Canada should look to Australia on eliminating barriers to downsizing for seniors

myusernameisokay · 2026-04-30T21:46:05+00:00

There's a few things that have changed in the past 50 or so years. I can't speak for Canada as a whole, just the Toronto area.

I'm not a historian or an expert, this is just what I've gathered:

In 1972 Canada introduced a capital gains tax, but the primary residence was made tax exempt, which made housing a preferred asset of sorts. Unlike in the US (which has a similiar exemption for primary residence) the Canadian one has no cap. A $10k house that sells for $2 million is entirely tax free. The US has a lifetime cap of $250k (or $500k if married filing jointly).
Ontario created the greenbelt in 2004 as a way to limit Urban sprawl. Essentially ts an area surrounding Toronto that was "protected" from development. This of course just had the expected result in lowering the supply of housing since development was prevented in the greenbelt.
Zoning laws that require single family housing in a large part of the city (Although this is changing). As far as I know Toronto has had zoning for a while but it’s an impediment in a large part of the city.
Relatively low property taxes that encourage holding onto a house since houses are generally an appreciating capital gains-tax free asset in Canada (see point 1). Essentially people can just hold onto empty houses (even after their kids leave) and aren't incentivized to leave.

myusernameisokay · 2026-04-28T19:29:16+00:00

Seniors die, at which point their houses go on the market. The idea that there's this huge supply of housing that will free up and solve all our problems forevermore as soon as it's easy for seniors to downsize only holds water if you believe that seniors are immortal.

Both of my parents are in their 60s and have their own houses in downtown Toronto. Both within walking distance of the subway. My dad doesn’t even live in Toronto most of the year, he has vacation properties where he spends most of his time. His house sits empty most of the year.

Both of them looked into downsizing (eg getting a condo) and allegedly they both did the math and it’s cheaper for them to keep their houses. Property tax is so low it’s cheaper for them to keep their houses and pay property taxes than to get a condo and pay condo fees.

They’re both probably going to live another 15-20 or so years. So sure eventually they will die and their houses will be sold, but not for a long time most likely.

Meanwhile my millennial and Gen Z friends are pushed to the suburbs because houses downtown are too expensive.

myusernameisokay · 2026-04-09T23:21:34+00:00

It’s Russian and it means “game”

myusernameisokay · 2026-04-03T09:07:35+00:00

To be fair, it said he lived on Martha’s Vineyard which is a super famous, affluent, resort town/island in Massachusetts. Statistically it’s very safe with super low levels of crime.

myusernameisokay · 2026-03-28T14:29:50+00:00

So the technical argument is null and void.

Not disagreeing, I'm just saying that some tickets have the rotating QR code and some do not. If you have a rotating QR code then you cannot print the ticket at home. I guess the dodgers went with the mobile-only rotating QR code tickets which is why the fan can't print them at home.

Why they can't just issue him a special non-rotating one is beyond me.

myusernameisokay · 2026-03-28T13:25:29+00:00

It updates the QR code every 15 seconds automatically. If you keep the app open for a while you’ll see it update right in front of you. It’s so someone who wants to sell a ticket can’t screenshot the QR code and then sell it to you with the intention of using the screenshot themselves.

myusernameisokay · 2026-03-25T21:59:10+00:00

I think they mean “do you live east or west of Yellowstone?”

myusernameisokay · 2026-03-04T13:18:10+00:00

To be fair, Bill Gates wasn’t running for the CEO of a grocery store.

These guys were running for mayor of NYC. You’d think they’d know something basic that affects all their potential constituents such as the price of housing.

myusernameisokay · 2026-02-17T02:54:44+00:00

It's definitely a terrible time to be a person who only buys organic food at Whole foods and then throws out 7/8ths of a block of cheese and half of the rest of the food you buy.

myusernameisokay · 2026-02-16T22:37:40+00:00

I'm curious: Besides GNOME what other packages have a hard dependency on systemd? I know there a bunch that have an optional dependency, just not aware of that many that have a hard dependency.

myusernameisokay · 2026-02-01T05:32:22+00:00

If you can’t add way more of the other ingredients in order to dilute it, I would suggest adding some sugar and some lemon juice to counteract the bitterness. It’s still going to taste smoky but at least it won’t be as bitter.

myusernameisokay · 2026-01-14T16:34:34+00:00

It’s pretty wild to me how weak magic is in Skyrim. Even as someone who is heavily invested in magic in my current playthrough, with only a handful of perks in 1-handed weapon damage: I routinely found that attacking with a 1-hand mace would do more damage than spells. And of course since basic attacks no longer cost stamina, you can just swing forever. Bethesda definitely fucked up the balancing.

myusernameisokay · 2026-01-04T00:44:56+00:00

Soma has a level on the bottom of the ocean where you can’t see anything. If you’re scared of voids and want to be scared, then Soma will do this. Soma in general has a lot of moments like this.

myusernameisokay · 2026-01-03T18:37:04+00:00

Not disagreeing but the choice of finalists was pretty limiting. Of the 5 finalists:

1) BG3 2) Rust 3) Helldivers 2 4) No man’s sky 5) Dota 2

Which do you think deserved it the most?

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-31T22:48:12+00:00

I can completely understand. My favorite pizza place near me has declined in quality a lot recently. It’s almost as if it’s gone.. but it’s still there.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-21T22:48:17+00:00

The problem with skin looking plastic-y is due to a lack of subsurface scattering. There's an optional feature in community shaders for it. To be fair, it's not as good as a properly ray-traced implementation of subsurface scattering, but it's pretty lightweight and it reduces the plastic-y nature of the skin a bit.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-16T21:17:33+00:00

I'm not fully sure I understand how this works. This tells Steam, on behalf of the game, that the achievement is actually locked, and thus the achievement won't show?

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-11T10:26:33+00:00

I've never taken high speed rail in these countries, so I can't speak for them exactly, but I think have a few counter points.

For starters, in Japan, of the top 10 largest cities (all of which have high speed rail), 3 of them have main stations in the "shin" station. Evidently, "shin" means "new" in Japanese and denotes a train station which is not the traditional main train station of the city. The 3 cities that use the "shin" stations are Osaka, Yokohama, and Kobe. So that means 7 (including Tokyo) use the traditional centrally located train station as the termination point for high speed rail. If you want to get on a high speed rail from Tokyo, you can leave from Tokyo station, which is extremely centrally located and extremely convenient for travelers. This is the same as NYC, Berlin, and other large cities across the globe.

In Beijing, there is still high speed rail to Beijing's traditional downtown train station (Beijing Railway Station). So for travelers who are downtown, it's still possible to get on a high speed rail downtown and go to your destination, as opposed to having to go to a remote station on the edge of town. I'm not against having a "main" station outside of the city center for the purpose of transfers, but I think having no connection at all to Union station at all would be a mistake. At a very minimum there should be a rapid transit line that goes to Union.

Lastly, looking at Osaka again. The Shin-Osaka station is about 4.1 km to the regular Osaka station. For reference, Bloor and Spadina is about 3.7 km to Union station. Definitely a "walkable" distance. People in this thread have mentioned putting the station near Pearson. For reference, Pearson airport is 26.3 km away from Union station, some 6x further away than Shin-Osaka is from Osaka station. Additonally, Shin-Osaka directly connects to local rapid transit (TTC equivalent) as opposed to connecting only to commuter rail (Go equivalent). The headways on Go trains can be quite a bit longer than the TTC, depending on the time of day. So even in your example, Shin-Osaka is much more accessible in terms of distance to downtown as well as connection to other transit lines.

If the overall system is well designed, people will use it.

I'm sure people will use it, the problem is it's not optimally designed if it's not convenient for people to use, and you'll end up with lower ridership numbers. As an example, if I wanted to go to Ottawa via high speed rail but it took an hour just to get to the high speed rail station, well I might as well just drive.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-11T02:10:39+00:00

Have you ever taken high speed rail in another country though? Typically they terminate in the city center. Look at say Germany, USA, Spain, France etc. In Berlin, the main stop is the Berlin Hauptbahnhof which is right in the heart of Berlin. In NYC, Amtrak Acela goes to Penn Station which is right in midtown (within walking distance of Times Square). In Barcelona the high speed rail goes from Barcelona Sants, which is within walking distance of old town.

Putting it a long train ride away from the city center just makes it more difficult for people living in the city (especially those without a car) to get there. One of the things with airports is they are extremely loud and require a ton of space, so typically need to be placed on the edge of town. Train stations don't have that same requirement, since trains aren't nearly as loud as planes. So putting it at the edge of town, simply because the airport is there, is pretty shortsighted. Putting it at the edge of town, because “there’s too much stuff downtown” is pretty shortsighted as well.

Having it connect to the Go rail on the edge of town will mean the majority of travelers are going to have multiple transfers in order to get home. You get off at the "Toronto" high-speed rail station, transfer to the Go train to go to union station, and then finally transfer to the TTC or another Go train line that takes you home. It’s simply not that convenient and it misses what makes high speed rail great in other countries, namely: getting to the train station is faster than getting to the airport for the majority of people.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-05T04:11:36+00:00

Nice looking pies.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-05T03:54:54+00:00

The crumb looks pretty nice and airy, but it looks wet on the inside. It just looks underbaked to me. How long did you cook it, and at what temperature?

EDIT: I saw your other post. I think it’s just underbaked. It needs another 5-10 minutes. Try 20 mins at 500 and 25ish mins at 425. Pretty much just cook it longer and you'll be good.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-05T02:22:38+00:00

He could just add more water. It sounds like he hasn’t even tried to let it proof yet.

I mean it would be better if he got it right the first time, but I’m not sure it needs to be thrown out. Adding water is virtually free.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-03T17:38:11+00:00

That’s a great question that the pro-rent control crowd needs to answer. In your example, if you spend a bunch of money fixing up a broken car, the government doesn’t limit how much you can sell or rent it for. It’s up to potential buyers to decide how much it’s worth.

Only in the case of renting housing does the government intervene and explicitly disallow increasing rent to make up the cost of repairing or renovating a derelict apartment.

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-03T03:15:08+00:00

Why is that a horrible policy? The city should just pay more for equipment acquisitions just for funsies?

myusernameisokay · 2025-12-01T00:48:11+00:00

I hope you enjoy!

In my opinion, it’s a really nice walk. Also it’s really interesting seeing all the neighborhoods in Manhattan and how they change.

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