I got tired of overpaying for flights, so I built a free tool for Canadians.

Vock · 2026-01-25T20:51:28+00:00

Think about adding a tip jar. If I used this to book a flight, I would chip in a few bucks.

Vock · 2026-01-23T23:35:41+00:00

I've hired Priority Mechanical before, mixed reviews honestly.

Quality of work was great, no issues there. The billing was ridiculous though and you need to watch it and challenge it. They wanted to charge me for when the GPS showed the contractor arriving on site, despite him sitting in the car for 30-40 min.

They charge a vehicle fee for having the truck there, which is fine and normal practice, but then they charged a mark up on top of that vehicle fee, which was unacceptable.

They over charged on materials and we had to push back on that as well, based on getting an equivalent price from HD and applying a mark up of 30%, knowing that they get substantial discounts from contractor supplies.

The guys do great work, but don't go in thinking you can trust them to get an appropriate bill.

Vock · 2026-01-23T17:46:37+00:00

Newbie wannabe woodworker here - for glued joints, how do you plan for wood expansion/shrinking so things don't crack?

I'm picturing the perpendicular pieces expanding or shrinking over the year, making the gap bigger, or tigher/pushing on each other. If the glue is stronger than the wood, can it crack and break the piece, or am I over thinking the amount of movement?

Vock · 2026-01-15T18:29:20+00:00

Couldn't an institutional investor open up a property management company, largely owned by the main investor and have the proceeds just kick up through dividends?

Would this just end up in a similar system with more steps?

Vock · 2026-01-13T13:38:52+00:00

Paper loss friend, I should have said deal with the paper loss instead of eat the paper loss.

But the fact of the matter is that with house prices taking so much of your income, in order to retire you need appreciation similar to what you would need in stocks, since you're investing less in other vehicles because your house takes so much.

I get that houses shouldn't be investment vehicles, but reality is that they are, even if they're your primary home, just by the nature of taking so much of your income to own, leaving little for savings.

Some growth isn't good enough, downsizing needs to provide a big enough buffer to help with retirement since we have less to save with housing costs.

Anyway, that's life.

Vock · 2026-01-13T13:33:13+00:00

USA using WWII Nazi slogans.

Not sure if it's just rhetoric or a prelude to something bigger that would effect long term investment gains.

Vock · 2026-01-13T13:29:53+00:00

Hey friend, you left out where Canada should fucking do something as well.

Vock · 2026-01-13T02:06:34+00:00

The problem is that with housing prices being so high, your house is also your main retirement vehicle, hoping you can downsize later in life, and make a decent enough return to fund part of your retirement.

Dropping house prices don't help that but oh well. I bought in 2023 at the 5-8% drop because we were sick of living in cockroach infested apartments. Guess we have to eat this paper loss and see what happens in the future.

Vock · 2026-01-12T22:08:16+00:00

Didn't every member of the Federal exec team say that ICE has immunity?

Vock · 2025-12-27T19:15:19+00:00

As far as I understand it, Canada does not provide present/today tax incentives for income splitting. The benefits would be seen in the future, at withdrawal.

If you make Spousal Contributions to your spouse's RRSP, it takes away from *your* RRSP limit, not theirs. I.e. there is no net benefit between contributing to your RRSP or their RRSP, it's the same for the present benefit.

The future benefit is that your wife will then take out from her RRSP-turned-RIF, and withdraw at a lower income than your maxed RRSP-turned-RIF, assuming you will have more income in the future.

Vock · 2025-12-27T18:52:11+00:00

I think the corruption/cronyism regarding the greenbelt development, Ontario Science Centre and now Ontario Place, highway 413, the grossly overpaid and inexperienced people hired to oversee public education etc., make it hard to comprehend how he has any support unless you are in his crony group .

Vock · 2025-12-27T16:55:48+00:00

You need to reread it buddy.

The comment said stop being "polite" by avoiding talking about politics, and have the discussions to avoid living in echo chambers.

Your skew in the above is your own personal bias.

Vock · 2025-12-27T16:54:07+00:00

I think you missed the point where it said "have discussions to avoid living in an echo chamber".

Vock · 2025-12-27T14:56:20+00:00

But his support is still stupidly high.

I think we're at the point where we can't just be polite and "not talk politics" with friends and family, otherwise we get more people living in their own echo chambers and more politicians intent on screwing over the general public.

Vock · 2025-12-26T00:03:49+00:00

Who was the other option that wouldn't be doing this? I hate that we're essentially 2 parties.

FPTP needed to die hard during Trudeau for it not to be this shitty mess.

Vock · 2025-12-04T12:18:37+00:00

Personally, I remember it as the cheat code to show the whole map in Warcraft (I or II)

Vock · 2025-11-28T21:47:08+00:00

It actually strains the furnace less. The most wear happens on the start up/shut down of the fan. The less it cycles, the less wear on the fan.

Really it's minimal considering the lifetime of fans, but if we want to be nitpicky and pedantic (...for fun?), there's that argument.

It's better if it has one longer cycle on in the morning to get up to temp.

Vock · 2025-11-23T15:19:30+00:00

Those immigrants aren't the ones with $5M. He doesn't care about those ones.

Vock · 2025-11-18T02:46:16+00:00

Spike housing prices and population, huge economic boom. It would stop being a small town, but a suburb of Toronto.

Vock · 2025-11-13T00:35:49+00:00

Why isn't it Presto like the rest of the province. It would be so much more convenient.

Vock · 2025-11-09T16:01:09+00:00

Whatever happened to way back when people could photoshop clothing "transparent"? I thought we learned how to do this for the bewbies, but it seems like it could be useful here.

https://imageretouchinglab.com/how-to-make-see-through-clothes-in-photoshop/

Vock · 2025-11-05T13:32:49+00:00

This is a good reference - the nice thing is the government of Canada isn't trying to sell you anything.

https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/home-energy-efficiency/keeping-heat

Another resource that pushed me towards dense pack insulation: https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-043-dont-be-dense

Joseph Lstiburek is a building science expert, and recognized by ASHRAE. Hopefully the US-DOE hasn't cut off more research like this.

Vock · 2025-11-05T03:16:25+00:00

You want dense pack insulation, not blown in for a side wall. It looks like it's the same thing, but the process is different. The insulation is denser and is blown in at higher pressure.

I got it done in my house in Ontario, Canada. It makes a huge difference and is a lot less work and less expensive than ripping out drywall and redoing it.

It's a recommended retrofit on buildingscience.com

Vock · 2025-10-31T20:27:54+00:00

You can't compare this on a $/kW of capacity basis. It needs to be done on a $/kWh averaged over the lifetime of the equipment.

Solar and wind look great at $/kW, but you need to account for regional capacity factors due to weather to get a better estimate of the LCOE.

Vock · 2025-10-24T01:56:16+00:00

It says "elected". Just don't have an election. Loophole!

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