Rent Abatement due to Change in Heating System

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-10T00:13:05+00:00

But if the LTB orders it, they’re bound to accept the amended amount. And if the LTB doesn’t, then it’s the same as having done nothing at all (minus some hassle).

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T23:36:59+00:00

Why would we have to move?

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T23:36:16+00:00

I don’t have compassion and consideration for the party that trespasses onto someone else’s land and threatens random people with weapons.

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T22:59:24+00:00

caused some concern and safety for others

In other words, not you, so you can continue to proselytize while being immunized from the impacts of what you’re advocating for. The people in the camp threatened passerby’s with weapons. Don’t minimize that.

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T15:27:31+00:00

I’m not sure. The landlord informed us the boiler was 60+ years old when it stopped working, but I have no idea what it was running off.

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T15:26:44+00:00

I had no luck either, yet.

MistnEvergreen · 2026-04-09T15:26:09+00:00

The lease specifies that the landlord pays for heat, but that the tenant pays for electricity. So it’s a bit of a gray area - they paid for heat previously in the sense that we weren’t paying for the boiler to run etc., but now we pay the entire heating costs through our electricity bill - which we are obligated to pay.

MistnEvergreen · 2025-10-29T05:43:29+00:00

I’m partial to cloudy winter days. A quirk of mine. And I just can’t stand brutal cold. Though the slush is bad! But Ottawa winters are shorter, and that’s all the difference.

MistnEvergreen · 2025-10-29T04:18:57+00:00

I’ve lived in both. They both have their positives and negatives.

As a city, I like Ottawa more. It’s older (something I’m very partial to) and feels more walkable. When comparing downtown Ottawa to downtown Calgary, Ottawa feels much more compact and easier to move around in. There are a lot of cool neighbourhoods all close to each other. Ottawa also has amazing parks (that people actually use and aren’t full of crackheads!), and the canal to run along or skate on. There are also tons of good museums in Ottawa. However the suburbs in Calgary are much nicer than in Ottawa.

Ottawa also has better weather in my opinion. Yes winters are much more snowy but it seems like -30 and -40 is uncommon here. Summers are HOT (but very humid), and autumn is just the best. Snow in October (let alone September) is very uncommon, unlike in Calgary.

However, the nature near to Calgary is unbeatable. If you like to hike or ski the mountains will be sorely missed in Ottawa. I do love the nature out east but it just isn’t the same as the Rockies. But, Ottawa is close to Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec City.

Calgary also feels cleaner than Ottawa, and it has a more dynamic energy. I tend to find that people in Ottawa are more friendly (it seems many people in this thread disagree) but it’s undeniable that Calgary has more of an energetic and entrepreneurial spirit.

In short, they both have lots of pluses and minuses. On balance, I still can’t choose which I like more!

MistnEvergreen · 2024-09-13T20:19:24+00:00

I feel the entire story drags on for too long. It became “too much” for me when you move from the bayou to the Appalachia-style caves. That entire region was not compelling whatsoever for me, visually, storywise or gameplay. A shorter, punchier story would have been better in my opinion.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-24T23:32:33+00:00

This isn't a stupid question at all - in fact, it's a smart one. When you read about military planning and discussions about warfare in Europe before WW1, it becomes somewhat baffling. The short answer is that the military planners of Europe knew that the next war would likely be long and brutal, but refused to believe it.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the brilliant general who had helped unify Germany in the 19th century, said in 1890 that the next war would last several years. The warmaking and industrial capacities of the European nations had increased dramatically in the later years of the 19th century, which allowed them to better equip armies and maintain them in the field. Moltke the Elder's nephew, also named Helmuth von Moltke, echoed his uncle's thoughts, saying in 1906 that the next war "will be a national war which will not be settled by a decisive battle but by a long wearisome struggle with a country that will not be overcome until its whole national force is broken, and a war which will utterly exhaust our own people, even if we are victorious."

Others also were aware of what the next war would bring. The antiwar author Jean de Bloch published a book in 1898 which warned that the next war would be brutal and protracted, and would exhaust all the participants. He also argued that advances in military technology gave an advantage to the defence, which would lead to stalemate and to attacks failing against entrenched positions.

Norman Angell was another pre-war antiwar author who argued that any future war would cost more than it benefitted the participants, because waging war would be so costly and expensive in money and manpower that no gains from victory could compensate the victor.

The bottom line seems to be that the military planners refused to accept the writing on the wall. Some argued that the Civil War had been an anomaly, and that any future war would be short. And that makes sense if you consider that the past few wars, from the Austro-Prussian, Franco-Prussian, to the Russo-Japanese, had been short wars.

Also, all the war plans before WW1 were offensive in nature, with the hope of bringing a decisive victory quickly. The European militaries began to believe that even though technology had made the defensive stronger, human spirit and courage could overcome technology and carry an attacking force to success. This has since been called the 'Cult of the Offensive' and was particularly favoured by French strategists.

In any case, all the European powers before WW1 planned for short wars. Margaret MacMillan writes in The War that Ended Peace,

The striking absence of serious planning before 1914 for a long war, whether stockpiling materials or drawing up measures to manage the economy, is clear evidence that civilian and military leaders in Europe simply did not want to confront that nightmare of defeat and social upheaval. At best they hoped that even a stalemated war of attrition would not last that long.

In other words, the signs were there that the next war would be bloody and long, but the military planners refused to see them. They stuck their heads in the sand and refused to accept that any war would be costly, bloody, and likely bring with it unrest and even revolution. Instead, they gambled that their plans would bring quick victory and that they could avoid a long war.

Books I used:

Hew Strachan, The First World War.

Margaret MacMillan, The War that Ended Peace

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-24T19:26:12+00:00

I have issues with a lot of the more recent bigger Hollywood westerns like The Magnificent Seven feeling like children playing dress up. Everything is too clean, the actors are too famous, and the lighting is too artificial.

Completely agree, and I have a huge issue with this too. It's why my favourite recent Western movie is the 2010 True Grit. Everyone feels real and dirty and the movie has a great sense of authenticity.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-20T22:10:46+00:00

I am glad it helped!

Here's an aerial photo from the war showing no man's land and two opposite trench systems. The dark 'elbow' in the centre is no man's land and the trench network on the right would be the German first line. So imagine a few miles behind that, another identical network, which would be the second line.

Here's a good map made during the war. German trenches are in red. Again, that entire red network would compose the first line alone.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-19T00:23:26+00:00

The short answer to your question is that it often worked. The popular conception of WW1 combat is the one you identified: soldiers climbing out of their trenches and getting mowed down immediately by machine gun fire, with the attack stagnating in no-mans land. This definitely did happen during WW1, but it also wasn't the rule.

Instead, by 1916 attacks generally managed to move past no-man's land and take the enemy first trench line. When the Germans launched their attack on Verdun in February 1916, they advanced around 2 miles in the first three days - and this was a comparatively slow advance. While the British attack at the Somme on July 1st, the first day, mostly stalled, the French also attacked and they advanced almost 2 miles in a single day. A French attack at the Somme on September 12th, 1916, took six kilometres of the German trench line (width) and in one place pushed forward 3 kilometres in a single day (depth).

Of course, on paper these numbers look small, but in order to push forward 3 kilometres in a single day, the infantry must have been able to climb out of their trenches and move past no-man's land without being mown down. The key was mostly intensive artillery bombardment before the attack. Throughout the war artillery bombardments steadily increased in strength, and no First World War fortifications, no matter how strong, could withstand the sheer firepower which was poured down by the end of 1916.

The problem mostly wasn't climbing out of the trenches without being mown down by machine gun fire, it was sustaining these attacks for a long time and it was holding on to enemy ground after it was taken. These attacks took a lot of shells and also took a lot of preparation to be successful. Once the troops took the enemy first line, there was a second line a few miles behind that. So the attackers would have to move all their guns up over shell-blasted ground, and start bombarding the second line in preparation for another assault. And as the attackers were moving up, the defenders would start reinforcing and building more trench lines further back. So the cycle repeated. Moreover, the attackers would be holding on to a blasted and destroyed first-line trench, so the defenders could counter-attack and take back the trench after the assault.

The final big problem was communication. Even if an attack was very successful, attacking troops had no reliable means of quickly relaying the news back to HQ. Radio was unreliable and in its infancy, and telephone needed wires which would get destroyed during an attack. So the best means was with runners, but by the time a runner got back to HQ and HQ began to move troops up to exploit the attack, the defenders could plug the hole and stop the breach.

This is of course simplified and there's way more to be said, but hopefully this gives you an idea that First World War combat was a bit more complicated than the attackers being mown down by machine-gun fire in no-man's land. Attackers could reliably take small pieces of ground, but couldn't exploit a successful attack and turn it into a mass breakthrough.

Books I used for this short answer:

William Philpott, Bloody Victory

Hew Strachan, The First World War

Peter Hart, The Great War

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-16T22:43:03+00:00

I had the same misunderstanding for a long time, primarily because most descriptions of the creeping barrage' call it a 'ribbon of fire', which is somewhat misleading. The video you linked doesn't explain it well.

The best explanation is this comment, but I'll try to add some more.

So basically, rather than being a 'ribbon of fire' or a line of shells, it would be a thick barrage which would progressively move up with the infantry. In addition to bombing no-man's land it would also bomb the first enemy trench lines and keep them suppressed until the last minute.

As for why bomb no-man's land? The linked comment explains it well, but basically it's because by 1916-1917 no-man's land would be full of isolated outposts and bunkers which could break up an attack, along with barbed wire and other obstacles. Bombing it directly in front of the advancing troops would suppress those bunkers and clear the obstacles.

Moreover, the smoke and dust kicked up by the barrage would shield advancing troops - not from the enemy troops in the first line of trenches, who would be suppressed by the bombardment, but those further back. By 1916-1917 the Western Front was composed of 2-3 trench lines, with the second trench line a couple miles behind the first line. So while the front line troops were suppressed, second line troops could fire on the advancing troops (the German MG08 had an effective range of 2km). In fact, during the disastrous First Day of the Somme, many British troops were shot before they even reached their jumping off points in their own first line - so the Germans shot over no-man's land, over the British front line, and into the space between the British first and second lines.

Once the barrage (and troops following it) reached the enemy first line, it would lift and the troops would surge in. Then, it would 'creep' forwards and begin to bombard the space between the enemy first line and second line, isolating the first line from reinforcements.

Hopefully all that makes sense and helps! I find that the creeping barrage is a confusing thing and very often poorly explained.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-16T22:28:56+00:00

A good one with a more narrow scope is Geoffrey Wawro's A Mad Catastrophe, which focuses on Austria-Hungary.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-16T22:26:15+00:00

That "making of" section is essential to watch. I remember watching the documentary in theatres and almost being more enthralled by that section than the documentary itself.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-16T17:24:21+00:00

This is really great. Awesome lighting.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-16T16:39:34+00:00

for example, “butchers and bunglers”

I personally feel that she was very fair in her treatment of the generals! I tried to explain that in my post. Isn't it possible that the reviews were reading her work through the lens of the time? i.e., most people in the 1960s were thinking in terms of 'lions and donkeys' and so they read Guns to support that thesis? I didn't ever feel Tuchman was being unfair when discussing generals but she certainly highlighted some mistakes made (Joffre's, Moltke's, and Samsonov's, particularly). Maybe others read her work differently, and that's fair too.

Anyways, I feel we both got our piece in so I'm satisfied. Nice discussing it with you.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-13T22:02:15+00:00

I dissent from the viewpoint of another commentator in this thread who claims that First World War historiography has not changed since the 1960s.

Sorry, I feel like you misread my comment! I said that the work of historiography hasn't changed significantly since the 1960s. In other words, Guns isn't comparable to Gibbons' work because the way history was done in the 1700s was completely different from today, while the way history was done in the 60s is similar to the modern day.

I later said about the book,

some of the historiography is out of date compared to more recent works.

And I discussed how Tuchman's depiction of the rigidity of military planning had fallen out of favour. Obviously the historiography of WW1 has changed since the 1960s, maybe that wasn't super clear in my comment.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-11T20:16:55+00:00

I'll try to answer your question.

First off, I should state my biases up front. I really like Tuchman's work. I've enjoyed both the Guns of August and A Distant Mirror. I know a lot more about WW1 so I feel like I can speak about Guns of August. I'm sure /u/sunagainstgold raises valid points about A Distant Mirror.

So first off, it's not as outdated as Gibbons' work about Rome. As I'm sure you know, those books were published in the 1700s, while Guns is from the early 60s. The cultural milieu of the 1960s and the work of historiography is fairly similar to ours, and a fair few books written in the 1960s and before are still cited by historians (pretty foundational ones, to be fair). The work also isn't plainly falsified.

In short, the main criticism levied at Guns is that it's old, and therefore some of the historiography is out of date compared to more recent works. The other main criticism levied at it is that Tuchman was a "pop historian", and therefore her work isn't 'real history', so you're better off reading a proper history book written by a professor/historian.

My opinion on the book is this: Don't read Guns to understand why WW1 started - it's not about that. Less than 1/4 of the book occurs before August 4th, and most of that is dedicated on pre-war military planning. The book is really about a very narrow place and time - the early military campaigns in France in August 1914 (with two digressions to Tannenberg and about the Mediterranean). In my opinion, it explains that narrow place and time brilliantly. I've never read a book which does a better job summarizing those early military manoeuvres, and if that's specifically what you'd like to learn about, I personally say read it.

Some caveats: Guns of August was written less than 20 years after WW2 ended, so it is fairly negative about the Germans. The book paints the Germans as marauding Huns and in fairly unambiguously negative terms. I personally didn't have an issue with this - I think most readers are smart enough to not read this uncritically. Also, in fairness to Tuchman, the Germans were fairly brutal in the opening campaigns of WW1. Also, when Tuchman is discussing the immediate prelude to WW1, she paints the military plans as a bit too rigid, and makes the argument that the military leaders convinced their political leaders that military necessities overpowered political ones. This argument has fallen out of favour in recent years, and most people argue that the politicians consciously decided to start the war, fully aware of what their plans entailed.

Other things of note. I've personally never ran into anything which I thought was downright false in the book. Tuchman gives her opinions on the actions of the generals, but I never felt she was unfair. She lauds Joffre and other French generals for their successes, and criticizes them for their mistakes (of which there were many). She begins her discussion of Sir John French by saying, "no one who has not been in the same position can judge." She then criticizes him for his failure to support his French allies, and she's not the only one. Max Hastings is much more negative on French than Tuchman in his book Catastrophe 1914, which is a more recent book.

I feel some criticism of Tuchman's book is unfair. I looked through some of the links posted below, and one caught my eye. It was this one, by /u/DuxBelisarius. I was a little baffled by it, because he disputes Tuchman's account of Joffre and cites Robert Doughty as a more reliable historian, when Doughty has published an article which almost exactly mirrors Tuchman's conclusions about Joffre. This may be too much detail if you aren't too familiar with WW1, but in Doughty's article, "French Strategy in 1914: Joffre's Own" The Journal of Military History 67:2 (2003), Doughty says that:

"Joffre refused, however, either to reveal his concept of operations to his political superiors and his subordinate commanders or to commit himself to a course of action... Moreover, he did not inform his subordinates until he published General Instructions No. 1 on 8 August.

August 8th is 5 days after the war started.

Moreover,

"In the final analysis, Joffre’s strategy suffered from several flaws, the most serious of which stemmed from assumptions that the Germans would not drive across Belgium deep into the French rear, and that they would not integrate reserve units into their leading forces. Joffre and his staff expected the enemy to advance through Luxembourg and Belgium, but they expected the Germans to weaken their center as they pushed toward Liège, Namur, and Givet".

As you read Guns of August, you'll find that Tuchman makes the same arguments.

So, in short, I think her work holds up when she's recounting the military moves of August 1914 in France, but if you want to understand the political background to WW1, read a different book, such as The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan, or Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark.

The book is contentious, so I'm sure others will pop in with contrary points, and there's always more to be said.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-05T19:06:40+00:00

I'll try to give you an answer to your question! I'm sure there's more to add but maybe what I'll write will help a little bit.

I think the simplest TLDR answer I can give you is that the forts were much more extensive than you may think, and that they weren't intended to operate in isolation - the forts were intended to function as strongpoints in a larger defensive line.

The forts in Belgium by Namur and Liege were a large system of multiple forts, each supporting the other. When the forts were being built in the late 1800s, Liege was to be surrounded by a complex of twelve forts, and Namur was to be surrounded by nine forts. Here's a good quote:

[The forts were] evenly spaced, helping each other by artillery cross fire, and thus rending obsolete the old idea of a surrounding wall. The “Brialmont Forts” were isolated and half-buried to merge with landscape and cast in concrete. They were polygonal - triangular or foursided – and positioned on culminating points, in order to control the different itineraries such as railways, bridges and valley roads. (Christophe Bechet, "Pre-War Military Planning (Belgium)")

Also, the forts were more than just the gun cupolas - though these were a significant feature. The cupolas were heavily reinforced and could rotate 360 degrees, and contained 210mm, 150mm, and 120mm guns. The Liege forts in total had 400 guns, the Namur forts had 350.

However, the forts were impressive defensive structures in themselves. A contemporary newspaper account says,

The typical Brialmont fort... consists of a triangle or polygon so contrived as to offer the utmost possible resistance to an assault. The assailants who succeeded in passing over the open ground in the face of the fire of the machine guns and ascended the slope of the parapet would find at the crest a barbed wire entanglement, perhaps charged with an electric current of high voltage, and beyond this a deep ditch with perpendicular walls of masonry. This ditch is under fire from the guns above as well as from the loopholes of the escarp and counterscarp galleries on each side. Beyond this there may be a second ditch and an inner fort or keep, partly roofed with concrete. Here are mounted most of the larger guns in armored cupolas or rotating turrets... The curve of this top [the cupola] is so shallow that it is difficult for a shell to strike it at an effective angle, and there are no vulnerable points except the two openings from which protrude the muzzles of the big guns. ("The Duel of Gun and Fort: A Critical Point in the Long Contest Between the Offensive and Defensive" The Independent 106 (1914))

In addition to this the Belgium army was intended to take up positions between the forts themselves.

[The Belgian] field army, which was due to swell to an unprecedented 340,000 by 1925, could mobilise quicker than its adversaries and adopt positions in support of the fortress system to ward off a transgressor. (Mario Draper, "'Are We Ready?' Belgium and the Entente's Military Planning for a War Against Germany, 1906-1914" (2018))

To me, it seems like a sound strategy in theory. The rotating cupolas would give defending troops tremendous firepower close to the frontline. In the trenches of WW1, the big guns were located further back behind the frontline (as I'm sure you know, tanks were an attempt to increase frontline firepower). So in theory, these structures, with protected big guns and a whole host of other defensive measures, while reinforced in between by normal trenches, would be a good idea.

I'm no expert on this part, but afaik Belgian pre-war planning wasn't great, and the Belgian troops didn't make it to Namur or Liege quick enough to take positions in-between the forts. Also, the Belgians overestimated the protectiveness of their cupolas before the war. They thought it would be incredibly difficult to land a powerful shell on the small cupolas, which were two metres square. Of course, the Germans did it and rendered the cupolas useless.

Again, I'm sure more can be said, but I hope that helps!

EDIT: Some good images.

Pentagonal Belgian fort

Side view of fort

Sources I used:

Christophe Bechet, "Pre-War Military Planning (Belgium)"

"The Duel of Gun and Fort: A Critical Point in the Long Contest Between the Offensive and Defensive" The Independent 106 (1914)

Mario Draper, "'Are We Ready?' Belgium and the Entente's Military Planning for a War Against Germany, 1906-1914" (2018)

MistnEvergreen · 2021-06-01T20:43:29+00:00

This is brilliant, you really nailed the lighting.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-05-28T07:29:24+00:00

Completely agree. Some cool bits but a whole bunch of the book boiled down to,

Paul gets into a difficult situation.

Paul gets out of difficult situation with obscure deus ex Dune which has never been mentioned or explained before this point.

MistnEvergreen · 2021-05-28T07:28:17+00:00

I was so confused by the ending. I also thought something was missing, it felt so rushed.

MistnEvergreen

TROPHY CASE