such system has been deployed or mandated.

Thus, we are left with only the requirement to hand over critical documents to those who have no "standards of care" that make it safe to do so.

Have none of these people ever heard of any company or government agency losing control of personal information? How about they put some effort into fixing that first.

My biggest problem with this whole thing is the legal framing of his actions.

If the bus had instead been a car with a single, middle-aged occupant, I think everything would have gone quite a bit differently.

If that single occupant had not been killed, but made a full recovery, it definitely would have gone a lot differently.

If it had been merely a cop observing the infraction, he would have escaped with just a ticket. At worst, I suppose he might have got a temporary license suspension.

I have difficulty accepting that the identical behaviour should have such radically different punishments just because pure chance leads to radically different outcomes.

Note that I'm not saying that someone who kills someone else should be getting off scott free, regardless of the behaviour that led to the death. But maybe there is room to increase the penalties when dangerous behaviours have little or no consequence as well as room to move on how we handle behaviours that rarely have devastating consequences. Let's face it, the vast majority of those who even deliberately blow through rural stop signs will never even get a ticket, let alone kill someone.

Personally, I don't see this person as a threat to our society, so I see no reason to deport him.

How about instead of being "not trained to do" neck kneelings, they be trained not to do neck kneelings.

Under $90k and over 87 years of age.