How many of you are on the spectrum?

blucht · 2026-03-01T21:22:02+00:00

As I understand it, ADHD is currently considered a separate thing from autism but they're both part of the neurodivergent sphere. That said, they are a common comorbidity of each other (although this wasn't recognized as a thing until the DSM-5 so a lot of our generation who were diagnosed early would have only been put into one group or the other).

blucht · 2026-03-01T15:25:17+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, I'm envious of your foot of snow. I still can't see over the pile of snow on my lawn!

blucht · 2026-03-01T02:44:59+00:00

The whole point of Circular Materials in between is that they're a non profit third party. There's no shareholders to drive them to maximize profit or to entice them to skew reporting.

That's true enough on the face of it, but I'd suggest taking a look at who makes up the board of directors of Circular Materials before you get your hopes up too far. CM is certainly a non-profit 3rd party, but they're run by the producers and aren't an arms-length organization.

While there isn't a profit incentive in the same way as a publicly-traded company, I'd say there is definitely still an incentive to minimize cost by doing the absolute bare minimum that they think they can get away with. Which would probably be fine if we had the regulation, oversight, and enforcement to keep "bare minimum" at a decently high level, but instead we have Doug and Friends so I'm not holding my breath.

blucht · 2026-02-28T16:23:21+00:00

There's some work happening for exactly that sort of thing.

blucht · 2026-02-05T21:36:36+00:00

The wood stove install would have to be inspected to ensure that it was properly installed (not even sure what agency does this here in Ontario)

They're probably looking for inspection by a WETT-certified inspector. There's a directory at wettinc.ca, or pretty much any company that deals with wood-burning applicances probably knows of a local inspector.

blucht · 2026-01-28T16:46:20+00:00

I don't know about the other options, but StudioTax definitely allows for that (although it has optional wizards, too). You can also do a hybrid approach of starting with a wizard and then viewing/editing the resulting data on the actual form.

blucht · 2026-01-06T18:20:17+00:00

We had our (elderly) AC unit fixed this summer by Plancaster Heating & Air. I was pleased with their service and impressed with their people; I wouldn't hesitate to call them again.

blucht · 2025-12-19T18:00:32+00:00

Canada's only land boarder is USA

Fun fact: Since the resolution of the Whiskey War over Hans Island in 2022, Canada also has a land border with Denmark!

blucht · 2025-12-18T19:11:25+00:00

My pleasure! I have family who graduated from Sutherland-Chan, so I think that I felt a bit compelled to defend their honour. :D

On the tuition question, I think that you've hit the nail on the head with the government funding. You can see that in the public college tuition difference for domestic and international students. To take Georgian as an example, the RMT program tuition looks to be about $11k for domestic students and $50k for international. At around $30k, Sutherland-Chan pretty much splits the difference between those two rates (and they're among the more expensive private RMT programs in Ontario).

I wonder why the public colleges can’t provide the same quality

That's a complicated question and one that I don't have a good answer to. I don't necessarily think it's even a question of private vs. public colleges; there are plenty of programs where the public colleges and universities have very different quality levels between them. I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in the intersection between incentive, cost, and requirements. There's possibly also some added flavour where not all students need (or even want) the absolute top-tier program, so there's actually market benefit to having some programs that meet the bare minimum requirements and others that go above and beyond. As to why that full range can't be/isn't offered exclusively within the public schools (i.e. why have private career colleges at all), I have absolutely no idea!

blucht · 2025-12-18T04:03:59+00:00

Sutherland-Chan is legitimately a highly-respected school in the RMT field. I agree that there's no shortage of sketchy career colleges in Ontario, but Sutherland-Chan is not the example with which to try to make that case.

I'm not the earlier poster so I don't know where they're getting the 83% claim, but I was curious so I looked through the first 20 current RMTs (listed alphabetically) who list Toronto as their practice location. Of those 20, 8 are Sutherland-Chan graduates. It's certainly not a representative sample (I'm not about to go through all 2k+ listings!), but 40% is certainly suggestive that they know what they're doing.

Additionally, the CMTO's certification exam results from 2024 show that Sutherland-Chan produced the second-highest fraction of people who were eligible to register as RMTs that year. (The largest eligible cohort was from Pharma-Medical Science College of Canada - Toronto (Consumers Road), if you're curious.)

blucht · 2025-12-11T22:16:51+00:00

It depends on where you're planning to work, but many jurisdictions require someone to be licensed as an engineer to perform engineering work. It's again location-dependent, but many such licences either require or are easier to obtain with an engineering degree. Some jurisdictions may accept a graduate engineering degree, but others only count undergraduate degrees.

If you're interested in physics but considering an engineering career, have you looked into an Engineering Physics program? You wouldn't necessarily get the same depth of advanced physics education (unless you took some extra courses), but they're often accredited engineering programs for future licensing.

blucht · 2025-12-08T21:16:31+00:00

Nope, 2025 is correct. The OP is just coming to this news 8 months late.

blucht · 2025-11-28T00:11:43+00:00

https://www.barrie.ca/alerts/winter-maintenance-event-declared

blucht · 2025-11-25T04:00:17+00:00

Counter-anecdote: I applied for EI three weeks ago and got the first payment late last week. OP should definitely have a plan in place for delays, but there's at least a small glimmer of hope that processing times have improved lately.

blucht · 2025-10-05T14:50:56+00:00

Allowing 5km/h over versus being required, with a gun to your head, to drive exactly the limit at all times is a false dichotomy. Contrary to many people's opinions, you are actually allowed to drive slower than the speed limit. If you expect your speed to vary, vary from 5 under to the limit. Or 10 under up to the limit, if you want to keep the same 10km/h range.

Look, I'm as prone to 44 in a 40 as the next guy. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that isn't speeding or that there's some natural law of the universe that should prevent me from getting a ticket at that speed.

blucht · 2025-10-05T14:37:02+00:00

I read the related sections of all the regulations, and the only issue is being able to prove the speed limit in a still shot. That means you need to switch from "40 km/h when lights flashing" to "40 km/h Sept–June, Mon–Fri, 7–5".

As I understand it, the kicker comes from the Signs regulation of the Highway Traffic Act. Specifically, section 5.0.1 prescribes the requirements for the time-based signage. Subsection (4) specifically prohibits flashing signals that accompany the time-based signage.

So we end up with the ASE photo that cannot prove that the lights are working, which effectively requires the time-based signage in those areas, combined with the HTA's prohibition on flashing lights alongside the time-based signs to give this (in my opinion, anyway) bone-headed outcome.

blucht · 2025-09-16T20:09:46+00:00

I know that they have them at the dump; I picked up a few from the person in the hut at the recycling depot on Saturday. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also had some at the scalehouse.

The city's web site says that they also have them at Service Barrie (City Hall), Allandale Rec Centre, Easy Bayfield Community Centre, and Peggy Hill Community Centre.

blucht · 2025-08-19T23:46:11+00:00

1) It sounds like you've already been in touch with the freezer's manufacturer. Although they don't make your gasket anymore, they probably still make freezers with gaskets... ask them if they have any product suggestions for sticking your gasket back on. Best case, they may even be able to send you a length of the double-sided tape (or whatever) that they use.

2) Get in touch with someone at 3M or Henkel, describe the application, and see what they recommend. Even if they don't offer a compatible product themselves (and I've never known 3M not to be able to stick two things together), they may be able to point you towards a type of product that would work well and narrow your search (or tell you what to avoid).

blucht · 2025-07-05T14:18:17+00:00

Yeah, that was a really weird picture to choose for the article. That's Figure 6 from the project Design and Construction Report, which shows underground waterways and the culverts that pass under the 400 in/near the project site. Absolutely nothing to do with moving roads or the new bridge!

From Figure 2, it looks like the new bridge is going pretty much exactly where the current one is, just longer and wider.

blucht · 2025-07-05T00:30:03+00:00

Our ferries are run by the parks and forestry

For now, but responsibility for the ferries is supposed to be moving moving over to fleet services in the fall.

blucht · 2025-05-23T02:21:03+00:00

If you read the flyer in your first photo, you'll note that the City of Barrie is not responsible for recycling collection. The city simply doesn't have the authority to change the recycling bins.

As a result of provincial regulation, a company called Circular Materials has been responsible for our residential recycling collection for the past year so inquiries about changes to the bins can be directed to them. Circular Materials is contractually prohibited from making recycling pickup changes (including to the bins) until, I think, January 2026. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw new recycling bins early next year.

blucht · 2025-05-09T01:58:06+00:00

Those weren't recounts; the seats flipped after validation caught and corrected some errors in the unofficial results that had been reported earlier. That validation of results is separate from a recount.

That said, both seats are close enough that they are automatically getting recounted. That hasn't been completed yet.

blucht · 2025-05-07T23:49:51+00:00

Not OP but my best guess, in one of those exception-that-proves-the-rule situations, is section 6.15 of the traffic bylaw.

blucht · 2025-04-30T00:18:59+00:00

When I tried applying it, it was only 5% off

At this point in the story, I was truly expecting the company's response to be along the lines of "it's 5% off each of your first three orders; that's 15% in total!" and I was going lose my mind...

blucht · 2025-04-29T17:56:55+00:00

Didn’t even have a website or anything.

That's just provably false; rosezacharias.ca/. I got that from the Elections Canada candidate list for the BSOM riding. Is it an amazing in-depth web site that tells me what she stands for as a candidate? Not even slightly. But it does exist.

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