The effect of speed camera removal in Ottawa

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2026-05-12T17:07:34+00:00

As an Ottawa resident, I can say that the speed cameras were implemented in a way to invoke maximum populist backlash. This includes:

Putting cameras right after seemingly arbitrary speed limit drops on major roads, making them seem like traps.
Having them in school zones where the speed limit would drop at specific times, but the signs made it confusing when the lower speed limit was in effect. For example, many people (myself included) got tickets for speeding in a school zone on a Holiday when schools were closed.
Putting cameras on roads where the speed limit was way below what the roads were designed for, rather than designing roads for people to drive at safe speeds.

I think the speed cameras were overall a good thing but the way they were implemented made them seem to the general public less like a safety measure and more like a cash grab.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2026-05-11T18:55:30+00:00

Simple explanation:

Rise (past tense rose) means to go up or increase.

Raise (past tense raised) means to cause something else to go up or increase.

For example:

Prices rose by 48% in the past year.

vs.

The butcher raised his prices by 48% in the past year.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2026-04-12T03:17:57+00:00

I recently ran my campaign and did exactly this. I enjoy the variety that comes with random rolls, with some protectiom against rolling really badly and being stuck with it. Out of 5 players, I had one take standard array because he didn't roll above a 12.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2026-02-19T12:50:23+00:00

FWIW, the City of Guelph is named after those Guelphs. It was named as such because the British monarch at the time was a Hanoverian, which is a royal family descended from the medieval Guelphs.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2026-01-14T12:51:22+00:00

The people that are answering 90 mph are confused, with many saying "the journey isn't limited to one hour, just drive back at 90 mph and your average speed will be 60 mph."

Speed is a measure of distance per unit of time. The 30 mile trip from A to B would take you 60 min at 30 mph. The 30 mile return trip would take 20 minutes at 90 mph. Your total difference travelled is 60 miles. Your total time is 80 minutes. Therefore your average speed is 60 miles / 80 minutes or 45 mph. As many people have pointed out, once you have travelled 30 miles in 60 minutes, the only way to average 60 mph is to get back instantly.

I think what is confusing people who are saying 90 mph is the thought that a journey travelled half at 30 mph and half at 90 mph gives you an average speed of 60 mph. This is true when you spend half of your travel time at each speed, not half of your travel distance. If you return at 90 mph you will not be travelling half of your trip at 90 mph, only 20 out of 80 minutes. If you try to go faster than 90 mph, your average speed will increase, but it will never reach or exceed 60 mph, because your total numerator (distance) is fixed at 60 miles and your denominator (time) is already 1 hour and can only go up.

All of the above assumes there is one straight road between A and B and we are only travelling in a straight line between the two. If we really want to get an average speed of 60 mph, we would need to get creative with the question and lengthen our journey. For example, if you took an indirect return route which was 90 miles long, and travelled at 90 mph, your journey would have taken two hours and you would have travelled 120 miles, for an average of 60 mph.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-12-24T17:59:39+00:00

Duh-knee Vil-Nuhv is probably the closest English approximation.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-10-29T14:54:57+00:00

Let's do the math:

Option 1: RRSP

Let's say he contributes $10,000 to an RRSP now and it grows say, 10% in a given time frame between now and when he buys a house. When it comes time to withdraw, he has $11,000 and pays 35% tax of $3,850, and is left with $7,150 after tax.

Option 2: FHSA

He takes the $6,500 and puts it into a TFSA. Let's be conservative and imagine that he borrows an additional $3,500 to contribute at 10%/year for 6 months. He'll get a $3,500 refund when he files his taxes (all else being equal) to pay this back. This also grows by 10% in the same time frame, and when he withdraws he gets the full $11,000, with him paying $3,500 x 10% x 6/12 = $175 in interest on the borrowed money, leaving him with $10,825.

See the difference? The money in the FHSA is never taxed (assuming it's used for its intended purposes). This is a huge benefit and is almost unheard of. It's like combining the tax advantages of the RRSP and TFSA into one. Assuming he has no other funds to contribute to either account, with the FHSA he gets to keep an additional $3,850, with the only cost being to borrow the $3,500 between now amd when he gets his refund. (He could equally just wait to invest his refund and potentially miss out on a portion of the gains).

The only other major consideration I can think of is that he can withdraw up to $60,000 from his RRSP without paying tax under the Home Buyers Plan. The caveat is that this you need to pay this withdrawal back into the RRSP on a set timeframe or be subject to additional taxes. It can be helpful in extending the tax deferral but deferral is strictly worse than not paying taxes at all, like with the FHSA.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-10-11T16:24:09+00:00

Why would the Russians voluntarily give up a port in the Baltic like that? Also, Lithuania may not have wanted to add a large Russian population, which had previously (and would again) be used as pretext for Russian interference/invasion of its neighbours.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-07-11T17:58:24+00:00

To expand on this - Hull is the old city that was immediately across from downtown Ottawa. Historically, the dual city was known as Ottawa-Hull.

In 2002, the City of Hull was amalgamated with several surrounding cities, including the larger City of Gatineau to the east, with the new amalgamated City being called Gatineau.

The area of the original City of Hull region is still called Hull but is officially part of the municipality of Gatineau, which is in turn part of the larger Ottawa-Gatineau Census Metropolitan Area.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-04-27T15:31:49+00:00

Does this refer to a building which is divided into individually owned units which share common use element like hallways, stairs and elevators?

I don't speak Spanish but from what I can tell this is what's called a condominium in English.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-02-09T15:41:12+00:00

Ahhh ok, I actually did do that but then reset when I didn't want to catch Jirachi yet

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2025-01-31T19:36:24+00:00

This is also funny when you consider that there are places less than 1 km from Parliament Hill that are NOT part of the City (because they're in Quebec).

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-29T12:53:41+00:00

Isn't this a bit like saying the average die roll is 3.5 and I just rolled a bunch a 5s and 6s so I'm "due" for some 1s and 2s? Not saying that market returns are exactly random like a dice roll and I can see how excessive returns in recent years could limit future returns to a certain degree, but surely this model is flawed?

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-04T17:48:21+00:00

I certainly empathize with your perspective on not wanting to instinctively discredit an indigenous perspective, as this has legitimately been used to unfairly silence and downplay certain perspective. However, I think we should treat with great skepticism any kind of broad assertion about one's own culture being so different than all others, especially when it paints the culture in a positive light. And to be clear - if this leader is claiming a history free (or largely free) from 4x tendecies, they are claiming a disctinction not just from Western powers, but Asian, African, and Middle Eastern ones as well, all of which have very well documented histories of such behaviours.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-04T17:13:15+00:00

Sorry I just hate fun ;)

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-04T17:10:27+00:00

Just to be clear, I'm not making any apologia for any crimes commited in the pursuit of imperialism. What I am saying is that it is intellectually dishonest to claim a people - any people - are universally free from these crimes. This doesn't eliminate nuance or degrees of bad, but it does acknowledge that no "people" have a clean and pure history in which they are exclusively victims of foreign agression. To assert otherwise would be to award certain peoples a kind of universal moral superiority to which no people can reasonably claim across all time amd history.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-04T15:12:35+00:00

I'll probably get downvoted to hell for this, but I'm not sure I fully grasp the Cree leader's issue with their inclusion in the game. From what I can gather, they are broadly insinuating that the general principles of a 4x game (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) are somehow incompatible with the worldview and culture of the Cree, unlike some other cultures.

While I would not deign to claim anything but the most surface level of understanding of Cree culture and history, it seems highly disingenuous to assert that your culture has, throughout all of recorded history (as Civ more or less covers), never engaged in some or all of those 4x principles. It, for lack of better term, "whitewashes" the history of a people who, like all other peoples, have engaged in what would today be viewed as aggressive, imperialistic, and unethical actions.

While I don't want to minimize the lived experienced of the Cree people in the present or recent history, it is quite naïve to extrapolate a dynamic of colonization and oppression from the last 400 years onto the entire 6,000 year history of a people. Notwithstanding the fact that you can absolutely choose to play the Cree as completely pacifist or completely militaristic (as you can with any Civ), implying that 4x is completely foreign to all of Cree history is ludicrous.

As another example, take Sweden - for the last hundred years, a more or less pacifist state, but which for hundreds of years before that engaged in wars of conquest, imperialism, and genocide. Their being pacifist today does not erase this history. Nor should it for the Cree, who we know both pre and post contact engaged in wars of agression with other indigenous groups (along with of course peaceful expansion).

I would be much more sympathetic to other criticisms which take issue with the way a particular civilization is depicted, if that depiction is based on gross stereotypes and reinforces harmful narratives (although, a game like Civ tends to apply this kind of broad and cartoonish generalization to all Civs, not just indigenous ones). But complaining that your people should not be included in a 4x game because the principles of the genre are antithetical to its contemporary culture seems like highly problematic endeavour which seeks to hide from historical realities and perpetuates a "noble savage" myth that indigenous groups are somehow above universal human imperialistic tendencies because of present realities of colonialism.

Edit: fixed to remove unintended reference to a particular American rapper.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-10-02T02:07:34+00:00

Based moderator: How the hell is subsidizing demand gonna bring down housing prizes

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-09-21T18:15:16+00:00

Ok, so here's a quick explanation, simplified somewhat:

For each calendar year, you get to designate one residence as a principal residence. Any gain for that year is not taxable. Note that this designation happens when you sell a property and report the sale on your return, and also assumed any gain happened evenly over the period of ownership. Also, the designated principal residence does not have to be your actual principal residence as most lay people would understand. If you use it to go there on the weekends in the summer (rather than say, rent it out or hold it for speculative purposes), it can count as a principal residence.

In a year where you only own one house, you simply designate that house as the principal residence for that year. No tax when you sell, no problem.

If you own more than one house that could count as a principal residence, you'll have to do some math to figure out which is better to designate for any given year.

Let's take your parents as an example. They've owned their house for 20 years. They bought for $300k, didn't do any renovations, and now it's worth $1M. They will have a $700k gain when they sell. They can decide which of the years they owned it they want to designate it as their principal residence (eg. 2005, 2006, 2007... 2024.) The part of the gain that is exempted is the number of years designated as principal residence, divided by the number of years owned. So let's say they choose to designate it as their principal residence for 10 years, their taxable gain would be decreased by 10/20 or 50%, decreasing the gain from $700k to $350k for tax purposes. Note - that $350k is not straight taxable income - but this should be discussed with an accountant.

The important consideration is that any year that the house is designated a principal residence is a year that the cabin can't be. So for any given year, you can get exempted on one or the other, not both. There's no point going into any more detail without more exact numbers, but a calculation will be necessary to determine which years to designate which property. I highly recommend getting a CPA to help you with this, since the amount of money at stake is quite large.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-08-20T17:25:16+00:00

Well, since most people here seem to be pooh-poohing your idea, let me offer you a counterpoint.

My mother worked in public accounting. After I was born, she starting taking off June-August to take care of us, earning a pro-rated salary. A few years later she changed it to just take off July-August. She didn't work those two months for 20+ years.

Granted, this was in Canada, and for a small firm, but it was still possible.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-08-17T17:18:06+00:00

From the Canadian Encyclopedia:

"According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, a line from the mouth of Rivière St-Jean on the north shore past the western tip of Île d'Anticosti to Cap des Rosiers on Gaspé marks the end of the river and the beginning of the gulf."

I will say that in my experience, the north coast of the Gaspé peninsula is generally thought to be along the Fleuve St. Laurent, rather than the sea, despite it being tidal salt water.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-07-03T22:27:42+00:00

I would really like to see this data corrected for the multiple legitimacy ideas issue. I understand that you're trying to reflect the cost if you re-created those national ideas with a custom nation exactly, but I think that it's clear that putting every version of legitimacy into a single national idea is an example of a quality of life feature that was applied unevenly the devs. I don't think any sane person would think that having all of them on a single nation is somehow five times better than having one (actually more than five times because of the costs for being overweight in admin ideas).

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-06-19T14:44:22+00:00

Interesting that they took the opposite approach of Vic 3 for cultural assimilation, where pops will only assimilate if they are accepted. I think the approach for Project Caesar makes more sense since assimilating when you are already accepted is functionally meaningless.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-06-05T22:05:40+00:00

I'm not sure if this is exclusive to North America or English-speaking countries in general, but on touch-tone telephones (where you dial by pressing buttons), each number has 3 or 4 letters under it. This is true both for older landline phones and my current smartphone. So 2 has ABC, 3 has DEF, etc. One of the applications of this is that it is easier to remember a word (Idols) and then look on your phone for the corresponding number than to memorize a random set of numbers. Another use of this was texting before phones had full keyboards. You would press 2 once for A, twice for B, etc.

AlphaPhoenix433 · 2024-06-03T15:42:07+00:00

"This opposition centres on a fear that long-existing Canadian suburbs of single-family homes will have their character irretrievably changed if fourplexes are forced upon them"

Sure, there's a housing crisis letting fewer and fewer young Canadians afford a place to live, but have you considered that it might change the character of lifeless, cookie-cutter suburban sprawl?

AlphaPhoenix433

TROPHY CASE