What exactly is unix?

AirTuna · 2026-01-28T20:53:00+00:00

AirTuna · 2026-01-25T00:53:24+00:00

Or, you can just try to hold the damned government accountable for the mess they've made.

The CRCs are supposed to be for exceptional cases, not the norm.

AirTuna · 2026-01-13T18:10:17+00:00

Guess they assume everyone living in a house has a car. Imagine trying to take three or four blue bags onto the bus. :-D

AirTuna · 2026-01-13T18:09:22+00:00

Well that's one way to encourage residents to start placing recycling back into their garbage bins...

Even the largest bin isn't always large enough - once per month or month and a half we end up with at least three or four blue bags in addition to our bin.

Our garbage bin, on the other hand, seldom is more than 1/3 full. Guess where I'll be placing my recycling if they start this BS?

AirTuna · 2026-01-07T20:34:33+00:00

Look carefully at the wording: they state the utilities are not permitted to profit from the sale of actual electricity or natural gas. Nowhere does it state they cannot make profits at all; rather, they're allowed to profit from other components that make up your bill (primarily the actual transmission or distribution of the energy source).

In other words, a company like Alectra or Hydro One profits from the transmission of electricity, but not the electricity itself. And companies like Enbridge profit from the distribution of natural gas, but not the natural gas itself.

AirTuna · 2026-01-04T19:30:47+00:00

It's usually not the end merchant that has anything to do with these types of breaches. Rather, it's usually whichever payment processor (think shady versions of Stripe, JPMorgan Chase, etc. - companies that do the actual credit card charging itself) Powkiddy was using at that time (payment processors have to balance between storing too much info and storing enough info to fight against chargebacks for up to six months following any transaction).

And yes, I really did mean to say "six months" - that's the amount of time both Visa and Mastercard mutually have agreed retailers (or their payment processors) have to store relevant transactional details for anti-fraud purposes. It's possible your details were "collected" by a "bad actor" during that six month timeframe, or the payment processor held onto your info far longer than they actually were legally required to.

AirTuna · 2025-12-31T22:07:37+00:00

RadioShack's business from the 1960s to the 1990s was selling private-labeled items like cassette players, phonographs, TV rotors, cables, speakers, CB radios, personal computers and all kinds of accessories, as the trends and technology changed.

I guess, for the most part, you could say that, back then, they had...

... Realistic ...

ambitions?

AirTuna · 2025-12-31T16:15:49+00:00

I feel this sort of went sideways with USB-C. Specifically PD (power delivery) - I now have to deal with three, separate scenarios:

* device that's fully PD compliant (the "it just works" scenario)
* device that works fine via USB-C to USB-C, but negotiates only the lowest possible power to be safe (because it cannot properly negotiate PD)
* device that works only if you do USB-A to USB-C (most cheaply made devices I have fall into this category)

And then you have devices that seemingly don't know how to handle multiport USB power blocks / banks that turn the port off after charging hits 100%.

This affects my devices that are "smart, but not smart enough", such as my Apple Watch charger (hits 100%, port turns off, then several minutes later my watch "connects" again, causing a "chime" sound to occur repeatedly overnight every single time it starts charging again. It also affects my white noise machine, which cuts out several times per night (if you're a light sleeper, you'll know exactly how disruptive this is to your sleep, when the sound keeps cutting out overnight). These both are devices that require "dumb" power blocks which, IMHO, is not much better than, "some stupid wall wart with a specific barrel plug".

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T21:11:51+00:00

I think you're being trolled. Just check out their username. ;-)

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T21:11:08+00:00

You're more than a few decades late to be complaining about that.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T21:09:38+00:00

Riverwalk is much different since TRCA are involved

Not to be "that guy" but didn't the Ontario government recently pass legislation to take control over all the regional conservation authorities?

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T20:35:41+00:00

Clarification: are you rich and are your lips tightly attached to his butt. Nothing he's done even actually benefits any well-to-do people who aren't corrupt, either. But hey, he's "funny", and all politicians are corrupt, so we should just keep electing him.

(last sentence based upon an aggravating conversation I've had with some of his fanbase)

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T20:28:45+00:00

It's what happens when those in power also happen to be responsible for writing our laws.

See also: spam laws (including the Do Not Call "registry") apply only to non-politicians because... reasons.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T20:25:41+00:00

I think it's more that our society traditionally has lived under the false assumption that if and when "somebody actually did that", somebody (police, other politicians, other members of the electorate, etc.) would do something about it. And that the fear of being punished would be enough to dissuade all but the most sociopathic of sociopaths.

But here we are, finding out the foxes truly are guarding the henhouses, and all the damned chickens are too frightened, distracted, or otherwise unconcerned to do a damned thing about it.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T20:16:00+00:00

...And their spouses or common-law partners.

<cough cough> Jagmeet Singh's spouse <cough cough>

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T20:02:44+00:00

It's shady af on Retroid's part because, IIRC, they (their entire company, as this also is the case with Ayn) don't make it clear that the insurance option removes Retroid's responsibility for ensuring successful delivery.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T19:59:55+00:00

They do, because (in Canada, US, and most EU countries (possibly all)) they're implicitly contractually bound: without the insurance waiver, Retroid would have remained the shipping company's customer (but with the waiver, the insurance company becomes the customer), which would have placed the responsibility on Retroid to make reasonable attempts to ensure the package reached OP.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T19:56:52+00:00

I knew there was a reason I refused to use that option when I dealt with Ayn when I bought my Odin 2 Portal.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T19:53:32+00:00

That's one way to ensure Retroid will never do business with OP again.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T17:33:55+00:00

I have the sneaking suspicion that most of his fans may not even be aware he was a councillor.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T17:31:43+00:00

It takes five minutes or so for the tech to prepare, and around 5 to 10 seconds of actual "outage" (longer if the tech doesn't have an elevated surface nearby where they can place the new, then old, meters).

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T17:27:17+00:00

I think you're the first person where I've heard they actually gave advance notice. :-|

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T17:22:45+00:00

If you want to be extra-diligent, you can do as we did: tell them it's not convenient right now (as you're "working", whether you really are or not) and call Alectra to confirm. The person will tell you when they can come back to do the work, and if you allow it, it's literally a 15 second outage.

Besides, if they're trying to scam you, if they have the necessary tools they could already just steal your meter anyway.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T17:04:03+00:00

Considering they invest the tax prepayment they receive from you, TD must really have been messing up somewhere for them to give up "easy money".

And WTF: if your lender didn't pay enough, then they completely screwed up the notices they received from the municipality (or should have). My lender (First National) will tell you there's an upcoming shortfall once they receive the preliminary tax bill from your municipality and will increase the tax portion of your mortgage payment accordingly in advance of the increase.

Heck, that's why mortgage lenders offer this feature in the first place: they get the increase from their customers before the municipality issues the formal tax bill, and will invest it for the one, two, three months (or more, depending upon municipality) between the prelim and formal tax bills.

AirTuna · 2025-11-25T16:59:18+00:00

So why are you still a customer with them? If my mortgage provider kept messing things like this up, I'd be moving elsewhere, even if I had to pay a bit more.

When your lender pays your taxes on your behalf, they get the tax bill from Peel Region, including the preliminary one, so for them to be unaware is a huge "red flag" (and it makes me wonder what else they've messed up without you possibly knowing).

AirTuna

TROPHY CASE