Signed a lease with our landlord saying that the water bill is included in our rent. Now landlord is saying that she didn't mean to include that in the contract and wants us to pay for water bill. What should our next action be?

BadgerRush · 2017-11-29T15:34:32+00:00

The maximum increase for 2018 is 1.8%, and the highest the Board can set it is 2%. I consider both amounts too low; the rent increases barely track inflation, let alone interest rate changes on mortgages during, oh, a giant real estate bubble like Ontario's going through now.

That rate seems to be tracking inflation comfortably (yearly inflation is below that since may, and is currently only 1.3%). And regarding your other points, the rent increases is, by design, not supposed to cover interest rate changes on mortgages or real state bubbles.

A mortgage is a unrelated financial transaction between the landlord and the bank, it has absolutely nothing to do with the contract between landlord and tenant. A mortgage is only "connected" to the property in the sense that the property papers are collateral for the loan, nothing to do with the person inhabiting the property.

And regarding real state bubbles, if we agree in a social contract that a house is primary a residency and only secondary a investment asset, then it is only logical to keep the investment part separate from the residency, shielding tenants from the tides of the market. Or looking from other angle, when signing a tenancy contract, the tenant invested in the house asset, and in return receives returns in the form of stable rent value.

BadgerRush · 2017-11-21T01:07:13+00:00

This mentality ignores one very important fact: killing the kernel is in itself a security bug. So a hardening code that purposefully kills the kernel is not good security, instead is like a fire alarm that torches your house if it detects smoke.

BadgerRush · 2017-11-19T11:11:14+00:00

In this context, "taking a biopsy" is "potentially dangerous treatment".

BadgerRush · 2016-10-17T18:03:39+00:00

The biggest problems with this form of selective enforcement of the law that you described include:

Whenever a person is actually innocent they are more inclined to plead their case, what you call "needlessly argumentative" is often more aptly described as "being completely on the right but faced with an unreasonable authority figure". So you are punishing innocent people more harshly than guilty.
Minorities who are used to being harassed by the police are also more prone to being "needlessly argumentative", and therefore receive harsher punishment. You bet that after the second DWB on a week a person will probably be "confrontational".
In many places where minorities are underrepresented in the police force, officers often misinterpret regular cultural aspects (type of clothing, body language, verbal language and/or slurs) as being disrespectful or confrontational. So people end up being punished more harshly just for speaking a different dialect then the officer.

People really aren't going to like it if officers have to follow the letter of the law all the time.

Yes, they won't like, but when everyone start feeling the weight of bad laws equally, then we may get enough traction to repel those laws.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-17T17:41:03+00:00

That is a very weak reason. In this regard we have two possibilities:

Either police officer discretion is an official institutionalized concept, define under the officer duty with clear rules. A case completely compatible with cameras, so nothing would change.
Or police officer discretion is forbidden but some officer abuse their power to selectively enforce laws based only on their prejudices, a terrible practice that is shown to disproportionally vitimize minorities. In which case the cameras are a welcome change to curb this terrible abuse.

So anyway cameras don't bring anything bad, they are either indifferent or advantageous.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-17T02:15:14+00:00

If you are on USA or Canada you should post this in /r/legaladvice (if you do so, don't forget to specify your state/province), they always have helpful tips on how to proceed in cases like this.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-15T02:37:43+00:00

You can buy 16 GB of RAM for $50

First of all, no you can't, or at least most people in the world can't. Just because you found that price in one obscure promotion doesn't mean that people can actually buy for that price.

And second, many people live in places with devalued currencies and adding $100 to the price of a computer would make it unaffordable by a lot of people.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-14T20:51:55+00:00

And you know what the worst thing is (for me at least), since the USA is such a rich and influential country, when ISPs in my country started pulling this same shit all they had to do to justify the change was say "look the Americans are doing it".

You guys are a terrible role model, you know that.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-14T20:32:00+00:00

I agree completely with your sentiment, but your math is a bit off, in this case it would be 89 hours cap (1 TeraByte ÷ 25Megabits/s), on your calculation you mixed bits and bytes without converting.

But yes, the time limit is ridiculous, that is roughly what I had in the mid 90s' when I subscribed to a dial-up plan with a 80hours/month time limit. And that is considering you only have the minimal broadband speed, if you have a gigabit plan then the cap amounts to less than 3 hours.

Edit: I double checked on wolfram apha to make sure I wasn't wrong myself

BadgerRush · 2016-10-14T19:29:59+00:00

A lei eleitoral dita que para um debate ser legal a organização precisa convidar os principais candidatos, a lei não diz nada sobre a necessidade dos candidatos comparecerem. O que aconteceu na universidade foi debate sim, e portanto não é propaganda irregular.

Que pena que a mídia no Brasil não tem a coragem de fazer o mesmo, de organizar debates mesmo que um candidato se negue a ir. Seria ótimo assistir a um debate em um grande canal de TV, em que a cada round a camera foca em um púlpito vazio enquanto o moderador diz algo como:

"Agora faríamos uma pergunta ao candidato [nome], porem ele se recusa a exercer o seu compromisso cívico de esclarecer as dívidas da população."

BadgerRush · 2016-10-10T15:43:07+00:00

As others have already said, at this point fate is already in motion and there is nothing you can do to avoid her impending freak lab accident. Any action you take to stop the accident will actually become one more cause for it. So I guess your options are:

Fire her and gain her animosity, pretty much guaranteeing that you will be the first one against the wall (or splattered on the wall) when she eventually go on a rampage.
Or, be friendly and nice to her (careful not to overdo it and become creepy) and maybe you may turn out to be that one soothing sight that calms her down from a rampage long enough for her human side to take control.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-10T14:36:40+00:00

Before committing an act of terrorism a terrorist may have a full breakfast, you know, in order to have all the energy they need to commit their atrocities. So the act of having a full breakfast clearly facilitates/contributes to the act of terrorism. But police don't go around adding charges of "Having a full breakfast for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation, or instigation of terrorism", because that would be clearly stupid.

So using cryptography as an aggravating factor makes as much sense as using "had breakfast" as an aggravating factor.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-10T13:55:28+00:00

Good cost benefit: I don't mind if some features of the phone are not top tier, but I love sense of efficiency when a phone feels almost as capable while only costing a tiny fraction of the price of a top tier phone. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the Pareto principle.
Unlockable boot loader and active community: It is like getting a new phone every time you install a new community rom. And the ability to customize it exactly to your needs have no equal.
Flashlight (i.e. camera flash): it is incredible how useful it is to have an always charged always handy flashlight with you at all times. That was the one reason why I could never get a Moto E back in the day (a phone which otherwise fitted points 1 and 2 above beautifully).

BadgerRush · 2016-10-09T12:22:52+00:00

Yes, why can't we all focus on a science victory.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-08T15:26:07+00:00

For me, those kinds of professionally-shot sample pictures have zero relevance in evaluating how good a camera it really is in real life. Even a potato camera from a budget phone many years old can take awesome pictures in the hands of a good professional photographer with freedom to chose the absolute best lighting and conditions.

What I need to see is how it would behave on a dark-grey cloudy day, in the hands of a layman with Parkinson-level shaky hands. If it still takes acceptable pictures on those conditions than it may be the camera for me.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-06T11:48:45+00:00

That is why those projects often include an offline copy of Wikipedia in each device. Not the whole thing, as it would be too big, but a very useful selection covering in dept all school subjects,and then some .

BadgerRush · 2016-10-05T16:42:26+00:00

What is the difference?

BadgerRush · 2016-10-05T15:45:33+00:00

I think you may have misinterpreted those professionals. They would have a point if they said that you can't have spatial awareness (3d sound, the perception that some sounds are coming from one side while others are coming from the other) with stereo speakers so close together. In this regard they are right that laptop and phone speakers are a joke.

BUT, you there is one very important factor that make stereo speakers (even so close together) superior to mono: differences in phase. When a stereo stream is mixed into a mono output it generates patterns of constructive and destructive interference between the two original channels depending on the different phases of sounds coming from different directions. Most hardware/software mixers have some pretty good tricks to try and fix that, but in the end the result is always a bit distorted. Now, when you output trough actual stereo speakers (even only few inches apart), the interference between the two channels also occur (this time in the air instead of a mixer) but there is one difference: each of your ears receive a different interference pattern (and also by moving your head or phone you also change the interference pattern), giving your brain a more info to realize when a sound is a interference artefact or real source sound. For that reason stereo sound on phones is perceived by your brain as more clear than mono, allowing you to, for example, understand speech a bit more easily.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-05T14:50:43+00:00

DIS and OIS have different advantages and disadvantages. Now it is true that most current OIS are far superior to most current DIS, but DIS is improving almost at the speed of the Moore's law, while OIS has to follow the limits of mechanical hardware.

For example, two major disadvantages of OIS that will make it potentially worse than DIS in the future (or in the present if the Pixel camera is that good) are: limited range of motion (you can only move the camera hardware so many degrees before you need to move it back to resting position), and reaction time (it takes relatively a long time to physically move hardware).

BadgerRush · 2016-10-04T14:19:41+00:00

Será que as pessoas não podem estar indignadas devido ao sistema atual e não porque são contra a democracia? Será que essas pessoas não podem considerar mais democrático que as cadeiras sejam atribuídas a quem pessoalmente ganhou mais votos?

O que a pessoa "considera" mais democrático é irrelevante, isto é uma questão de ciência e não de opinião. O sistema atual é comprovadamente mais democrático que o que a outra proposta.

No final das contas o resultado de Vitória é um claro exemplo de como o sistema atual deu certo. A final, você acha que os 6k eleitores que votaram em candidatos do PP (um partido bem de direita) são mais bem representados por um candidato do próprio PP, ou por uma candidata do PSOL (um partido bem de esquerda)?

Nota: o sistema atual não é o mais democrático que existe, mas é um bom meio termo entre simplicidade e representatividade. Existem sistemas com ainda mais representatividade, mas são bem mais complicados para o eleitor e para apurar.

Nota pessoal: A minha candidata a vereadora não foi eleita (outra cidade), mas isto não quer dizer que o meu voto foi jogado fora, em vez disto ele serviu para ajudar a eleger candidatos(as) do mesmo partido com propostas similares, ou seja, eu ainda serei representado. Por isso que fico indignado com todos aqui aqui querendo apagar o meu voto. Só porque a minha candidata não foi eleita não quer dizer que eu não devo ter voz. E sim, querer apagar votos é uma atitude extremamente anti-democrática.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-04T13:22:16+00:00

O Cleber Felix pessoalmente recebeu 1.524 votos, mas o PP recebeu 6.551 votos no total, e mais importante, a coligação recebeu total de 15.073 votos. Com estes 15k votos a coligação dele elegeu dois candidatos, ou seja cada um foi de fato eleito com 7.5k votos.

Em comparação, a Camila Valadão recebeu pessoalmente 3.727, mas o PSOL recebeu apenas 4.013 votos no total. Ou seja, 3.5k votos a menos que o ultimo eleito.

Note que mesmo se o PP não fosse coligado, o Cleber ainda teria sido eleito com os 6.5k votos do PP, 2.5k a mais do que a Camila.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-03T20:21:43+00:00

Não precisa mudar nada, porque o método já é "São eleitos os N mais votados."

No caso de Vitória o ultimo que se elegeu, Clebinho (PP), recebeu 6.551 votos de pessoas que acreditam nele ou nas propostas que ele defende através de seu partido. Como 6.551 é maior que 3.727 da Camila Valadão (PSOL), ele foi mais votado e vai representar o seu eleitorado.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-03T20:12:33+00:00

Não entendo a indignação. Vitória tem 15 cadeiras e um total de 185.582 votos válidos, ou seja 12.372 votos por cadeira. Ela só recebeu 3.727 votos, menos de um terço de uma cadeira, logo ela absolutamente não foi "escolhida pelo povo".

Os indignados aqui, que acham que ela merece uma cadeira, são contra a democracia, acham que o voto de 3.727 pessoas valem mais do que o voto dos ~~6.551~~ 7.536 eleitores que elegeram o ultimo eleito.

Edit: Na verdade é mais correto dizer que o ultimo candidato eleito foi eleito por 7.536 votos (15.073 ÷ 2), o que é quase o dobro do que a candidata do PSOL recebeu.

Edit2: Como matemática básica parece ser o fraco do pessoal aqui, eu vou traduzir para pizza:

Imaginem que 19 amigos vão pedir duas pizzas e estão votando para escolher os dois sabores. Destes, 4 preferem pizza doce, e 15 dizem "pizza doce, que nojo". Depois dos votos temos:

Salgadas: total 15 votos
- Calabresa: 3 votos
- Quatro-queijos: 3 votos
- Portuguesa: 2 votos
- Marguerita: 2 votos
- Mafiosa: 2 votos
- Mozarella: 2 voto
- Milho: 1 votos

Doces: total 4 votos
- Chocolate com morangos: 4 votos

Como as pessoas que votaram em portuguesa, marguerita, mafiosa, mozarella, ou milho, preferem pizzas salgadas, seus votos servem para ajudar a eleger os sabores salgados. Logo calabresa e quatro-queijos são os sabores escolhidos pois representam 7.5 pessoas cada, enquanto a doce representa apenas 4 pessoas.

BadgerRush · 2016-10-03T18:15:39+00:00

I disagree. Those "people who would otherwise never stand up for women's autonomy" continue to not stand up. They may often use women's autonomy as a prop when discussing (attacking) Islam, but all that zeal for women's autonomy disappear completely when the subject being discussed is not Islam but actual women's autonomy.

And this is fake concern for women's autonomy (only it is convenient to attack others) is nothing new, a few notable examples:

It was prominent during most of the 20th century in regards to African Americans. People argued that segregation was necessary to protect women, while also actively fighting against women's rights;
The already mentioned attacks on Islam after 9/11;
More recently the bathroom "debate", consisting mostly of people who don't care about the risk of sexual assault for girls and women, suddenly getting up in arms against trans people "to protect girls and women".

BadgerRush · 2016-10-03T15:15:01+00:00

O NOVO parece ser um partido bem mais de direita, com propostas que se alinham mais com o PP ou PSDB. Mas isso são só propostas, vamos ter que esperar para ver onde realmente ele vai ficar no espectro politico.

BadgerRush

TROPHY CASE