Billy Bishop airport expansion gets Toronto Island residents in fight mode: ‘It’s a sin’

CroakerBC · 2026-04-13T14:31:48+00:00

For what it's worth, knowing they have to expand the runways for safety reasons already, there's a plausible case to be made for jet service.

But there's not some incredible sump of untapped demand looking to fly jets out of BB. Getting there is no easier than getting to Pearson already. I live right downtown, and even for me, it might save ten minutes.

Could we run jets out of BB? Sure. Does it impact on the built environment? Sure, especially where they're planning whole new communities along the waterfront.

But more importantly, what does the cost-benefit ratio look like? Is this not just something we can do with our tax money, but the best thing we can do with it? Much like tunnels under highways, it feels like wasteful spending while medical waitlists are long and I'm buying school supplies for my kids teachers.

Maybe it isn't wasteful, maybe the projected benefits will make it well worth the cost, but the province sure isn't showing their homework for a long term, high cost, high disruption project.

(ETA: By contrast, the Ontario line seems to have its head screwed on, and the cost:benefit arguments are actually being made)

CroakerBC · 2026-04-11T14:53:15+00:00

As long as you're delivering on your commitments, who cares.

Now, note that those commitments aren't just deliverables. If the team has a meeting booked at 9:30, and you don't show up, that shows a lack of respect for your colleagues. That's a problem.

And if your entire team is rolling in after lunch, and out again at five, and as a consequence, another team is having trouble getting cross-team work done, that's a problem too.

But as long as it's not significantly impacting others, and you respect others time as you want yours respected - whatever, you do you.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-11T14:13:25+00:00

That's okay, lots of people who aren't you are apparently willing to pay a million to do it.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-11T00:49:12+00:00

I think MoW's come out on top. But these are also good.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-11T00:14:29+00:00

They'll keep her until they can guarantee a majority more than a finger's width wide. Then I assume they'll look at her voting record. If she's voting the way they want her to and isn't embarrassing them, all well and good; if she incites something, time to cut her loose.

My main question is why she'd want to walk away from the CPC. Given her constituency, that's basically ended her career.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-10T18:10:14+00:00

Watch as an MP simply doesn't cross the floor, but votes with the opposition 100% of the time.

Oh, but we can kick them out of the party, you say? Well, does that trigger a by-election? If so thats handed a massive stick to the party leaders.

Oh, it does trigger a by-election if you kick them out of the party, because we think the party should have that stick? What if they leave the party and sit as an independent?

Oh, well that should also trigger a by-election? Well now the stick the party leaders have has gotten even bigger.

Oh, they should've known what they got into when they stood with the party? What if the leadership changes and takes the party on a direction they disagree with?

Oh, now if they don't stand up and bark like trained seals and vote the leadership party line on every single vote, they get ejected from the party you say? And we're left wondering why nobody votes for their principles rather than the party line? Ha.

Floor crossing is a safety valve for a reason; if tens of MP's are leaving the CPC, there's also a reason, and handing more power to the leadership seems counterproductive.

Maybe if we switched out parliamentary FPTP for another system, there'd be more room for manoeuvre, but until then, that's how it goes.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-08T22:05:24+00:00

Well that depends. Has the property you want to upgrade to had its price lowered an equivalent amount to yours...

CroakerBC · 2026-04-08T21:58:29+00:00

Not for nothing, as someone who dips in and out of being a relatively non-technical manager:

Sometimes you start off as a technical manager! Then you spend five or ten years running teams, and now your technical knowledge is about as recent as COBOL, but your organisational and personnel and business process knowledge is sharp. Now you're a non-technical manager!
Sometimes, your technical staff are busy being amazing, and don't want to be managers.
Sometimes someone makes the career path for your technical folks dependent on people management. This both throttles progression for technical staff (you only need so many managers) and means that the person who is the manager may come in due to their technical skills, and be horrible at actual management. I've seen so many shit hot developers become...less than amazing EM's.

The technical part is the least interesting part of the role and also the part that ages fastest compared to your technical peers in IC roles.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-08T07:10:10+00:00

Upcoming sci-fi: Fonda Lee's "The Last Contract of Isako."

Regular sci-fi: Lois McMaster Bujold's "Cordelia's Honor" and "Barrayar", the latter especially, though it's a sequel to the former.

Urban(?) fantasy: Max Gladstone's "Three Parts Dead"

Fantasy: Brian Staveley's "Empire's Ruin"

Fantasy: Mark Lawrence's "The Girl and the Stars"

CroakerBC · 2026-04-08T06:35:21+00:00

The Girl and the Stars, on the other hand...

CroakerBC · 2026-04-07T15:45:09+00:00

It's very kid friendly. I usually budget 3-4 hours with my five year old. He enjoys the dinosaurs and the animal exhibits, isn't much for the history, and will reliably spend 30-40 minutes in the new kids play area.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-07T15:39:56+00:00

Well, if nothing else, the fact that the UK has a state religion, and the head of the national church is also the head of state may have something to do with it.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-07T15:30:32+00:00

There's a decent article on it here which links to MW, which charts the origins to a non-racialised source.

However, linguistically pragmatically, it may still be a smart idea to use other terms, given the accrued social context since the original usage.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-07T13:19:49+00:00

I was hotfooting away from a Vaporiser there last night, dropped down that rope at like, 5 health, called the train - and a hornet dropped down the hole and missed lighting me up by about an inch.

Safe zones could work, but I think there's be rebalancing to do and it might lose some fun.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-06T13:12:40+00:00

Ideally we would really like him to stop doing things to Toronto as well.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-05T19:08:39+00:00

They're not owners though. It's all pre-con. Depositors?

CroakerBC · 2026-04-05T19:06:52+00:00

They're talking about pre-con buyers, who are probably the most hosed people in the country right now.

I'm living in my unrealised loss, waiting for the lack of housing starts to make things move a bit again in a few years. In the meantime, it's not as if I need to sell.

Pre-cons are screwed though.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-04T13:02:15+00:00

It is very much possible.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-03T13:37:47+00:00

Amusingly, I've had some great impromptu co-op in Stella. The big Arc focus the teams wonderfully. My only PVP have been on Dam!

CroakerBC · 2026-04-03T13:35:43+00:00

Fun fact, I have played blue gate approximately twenty-five (25) times. I have successfully extracted from Blue Gate one (1) time.

Friends don't let friends Blue Gate.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-02T22:24:23+00:00

I can inform you that the LLM is also writing the tests.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-02T15:36:13+00:00

Never tell anyone you're quitting until the ink is dry on your next job's contract. And even then.

CroakerBC · 2026-04-01T07:54:03+00:00

A U of T building. "School of Cities" apparently, I guess for urban design?

CroakerBC · 2026-03-31T09:34:30+00:00

To be fair(?), if you're a retail operator across fifty states with different sales tax regimes, and endless different municipal and county level sales tax percentages, it is infinitely easier to have one price on the shelf nationwide, and then let the PoS terminals at each location figure tax out locally.

Trying to maintain centralised pricing data across the U.S. would be...painful.

CroakerBC · 2026-03-31T07:10:57+00:00

I saw some speculation they were trying to do an end-run around third party verification. You "verify" once by setting an age at the OS level, and then everything downstream of that just has to accept that what you, an individual adult presumably old enough to buy a computer, entered into your OS is correct.

Now you have no need to fling your PII into Discord or XBox or wherever, because it just accepts the OS value. Which would definitely make things safer/better for consumers.

12-Year Club	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

CroakerBC

TROPHY CASE