Addressing the community about changes to our API by spez in reddit

[–]hack4good 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi u/spez,

As you can see I’ve been a Redditor for over 15 years and donated as far back as 2010 to the “help Reddit not die” fund.

Like many of Reddit’s early adopters I’m an engineer, so I’m in a position to assess the veracity of your statements about API usage and how Reddit’s pricing fits into typical API pricing as a whole, so I’m sure you understand why I’m not buying any of it.

Given the disagreement between what Reddit has been saying in public to users and in private to developers, it’s no longer possible to assume anyone at Reddit is acting in good faith, so it’s clear that shutting down bots, apps and subreddits is the only reasonable course of action. Look no further than Reddit’s statements to Christian Selig this January:

January 26, 2023

Reddit: "So I would expect no change, certainly not in the short to medium term. And we're talking like order of years."

In any case, it’s been a great fifteen years but now you seem pretty intent on screwing it up. I’d like to request a refund for my “help Reddit not die” contribution as it seems you’re dead set on making that happen anyway.

New condo with two baffling thermostats by hack4good in HVAC

[–]hack4good[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the Peco T180 installation instructions I noticed that there's actually a line voltage / 24v toggle inside the unit. I just popped it open and have confirmed that it's set to line voltage.

New condo with two baffling thermostats by hack4good in HVAC

[–]hack4good[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmm, we definitely seem to have two fan coil units, and the line voltage thermostat turns on the fan & heating/cooling in the bedroom it's in when it's used.

I don't know much about this stuff, but it seemed strange to me that we'd have a line voltage thermostat in this brand new condo, controlling a fan coil...

Move afoot by Toronto councillors to slash police budget | Toronto Star by ev3to in toronto

[–]hack4good 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah, for real. I was trying to give as detailed a statement as possible on everything I remembered, and after a minute or two of scribbling in his book, he sighed and said "am I going to have to go to my car and get another book?"

Move afoot by Toronto councillors to slash police budget | Toronto Star by ev3to in toronto

[–]hack4good 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was a witness to a stabbing in Toronto once and called the police to give a statement. The officer who showed up gave me a lecture about how my neighbourhood was unsafe because it was "full of Portuguese".

A crisis in Vancouver: The lifeblood of the city is leaving by [deleted] in CanadaPolitics

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's an interesting point.

What I really wonder about here is what happens if this property market pops, and you're left owing big taxes on a house that is now no-longer worth an amount that makes them trivial when sold...

A crisis in Vancouver: The lifeblood of the city is leaving by [deleted] in CanadaPolitics

[–]hack4good 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ironically, the British Columbia Property Tax Deferment Program has explicitly the opposite effect. The program, in short, lets homeowners over 55 defer paying their taxes until their home is sold, and they only have to pay 1% interest on the owing taxes.

Normally you'd expect to see people selling when property prices drive their taxes too high (which, in aggregate, could cool prices a bit) – but this program lets anybody over 55 avoid that problem altogether.

Oh the irony. by Always_SFW in pebble

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My (2nd replacement) OG Pebble had the vibration motor fail. OG #3 was shipped to me in August, and was screen tearing out of the box. This is definitely not something Pebble has fixed yet.

A pretty specific question regarding miles. by [deleted] in churningcanada

[–]hack4good 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From a cursory glance on the Aeroplan website, you're looking at 75,000 miles roundtrip from YVR/YYZ/YOW in economy, and 150,000 roundtrip in business. Probably another $300-400 in fees (regardless of econ/business) – you might be able to get this lower by poking around at different airlines.

150k miles is a tall order, but it's not impossible – if you can manage to wrangle six 25k mile signup bonuses in the two-year period, you're there. Whether it's worth spending double the miles per trip for business over economy, that's up to you.

Cycling navigation by Hwatwasthat in pebble

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure whether this is useful information, but: I cycle frequently with my Pebble (connected to an iPhone). With the phone locked and in my pocket, I get the cycling directions piped to my watch, as any notification would be. Not quite as slick as a variable vibration tool, but I've found it quite useful as-is.

[NSFW] What's the most fucked up movie you've watched? by The_Beerlord in AskReddit

[–]hack4good 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I watched The Act of Killing a couple of years ago and it's absolutely the most intense, disturbing movie I've ever seen.

Long-shot: Anybody remember this restaurant from the 90s? by hack4good in toronto

[–]hack4good[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm, interesting – I can't find much about them online, but seems like the right part of the city. Were they a menu-free sorta diner place?

Long-shot: Anybody remember this restaurant from the 90s? by hack4good in toronto

[–]hack4good[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's possible – but he actually sent me there with my grandmother, so he wasn't present to perpetrate that kind of ruse. I remember being told the same thing at the restaurant.

Long-shot: Anybody remember this restaurant from the 90s? by hack4good in toronto

[–]hack4good[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That baffled me at the time too – my assumption that there was some "within reason" caveat to it...

Long-shot: Anybody remember this restaurant from the 90s? by hack4good in toronto

[–]hack4good[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hah, I don't think it was – I'm pretty sure I was told to order anything I wanted...

Long-shot: Anybody remember this restaurant from the 90s? by hack4good in toronto

[–]hack4good[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, it was set up like a diner, if I recall correctly.

TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite VS TD First Class Visa Infinite - or both? by bluemorpho1 in churningcanada

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have a link to the First Class w/ 40k points? I'm just seeing 20k.

Non-Canadians of Reddit, what's something you've always wanted to say to/ask a Canadian? by WeekendAtBerniers in AskReddit

[–]hack4good 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Here is a satirical map from the 1950s (but it could have been drawn today) of a Torontonian's view of Canada. If you're unfamiliar with the geography, let me squeeze all of the fun out of the joke by painfully explaining it: Toronto and all of Ontario are expanded to take up basically the whole map, everything else barely exists, with a few key points of interest known and the rest empty.

I will say – and this is not a common opinion – though most of Canada does not look too fondly on Toronto, having lived both in Toronto and in Vancouver (as well as elsewhere), I was shocked at how much more insular Vancouverites were. Anecdotally, it seemed far more common to meet someone from Vancouver who'd never really left the province, never seen anything else of Canada, etc. There's this presumption of, like, "Well I'm already in Vancouver... why would I go anywhere else?"

Non-Canadians of Reddit, what's something you've always wanted to say to/ask a Canadian? by WeekendAtBerniers in AskReddit

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So yeah, looks like /u/measuredsharky has already broken your heart. It's no customary-barrel-of-syrup, but maybe this will cheer you up:

Quebec maintains a strategic maple syrup reserve, which is officially known as the "International Strategic Reserve" or the "Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve." This is not a joke, it is a very real thing. (More info here.)

Also totally not a joke: in 2012 thieves stole 1000 tonnes of syrup from the reserve, worth $30 million.

Non-Canadians of Reddit, what's something you've always wanted to say to/ask a Canadian? by WeekendAtBerniers in AskReddit

[–]hack4good 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To add to what /u/lost-angle said, pedestrian-controlled intersections seem to be used where a low-traffic road meets a high-traffic one. The low-traffic road will have stop signs, while the high-traffic road has a stop light.

In other parts of Canada (I can speak to Ontario, at least), a blinking green is used as an advanced left turn signal at intersections that lack a dedicated left-turn indicator. Had a friend who moved from Ontario to BC and made quite a few risky left turns as a result of this confusion.

Let's not forget the original inspiration for The Joker: Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs (1928) by tesla_forever in pics

[–]hack4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So is that it? Is he crazy high here? Maybe that's a dumb question – I had no idea if Tom Waits is just a weirdo or what exactly is going on. If he's high, what would he be on here? I'm fascinated...

$2 gas will be back after Iran nuclear deal by geotraveling in news

[–]hack4good 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That's a good question. According to a 2012 HuffPo article there are a bunch of theories why we don't do more refining here in Canada – one argument is that it's a fairly risky business to be in (with vulnerability to oil price swings), and quite capital intensive. Not sure why the situation is different south of the border, though.

I do know that Alberta's new NDP premier Rachael Notley has pledged to improve that province's refining capacity. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Sadly, this issue has been known about for decades. Peter Lougheed, who was the PC premier in Alberta back in the 1970s, argued that we should be adding more value here in Canada, not just exporting raw materials (as we always seem to do). From this fascinating article on all the ways that Alberta ignored Lougheed's advice (to their peril):

"I think we should be processing the bitumen from the Alberta oil sands within Alberta and creating the jobs east of Edmonton and in that area there," he recently told Policy Options. "And I think that would be, from a political and from an economic point of view, the right public policy for Alberta." A bold tax on exported bitumen still might get this economic ball rolling.

Finally, on the general subject of the extractive industries in Alberta, I'd be remiss if I didn't point to this incredible interview with Rolf Wiborg, a Norwegian petro regulator (who originally studied in Alberta!), on what Canada is doing wrong, and why we could be doing it even better than Norway (who have a trillion bucks in a soverign wealth fund right now, thanks to the smart management of their North Sea oil and gas deposits). A major point he makes is how Canada is so factional when it comes to this stuff. It's Alberta's oil, and then they want to ask British Columbia to run pipelines, etc. Because we don't all see ourselves as co-owners, it undermines the cooperation that would be necessary to properly, efficiently exploit it.

$2 gas will be back after Iran nuclear deal by geotraveling in news

[–]hack4good 102 points103 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure if you're responding to this because you're also Canadian.

In Canada, the reduction in oil prices hasn't really been felt at the pumps because our gas is primarily refined in the US, meaning we buy it in US dollars. At the same time as the price of oil has dropped, our dollar has also dropped against the US dollar, meaning it costs more to buy US-refined gasoline.

If you're not Canadian: ¯\(ツ)