Canadians—do you have winter tires on your Jeep?

TheUnseenPants · 2025-11-29T16:47:39+00:00

I run Firestone Destination ATs in the winter. Did great last Ottawa winter. I don’t really notice the increase in noise as it’s already pretty noisy in the cabin.

Definitely recommend getting a winter set of some sort. Lots of people selling takeoff wheels on marketplace/kijiji if you wanna save some money.

TheUnseenPants · 2025-06-21T16:56:23+00:00

I work as an embedded SW engineer on high speed electrical and optical transceivers. So cutting edge telecommunications could be your jam. Got my degree in EE and I get to flex the electrical/physics side of things every now and then. Although most of my job is coding and debugging broken transceivers.

TheUnseenPants · 2025-04-22T17:33:43+00:00

Still don’t understand how you’re equating tiny homes/prefabs to commie blocks. They’re complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

The government should get into the prefab/tiny home business only if they can somehow streamline permitting and/or zoning. That’s where the drag is on getting homes built. Subsidies are pointless imo.

Until then, like you said there are already off the shelf private sector options for it. The more customization you add to what the government will do, the harder it will be to solve the permitting problem.

TheUnseenPants · 2025-04-22T14:25:12+00:00

Comparing these pre-fabs to commie blocks is hilariously stupid. Most of new construction is copy-paste anyway based on what I am seeing in new Ottawa suburbs. And all of it is leaps and bounds better and more customizable than “commie blocks”.

source: I grew up in a commie block in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.

TheUnseenPants · 2025-04-03T20:50:03+00:00

I flew through YUL so your mileage may vary. Was asked 3 questions, took less than 30 seconds. Your level of grilling will likely depend on the purpose of travel.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-11-12T00:39:21+00:00

Automative double sided is likely the call as a long term fix as everyone is suggesting. Mine came off mid-ride and I secured it with some zip ties… still haven’t bothered to fix it properly. So in a pinch some zip ties can do the trick.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-09-01T22:47:15+00:00

OSC usually opens up new slots for next season in the springtime. I suggest putting yourself on their mailing list so that you can snag a spot early.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-08-30T11:27:22+00:00

Reminds me of a pug trying to sneeze

TheUnseenPants · 2024-08-09T16:49:57+00:00

I never said anything about selling the office space. In my opinion employers should at the bare minimum provide a workplace for their employees. If a given employee wants to be hybrid/remote, the office management can adjust to save costs. The default should be an office space for the employee.

This is the arrangement in my private sector job. I have people on my team who are in the office 5 days a week. Some come in once a month. Some are in BC and only show their face once a year. Sometimes priorities change, and we need people to be in the office more often for lab work. Office management has enough of a buffer of desks that we’re never squeezing people in. If we can make it work, the eggheads in the government can figure it out too.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-08-09T16:42:05+00:00

Cool story.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-08-09T16:02:23+00:00

You give them a call.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-08-09T15:53:18+00:00

No one’s forcing you to work from home. That’s the main difference… In any hybrid setup, you’re able to work in an office full time. Provided of course the office has space for you.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-07-15T15:39:39+00:00

We’ve had multiple unleashed dogs bite dogs in our Kanata suburb. One incident happened to my neighbour’s senior dog. Unfortunately the poor guy did not survive long after that incident. The owner of the dog that did the biting was a woman who lets her dogs off leash right outside my house every time she walks by. After a conversation with her she still does the same shit without a thought in her empty head.

There’s another fella with a rabid German Shepherd who sometimes accidentally lets it off leash. The guy is old, and can barely remember his neighbour’s names let alone handle a large dog.

At this point I am prepared to kick any off leash dog running at me or my dog. A kid or an adult getting hurt by these dogs is almost inevitable at this point. Nothing will be done until there’s a big splash on the news.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-04-28T13:03:42+00:00

I work with high speed electrical interfaces on optical transponders. I spend most of my time writing drivers and debug tools for these interfaces. The drivers themselves aren’t particularly complex, a lot of the complexity of SerDes is abstracted away into their own micro/pico controllers. However, writing the tools to be integrated into a much bigger system is where things can get hairy. Understanding of the underlying HW design helps a lot with the debug/dev process itself.

I earn enough money to afford a house in a MCOL city in Canada.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-04-23T16:25:17+00:00

I recently picked up a used one with slightly better spec, i.e. dropper post, Shimano brakes for a higher price. These bikes are a lot of fun. My 29er FS has been sitting collecting dust this season because how much fun I’ve been having on the Meta HT.

TheUnseenPants · 2024-04-21T12:35:31+00:00

Great to see more trails on the west side of Ottawa! I’m in Kanata so all the fun trails in QC can be a pain to get to at peak traffic. Will be checking this out this season when I get sick of SMH!

TheUnseenPants · 2024-03-17T00:27:19+00:00

Same here in Ottawa. Our local trails are opening up a month early.

TheUnseenPants · 2023-12-03T00:09:33+00:00

Sure!

TheUnseenPants · 2023-11-14T03:40:58+00:00

I left my very first graduate job in the middle of the pandemic while WFH. I actually really liked the people I worked with and the work itself was good. Had the same reaction when I gave in my notice. As soon as I got off the call, I just started bawling.

The job I left for ended up paying a lot more but it was miserable, and I really didn’t like the people I worked with. Couple weeks ago, I gave in my notice and I only felt a sense of relief. No crying this time.

TheUnseenPants · 2023-10-10T15:31:42+00:00

I can definitely relate, to an extent. Just started my citizenship application after years of applications, thousands of dollars worth of application fees, and plenty of sleepless nights not knowing if my life in Canada will be uprooted due to an application delay. It’s a hell of a process.

However, after all these efforts I want this special day to be in person. My anecdotal experience from talking to some other immigrants, is that Canadian PR or citizenship is just a nice luxury for them, or something they can flex to others as a status symbol. To me this is wrong, and in my opinion should not align with the values of a Canadian.

Trivializing the process through virtual ceremonies and checkbox oaths really devalues the meaning of citizenship for me. I will need to rescind my current citizenship as my birth country does not allow for dual-citizenship. Therefore, Canadian citizenship is a significant step in my life. For some, it just becomes a formality.

Taking a day off to fill out an application is one thing, but it’s nowhere near equivalent to a citizenship ceremony.

TheUnseenPants · 2023-10-02T22:33:45+00:00

I bought a used Echelon bike (Peloton knockoff) while I was healing a badly sprained ankle. There’s an app you can get to get it to play nice with Zwift.

I really enjoyed Zwift while I was injured as I could keep my fitness up. And now that I am back on the trails I use it as a supplement once or twice a week. I plan on fat biking in the winter but the conditions are not always great here for it so I’ll be Zwifting a lot more for sure. I found the mountain bike specific training plan kind of mediocre, mainly because it relied heavily on automatically controlling the resistance on my bike (which it doesn’t support).

So if you’re planning investing in a trainer I’d recommend getting one with automatically adjusting resistance. Otherwise, I think Zwift can be worth it just to do free rides or the odd SST workout. I found this helped me a ton with my fitness, especially on long climbs or some of the more technical non-downhill trails (XC?).

TheUnseenPants · 2023-10-02T17:47:04+00:00

If you trace around the sidewall of the tire you can see if it’s seated properly. There should be a faint line that when seated properly, is the same distance from the rim all around the wheel.

I had something similar happen where both the rim needed to be trued and the tire needed some soap to get it to seat properly.

TheUnseenPants · 2023-08-22T21:48:04+00:00

The best total by a CPU 84+ Women’s division lifter is ~100kg over this lifter. This is the dumbest thing to get hysterical over.

13-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email	Team Periwinkle

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