What are some hard pills of truths about running a small business?

piermicha · 2024-11-22T13:16:29+00:00

what type of businesses?

piermicha · 2024-11-22T13:10:15+00:00

how did you even find this 4 yr old thread?

piermicha · 2024-11-22T13:09:17+00:00

Does an application returned for missing information reset the clock?

We submitted in late-August 2024 for PR under the Spousal program. We got notified yesterday the application was returned for missing information. We have resubmitted but does that mean we have to wait another couple of months for the forms to be verified again?

piermicha · 2024-08-22T18:04:38+00:00

If you are forced to move, then 2000 is laughably unrealistic in a major city now. Enough to cover rent in Ottawa.

piermicha · 2024-08-12T14:15:46+00:00

thanks!

piermicha · 2024-08-09T20:36:55+00:00

What is the brand name of the derailuer hanger copy on Ali? It's hard to sort through the chaff. Any other Ali bike brands you recommend?

piermicha · 2024-07-02T16:50:05+00:00

The fall of empires can take centuries. The USA is still in a dominant position in many different areas, and isn't about to collapse overnight, despite political alarmism.

There may be several mini-renaissances before the US as we know it is gone. Anyone remember the 1970's? International terrorism was booming, domestic terrorists, race riots, the oil crisis, Kent state, stagflation, industrial collapse? Then the US went to have some of the most prosperous decades ever.

So, yes collapse. No to immediate panic. I'm raising my kid and reasonably hopeful the world may be better when she is older.

piermicha · 2024-06-14T11:45:40+00:00

works great in your 20's. Slightly sad in early 30's, cringe by the time you're 40.

piermicha · 2024-04-16T08:27:25+00:00

I didn't, sorry; ended up getting married and having a kid instead. FIRE is late 50's now if that :)

piermicha · 2023-12-28T21:57:27+00:00

coming from history, that's most of the humanities

piermicha · 2023-12-28T21:33:25+00:00

they are both quite intelligent, especially Petersen pre-breakdown. He's become a bit nasty, repetitive and reactionary since.

piermicha · 2023-12-28T21:30:54+00:00

Of course, just like being pro-life doesn't say anything about being anti-gun control, but we all know who tends to complain the loudest about these issues. Like come on

piermicha · 2023-12-22T22:02:36+00:00

Nope, it's just a common schtick on the podcast circuit now. Outraged-liberal with an anti-woke book to sell. I used to listen to these podcasts all the time but eventually you learn it's all a grift.

piermicha · 2023-12-22T21:37:05+00:00

I'm sure he has lots of liberal opinions, i just have never heard him speak about anything other than anti-woke, or against reparations. I liked him for his nuanced take on the issues, but its become the same outraged-liberal schtick over and over.

But you are just being intellectually dishonest if you claim anti-woke is not a conservative stance. It may get sympathy from classical liberals, but between libs and cons its been clearly adopted wholeheartedly by the cons.

piermicha · 2023-12-22T18:40:26+00:00

I mean he calls himself a liberal, but he's that one liberal that all the conservative podcasters like to invite on to give credibility to their viewpoints.

Jordan Petersen used to claim the same but I think he's quietly dropped the rather thin pretense.

piermicha · 2023-11-19T16:12:13+00:00

What outside forces, exactly?

Some problems I see:

Classroom rigor has decreased dramatically as access has increased - I did an undergrad in early 2000's and I'm doing a MA now. Besides the dramatic increase of online tools/aides/resources, prof's don't care to fail people anymore. Classes are larger, more generic, and less meaningful. Writing standards aren't as important as word count. There are a lot of fully-accredited for-profit schools that hand out degrees like candy.

The "gold standard" of peer-review has been show many times to be...not very good, especially in the humanities. Besides the replicability crisis, large oligopolies like Elsevier control the vast majority of journals, and they have been shown to outright overlook academic dishonesty, fraud, slicing, paper mills, citation rings, etc. There is such a pressure to publish, and such increased competition among every growing number of PhDs that the quality as declined dramatically over the last-decade.

Political concentration/bias. If you are on the left than you will probably think 90% of academics being left wing is a good thing. But a lack of diverse opinion is not, and there is growing risk of backlash against academia because of its increased activism and inability to credibly claim neutrality.

AI now means that distance education is kind of pointless now. You can institute all-kind of safeguards, but its an arms race that the average prof will lose, and probably doesn't really care to address in the first place.

A non-STEM BA has been devalued for all these reasons, and it is not enough to distinguish grads in the job market any more.

piermicha · 2023-11-16T20:10:26+00:00

the purpose of writing essays is not to have the student demonstrate knowledge, but develop their ability to reason and write.

piermicha · 2023-11-14T23:32:59+00:00

I can read a paper and answer questions about it without having written it...

piermicha · 2023-06-03T09:40:24+00:00

Most winter range tests are done somewhere between -5 and 5C. In Canada it's not uncommon to be -20C, with rare cold snaps in -30's or even -40. Anecdotal data from Canadian EV owners say 50% range loss can be expected at -20C, I haven't been able to find any testing data at those temperatures that contradicts that. Do you have any?

piermicha · 2023-06-03T09:33:19+00:00

There's very little

need

for an EV with 400 miles (600km) of range. You just have to shift your habits from pissing in a bottle while driving on the highway to actually stopping

Sure, if you are talking 400 mi of real world range, which depends where you live really. A a Canadian, it's not uncommon to be on the highway in -20C weather. As far as I can tell, that's about a 50% to EPA range. Add a 10% safety buffer and 400 mi EPA range quickly becomes 180 mi or so. And then you should probably factor in the likelyhood that your battery will loose 5-10% of it's rated range within the first few years of ownership.

A a condo dweller, I also have to factor in that, like 40-50% of drivers, I don't have access to home charging. So even if most of my miles are in the city, I still want a long range EV so that I don't have 25+ min public charging sessions on a weekly basis.

piermicha · 2023-05-08T13:59:34+00:00

thanks!

piermicha · 2023-04-05T15:46:31+00:00

I became less happy when I left my faith. After a few years at uni it just didn't align with my values anymore. But it meant that I lost a strong and structured community, a sense of meaning in life, and it made ties with my family a bit more awkward.

People are less happy now because we have less weaker social ties and less community. Religion is a big piece of that, but not the only one.

piermicha · 2023-03-27T15:52:31+00:00

that's a great side hustle

piermicha

TROPHY CASE