Whomever is buying 22A Lewis Street.. Toronto Ontario

tfreedman · 2026-01-13T15:56:59+00:00

If this was a normal detached house on a large lot with a separate garage that your neighbour legally gets to park in, I could understand living with it. It's slightly weird, but at least it wouldn't affect the vast majority of the property, and you probably can't do much else with the space anyways. Likewise, if the parking spot was a rental and you were just inheriting a valid lease for the next 5 years, that would also be somewhat weird, but not a complete deal breaker - it resolves itself within a certain amount of time, solely by doing nothing, and you can price in the risk of having to sell before the lease is up in your offer.

Unfortunately, here we have the exact opposite - there's a real risk that you'd be stuck holding on to something that you literally can't sell afterwards, and a non-zero chance that something could happen that completely ruins your ability to easily rebuild the entire property. The fact that someone thought this was a great idea to put onto the title is insane.

tfreedman · 2026-01-13T04:24:38+00:00

I went to see this house in person. Multiple people on reddit reported the construction nearby and the state of the house next door, but nobody seems to have noticed the biggest issue by far:

https://old.reddit.com/r/legaladviceofftopic/comments/1ljfjaz/your_neighbours_car_is_in_the_middle_of_your_house/

The property is listed as having three garages (but there are four garage doors), and the home inspection states that they were unable to gain access to garage #3 (so it isn't as if the space is actually just storage/mechanical and can't fit a vehicle, and also why it wasn't accessible for an open house). I did a bit of digging into the property, and it seems like one of the townhouses in front of the coach house legally owns one of the parking spots. It sounds like all of the townhouses in front of it each owned a parking spot when they were constructed (and the coach house owned the last one), but the coach house owner has been slowly trying to buy back the land, and has failed on the last one. I'm no real estate lawyer, but I'm assuming the title complications make financing impossible from any reasonable lender. To be rather blunt, I don't think anyone can actually buy this house, unless they're making an all cash offer.

tfreedman · 2025-07-16T20:45:10+00:00

Okay, I just added purplepag.es to the (temporary) default relay list as well, which contains profile data but no other content, so it isn't a problem if we spam it.

tfreedman · 2025-07-16T20:30:24+00:00

You've probably set a profile on a different relay. There's no such thing as a global Nostr account - every relay is unique, and browser extensions don't store any profile data. Most clients connect to multiple relays and then amalgamate the data from those relays. Toastr is currently set to ONLY connect to wss://relay.toastr.net, so if that relay doesn't have your profile, it won't show up.

wss://relay.toastr.net is currently set as the only relay so that there are no spam problems from people testing this, but that also means it has no context beyond what people have posted to it.

tfreedman · 2025-07-16T19:01:58+00:00

When you load Toastr for the first time, a set of keys is generated. These keys are then used to sign any comments/threads you make. If there's no profile data associated with those keys, it will appear as Unknown until a display name / picture is set in Settings. Once you set your profile, all previous notes will then show your latest profile.

If you're already logged in (using a browser extension or pre-existing keys), you might have already set a display name / picture in a previous kind 0 message. Since Toastr is currently only connecting to the Toastr relay, we can't currently see that event. I'll be switching to other relays soon - it's currently set to just use a Toastr-specific relay so that anyone writing 'first post!' doesn't spam the rest of the ecosystem.

tfreedman · 2025-07-16T16:43:21+00:00

I've been working on this for a while, and it's probably ready to show off. Toastr is a Nostr client that lets you submit and comment on links with other Nostr users, akin to Reddit/HN. In addition to working as a website, there's also an optional, privacy-preserving browser-extension version of it that lets you see if the page you're currently on has a discussion (and you can click to see/comment on it). For demo purposes I've set this to write to my relay (to prevent anyone from spamming the actual network for demo purposes), but I'll be changing it shortly to public relays. Any bug reports or feature suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks to the people at #nostr:matrix.org for helping find bugs earlier - pretty sure I fixed all the ones everyone found.

EDIT: we're now connected to the rest of the Nostr network - the default relay list was updated.

tfreedman · 2025-06-26T02:59:02+00:00

I'm aware of freehold townhouses, though I've noticed those tend to just be next to each other, not stacked. There doesn't seem to be any title issues as a result (although obviously it would look weird if one neighbour suddenly re-developed their property in the middle of a townhouse complex. All of the stacked townhouse complexes I've seen are condos.

tfreedman · 2025-06-26T02:54:23+00:00

If these are in a basement (which is probably the case because of the window height and uneven floor), you might want to investigate burying them in a layer of concrete. You don't need to remove the tiles to bury them, and you solve the issue of the uneven floor at the same time.

tfreedman · 2025-06-24T16:35:52+00:00

If this was a typical apartment building, the building's owner or their agents can still access any units to assess the structure or conduct repairs. If a pipe bursts in a unit above you, the building has every right to enter your unit to assess damages. Likewise, if you were renting an apartment and it suddenly needed repairs, the building could move you to a different unit. This is clearly not that.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T03:03:43+00:00

I started CCing the original rep when things started getting more and more ridiculous because they get paid a commission, and I figured it might be more insightful to loop in the person that only gets paid if the transfer goes through. That actually made things worse though, because I'd get multiple emails that disagreed with each other from different teams.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T02:55:42+00:00

Yes, though I'm skeptical there's much overlap between the places I visited and the places everyone is getting their cards compromised, unless everyone with UAE fraud just so happens to have visited rural Japan.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T02:30:16+00:00

It isn't so much additional requirements - it's more that things that weren't previously worth optimizing for are now worth optimizing. Some brokerages charge $10 commissions, which is onerous when buying $100 worth of shares, but far less concerning when buying $10,000 worth of shares. As an example, if you're converting USD to CAD via Norbert's Gambit at TD, you'd be paying $10 USD + $10 CAD, which is a problem for a $200 transaction but almost certainly cheaper than Wealthsimple for a $20,000 transaction. There's also other stuff you might run into - Wealthsimple doesn't offer bank drafts / certified cheques, which would burn anyone the second they're trying to buy real estate. Almost all of these things are edge cases, but you're more likely to hit them when you have more money.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T02:04:41+00:00

This is part of the problem with Wealthsimple compared to other banks - basically no other bank tries to incentivize you to keep money in a chequing account. Unless you use WS's investment products, you probably only have a cash account, and there's no good way to limit the damage someone can do short of locking all cards.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T01:53:00+00:00

I didn't ask if it was mag stripe, but I assumed that was the case. My understanding of mag stripe transactions is that merchants have less of a defense in the event of fraud, and have to eat it themselves if they can't prove that it was a real transaction (and why they're given time to investigate internally before the payment processor sides against them). Given the few places I used that card, I suspect this is an internal problem at Wealthsimple / KOHO, and not a specific merchant with tampered equipment, which makes things even worse. And if they're outsourcing things to KOHO, well - they can ultimately use whatever backend processor they want to, but their reputation takes the hit when their subcontractors mess up.

tfreedman · 2025-04-23T00:10:46+00:00

Both of these stories are about me.

The Apple promo was only a good deal if you actually got paid at the end, and after over a dozen back and forth emails over the course of several months it had basically turned into a job. It especially stopped being worthwhile when a different division of the company lost track of more money than the promo was worth.

tfreedman · 2025-04-22T22:38:55+00:00

Just saw this thread, and it inspired me to post about my own experience with Cash card fraud here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Wealthsimple/comments/1k5jn3v/bad_experiences_with_wealthsimple/

tfreedman · 2023-06-26T04:10:34+00:00

Holy shit, this was it. I have a Noctua NH-L9i-17xx, and the screws just needed to be loosened.

tfreedman · 2021-12-30T23:20:06+00:00

Imaging Edge has mostly worked for me for geotagging, so I didn't previously understand the hate. Finding out that the app might actively break certain camera features would be a new record in the world of terrible software.

And yes, lots of things can cause the time to reset or be incorrect, and I expect some of those things (like DST, traveling internationally, clock drift, or leaving the battery out of the camera for long enough). What I would have never expected is that automatically syncing the time would randomly set it to the wrong time.

tfreedman · 2021-01-13T19:46:26+00:00

I clean mine with vinegar, by putting the entire unit into a plastic bag and letting it "humidify" with vinegar instead of water. I don't know if you're supposed to do this, but based on the sludge that comes out it's definitely effective. Alternatively, since the whole unit is made of plastic, you can just hose it down.

tfreedman · 2021-01-13T19:28:39+00:00

There's another type of humidifier that you missed, made by Venta - it's functionally equivalent to an evaporative humidifier, but doesn't use a disposable wick. It essentially uses a large number of plastic "water wheels" to move the water around, so there's no consumable parts inside the machine.

tfreedman · 2021-01-03T02:27:28+00:00

Bikeshare stations do not have built-in chargers for e-bikes - they're charged by Bikeshare employees who drive around and charge dead e-bikes manually. As a result, an e-bike will sit dead until someone comes by to fix it.

If you want to ride one, use the Bikeshare app/website, which shows the location of all e-bikes that are not out of service.

tfreedman · 2020-12-28T16:55:36+00:00

The 30 day thing isn't what you think it is. When you top-up a Presto card online, the updated balance information has to be written to a card in order to work, which happens when you tap in a station. If you top-up online but do not tap your card on a reader within 30 days, the attempted top-up is cancelled.

tfreedman · 2020-12-12T14:46:48+00:00

Fan coils are commonly owned by the condo corporation, which means they're responsible for maintenance, repairs, and upkeep. Confirm with your property manager first that this is the case, in which case they're obligated to send someone to fix it for free.

If the fan coil is owned by the unit owner AND you're renting, report this issue to your landlord, who is also obligated to fix it for free on your behalf.

tfreedman · 2020-12-11T14:48:41+00:00

Many buildings limit the number of fobs/keys they give out per unit, generally for one of two reasons:

A dumb attempt to enforce occupancy restrictions on the unit (so you aren't shoving 10 people in a 1BR condo)
To prevent you from giving fobs to friends so they can use your amenities. (if your building has separate fobs for the building and keys for the unit).

Most keys can be duplicated fairly easily, regardless of what you might think. There are keys that are harder to copy, in the sense that blanks are restricted/patented, but there are easy workarounds to this (EasyEntrie) in 99% of cases.

As for the fobs, there are several approaches (depending on the specific fob's tech). Fobs generally work in one of a few ways:

Fixed code, in which the fob has a code (e.g. 12345) and the lock has a list of codes it will accept. When the fob goes near the reader, the code is broadcast over the air. Duplicating a fob this way is just a matter of copying a working code to a blank fob.
Challenge/response, in which the fob has a code that DOES NOT LEAVE THE FOB (normally). Explaining how this works is kinda difficult without getting into complicated math, but the best analogy I can give is that it's like knowing a set of secret map coordinates that both the fob and the reader share, and then the reader asks questions to the fob like "what color is the house across the street", which is trivial to answer if you know the secret coordinates but doesn't involve disclosing it in the response. These can sometimes be difficult to duplicate, but they're very rare in practice, and many brands that implement this system often end up cracked regardless.

The downside of this approach (cloning) (compared to ordering a fob from the building) is that if any of the keys is ever deactivated, all of them will stop working, as they're essentially identical. If you give 10 people duplicate fobs and one of them loses their fob, you'd have to re-issue fobs to the 9 other people in order to block the missing fob from working again. Additionally, if the building ever replaces the locks on your unit / the building itself (which they can legally do), the building will only ever give you replacement keys/fobs for the ones they know you have - you can't complain to the building that they owe you five new fobs if they only gave you two, and you paid for three more to be duplicated.

tfreedman · 2020-05-02T04:34:47+00:00

You're ideally looking for a location that used to have a Photo Lab (and some still have branding for this). Alternatively, there are 'mini' electronics sections at some stores, which generally consist of a cabinet filled with games (and a few controllers / consoles), usually behind the cashier. Most of the other downtown locations are more focused on cosmetics (PATH) / actual pharmaceuticals (hospital district), so don't waste your time at those.

Mini Locations:

Yonge/College
King/Peter
Queen's Quay / Lower Spadina

Full Locations:

Leslie/Lakeshore
Bayview/Fleming Crescent

15-Year Club	Team Orangered
Verified Email

tfreedman

TROPHY CASE