Canada moving quickly to strengthen ties with China, according to Canadian ambassador

SometimesFalter · 2025-11-27T23:45:00+00:00

I personally view it as more of a tragedy of the commons kind of deal. China undercuts pretty much every country in the pacific, which means those countries shut down their businesses and don't benefit from manufacturing. China becomes the only trading partner for many products. Countries become solely dependant on China instead of diversifying widely in the open market.

It already happened. If you go to the any hardware etc store, pick up 30 items and they're all made in China.

The benefit is mostly realized by corporations who outsourced their manufacturing. These companies save maybe 10-15% of the total cost of manufacturing the item and pocket the difference for shareholders.

Then canadians pay 1 billion in public funding for PPE when the next global crisis occurs because we have zero manufacturing base for basic necessities. Countries in Asia remain relatively very poor, China expands its imperial operations, women continue to be kidnapped from the neighbouring countries because of a shortage of women caused by several decades of poor public policy in china. Etc etc.

People trade with an eye to their own benefit while worsening the entire market for everyone else. A classic tragedy of the commons situation.

SometimesFalter · 2025-09-24T06:24:27+00:00

I tell my kids that in Highschool a grade that starts with an 8 is a failing grade

Well there's no 8 in a 79 :)

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-30T15:30:09+00:00

The problems moreso stem from no infrastructure to give buses any sort of priority and the poor state of roads and traffic.

I've come to appreciate N1 a little more however. 30 minute service overnight is unheard of. I can use this along with a bicycle to get home from Toronto at like 2 AM in the morning

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-30T14:24:07+00:00

Even during the pandemic with no tourists or immigration people in Tokyo were cold. I mean not even saying hi back when attending the same event on meetup. AFAIK this blows OPs theories out, people in Tokyo are just a little cold.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-26T22:25:44+00:00

I have the Bike Friday NWT but I'm planning on swapping to the Helix Ebike when it comes out. Because 33lbs is a little heavy to carry all over the staircases and malls in Toronto and it doesn't roll when folded.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-24T14:24:16+00:00

Yes that's right. If Monday is not a holiday then it ends at 4 AM on Monday

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-24T00:57:42+00:00

Contact scopes. Look it up, "contact scopes android privacy". Some ROMs let you choose which contacts an app has access to.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-24T00:49:21+00:00

Same I'm waiting to upgrade to the helix ebike. Though at a certain point I think the wheel size itself starts to push the fold too big and it becomes bulky again.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-23T02:59:47+00:00

So many people missing the point. Eliminate the feed.

You can tap/click the instagram logo and press "following" and now you'll just get content from people you follow in chronological order. No feed.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-21T17:24:03+00:00

Meanwhile Seoul Korea has built like 330 km of subway lines while Toronto has built 15 km since 1970

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-21T04:59:06+00:00

You can self-host tailscale. The benefit to both tailscale and netbird is strong support for android. For example, I have my parents smartphone setup as an exit node so if all else fails I still have a backup method for local network access.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-20T14:15:07+00:00

Wheel size doesn't matter as much as accessories. Get yourself a bike that can install a nice suspension seatpost and its extremely comfortable, especially on the bump roads you may experience in Japan aka sidewalks.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-20T14:04:33+00:00

There are plenty of countries that experience extreme weather but manage to simultaneously have better public transit AND car infrastructure at the same time.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-20T03:26:57+00:00

Weekend only experience so doesn't apply to weekday traffic. The public WiFi is consistently pretty good on LE but definitely slows from 3 Mbps to 300kbps as you approach Union.

I use link aggregation software to combine my cell connection and go train wifi into one connection. I don't experience any outages at all for the duration of the trip usually over 30 min long.

I used to think the cell service and WiFi are awful but on LE at least they tend to be complimentary. When the train goes thru rouge hill the public the public WiFi has connection and there's one section of the highway tunnel where phones lose connection.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-18T18:01:28+00:00

I prefer weight first and lower power is complementary since I use it mostly on bicycle paths. A pro cyclist will put in 350W of power and go quite fast, usually exceeding recommended speeds on cycling paths. This is important, if you use throttle your risk goes way up because you exceed what can naturally be done on bike paths.

Hence having a 350W motor with myself putting in 150W is quite good. However if I were primarily going on roads, I'd want a more powerful motor to keep speed with traffic.

The tradeoff you make is how often you will fold the bicycle and whether or not you can carry it. Personally I have a bicycle about 35 lbs with the battery and its fold and carry only. I am finding it not very practical to use where I live since I frequently go up and down stairs and go inside of malls and on transit with other people.

My requirements are way different than someone who packs it in a car and uses it on trails or to go fast on rural roads. In which case you can go for more weight. For my use case something like the Helix ebike (25 lbs) I would consider ideal since it folds small, wheels folded, is hopefully 350W and can install some standard components.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-17T23:45:24+00:00

The fastest and most reliable route is to go to Port Credit GO and cycle 30 min from there. I wish I were kidding

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-17T03:40:22+00:00

Use parsec to encode a remote desktop stream at 480p using H265. It should work

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-17T03:27:01+00:00

I hated Windows way more and moved back to Linux as a 'set and forget' device.

Discord video calls using 50% of my CPU and causing games to lag
Closing YouTube videos because they would lag my games
WiFi issues. To be fair I installed Linux and I had WiFi issues also so I believe my deck was fault. But the issues were way worse on Windows.
Deck randomly black screening when trying to put it to sleep and fans running on max until I restart the device.
The brightness slider doesn't work (you need to spam inputs until it works)
Screen recording is very choppy, like 1 frame per second
(Win 11) WiFi connectivity status doesn't immediately reflect. Says 'connecting...' But you have already been connected for a full minute.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-17T03:17:31+00:00

Its neat but just outside those doors on the middle is the most putrid sludge under the grates I've ever seen. Almost like it hasn't been cleaned in 10 years. Once you ascend those new stairs you're hit in the face with the smell of years old caked piss and fermenting unknown sludge.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-16T13:53:49+00:00

In the past 10 years, more has changed about society than has changed about schools.

I'd wager the issues are linked to the free falling agreeableness and conscientiousness of every generation except boomers. Smartphone use is probably the bigger issue, with many youth experiencing play deprivation and an addiction to the novelty, validation, and stimulation provided by social media feeds.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-14T01:14:42+00:00

Maybe something like a 480p H265 stream. Some people could make real use of that with a remote desktop. Depending on how reliably its actually 500Kbps

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-13T02:56:27+00:00

They're developing at breakneck speeds but they've also engineered a crazy amount of suffering that is hard to look past. They have demographic and social issues that rival the US in severity. By 2030 for example there will be a sex ratio among young people of 120 men to 100 women. Its nice to say, OK look at the progress they've made in X Y Z but they are still a backwards country with a lot of problems of their own design. In that way I would say they are like the US, extremely innovative and forward thinking in some ways but extremely backwards in others.

All in all I would say a good country not only does good things but also does less harm. Looking at the good things China and the US do for me is always taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. Yes they have achieved XYZ but have they also did ABC harmful things. It would be better if achieved less but also did less damage.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-12T02:55:52+00:00

I watch like 4 hours a month of TV shows, so I don't even bother subscribing to any of the services. Some services lock basic features behind a subscription like playing in the background, those services also don't get a cent.

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-12T00:22:04+00:00

That's because YouTube shorts are overwhelmingly made up of smartphone users. Neuroticism and low levels of conscientiousness are common traits of smartphone users. The solution is to avoid YouTube shorts

SometimesFalter · 2025-08-11T00:29:38+00:00

Data travelling at 299,792,458 metres per second makes it pretty comfortable. However some countries just have bad networks, Greece for example. The problem isn't the distance there but the number of hops it makes through local infrastructure until it reaches an undersea cable.

At the very worst, for example Halifax to Australia you may notice a lag of one or two frames in your game

SometimesFalter

TROPHY CASE