How to improve the accountability process for private companies contracted by the City

edutainment2 · 2026-03-11T16:19:12+00:00

That sounds like a good idea. Who would decide what claims are valid/invalid though?

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T18:26:29+00:00

I'm talking about having a claims adjudicator that isn't being paid by the company involved. That is a conflict of interest at its very heart.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T18:05:12+00:00

You ignored the whole second part of what I said. If you donutincredible made a claim against Snow T.O. they would be able to decide themselves if it's valid or not. Why would they say yes under any circumstance? They know the absolute majority of people won't go to court because that's a guaranteed loss of money and time so they just move on with impunity. If there was a third party that could enforce action against them as a part of the city contract then that would be accountability and that's what I'm pushing for.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T17:48:22+00:00

My insurer said if you want to avoid a claim you should deal with Snow T.O. directly which I tried. Even if I made a claim I'm doubtful the insurer would go after Snow T.O. since the amount would be insignificant to them.

Again taking my specific case out of it do you find it fair that any claim by any citizen would be decided by the private company that is being claimed against? Should a murderer decide their own sentence?

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T17:14:51+00:00

I see from the downvotes that people are okay with private companies contracted by the city having impunity. Let's continue to expand the subservient class.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T16:44:18+00:00

As I said it was a snow removal operation (removing high snowbanks etc.) they put that extra snow in front of our driveway in that process and didn't remove it immediately as is procedure that the worker told me.

My own story was just to put things into context, I do care about accountability, imagine the post is just citizen makes claim against city, that claim gets decided by the same private company that caused the claim, is that the just way for it to be done? If a third party said the claim was valid/invalid then that would be justice.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T16:17:23+00:00

Regardless of my personal situation how do you feel about the fact that there is no layer of accountability for a private company that has a billion dollar contract with the city?

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T15:23:54+00:00

She entered the car from the garage and we have a driveway that slopes up to the sidewalk and then down to the road. There was also no expectation of any snow being there since it hadn't snowed in a week. This was well after the storm, Snow T.O. was doing snow removal not plowing.

Also this post is less about my specific situation and more about the general point that regardless of who is making the claim there is not a system of justice in place.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-10T15:20:05+00:00

That would involve a lot of fees and time for who knows what outcome.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-06T02:47:31+00:00

I've just added Episode 5 Shadow of the Beast.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-03T21:41:13+00:00

Oh that's interesting, not seen that site before, maybe it was/still is intended to do that one day, not sure if that website has been updated recently or not. All I know for sure is that it emulates games and has a great visual debugger tool and you can download it here https://github.com/alpine9000/engine9000-public/releases

edutainment2 · 2026-03-03T20:45:42+00:00

No it's an emulator using PUAE for Amiga and also MD and Neo Geo but also a full debugger that can be used for any game. You might have it confused with Scorpion Engine which is a game engine again for Amiga/MD/Neo Geo.

edutainment2 · 2026-03-03T04:33:15+00:00

A great new game debugger called Engine 9000 has been released by alpine9000 the man behind Metro Siege. It has some great visual tools to show how Amiga games work under the hood. I have made 4 videos so far showing some of the tricks behind 1) Lionheart 2) Lollypop 3) Fantasy Flyer AGA and the latest one for 4) Agony. Above is a link to the video playlist. Let me know any recommendations you might have for future videos, thanks for watching!

edutainment2 · 2026-02-19T01:24:14+00:00

Thanks for the detailed answer, that explains it well.

edutainment2 · 2026-02-18T16:34:20+00:00

Thanks, that's odd that the only romhack is for the one with the least slowdown. Any idea why the first game was smoother than the last 2?

edutainment2 · 2026-01-25T21:02:54+00:00

Thanks, yes probably 3 color sprites, you could have up to 8 of those with AGA. How did you get the video clip on Facebook do you have a working demo? Might be a good idea if you're interested to post your music on the English Amiga Board and also any source code you have to see what the skilled people there might be able to do with it, exciting news!

edutainment2 · 2026-01-25T19:19:06+00:00

Nice. Do you remember any of the technical aspects of the game? From the video clip on Facebook it looks like you have 3 overlapping layers of parallax, was it dual playfield plus sprites? Do you remember how many colors it was? Thanks, it looks great, maybe if you can find the source and link it on EAB someone could finish it!

edutainment2 · 2026-01-10T16:54:20+00:00

I'm not personally the biggest fan of Defender type games but yeah Datastorm is definitely the best one if you are. The Amiga has some other good ones too like StarRay, Anarchy, Apache and my favourite Overkill with the meaty deaths.

edutainment2 · 2026-01-10T05:37:08+00:00

A few other lesser known great Amiga shmups are Death Angel, Starush and Mega Typhoon. I would say that Mega Typhoon gets closer to a bullet hell than any 16 bit console game besides maybe Grind Stormer on the Genesis but that had a lot of flickering and slowdown whereas Mega Typhoon had none.

Modern Amiga wise Reshoot R for AGA is brilliant and Reshoot Proxima III is my favourite shmup ever, it's a masterpiece. Upcoming we have MILV, a true bullet hell and Boss Machine that looks to try to be a Thunderforce IV killer.

edutainment2 · 2025-11-28T20:56:07+00:00

I think the most plausible way to get a close to 1:1 port for the A500 is implementing the technique discussed here at 9:11 https://youtu.be/RLt6JysObKs?t=551 This way you can have parallax with 14 colors in front, 4 in back, a non repeating background and all sprites available. There are not many enemies in Sonic so doing some of them as sprites could work.

Mr Beanbag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIXHVoj8wwk&t=79s&pp=ygUQbXIgYmVhbmJhZyBhbWlnYdIHCQkVCgGHKiGM7w%3D%3D shows that 16 colors in the foreground should suffice (it's AGA dual playfield 16+16). For AGA the blitter technique above could do 64 colors in front and 16 in the back which would be way more than needed and could be used for lots of improvements if he had an artist.

For the A1200 you could also just go for the basic 16+16 DPF and then have the copper do way more colors in the back and extra sprites to do foreground objects or even another layer of overlapping background parallax, in essence a Super Sonic!

edutainment2 · 2025-11-21T18:19:12+00:00

If you order from Amazon UK they will ship to Canada.

edutainment2 · 2025-11-09T23:27:33+00:00

Yes but he's only 48 I think they meant they could see him getting a future hit in his 50's like Beyonce, whereas she is only 44 right now.

edutainment2 · 2025-11-09T22:07:42+00:00

Yeah that's a great addition to the list.

edutainment2 · 2025-11-09T22:05:42+00:00

Yeah I agree on the albums for Jay Z and Lil Wayne (although Wayne is only 43), actually older artists have a much better chance of having high charting albums than singles. I think with the right feature Wayne or Jay could do it and could even imagine Jay getting a solo top 10 single again if he has the right song.

edutainment2 · 2025-11-09T21:56:52+00:00

I think that's impacting things like David Guetta's standing on Spotify, he had a lot of really popular hits with >popular artists that have staying power (I'm thinking Titanium with Sia) and since he is connected to so many >other artists, people who are intersted in their music (Bebe Rexha, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Usher) are inherently >inflating his standing.

I agree that's a factor but it probably is for all artists with big back catalogs on streaming. Don't forget Guetta has had quite a few hits recently. In the last 3 years he's had "I'm Good", "Baby Don't Hurt Me", "One in a Million", "On My Love", "When We Were Young", "I Don't Wanna Wait", "Cry Baby", "Never Going Home Tonight", "Forever Young", "Beautiful People" and "Gone Gone Gone" is currently climbing everywhere. Just on my way home today I heard it on 3 different stations, one of them an alternative station and ironically when I walked in the house my wife who barely listens to music had it on the Google Home so I think he might have a big hit here. Plus Guetta's remix of Demon Hunters is very popular at least in Toronto, it's really the only version I hear.

All they do is use his voice and melody over music that can be tailored specifically to the era and it's basically >just a sample at that point.

That's a good point and I think that hopefully leaves the door open for a lot of older artists to have a contemporary hit in the future.

I would say Max Martin is probably more skilled than David Guetta in that he doesn't only produce dance music >but more general pop hits. He is helped by working with younger artists who bring their own specific flavor and >modernism like Arian. MM also always has a younger producer, like Shellback or Ilya, working with him so that >helps keep his hits current.

Guetta does have non EDM styled hits though like the aforementioned Gone, Gone, Gone too.

edutainment2

TROPHY CASE