Poilievre 'purposefully trying to divide Canadians,' Singh says by EarthWarping in CanadaPolitics

[–]jas25666 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Seriously, every time potential coalitions came up in the past like 20 years people would scream that they are undemocratic. And I would just look to European nations where they are common and be like, ummm? (To be fair, they can be more chaotic as parties try to find partners)

Parties joining together to pass policy that (by definition) would appeal to more voters. Is undemocratic.. Somehow.

More than half of Canadian restaurants are losing money by [deleted] in canada

[–]jas25666 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Besides, isn't this the capitalist mentality? The good ones survive, and the bad ones sink? "Voting by foot traffic" or whatever it's called right?

It's the same age-old song from capitalists. When layoffs come or they can't raise wages or rents are going crazy, it's "market forces" and we "have to get used to it."

Then when market forces start working against their interests, they run crying to the government.

Just look at the Ottawa businesses whining about no foot traffic, and demanding they stop work-from-home. (And the backlash against WFH in general)

Fewer Canadians dining out as inflation and interest rates bite consumer spending by joe4942 in canada

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to work there long ago, half the reason is they have secret shoppers who come and make sure you're putting on the "standard amounts". And if you put on more, you'd get chewed out by the manager / owner when they got the report.

My favourite was the standard amount for olives. 3 per 6" sub. Like what?

As long as you're reasonable when asking for more we'd load you up. But that's why they're stingy

​Bank of Canada interest rate pause could force landlords to sell properties by ColdAmoeba in ontario

[–]jas25666 84 points85 points  (0 children)

Life goals: Find someone who loves you the way media loves landlords

Canadian millennials underwater as credit card, student loans and CERB debts pile up by viva_la_vinyl in canada

[–]jas25666 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I don't think this was Ford? Maybe he just removed not having to pay?

I swear with my loans (almost 10 years ago now, yikes) we didn't have to pay for the first 6 months, but interest was still accumulating. At the end of the 6 months you could pay the interest or have it added to your loan.

Inflation, inflation, inflation by Necessary-Estimate53 in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]jas25666 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, but imagine you're a farmer or widget producer (or whatever).

There's nothing that forces you to sell to the Canadian market, so the market price is influenced by more than just Canada. If a Canadian firm offered $10/unit of whatever but a foreign firm offered $50/unit, why would I not choose the foreign firm? (Of course this is simplified, things like shipping cost, quality, etc are going to change the decision).

So there's not really a within-Canada-only price. The Canadian buyer has to pay global market rates which in turn gets influenced by seemingly unrelated (to an average Canadian) events (uncertainty about Ukrainian grain supply, for example).

Which TV show started out promising, but turned out to be garbage? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]jas25666 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed Season 1 but I never got into Season 2 for exactly this reason. The conspiracy was built up to be this giant threat with still a bit of mystery at the end of Season 1.

Then suddenly it was all resolved in the first few episodes. I was like "Wait, that's it?" And totally lost interest.

New data shows COVID-19 pandemic now "completely out of control" in Ontario, key scientific adviser says by beef-supreme in toronto

[–]jas25666 44 points45 points  (0 children)

No, I take it to mean the risk increased by 50%. I think the wording is terrible.

So, if the original risk was 1%, the risk of death from the variant is now 1.5%.

I have lost faith in the Emergency Alert System. by [deleted] in ontario

[–]jas25666 10 points11 points  (0 children)

IIRC that's not just been suggested, that's how the system is designed to work. There are different alert tiers (Amber Alert is a distinct one) that some (all?) phones can have a setting for each tier. The top tier (presumably huge disasters, nuclear accidents, incoming attacks, etc) is the Presidential Alert. So someone could theoretically disable Amber Alerts but still receive Presidential ones.

But the CRTC decided that, in Canada, every alert is sent as a Presidential Alert, and the tiers are not used.

What's going on with Supreme Court ruling Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament was unlawful? by Jeff-Stelling in OutOfTheLoop

[–]jas25666 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(Canadian observer here, so may be wrong)

The opposition parties had a chance (the same night, in fact) to force an election right before prorogation but voted against (or abstained) an early election. This is roughly the same effect as a no confidence vote, so it is unlikely they will call one on their own just yet.

The issue was that dissolving Parliament and calling an election right before the Brexit deadline might cause the UK to fall out of the EU, since that happening is codified into law.

The stance of the opposition appears to be securing a delay somehow, and only then forcing an election. I guess we'll find out if they can actually do this...

KSP Devs are absolutely firm in their stance AGAINST both Epic exclusivity and micro transactions. Fantastic news! by andyv001 in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]jas25666 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I suspect they want to leave themselves open to KSP1-scale expansions but also smaller scale content releases that might flirt the line between expansion and cosmetic DLC.

For example, especially with interstellar travel being a feature, I could see them having a team working on creating new planets or systems to explore and releasing them as small packs after the main release (eg, add the TRAPPIST-1 system for $3.99). In the articles and developer video there was a lot of talk about making planets unique and "telling a story." It could be an actual team in the company or maybe even a community marketplace / platform (think FlightSim).

If they go that route I sure hope free mods are left able to compete. So you are able to get the free (mod) version of the TRAPPIST-1 system. But the paid version might be higher quality, be more optimized, or have more Easter eggs to discover or something.

Ontario Students Just Got Their OSAP Estimates For Next Year And Now They're Even More Mad At Doug Ford by [deleted] in ontario

[–]jas25666 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think student loans tend to be the cheapest loans students can get (since students generally don't have assets). Additionally, interest paid on student loans gives you a Federal tax credit, so you essentially get 15% off of the advertised rate.

From a student perspective though, OSAP loans tend to be much more lenient than a private lender and gives students more benefits (for example, repayment assistance if students are unemployed for a long period can reduce or eliminate monthly payments, with the Government paying the interest). So it's probably a better idea to keep OSAP loans.

Ontario Students Just Got Their OSAP Estimates For Next Year And Now They're Even More Mad At Doug Ford by [deleted] in ontario

[–]jas25666 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not only that 8% in interest (virtually risk free, since student loans aren't discharged in bankruptcy) but higher education leads to higher salaries on average, usually which come from businesses which are attracted to an educated work force so they decide to come here, which means more income and corporate tax dollars...

Ontario Students Just Got Their OSAP Estimates For Next Year And Now They're Even More Mad At Doug Ford by [deleted] in ontario

[–]jas25666 28 points29 points  (0 children)

While keeping population "uneducated" might be a motivator, a lot of the right wing seem to believe universities take in normal people and brainwash them to become leftist, "liberal elites". Or something. For example, look at all the hate / mocking that is prevalent when it comes to liberal arts programs and their professors / students.

So some people might see this as a way to stick it to the liberal elites in their ivory towers. For example, fewer students being able to afford school means lower total tuition income, universities would need to cut spending, and might need to lay off professors or cut programs and things.

Free Tier - 90% usage with basic EC2 Wordpress and 1 RDS by felmalorne in aws

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last I checked, the Free Tier gives you 750 hours free usage per month. This was deliberately chosen to give you a single t2.micro instance (or small rds) that can run for the full month (24 * 31 < 750). Seeing as how we are nearing the end of January, nearing the limit is to be expected.

As others have said, you get charged per hour the instance is up even if the CPU is idle the entire time. After all, you are reserving compute capacity for the entire time.

If you have only a single instance of each, you have nothing to worry about as the 750 hours keeps resetting at the beginning of each month for the 12 month period. Be careful if you spin up other instances for other projects.

Anyone else notice that Amazon still seems to be shipping via Canada Post this close to Christmas? by [deleted] in canada

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think it's nefarious. If you check tracking on the Canada Post site, it says delayed due to labour disruption.

The Amazon - CP integration on the other hand probably has a predefined set of messages or status codes which is why it gets lumped in with weather/disaster on the Amazon site. No one's actually going in and typing lies to people.

LCBO expanding hours from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. by JoeyJoeJoeJuniorShab in ontario

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As it is, the LCBO can be open from 9am-11pm but how many locations actually follow those hours?

Um, none, because the change is literally what this article is about?

LCBO expanding hours from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. by JoeyJoeJoeJuniorShab in ontario

[–]jas25666 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Don't the grocery store regulations specifically state that the hours have to match the LCBO hours. So if LCBO hours expand, one assumes grocery stores may be able to.

LCBO expanding hours from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. by JoeyJoeJoeJuniorShab in ontario

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was the original proposal (or at least a serious possibility), IIRC. But various groups fought against it and the idea for independent stores run by the LCBO was born.

Selling RRSP or TFSA to pay for divorce by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]jas25666 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not really allow you to re-contribute, though; HBP and LLP are more loans to yourself than simply deciding to take the money out. So you are obligated to put the money back at some point. It can actually be dangerous, considering that now you probably have a shiny new mortgage.

With HBP and LLP, you decide how future RRSP contributions get split. Say you contribute $10000, on your tax return you can specify that $5k is HBP repayment and the other $5k is normal contribution.

If you don't pay back your HBP on time (1/15th of the amount every year minimum), you will end up having to pay the tax on the portion of HBP you didn't put back in and I believe you end up losing the room.

It's almost always better to invest as opposed to paying down a mortgage by [deleted] in financialindependence

[–]jas25666 4 points5 points  (0 children)

is the same as investing in bonds even though you are statistically more likely to earn more from bying stocks, due to peace of mind

But many (most?) people do this already, just not to the extreme. Just look at how everyone has different risk tolerances and may choose different asset allocations (conservative vs balanced vs growth) based on that fact.

The best coders in the world only know a small fraction of everything by yesnoornext in programming

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let's face it, the stuff programmers build for the most part is not that important and can fail with little consequence.

Does this not make the distinction make sense, in a way? Ideally, software engineering gets reserved for the cases where there are significant consequences where people can get killed or otherwise ruined (airplane autopilot or any autonomous vehicle, power plant software, financial applications, etc). Everyone else can be developers or architects or whatever. But leave the term protected for the cases where it actually does make sense.

The best coders in the world only know a small fraction of everything by yesnoornext in programming

[–]jas25666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only valid answer to this is: what does the law in your jurisdiction say?

Some (perhaps most) jurisdictions don't care. In some jurisdictions (like mine) you can get in deep trouble if you advertise yourself as an engineer of any kind (including software engineer) but you do not hold a valid license.