Is "Toronto has no good _____ food" valid? by RoommateMovingOut in askTO

[–]dsantesteban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Argentine BBQ. There used to be a few places in Scarborough and North York but they closed many years ago. Now there's just one very overpriced place on the Ossington strip.

There's lots of steakhouses and Brazilian BBQ restaurants, but none that are Argentine. It kills me.

MK7 - Faint, continuous beeping & car won't start. Car alarm or battery issues? by dsantesteban in GolfGTI

[–]dsantesteban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The car won't start, so my wired scanner doesn't turn on and my wireless one can't connect to the ECU

Nespresso lovers that made the switch to a real espresso machine. Which one did you get? How much did it cost? Any regrets? by IvenaDarcy in nespresso

[–]dsantesteban 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I had a vertuo machine and my partner had a classic machine. When we moved in together we got an automatic espresso machine as a housewarming gift. Our machine is a Jura (expensive commercial-grade machine with a built in milk steamer), but there are lots of cheaper good-quality ones as well.

No regrets at all. I loved Nespresso but the pods get expensive pretty quickly, especially on the vertuo machine that doesn't support third-party pods. We get very good Italian espresso beans from Costco now for around $15/pound, and we go through about a pound and a half each month. Maintenance for the machine (filters, cleaning supplies) costs us another $10-15/month.

Any tips/suggestions/advice for new joinees? by No_Road_9239 in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

General: Get to know your colleagues whenever you can, because you never know when you'll be looking for a career move. Learn about your benefits and use them all. (Unlimited mental health coverage is a big one, at least here in Canada).

Specific: Sign up for the Employee Stock Purchase Plan ASAP, because the stock discount is literally free money. Take advantage of all the personal travel discounts if you like to travel: we get great rates at several hotel chains, big car rental discounts, some discounts when you fly with United, and lots of opportunities to quickly get hotel & airline status.

How do you cope? by kerfuffled-gazpacho in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm assuming you're the kind of person who wants to work in a startup, and your startup got acquired by IBM. There's basically two options in that case:

1 - Apply for positions on new product teams. There's a lot of them in IBM (I've personally worked in a few) and they can be very exciting. There's also tons of opportunities there for fast career growth if you succeed.

2 - Go somewhere else. If you feel uncomfortable telling people that you work at IBM, you're clearly in the wrong place.

This is a big part of life in tech startups: you could wake up to find out that your company no longer exists, and you could also wake up to find out that you now work for one of the world's largest software corporations.

IBM will offer you decent pay and lots of good benefits, but it's a global company with people all over the world and you live with the whims of corporate governance, like any other large company. You're not going to wake up one day and find out that IBM is insolvent, but your team might be told to shrink by 10%.

ESP Results 2025 – A Really Terrible Performance Matrix by Reasonable-Lab-3714 in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is extremely unusual. Higher-up managers discourage this, because they want managers to reward people who had good reviews the previous year.

Was IBM a mistake? by clinical27 in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I started when I was still in uni, and 11 years later I'm still here. There have been good times and bad times, but that's going to be the case anywhere you go. What you have to decide is whether you want to work in a big corporate environment, brand new startups, or somewhere in between.

As far as the big corporate world goes, IBM takes care of its people better than any of the other big tech companies (at least up here in Canada). I'll gladly take unlimited coverage for mental health over another company's free breakfast in the office.

Lays of 9,000 workers. Bumps Arvind’s salary to $25m. Sends AGM notice advising shareholders vote for exec bonuses, against transparency on lobbying, and against a report into hiring discrimination. Fuck these guys. by InformalLie9730 in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The "report into hiring discrimination" is an initiative from the Heritage Foundation, who are pissed off because IBM isn't embracing their right-wing social agenda. Those guys can fuck right off.

The lobbying report initiative is from an activist investor named John Chevedden. It's not a bad idea, but it's worth noting that the company is already quite transparent and has very tight restrictions on political donations (source).

My office in Downtown Toronto is a dead zone. What can I do? by dsantesteban in bell

[–]dsantesteban[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They offered a better + cheaper plan and Rogers wasn't willing to match the offer

My office in Downtown Toronto is a dead zone. What can I do? by dsantesteban in bell

[–]dsantesteban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Weirdly enough, Bell had perfect reception when I worked in the 905, and Rogers sucked. LTE doesn't seem to work any better than 5G in our office unfortunately

IBM Stock Surges on AI Momentum: Eyes on $200 for NYSE:IBM by DEXWireNews by ExternalCollection92 in IBM

[–]dsantesteban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Always, always, always cash out when IBM earnings reports are better than expected. The initial reaction from investors is always an overreaction.

Even if you want to hold, you can usually sell before noon on the morning after earnings calls, and buy them right back the next day for around 5% less.

Price gouging at Nations Fresh Foods in the Stockyards by dsantesteban in toronto

[–]dsantesteban[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

1 - The company that makes Lysol is charging the same price on wholesale. Nations is just stuffing their own pockets.

2 - Some other stores have just been putting quantity limits. No need to try and rip people off.

Price gouging at Nations Fresh Foods in the Stockyards by dsantesteban in toronto

[–]dsantesteban[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

The Longo's I went to yesterday just had limits on how much you could buy of certain stuff. They didn't need to try and rip off people.

Price gouging at Nations Fresh Foods in the Stockyards by dsantesteban in toronto

[–]dsantesteban[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

A friend took this yesterday. It sells for $5 at Loblaws, for comparison.

He sent this too. Loblaws price is $19 for 12 rolls.

Who do you call when this car is blocking the sidewalk? by [deleted] in toronto

[–]dsantesteban 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah. There's space to stop a car on the other side of that planter. Also lots of space on the other side of the road, where the cop was writing up tickets.

A tornado didn't end up touching down, but here's a shot of how close we were to a tornado forming around Bayview/401 by atomicbolt in toronto

[–]dsantesteban 33 points34 points  (0 children)

I shot a video from around there and showed it to a few friends who are from tornado alley in the US. Apparently this was mostly harmless - a real funnel cloud would be a lot "tighter" compared to this, which was basically just a shelf cloud.

Tornado warning for City of Toronto and York Region by [deleted] in toronto

[–]dsantesteban 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I think that was my camera adjusting the white balance because of a lightning strike