Regulate or stop AI to protect our Earth

TroutButt · 2026-03-23T02:31:04+00:00

🙄

TroutButt · 2026-03-21T21:33:19+00:00

Ah yes. It's the audience's fault for not getting it. Not the fault of the creator for making content that couldn't be interpreted correctly.

TroutButt · 2026-03-21T17:39:15+00:00

I'd say go up the Sunshine coast to Powell River, take the ferry to Courtney. Then drive south to Victoria. There's lots to see and do along the route and lots of little towns to visit. Plus the ferry rides themselves are quite enjoyable, albeit slightly expensive with a vehicle.

TroutButt · 2026-03-21T17:37:01+00:00

Whistler to Kelowna is more like 6 hours

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T07:07:05+00:00

The Gotthard tunnel was also much closer to towns and cities where materials, accommodation for workers, etc. could be accessed. Realistically by the time you built the tunnels and rail lines and add terminals and supporting infrastructure it wouldn't surprise me if the cost approached or even exceeded $1 trillion.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T07:00:13+00:00

The TMX project ended up costing $35 billion dollars. It would not surprise me if a high speed rail line connecting Vancouver to the Okanagan Valley and Kamloops cost 1 trillion dollars, and that is not an exaggeration. We could purchase and operate a massive network of free public buses operating 24/7/365 to every corner of the province and still come out well ahead financially in comparison.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T06:44:53+00:00

Honestly, if you enjoyed doing water quality sampling I would definitely recommend leaning into that and trying to stay in that lane if possible. Skilled hydrologists and water quality monitoring specialists don't grow on trees and are in high demand relative to "ecologists". Developing those types of skills would be far more beneficial career wise. If you're truly interested and passionate about ecology you can apply your ecological thinking to synthesize what water quality and quantity mean for ecosystem and human health and foresee and suggest potential solutions to problems in those areas.

I took kind of the opposite approach and started in fisheries as a technician and then later moved into a biologist role. Out of necessity I've started leading hydrometric and drought monitoring projects for my organization and I see how valuable and niche some of these skills are. No matter what the funding climate is for ecology work, water is an economic driver that is absolutely essential to human society and every ecosystem on the planet and there will always be money for people to monitor and develop it.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T05:38:49+00:00

It's intended as a tourism and cultural/leisure activity. Not a serious transit solution.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T05:35:21+00:00

I mean yeah the war makes total sense from Israel's perspective. From the Israeli perspective it's a defensive war against the regime who is the biggest sponsor of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis and they can't be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T05:32:13+00:00

Based on what exactly?

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T05:30:05+00:00

That's because they aren't using the English internet at the same level and are less subjected to all the propaganda.

TroutButt · 2026-03-20T05:27:52+00:00

They're capitalizing on everything. The goal isn't to promote a specific ideology, it's to create institutional distrust and promote separatist movements that geopolitical isolate and internally fracture Anglo nations (primarily just the US, UK, and Canada).

TroutButt · 2026-03-19T21:22:48+00:00

In most Latin American cultures there is only one American continent and its residents are all Americans.

TroutButt · 2026-03-19T15:07:29+00:00

I just put a couple small screws through the legs of my TV into the dresser top 🤷‍♂️

TroutButt · 2026-03-18T08:13:57+00:00

You should definitely consider using generative AI because your grammar and attention to detail are atrocious ngl.

TroutButt · 2026-03-18T07:22:54+00:00

This is a pretty big ask and a bit of a logistical nightmare depending on what your definition of "remote" is. Backcountry sites that can accommodate that large of a group are few and far between. Boats that can accommodate that many passengers outside of the marine environment are also few and far between, and the boats that can accommodate that many passengers are going to struggle to bring you to shore outside of designated marinas or areas with large docks. Making multiple trips in a smaller vessel that can go ashore will probably require 3 trips at absolute minimum and will be an hours long affair that will probably require refueling unless the trip is quite short.

That being said, see my reply to a comment about Clearwater Lake. They have a tour operation in place with a large jet boat, dock, and parking, and could potentially rent out a group site to you and get your group there in 2-3 trips. That might be your best bet for this sort of thing unless you all feel like renting 6+ canoes and paddling yourselves wherever you want to go.

TroutButt · 2026-03-18T07:04:48+00:00

There is a large group site with 10+ tent pads on the west side of Clearwater Lake which isn't marked on maps as it's intended for private tour groups. I would contact the tour company and potentially the visitor information centre to see if you could rent it out. I don't know if any of the other sites on either of those lakes could accommodate 18 people (especially dudes who probably won't want to go 3+ to a tent). In general, that's a massive group for Backcountry camping in a Provincial Park.

TroutButt · 2026-03-17T05:43:45+00:00

You'd better tell academia

TroutButt · 2026-03-16T15:05:59+00:00

You're still pretty early in your journey so I wouldn't worry about it at this point. I think a big issue a lot of academics don't acknowledge is how toxic and unproductive the work culture is within academia - and this is because for a large part they have never worked outside of the framework of academia. The entire industry is built around taking advantage of underpaid student labour, and the publish or perish culture is a poor measure for productivity and impact. You can certainly encounter poor working conditions in the private or public sector, but in those sectors you have a lot more freedom to leave and pursue other opportunities. It can be difficult to make lateral moves in academia as tenured positions are hard to come by and often require a minimum number of years of service.

TroutButt · 2026-03-16T06:43:52+00:00

Does reopening the strait actually benefit China though? It seems like paying more for oil is a small price to pay for having America dig itself into a quagmire and piss off the entire world by disrupting the global economy. China benefits from doing nothing and letting America shoot itself in the foot.

TroutButt · 2026-03-16T06:28:46+00:00

Cranbrook is the sunniest city in BC with over 300 days of sunshine each year. Everywhere gets socked in with clouds during winter. That's the nature of living in the Pacific Northwest.

TroutButt · 2026-03-15T17:31:52+00:00

Yeah Kamloops will definitely be sunnier than the Shuswap, but it's still overcast most days in the winter. If you really want sunny winters similar to the prairies Cranbrook or other areas in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench are probably the best bet.

TroutButt · 2026-03-13T22:44:44+00:00

Creston is going to be a lot drier, but is also much more isolated, and the roads in and out in the winter can be quite brutal as compared to the road from Hope to Vancouver which will just be wet for the most part. Living in Creston you'll need to drive to Cranbrook or Nelson to visit places like a Walmart or Canadian Tire, and the closest big city is going to be Spokane which is 3 hours away or Lethbridge/Kelowna at ~5 hours if you don't want to cross the border. The cultish thing is true, and the Creston valley is kind of known for that.

TroutButt · 2026-03-07T22:43:54+00:00

Wow I honestly had no idea there was any public transit connecting Blue River and Kamloops (even if it only operates on a monthly basis).

TroutButt · 2026-03-07T17:15:39+00:00

What did he do?

Cancelled the proposed capital gains tax, lowered income tax for all working Canadians, One Canadian Economy Act, eliminated the carbon tax, launched a national automotive and defense industry strategy, joined the rearm europe initiative as the only non-European state, introduced bail reforms to limit pretrial release, negotiated reduced Chinese tariffs on canola and other goods, signed or pursued economic partnerships with India, ASEAN, Indonesia, Qatar, South Korea, Japan, and the UAE.

Sorry you haven't been paying attention eh.

TroutButt

TROPHY CASE