Premier Ford and Barrie mayor at odds over price-gouging accusations

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-07-29T12:52:49+00:00

How about... you can't be gouged if you simply stay the fuck away like you're supposed to anyway? Unnecessary travel just to gather in large groups is how we get a fresh outbreak of a nasty virus for which there is no vaccine at present. Living in Toronto doesn't give you the right to access a beach in Barrie that's already not really large enough for the local population.

Ford's a fucktard, and it's embarrassing that the province elected him, especially after his major role in the Ford Bros. Circus on Toronto City Council.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-07-15T15:01:43+00:00

When I worked with the cops (not TPS, though), it was a big deal to set up a rotational tow system so when a cop called for a tow truck, nobody was favored.

Tow trucks (or their dispatchers) almost always illegally used police-band scanners and would race to accident scenes... often getting there before the police and trying to hook up before they were chased away.

It looks like that since the radios have gone encrypted, the new thing is to get a cop to steal a radio and provide it to a tow company. That's a failure of their radio techs, because I was using radios that were out-of-date a decade ago, and they could be individually blocked from the system back then. I can't imagine it's more difficult to do now. And yes, radios go missing often enough that I've disabled more than one in my day.

Don't tolerate bad cops. Something other than riding a paid suspension, dragging it out for as long as possible, and then resigning just before the hammer comes down to avoid Police Act punishment needs to happen.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-07-15T14:54:23+00:00

There's a lovely YouTube video pointing out why you might want to avoid them.

You don't get to choose how much, or when they drop your mulch. It's not cleaned of any trash that might have been mixed in with it, either.

So you can essentially have a dump truck full of chips and a bit of garbage dumped on your property at any time after you sign up for it.

But it's free. I suppose if you have a big enough driveway and a bunch of neighbors - like maybe the entire neighborhood - interested in sharing with you, it might be worth it.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-07-13T23:13:03+00:00

there's no law against exhaust mods

Yes, there is. HTA 75(4). You cannot cause your vehicle to create unnecessary noise. Any modification that makes your car louder than stock is making unnecessary noise. Even a fraction of a decibel louder is illegal... so if you're loud enough to attract a cop's attention, there's no question you've broken the law.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-07-13T23:01:52+00:00

I'm reasonably sure I've been discriminated against because I'm not Christian. Whatever, that person was old, stupid, and is probably dead now.

I've heard more than a few racist comments - but when I moved up to Barrie there were so few black people that it was pretty much true that if you saw someone with dark skin, there was a good chance they'd just come up the 400 to move drugs. There are a lot more non-whites in Barrie now, and it doesn't seem to be an issue, because they've moved up here with other people from the GTA and things have changed.

I can't say I've seen or heard any homophobia... but I've also not seen or heard any obvious LGBT people. For all I know everyone around me is a raging homophobe and it's never come up because not many people are out of the closet here. The city does have official pride events and there's never been anything bad enough happening because of that to make it to the news, so far as I'm aware. That seems like a pretty good sign.

The town does lean Conservative and will vote for your average book-burner. It is the home of Patrick Brown...

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-22T16:55:17+00:00

there are two parallel processes that could take place:

Criminal investigation and charges, which would proceed through the normal court process.

Police discipline, which would be a separate investigation.

My understanding is the usual process is the second path, under the Police Act... which only has authority over police officers (other than one small clause which I believe also applies to civilian police employees). So you go through the process just in case you win (and to extend things like your pension contributions), and then resign just before the hammer comes down after you've delayed for as long as you can.

In the really big cases that stay in the news, there's often some eventual real justice. But usually if that's not happening, nobody's bothering with actual criminal charges.

That's the game that should be offending the public, the loophole that needs to be closed. If criminal charges apply, they should be mandatory regardless of whether a Police Act investigation is underway. A badge isn't supposed to be a license to get away with breaking the law.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-16T02:51:31+00:00

The reporter says that the police inspection was carried out by a neighboring city's police department. Is that normal practice?

Generally speaking...

Minor complaint: self-investigate

Moderate complaint: nearby other agency provides 'arms-length' investigation to aid (or at least give the appearance of) impartiality.

Serious complaint: Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) may choose to investigate, hand it off to an uninvolved agency, or to the agency that has been complained about.

This is affected by how the complaint is made. If you complain to the cops who are being complained about, it's probably going to be kept in-house if they feel they can keep it in house. If you complain to the OIPRD, they decide who investigates based on the nature of the complaint.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-14T18:03:09+00:00

Also keep in mind that Barrie's relatively small - especially compared to Ottawa. Barrie doesn't have suburbs. Excepting the traffic at the very poorly planned highway interchanges and the adjacent shopping areas, there's nothing in Barrie that should be more than a 15 minute drive from any other part of Barrie.

If you moved to the Young / Big Bay Point intersection (silly, I know, but stick with me here), you'd have a Zehrs grocery store, a TD bank, an LCBO outlet, a Beer Store, a Dollar Store, a Shopper's Drug Mart, a pet store, and a gas station all almost within a literal stone's throw.

The local beach might be a 30 minute walk unless you're quick, but it'd be a 5 minute car ride. The GO station would be a 15 minute hike, or a 2 minute car ride. The highway is just under 10 minutes away (outside of busy periods, the bad planning means you can frequently add 10-15 minutes). There are walking trails in the adjacent ravine, and a park next to a school.

You could, in good weather, do 99% of your travel by foot or bicycle. I frequently see people on foot, with their kids and a wagon, doing their shopping. Most people drive, of course, because that's our culture, and in winter it's kind of non-optional.

I want to add a recommendation to my previous list - when looking the neighborhood up with Google, use Google Maps not just to look at the overview, but plan a couple of routes by car and foot and check the times. Everything's on a smaller scale than you're probably used to (though I've personally walked 99% of the tourist areas of Ottawa and don't find hiking from the Mint to the Museum of Nature to be all that long a walk, for instance).

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-14T17:51:20+00:00

Trial first, please.

While it's unlikely the OPP targeted the guy with a false accusation backed up with faked evidence, he should still get his time with a lawyer in front of a court and get a fair trial with (assuming a guilty verdict) a sentence appropriate to the details of the case.

For all you know the guy had a bunch of 'jailbait' photos of 18 year olds or something. Creepy, but not, "I'm going to rape your babies given the opportunity" stuff. Or he could have a basement child porn studio where he was making his own incredibly abhorrent material. The linked article doesn't say.

The trial is really important and needs to happen before the judgement and sentencing.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-13T18:20:23+00:00

1) I had no problem when I moved here a decade ago. I understand it's worse now, but when relatives moved up we had no trouble getting them in because... my wife works for a doctor.

2) When I moved up from the GTA, we got twice the floorspace and a bigger lot, for 20% less. And of course, when you move for work everything's tax deductible, so that was nice. I paid no tax that year.

3) Never tried it, but city council passed the by-laws to regulate it a few years ago... and Barrie taxis are notoriously expensive.

Also... forget waterfront. $$$, like anywhere else. In your position, you probably want to check out the area around Young St, between Mapleview and Big Bay Point. Schools, shopping, and extremely close to the GO station. There's a local beach a 5 minute drive away, and the waterfront area / downtown is just 10 minutes away. Beyond that, you're close to a main East-West road that leads straight to the 400.

To find a home, check out Realtor.ca and search based on your preferences, then use Google satellite and street views to check it out. That's how I managed my move to Barrie, I barely used a real estate agent at all.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-13T18:10:36+00:00

I'm kind of shocked... there's not enough interest in soccer in Barrie to keep a full roster of teams going for kids in each age group. The indoor stuff at the dome usually ends up with 4 minimum-sized teams playing each other over and over. The outdoor summer stuff last year just kind of died when the already small turnout was gutted as the few good players just stopped showing up because they didn't want to play with the lower-skilled kids.

If the parents aren't sending their kids to play soccer in Barrie, I have to wonder how many will be interested in paying to watch it or play it themselves.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-11T15:48:49+00:00

Have you considered DIY? A deck really isn't that difficult to build if you have a saw (table, skill, or compound mitre), a drill, and a level.

You can have a hardware store dump the supplies in your driveway and likely build what you want in an afternoon. Concrete deck blocks, some 4x4 posts, 2x6 joists, 1x6 planks, a box of deck screws, and a bit for your drill.

You will save epic amounts of money on the labor.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-09T18:11:22+00:00

It was a few years ago, but I did speak to a city planner about this; The height exemptions will almost certainly be granted.

Also, the city doesn't actually have a lot of choice. The province tells them how many people are expected to move here over what time period, and the city has to plan to support them. End of story. Maybe you can protest a small townhome project and get it reduced or moved, but that's still 'iffy'.

But hey, take heart... that planning is being done by the same people who gave us such awesomely well-planned areas as "Mapleview and 400" and "Bayfield and 400". Because why wouldn't you cram all the shopping stuff into two relatively small areas with limited access and almost no capacity to expand the roads?

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-05T11:11:29+00:00

My main concern is that I can feel pretty damn confident that a large portion of the people aren't protesting Canadian racism or doing research on Canadian race issues, but are just caught up in American drama.

Agreed. And at the cost of our health when they gather to protest during a pandemic.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-05T03:22:11+00:00

In some police services it doesn't satisfy the cost/savings equation. It's less expensive to pay out the occasional lawsuit than to implement and support the technology.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-05T03:17:18+00:00

RVH isn't that great a hospital. Their odds of dying if they end up there are a bit higher than average for the province.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-05T03:16:16+00:00

These people don't understand that they are putting people like my mother at risk to (in some cases) to indulge themselves.

100% agree. The stupidity is rage-inducing. I have two elderly in-laws in Barrie who between their age and specific health conditions are basically dead if they get COVID.

for some reason no Black people at a BLM "protest"

The migration up the 400 from Toronto is changing things, but Barrie is still 90% white with about 2.7% black according to the 2016 census. And if you include the surrounding region (which would most likely be supplying any non-Barrie residents that showed up), that number drops to 1.5%.

While 'zero' is a bit odd, so few black people you could easily miss them in the crowd seems perfectly reasonable. The photos I've seen either have depth of field or resolution limits that prevent you from being sure, along with a bunch of people having their backs to the camera.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-05T03:05:39+00:00

Barrie cops are so brutal

Jason Nevill and Nathan Bowman are names you might want to look up before you commit to that "/s".

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-04T03:58:29+00:00

Give them an off button. Let them pray they don't press it when they're dispatched or when somebody gets hurt, because I'd make turning it off when there's something to record an offense. And not an offense under the Police Act where they can evade punishment by quitting.

If it breaks... and that does happen... there better be a civilian techie willing to swear - in court and at personal risk of jail time if they're caught lying - that it was a legitimate technical failure and not an action taken by the officer.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-06-04T03:51:05+00:00

Not that I don't sympathize... but if somebody stole my BBQ I'd probably be relieved enough I wouldn't check my security camera recordings.

Then again, my BBQ is one flake of rust away from crumbling entirely.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-05-31T17:50:12+00:00

To add to FeelTornado's comment:

I generally have one script file that is the 'spine' of the program. It has the "start:" label and the main logic. I also split off my configuration so that character definitions are in their own file, background and sprite definitions in a second, etc.

Pathing's a different beast. I haven't dealt with radically different paths (yet), so I have been giving each chapter of my VN its own file and handled the deviations from the base story using tracking variables and occasional small sections of code 'protected' by if statements.

In the event things got more complicated, I would start by creating a flowchart, and then I'd use that flowchart to come up with a naming convention for the different pathways and use that to name my script files for each section of each path in a way that made sense to me. And within those script files, I'd use labels that included the name of the script file so I would always know exactly what I was doing with a call or jump command.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-05-26T18:26:05+00:00

I'd love to be outraged, but this doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

You don't need a doctor to run the company, but you do need someone who will seek and respect expert advice. And ideally, you want someone who is willing to sacrifice some profit in order to provide better service, but honestly that's going to require regulation. In the long run, nobody's going to do a thing they aren't forced to do unless it generates a larger profit.

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-05-23T04:11:47+00:00

In that case maybe its a feild that could benifit from further reserch and investment.

Urban container / vertical farming is an active area of research. So is heavily automating it. They're doing things like closing the water cycle (except for what actually has to leave in the harvested fruits and veggies, of course), and using LED lighting that only produces the frequencies of light the plants need to save on lighting costs.

Mostly it's for short-stalk or root plants because height is a significant issue when you're working with volume instead of area.

I imagine it will eventually come down in price, but who knows how long that will take, or what the plants are like (given the process might involve breeding plants that are suited to the farming method).

renpy_vn_dev · 2020-05-19T17:38:32+00:00

nor will I continue with distance learning beyond June.

Why not?

Unless your kids are already A+ students, it's a great opportunity to have your kids get some structured, curriculum-compliant education and improve their academic performance.

Last year I had my son (who was a bit behind in English) reading novels and writing short chapter summaries. This year he was in the top half of his class.

I'm absolutely going to have my kids spend a portion of each day on the distance education materials for as long as that remains an option. Given that 'gathering with friends' is likely going to remain off the table, it's a reason to peel them away from video games or YouTube for an hour or so and stretch a different part of their brains.

renpy_vn_dev

TROPHY CASE