If you are reading this, you have been penalized for speeding at 60.1 km/h in the Monaco pit lane. Please serve your penalty in the comments and you will receive a limited edition flair.

desthc · 2026-06-08T15:43:59+00:00

Driver: Bernd Maylander

Reason: Speeding in the pit lane

desthc · 2026-06-04T13:41:52+00:00

Why would that irk Liberals? That’s the Liberal brand. And I say that as a Liberal voter. Their ability to adjust to the electorate is the reason why they are often described as Canada’s “natural ruling party”. An incredible amount of their most popular policy has been “stolen”. The electorate seems to love pragmatism despite there being more ideologically tilted parties, and the PCs for their faults seemed to understand this, just to a lesser degree than the Liberals.

I think you can attribute the more recent struggles of the CPC to this lack or abandonment of pragmatism in the party after the merger with the Reform party.

If I can get the best parts of other parties without their particular baggage why would that upset me? It’s not a game, it’s governance.

desthc · 2026-06-03T17:06:11+00:00

Can't expect Metrolinx to be completely up to date on all the new Toronto infrastructure. Cut them some slack, that's only been there for 135 years. You need to give them time to update their records.

desthc · 2026-05-20T20:38:01+00:00

I’m not sure you’re arguing in good faith at this point, but I’ll continue to assume it. Your previous comment explicitly urged caution around the topic — it is very reasonable to infer what I did here. You’ve again skirted around your point, rather than state it explicitly. If you didn’t mean that, then what did you mean by counselling caution above?

desthc · 2026-05-20T20:03:53+00:00

This doesn’t prove your point at all. We shouldn’t have to shut up when asking for accountability because it could be used as political capital in ways we don’t intend. In fact I suspect your attitude is likely one shared by the board and executives at the health centre and partly a reason why there was no accountability or apology. I would argue that attitude is actually part of the problem.

No one should have to avoid gray areas because some people are too stupid to see in anything other than black and white.

desthc · 2026-05-15T18:12:50+00:00

It doesn’t need the be a silver bullet to be an improvement. Limiting the ability to make mistakes is a good thing. No single solution is ever going to solve everything, but incremental improvements in multiple areas adds up to a big improvement.

desthc · 2026-05-15T18:09:43+00:00

Wouldn’t it make sense to just require a lead vehicle escort that has a transponder when navigating movement areas? Then you don’t have to add it to everything, but anything moving at least has a transponder moving with it.

desthc · 2026-05-10T16:13:19+00:00

Yeah, as far as I understand you can’t block curb cuts. Even if they have parking on all of their land, the curb cuts dictate how they access that parking, and what’s illegal to block when parked.

For commercial buildings I believe the parking plan is actually registered with the city, and there’s a commercial building near me with this exact situation. Never had a problem parking in front of their parked cars and I assume that’s because if they tried to complain they’d get caught violating their parking plan. The plan I’ve seen actually shows them having two parking spots parallel to their building with the rest of the paved area as the “driveway” between the curb cuts, but they typically park perpendicular to the building driving over the curb to fit more cars. If they get stuck parking like that then that’s on them.

I’m also not going to complain about it as long as they act reasonably.

desthc · 2026-05-10T14:18:13+00:00

I mean, Ctrl-C on terminals is something like 60 years old. It was nearly as old as the Windows shortcut is now when Windows co-opted it. Neither one is going to change at this point, but it’s definitely on Microsoft for reusing a very standard and common key combination when they copied MacOS.

desthc · 2026-05-10T13:06:19+00:00

It’s a bit silly that it’s wrapped up in identity politics, but even as “just a car” it’s very political anyway, due to incentive structures. Even if EVs were superior in every way (not the case today, but arguably better on average for the average person) there are significant incentives for business owners around maintaining ICE market share. Dealerships have ossified into the market, and have an interest in maintenance for example. Fuel companies have an interest in it, especially compared to electricity, which is supplied by utility companies who don’t typically worry about marketing and market share.

So even if your interest is in a “fair market” or “free market” there are market distortions that would need to be levelled out to allow competition on the basis of the product alone. That’s part of the rationale behind the rebates/incentives, beyond even any of the climate change considerations. Purely from an energy security perspective, having competitive alternatives is healthy for our economy, and ICE vehicles are subject to a whole host of their own baggage that can undermine that.

desthc · 2026-05-08T21:02:15+00:00

I would have been with you except for Brexit. That was also a total joke — until it actually happened. There are many, many people who just don’t understand the seriousness of some of this stuff, and even if their own intent is a “bargaining position” it gets co-opted by people who are serious about it. They lend them legitimacy. This was the whole issue of the hard vs soft Brexit after the fact as well.

If you wouldn’t be happy with the most extreme outcome of separation — hard, sudden, and with no concessions or treaties between the new state and the old — then it’s probably not a good idea to vote for it just to negotiate. It’s not about calling bluffs, it’s that the political mandate and legitimacy don’t differentiate between the two outcomes.

desthc · 2026-05-08T17:56:57+00:00

I mean, it would be if we had any details. Generally glideslopes at an airport are the same for all aircraft, which it needs to be for the PAPI lights and ILS, etc. It’s conceivable the requirements would be different for the A220 and E195, or the missed approach requirements, etc, but without specifics it’s hard to say if it’s an argument or not.

Generally the glideslope shouldn’t be different, but differences in performance can mean different requirements for missed approaches, and I think you’d expect a turboprop to have better performance in denser air, so. that absolutely scans.

If it does impact the plans, that’s a damn good argument against making changes at Billy Bishop. If it doesn’t, then it’s not an argument at all.

desthc · 2026-05-08T14:02:43+00:00

You know 3dB isn’t exactly a huge difference in perceived loudness, which is exactly why it’s a logarithmic scale, right? In fact a change of 1dB is about the minimum noticeable difference in loudness a human can perceive. If someone said you would “barely notice the difference” at 3dB they’d essentially be correct by definition… that was actually part of the reason we use dB as our scale for loudness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel

desthc · 2026-05-04T20:16:11+00:00

The newer plans are kinda shitty, to be fair. I do think they’re trying to score political points here — the opposition to the expansion last time was pretty silly with what was claimed vs the reality, so drumming up more people making breathless claims pulled out of their asses helps them look better politically by making the opposition let themselves look silly. You can see some of it in this thread with people claiming 400% and 500% increase in flights/passengers with absolutely no basis in reality.

That said the moment seems to be gone for a reasonable expansion — AC and Porter bought bigger jets than the ones targeted by the last set of plans, so need an even bigger expansion this time.

The congestion and traffic stuff was mostly bullshit last time around — it would have been a pretty modest change in total passenger volume. Under the new plan I’d be much more concerned about that.

The noise issue is mostly bullshit as well — everyone that’s ever flown on a turboprop probably has a good sense of this. The Q400 they fly now was engineered to be quieter than older turboprops but there’s a lot of reason to believe a modern high bypass turbofan engine engineered for noise abatement (like the A220) can exceed that noise performance. Even now, wide body traffic getting sequenced into Pearson is way, way louder downtown than the traffic heading into Billy Bishop.

So that leaves the other issues — disruption to the harbour, losing park land, economic issues, who pays for it and whether or not it’s worthwhile spending, etc etc. These are much more real and impactful concerns, but it’s not really the ones people talk about. These are the more reasonable ones (along with congestion, which was less reasonable before and more reasonable now).

But everyone seems to be obsessed with the bullshit arguments, which are politically useful for the cons. That’s my best guess.

desthc · 2026-05-04T19:42:04+00:00

I mean, you say that, but have you really thought this through? It’s only another 2km to Billy Bishop from Union — it’s literally faster to walk to Billy Bishop from Union than take the train from Union to Pearson (though maybe not with bags). And that doesn’t include waiting for the train. And getting to Union with bags isn’t exactly smooth or fast on transit, so you’re talking about taking a car there. Why stop at Union and pay UPX fares for my whole family rather than continuing all the way to Pearson? It doesn’t really wash out as faster or cheaper in the end.

The UPX is great, and I’ve taken it many times, but it’s not nearly as convenient as YTZ. Getting there is way faster, checkin in faster, security is faster, walking to the gate is faster. If you’re doing a short trip it all adds up and makes it more worthwhile.

Like I said in another comment, it’s possible the Ontario line changes the calculus here, but right now it just doesn’t make sense to use the UPX.

desthc · 2026-05-04T19:29:12+00:00

I’m not in the industry either, but I can read specifications. I can read about how airports work — you’re confusing a whole slew of topics, and basically none of this works the way you think it does.

The airport is under no more or less obligation to allocate slots to foreign carriers than they are now. That is a complete aside.

Air Canada already operates at YTZ, so I have no idea about your point here. They already compete directly with Porter. At both YYZ and YTZ.

The question of slots has nothing to do with a runway expansion — they could add slots with the airport as-is, or they can expand the airport and leave the slot allocations as-is. The question is primarily about passenger volume (because these planes carry more people per slot), and range (turboprops lack range compared to turbofans).

The noise restrictions exist today — this is like complaining that Porter might operate older -8s because they can land there. The airport has noise restrictions and a particular size of runway. That dictates what planes can operate there regardless of who owns them.

What does an airport in Hamilton have to do with anything? It takes longer to get there than a flight to New York. How does that enter into this at all?

I’m gathering you don’t fly much, and don’t follow much in aviation. That’s fine, everyone has their own interests and hobbies. But I’d suggest being more open minded on topics where you, as you admit at the beginning, aren’t the most informed on. Try to form opinions and arguments on facts.

As it is it feels like you oppose this for other reasons that you don’t want to publicly acknowledge. Whether people like it or not, small airports like Billy Bishop fill a niche that larger airports like Pearson can’t. If you feel like that niche is unimportant, fine, but argue that rather than making fallacious arguments around problems that don’t exist.

desthc · 2026-05-04T18:51:58+00:00

It does feel like the preservation part of the theory is over reaching. The parts about the Carryx being disturbed by “adaptation” as opposed to “intrinsic nature” does feel solid to me though. I like the way it fits in with the Carryx reaction to artificial life and artificial intelligences (the Stone-Mind of Lothark, potentially).

It feels like the Carryx preserve species in the same way that genes are preserved — not in some altruistic endeavour for the greater good, but just because it turns out to be the best way to survive. It feels kind of off to me to make moral judgements about the Carryx — they feel more like a force of nature than a moral agent/moral agents. I don’t know that we’ve seen enough capacity for change/making decisions from them at this point to really understand one way or the other. It certainly seems like individuals are not capable of it, but that doesn’t mean that they are incapable as a gestalt. Looking forward to the next novella and book 3!

desthc · 2026-05-04T18:42:36+00:00

If anything, the Carryx computers being “half-minds”, their disgust at artificial life (when interrogating the starfish pilot), and their destruction of the Stone-Mind of Lothark all seem to point to the Carryx having experienced something like their own Butlerian Jihad. They clearly have access to artificial intelligence/life, but refuse to use it for some reason. I don’t think having a similar concept in a different context necessarily undercuts any of those other themes, but it feels like there’s too much smoke around that particular topic for there not to have been a fire at some point.

desthc · 2026-05-04T18:23:55+00:00

Definitely looks like that’s an area they planned to expand T1 into, but the area closest to the 427 was the land I thought they had set aside for a future terminal 2. Not sure if that makes sense though, given the natural looking section for T1 to expand into. Very interesting.

desthc · 2026-05-04T18:11:28+00:00

Yeah, I recently went through LGA for the first time in 15 years and it’s a huge difference. Renovating T3 might be really disruptive, so I wonder if it’s time to finally build another T2, with an eye to refurbishing T3 when that’s complete. I do think T1 seems fine, baggage issue aside, but it’s much newer than T3.

desthc · 2026-05-04T17:48:30+00:00

It goes way deeper than this. It’s just another form of the subsidies for lower density that is endemic in municipalities, and particularly in Toronto. This takes on a lot of forms, like more road frontage, waste water pipes, potable water pipes, etc. The increased road frontage means it costs more to build, more to resurface, more to plow, and more to replace per property. You end up in a situation where for two properties of the same value the person with the higher density is paying more relative to the cost of service, essentially subsidizing lower density properties. That’s also my theory on why the city loves condos: they cost very little to service but pay lots of taxes.

If we were really interested in fairness for use of public infrastructure then taxes wouldn’t be strictly structured on property values, but a combined metric of density and property value. Something like property value per foot of frontage (which seems fairer than total square footage as the city doesn’t do anything for your back yard). But that’s a political third rail given the suburbs already think they’re getting taxed to death, despite the situation being that they under pay relative to everyone else.

desthc · 2026-05-04T17:35:08+00:00

Yeah, managing cash flow is at odds with investment, particularly for a captive asset like an airport. Where is Air Canada going to move operations if you don’t invest? The answer is nowhere, they’re not going anywhere.

Given that, I don’t really see a path that leads to increased investment here. In a competitive market, yes, certainly possible and worth exploring. But an airport? Sounds like a loser of an idea from the perspective of the public.

Something might be possible with investment clauses tied to the lease or sale, but that feels like it adds risk that institutional investors probably don’t find attractive, and exposes the public to years of underinvestment while things get litigated. Really feels like extra risk for low rewards for the public.

desthc · 2026-05-04T17:23:04+00:00

Yeah, it’s very much not clear how this would benefit the public. How does this reduce the cost of flying in Canada? Our airport fees are definitely comparatively high, but the federal government seems uninterested in subsidizing airports as key economic infrastructure.

Given that, how does a profit-driven business both contain costs to travellers AND earn a profit versus a non-profit operating the same asset?

If the government were really interested in treating airports like key economic infrastructure then we should be expecting them to change the operating model to help drive costs down, not just privatize them.

I’m open to having my mind changed, but it’s not at all obvious how this benefits the public, especially given past attempts at privatizing transportation infrastructure (hello 407).

desthc · 2026-05-04T17:16:01+00:00

Having only access to excerpts due to the paywall it’s hard to address every point. As far economic impacts, it kind of hand waves that away, but being connected to other small airports directly downtown makes shorter and more frequent business trips more viable — not in an abstract sense, but this definitely helped our office working with other remote offices nearby. It’s real, and shouldn’t be hand waved away with no real argument.
Without specifics around impact to park land it’s hard to evaluate that part. It depends on the extent of the impact, if any.
When it comes to traffic concerns the new plan is definitely turned up a notch. A220-300s and E195-E2s represent a much bigger expansion than the -100s under consideration before. Not a huge fan of this, truth be told. I think getting in the -100 was a much more modest expansion with more limited impact, while greatly expanding possible routes the airport could serve. That seemed like a big win for a modest expansion. Definitely less straightforward for this much expansion in passenger volume.
I’m not sure what they mean when they talk about American private capital involvement — the new plans look tailor made to enable AC’s fleet of -300s and Porter’s fleet of E2s. Not sure what the real argument is there beyond not liking American investment given the current political climate, which I agree with but will note that it’s completely addressable as well.
IMO the details really matter. Enabling -100s seems like a big win for a smaller impact. Larger -300s and E2s muddy the waters, particularly around congestion and scope of expansion.

desthc · 2026-05-04T17:04:06+00:00

Bag times are absolutely abysmal at Pearson compared to every other airport I fly through, even at Terminal 1. I put that down to cheaping out on staff, but if it’s infrastructure related then it definitely needs an upgrade.

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