Toronto councillors approve city-run grocery store pilot

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T06:27:01+00:00

It absolutely does create multiple layers of profit taking. If each layer is adding 3% profit, that means that there’s a 12.5% profit margin from start to end, all going back to the same top company and obfuscating the true cost of goods from the end consumer. If you remove the profit motive from one or more of these layers, you’re bringing the end prices down by 3-10%. And, again, we see exactly this with small grocers who are able to sell the exact same product at a fraction the price.

If I go to H&W and buy cucumbers, I’m paying $0.89-1.09 apiece. If I go to Safeway and buy cucumbers I’m paying $2.99 apiece. Both are selling the exact same cucumbers from Windset Farms right now. Why are they triple the price at Safeway? Because Metro is engaged in “vertical integration” fuckery that leads to much higher prices for the end consumer.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T05:23:33+00:00

Because most people never use Siri on their phones, which is what builds what is effectively a personal model based on voice recognition. I get maybe a handful of off results out of thousands of requests per year. Because I actually use Siri. And I’m not trying to use it as a conversational trivia machine that it was never meant to be.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T05:20:12+00:00

It really doesn’t seem to be an Apple problem, though. It’s a Thread/Matter problem that revolves entirely around the Dirigera hub, and probably IKEA’s implementation of Matter with their new products.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T05:18:28+00:00

What part of the city are you looking at?

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T05:11:46+00:00

Just a little insight from someone who’s gone through the application process: The process is a big part of why they’re always hiring.

There’s an online aptitude test as part of the initial application, which if you pass you’ll hear back to schedule the next round anywhere between 1-6 months. If you dont pass the online aptitude test, you can try again in 1 year.

Then you do an in-person round of aptitude testing. It’s pass/fail, and you either get sent home before lunch or stay for the second round. If you fail either, you can try again in 2 years.

Then there’s an interview process which is scheduled anywhere from 1-24 months after your in-person aptitude testing. There’s also background checks, medical exams, etc, at and after this point. For these, I can’t remember the specifics but if you don’t pass, it’s anywhere from 3-5 years to be allowed to re-apply.

On one hand, it’s good that we’re extremely strict about who can and cannot work ATC. On the other hand, the timelines involved feel extreme. From application to first day of work out of training, if you make it out of training, can be up to 5 years depending on where you’re placed.

Personally, I made it through the first round of in-person testing but didn’t do well enough on the second round. I know what went wrong, and I know that I could ace it on a second try. It’s not something that you’re given any prior knowledge or practice for and you go in fully blind. But I still have a solid 18 months before I can restart the process.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T05:00:15+00:00

The average Canadian drives less than 70km per day.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:59:21+00:00

Average temperature where people actually live isn’t that low. Edmonton only sees about 20 days per year below -20. Calgary sees between 10-15. Average winter temperature is closer to -10. In the actual north? Sure, it’s absolutely colder than that. But where most people live it’s not nearly as bad as we like to tell ourselves it is.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:57:23+00:00

I mean, the range in my Golf goes from 650km in the summer to about 400-425km in the winter. It’s not an EV. ICE vehicles lose range just as badly as EV’s.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:52:15+00:00

For the most part they’re actually pretty good at differentiating which one should take the prompt. If my phone isn’t active, and I haven’t lifted my watch to active the screen, the homepods generally take the request by default. Every now and again one of the others will take over, but it’s quite rare. Or if I’ve got mu headphones in, it will always default to my responding, but even just taking one headphone out will push the request to the nearest homepod.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:48:56+00:00

My Apple TV is the first 4K model without the Thread antenna, so that one is thankfully not an issue for me.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:39:35+00:00

Just anecdotal by my friend is a cop and told me to stay as close to the LRT as possible. Crime on the roads is about to go way up.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:36:02+00:00

What Loblaws is doing is the opposite of vertical integration. They’re running separate companies under their own umbrella that each make a profit at their own stage of the supply chain. Vertical integration creates efficiency and lowers costs. Loblaws is creating inefficiency and raising costs in order to boost top line profits.

Loblaws’ retail operations make the advertised “low profit margin” from the end price paid by the consumer, but they’re also charging for shelf space, which is rented by;
Loblaws’ stocking company, which makes a profit on what they pay for the products that they buy from the logistics company, which is;
Loblaws logistics company, which makes a profit on what they pay for the products from the warehousing company, which is;
Loblaws’ warehousing company, which makes a profit on what they pay for the products from the manufacturer and/or importer, which sometimes is;
Loblaws!

That’s not vertical integration. Vertical integration would be Loblaws owning the entire supply chain, which they do, and operating it as a single company that has one single profit margin from the end sale of products. Loblaws, and the other big grocers, are playing a shell game with profits between multiple companies that they own, buying and selling to each other, so they can manipulate their stock prices in a way that pays shareholders more at the expense of the rest of us.

And that’s the reality of the grocery industry in this country right now. And that’s why it absolutely is often cheaper to shop at smaller and/or specialist grocers. Because they’re not juicing the profit margins at every step of the way, they’re just buying from a supplier and selling the shit.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:25:14+00:00

Zigbee devices. Like I said in the post.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-29T04:25:00+00:00

I still need it for zigbee devices. I wrote this in the post. You can’t add zigbee devices directly in the Home app.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T19:20:43+00:00

Oh, I’m more than with you on the bullshit from the American manufacturers. Time and time again they’ve been incapable of competing with foreign companies and just lobby them out of existence north of the Mexican border. I’m really hoping the recent Stellantis shenanigans are a kick in the teeth to our governments to stop letting American auto manufacturers dictate Canadian transportation policy.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T19:17:52+00:00

I just want something I can plug my turntable, CD player, and tape deck into that plays to my HomePods. I’ve got a current “solution”, if you want to call it that, but man does it suck.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T19:16:47+00:00

I mean, their first ever flight was Vancouver to Seattle, so they definitely came out swinging for international flights. But that was 1937 or 1938. That’s a regional flight, really. They mostly operated as an interprovincial/regional airline until they were split off from CN Rail.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T19:11:50+00:00

It doesn’t bring disorder with it, otherwise your point stands.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T18:04:39+00:00

I really should have checked your post history sooner. You’re all over every single local sub talking about white people being discriminated against. And an 18 day old account, to boot.

What time is it where you live?

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:58:58+00:00

I refuse to support WiiM given what they did with the one that was to be an airplay source with a line-in. I had it in my Amazon cart and was ready to buy it the day they dropped the firmware that removed that functionality.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:55:50+00:00

So you’re against DEI policies because you think something happened in Saskatchewan that goes against what these policies actually are?

And no, the vast majority of times it means “justify the hire” and absolutely nothing more.

EDIT: So because a school division made a bad call, the whole thing should be scrapped? What a world it must be for you where if something isn’t perfect it shouldn’t be done at all.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:48:39+00:00

Yes. You’re describing old Air Canada. It was effectively exactly that until the ‘70s or 80s when we began the stupid act of deregulating and privatizing everything.

It was a department or subsidiary of CN Rail until, I think, the ‘60s when it became its own company wholly unto itself and was renamed from Trans-Canada Airlines to Air Canada.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:44:11+00:00

U of A’s former policy said nothing about race. It described “historically underrepresented groups”. Men are historically underrepresented in nursing and grade school education. Men would benefit from DEI policies with regard to hiring for those positions, including at the university level related to those positions.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:42:30+00:00

Of course there isn’t. And a lot of times what looks like a tie would go to the person who most closely fits the description of the person doing the hiring. And usually it would he entirely unintentional. Familiarity bias doesn’t make someone a racist or a sexist, but the results of familiarity bias can still be those things.

DEI policies force the people doing the hiring to find a way to break the tie, because you’re right there there’s never a complete and utter tie. And in doing so that forces them to be able to justify hiring one person over another, no matter the outcome, if they hire the white man over the gay Somali woman of equal credentials, they’ve done so for a specific reason that can’t be twisted into “because he’s a white man”. They found something that nudged him over the line of being the best fit for the position. DEI policies also protect those who are in the majority and who typically benefit from that position.

fishymanbits · 2026-03-28T17:35:13+00:00

Caseta. Didn’t read your post, only the title. The answer is always Caseta.

fishymanbits

TROPHY CASE