sbv @ sbv @sh.itjust.works

Posts

128

Comments

3,483

Joined

2 yr. ago

education in Québec is heavily subsidized by Québec taxpayers. It's only natural that the Québécois get their money's worth by paying less.

University education is heavily subsidized in all provinces. I'm not sure about the exact tuition fees in each province, but this article suggests they're similar.

Quebec is a net recipient of equalization payments from taxpayers in other provinces, so that argument suggests students from elsewhere deserve a similar level of cheap access.

And foreign students also make up a significant portion of university funding in all provinces. I'm not sure how that would factor into the "we paid for it" argument.

And as far as French goes, if anyone intends on graduating in Québec and staying for work should learn the local language.

I'm not against this. I don't know what it would look like in practice, and it would be weird for anglophone universities, but it seems similar to other language requirements Quebec has.

Totally fair. Every table is different.

I've learned that NPCs should have the bare minimum of background necessary for my sessions. If the players like the NPC, it they become useful later on, that's when I start fleshing them out. Of course, the NPC needs to survive long enough for that to happen.

I think dark synthwave generally fits that description.

After some of my sessions, a couple of players will say "thanks! That was fun!" It's always the same ones.

I'm not sure if they're being polite or if they're legit enjoying it. I try to believe the latter.

help --help

Trolling aside, yeah, being able to explain a concept in everyday terms takes careful thought and discipline. I'm consistently impressed by the people who write Simple articles on Wikipedia. I wish there were more of those articles.

This CBC piece is veeeery similar to a story Canadaland released earlier this week.

They interview the person the new MP harassed. She does a good job explaining the impact Chartrand's harassment had on her.

I didn't see a link to it in the CBC piece.

Google Lens says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bank_Observatory?wprov=sfla1

weekend hit as many as 20 Russian warplanes, destroying around 10 of them, two U.S. officials told Reuters, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Eh. Still seems pretty good.

Given D&D's sudden popularity, I'm kind of surprised the museum closed recently.

Is the point of Wikipedia to provide everyone with information, or to allow editors to spew jargon into opaque articles that are only accessible to experts?

I think it's the former. There are very few topics that can't be explained simply, if the author is willing to consider their audience. Best of all, absolutely nothing is lost when an expert reads a well written article.

There's a core problem that many Wikipedia articles are hard for a layperson to read and understand. The statement about reading level is one way to express this.

The Simple version of articles shows humans can produce readable text. But there aren't enough Simple articles, and the Simple articles are often incomplete.

I don't think AI should be solely trusted with summarization/translation, but it might have a place in the editing cycle.

Not cried, but I felt shaken and sad when Iain Banks died. His writing isn't important to me the way a few other authors are, but I read his stuff at a very specific time in my life. I think his death got me thinking about my own mortality.

I didn't find out about Toren Smith's death until a few years ago. It's sad that he died so young. I felt the same way when Nigel Findley died.

Both of them created worlds that I ran TTRPGs in. I think that makes me feel a weird connection with them. They didn't know that I exist, but I still built on what they gave me, and that makes me feel a kinship (and admiration) for them.

Parker says the Green party and NDP in Ontario and nationally have put forward practical solutions to tackle different aspects of housing and why it's become unaffordable, including building non-profit housing on public lands, implementing vacant home taxes and using inclusionary zoning, which require private developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units within new, multi-unit housing developments.

Those all sound fine. The article doesn't dig too deeply into what those solutions would actually look like, but I don't think anyone would disagree that starting with them is a good idea.

Inclusionary zoning is interesting. The City of Ottawa has been doing that for a while (not really, but there are affordability requirements that builders will agree to in order to get zoning exemptions), and I haven't seen any stats or anecdotes saying it makes a difference or helps anyone.

Maybe they exist and I missed them. I hope that's the case.

Aren't non-primary residences already taxed in that way?

Minimally, requiring bids to be in the open would go a long way. And price history to be included in listings. And taxing sale profit as income.

There are so many little things that could lower prices.

When asked, Carney did not disagree with Robertson either. The Walrus has a really interesting analysis of Carneys explanation.

I would summarize it as "young Canadians may find it easier to buy houses over time" - but that doesn't mean soon. Nor does it mean they intend to push market prices down, rather they may be trying to stabilize market prices and hope salaries catch up, thanks to inflation.

I believe we've discussed this a few times, and I think we've drawn different conclusions from similar evidence.

Suffice to say: I really hope Canadians see a substantial improvement in housing costs before the next election.

It's more about how we see ourselves. Do we build strong services and utilities for our own population, or do we keep shoveling money and opportunity to our incumbents?

We used to have a pretty strong telecom industry. We had decent manufacturing and ship building, if you go far enough back. If there's decent infrastructure, tax codes, and investment incentives maybe we could have those again.

It feels like Carney is interpreting his mandate as reinforcing the status quo when it comes to winners and losers in the current economy.

When his housing minister was asked if house prices need to come down, he replied:

“No. I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable. It’s a huge part of our economy,” said Robertson on his way to the first meeting of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet

So they are planning to maintain current prices, but there may be more choice, and they are promising to build some affordable housing (for sale? Rent? Who runs it? How affordable will it be?).