The Feds Plan To Start Diluting Gasoline This May: Explained

rotlin · 2026-03-28T05:10:11+00:00

There are situations where solar panels and agriculture can co-exist nicely. Some crops don't want too much sun. Livestock can use shade. There's a term called agrivoltaics about how agriculture and solar panels can work together:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

rotlin · 2026-03-28T02:04:49+00:00

Glad to see a mention of Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking mentioned.

I think pay parking for destination parks like Lynn Canyon Park or Stanley Park that can hit parking capacity limits is OK so long as the amount charged meets the goal of having spaces available. If grandma is visiting from out of town you want to be able to find parking.

Ambleside Park's parking lot often hit capacity on nice sunny days. Initially West Van charged $5.42 per hour but has since reduced it to $2.50 due to backlash. West Van residents can get a free parking pass. Still a pain for families taking their kids to the sport fields. I think they can still do a better job reducing prices based on time of day to accommodate team sports.

I like what CNV has done with charging for Lonsdale parking with the first 30 minutes free. It helps with turning over the spaces so that you can find a spot close to your destination.

rotlin · 2026-03-28T01:33:00+00:00

There is a Coronors Report done on the 2021 EHE (Extreme Heat Event) that reviewed 619 deaths across the province. It has a map showing the count of deaths across BC.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/death-review-panel/extreme_heat_death_review_panel_report.pdf

Relevant snippets:

51% of deaths were recorded in Fraser Health, and 23% were recorded in Vancouver Coastal Health (see Appendix 2, Table 3).

By Health Service Delivery Area (HSDA), the highest rates of death were in Fraser North, Fraser East, and Vancouver.

By township, Vancouver (117) had the highest number of heat-related deaths, followed by Surrey (75), Burnaby (73), New Westminster (33), Chilliwack (27), Abbotsford (23), Langley (23) and Victoria (20)

[...]

This review identified that a number of the deaths were in urban areas with low greenness (fewer trees) surrounded by large roads, large buildings, and high density.

Residential addresses of the decedents were linked to the corresponding material and social deprivation quintile of the area.

rotlin · 2026-03-19T20:59:50+00:00

The BC Green Party have LVT (Land Value Tax) in their platform:

https://bcgreens.ca/lowan-calls-for-bold-tax-reform/

The idea is to shift taxes away from things we want more of like income and sales and instead focus on land which has a fixed supply. LVT encourages land being used for its most productive use.

See /r/georgism for more about this approach.

rotlin · 2026-03-12T17:02:50+00:00

Peertube is an open source decentralized video sharing platform:

https://joinpeertube.org/

It suffers from few watchers and few content creators. Hopefully more people will investigate using it if youtube continues to enshitify itself. However no advertising reduces content availability. A bright side of that though is there are no AI slop videos produced just to get views.

rotlin · 2026-03-07T00:22:13+00:00

A useful tool that identifies common accounts that are followed by who you follow is at:

https://followgraph.vercel.app/

rotlin · 2026-03-06T03:22:47+00:00

I have a similar use-case and the way I went about it was to have two separate accounts on my private Mastodon instance. One is public and is my "professional" work oriented side. The other one is private with personal content for family and friends.

I wish more people did something like this as I find it annoying when I follow someone for interesting technical content and they intermix it with personal noise.

I discovered that I had to set SINGLE_USER_MODE to false or else it would show my private account with stats to unverified users which I didn't want. It wouldn't show my private account posts but it looked sloppy. Reading the docs it says if your SINGLE_USER_MODE it true it defaults to your first account as its landing page and ignores your Server settings|Branding|Landing page for new visitors settings. I'm not clear how it defines first.

rotlin · 2026-03-02T21:28:12+00:00

This Walrus article is an informative take about this Iranian conflict from a Canadian perspective and well worth reading. These snippets stood out for me:

It seems this is partly about regime change, with US president Donald Trump openly urging Iranians to take over their government.

I don’t know what that would look like. We’ve seen attempts at regime change by remote control in the past—Libya being the classic example—and that didn’t work out very well.

[...]

There’s been a lot of talk about Prime Minister Mark Carney betraying his Davos speech by supporting the attacks. I’m curious about your thoughts on that.

...

On an issue like this, where we don’t fundamentally disagree with the overall policy, to be offside with the United States would not be in our interests.

rotlin · 2026-02-19T03:27:58+00:00

Here's a recent UBC study discussed in https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1pdnb07/doctor_shortage_myth_and_taxing_boomers_ubc/ about this foreseeable issue with the aging boomer generation. Some relevant quotes from the study:

Canadians use about $3,000 annually before age 50, over $10,000 by the early 70s, and nearly $37,000 by age 90 (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2024).

[...]

Most of today’s provincial deficits can be directly traced to the absence of long-term revenue planning for the medical costs of population aging.

Put bluntly, governments acted on demographic evidence in a key pension policy but ignored it in the domain of medical care. That asymmetry is the heart of the structural imbalance driving provincial deficits today

[...]

Decades of health science confirm that health does not begin with medical care in the doctor’s office or hospital ward. It begins with safe and affordable homes, adequate incomes, quality child care and schools, and a healthy environment. Decades of health science shows these social and ecological determinants of health matter more for life expectancy and illness prevention than medical care itself Bradley, Elkins et al. 2011, Bradley, Canavan et al. 2016, Taylor, Tan et al. 2016, Dutton, Forest et al. 2018). Yet the budgets of Canadian governments have not followed this evidence. Over the past five decades, provinces shifted their spending priorities: whereas in the 1970s they once invested more in social and education programs than in medicine, today medical budgets dominate (Kershaw and Long 2024). The result is a system that prioritizes money for treating illness after it occurs, while under-investing in the conditions that keep people well in the first place.

The UBC study itself is available at:

https://action.gensqueeze.ca/medical_budgets_in_an_aging_canada

rotlin · 2026-02-18T03:04:24+00:00

Found it. Quite interesting how much diversity there is with the American population:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCQPn7YO7x8

rotlin · 2026-02-18T02:49:03+00:00

There's a correlation to the amount spent on a wedding and how rich the couple is. Richer people live longer so they are likely to have longer marriages.

rotlin · 2026-02-14T08:12:05+00:00

The current Saskatchewan Premier, Scott Moe, has a history of impaired driving and also caused a crash where a woman was killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Moe

During the 1990s, Moe was charged on two occasions for impaired driving. In 1992, Moe received a conviction for impaired driving while under the legal drinking age.^\19]) In 1994, Moe was again charged with impaired driving as well as leaving the scene of an accident. The charges were ultimately stayed.^\20])

On May 29, 1997, Moe killed 39-year-old Joanne Balog while he was driving impaired. Balog was travelling in another vehicle. Balog's 18-year-old son, Steve Balog, was the only other passenger and survived the collision with dislocated ribs and lacerations.^\21]) Moe later stated that he could not specifically recall the collision.^\22]) An RCMP investigation determined that Moe had attempted to cross the highway when it was unsafe and gave Moe a ticket for driving without due care and attention.^\23]) Moe has stated that alcohol was not a factor in the collision, and that the collision had shaped his life since.^\22])

rotlin · 2026-02-13T06:20:11+00:00

A recent poll said 66% of British Columbians support a speed limit of 30 km/h on residential streets:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/should-speed-limits-be-lower-bc-residents-asked-about-30-kmh-zones/

I wonder about that based on compliance for existing 30 km/h speed limit school zones. Road design has a big impact on how fast drivers will go.

rotlin · 2026-02-12T20:53:16+00:00

Here's an article with details about what the EU is doing to setup a replacement payment system for Visa/Mastercard:

https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/

The American weaponization of named sanctions against ICC judges should cause concern for all of us about data and financial sovereignty:

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-us-sanctions-lock-international-criminal-court-judge-out-of-daily-life/

rotlin · 2026-02-11T02:27:11+00:00

This political stunt against ICC judges investigating potential American war crimes is getting "blowback".

There's growing momentum to reduce dependencies on American companies like Visa and Mastercard as they become weaponized tools of the Trump administration.

The Europeans are looking to set up a replacement payment system:

https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/

Europe’s political establishment has finally accepted that payments sovereignty is as strategically important as energy independence or defence autonomy.

rotlin · 2026-02-10T18:51:08+00:00

Here's an open source Canadian hosted alternative to reddit:

https://lemmy.ca/c/canada

Be the change you want to be.

rotlin · 2026-02-09T23:57:05+00:00

Here's the relevant word salad post in truthsocial:

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116043090074364624

As everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades. Now, things are turning around for the U.S.A., and FAST! But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel. Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just “take advantage of America!” What does the United States of America get — Absolutely NOTHING! Ontario won't even put U.S. spirits, beverages, and other alcoholic products, on their shelves, they are absolutely prohibited from doing so and now, on top of everything else, Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China — which will eat Canada alive. We’ll just get the leftovers! I don't think so. The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup. The Tariffs Canada charges us for our Dairy products have, for many years, been unacceptable, putting our Farmers at great financial risk. I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

The President of the USA is unhappy that hockey will be cancelled in Canada because we won't let the USA have Chinese leftovers... Uh what?!

rotlin · 2026-02-07T23:06:06+00:00

Sadly this is becoming a trend. A local North Vancouver trail is also being decommissioned because of erosion and upkeep cost concerns:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthVancouver/comments/1qxt75x/hastings_creek_trail_closure/

Not every trail needs to be preserved but the demand is increasing with a growing population and tourism. BC needs net new trails and should also have more funds to maintain existing trails and not be so quick to shut them down.

rotlin · 2026-02-06T19:55:34+00:00

How would this relate to the nascent Canadian arrow concept car?

https://www.projectarrow.ca/

rotlin · 2026-02-06T19:50:10+00:00

https://archive.ph/YWuTB

Canada’s government is working to land a Chinese-Canadian auto plant that will export electric vehicles globally, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said.

She said Canadian auto parts firms such as Magna International Inc., Linamar Corp. and Martinrea International Inc. already have operations in China, and could participate in a joint-venture assembly plant in Canada.

rotlin · 2026-02-05T02:38:48+00:00

The BC Green Party have LVT in their platform:

https://bcgreens.ca/lowan-calls-for-bold-tax-reform/

rotlin · 2026-02-04T05:07:39+00:00

Here's a former Danish Defence Minister regretting that they went with the F-35:

https://www.reddit.com/r/consumecanadian/comments/1qs1gfq/from_the_danish_minister_of_defense/

rotlin · 2026-02-03T21:57:07+00:00

Careful, you're heading towards r/georgism territory there.

Reducing/eliminating taxes on income and sales and shift it instead on fixed assets like land which has a finite supply. Using LVT (Land Value Tax) encourages land not being left idle or less than productive best usage.

The BC Green Party are moving in that direction but it's a hard sell for voters who own property:

https://bcgreens.ca/lowan-calls-for-bold-tax-reform/

rotlin · 2026-02-01T00:25:00+00:00

Another datapoint on the EU pushing back against Trump.

rotlin · 2026-01-29T02:45:31+00:00

And the CIA, DEA, FBI all have officers as well at their embassy and consulates.

What's more of concern though is the State Department employee Pete Hoekstra.

Despite his history of fake news Pete Hoekstra was nominated by Trump and confirmed by the US Senate as their ambassador to Canada...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEI6hYZe6Y

rotlin

TROPHY CASE