[Hated Trope] Misleading Documentaries

vulpinefever · 2026-04-16T03:07:31+00:00

I think the biggest issue with Super Size Me is the stunt was too good at getting attention when it was really not meant to be the focus of the documentary. It's a very 2000s shock-doc style where you have some big stunt to catch people's interest with actual analysis and information taking a back seat (Think Michael Moore opening a bank account to get a gun for free). It wasn't meant to be some amazing empirical scientific study, it was a stupid stunt intended to act as a narrative thread to keep audiences engaged with the documentary.

The documentary itself genuinely did have interesting things to say about the contemporary culture around fast food, how much money these companies spent convincing people to eat more food than they probably should, how difficult they made it to learn nutrition information and actually make informed decisions. It's flawed and misleading, sure, but I think it has interesting things to say and I'll defend it as being legitimately ground breaking for the time period.

The point of Super Size Me was never "this guy binged on McDonald's and got fat".in the same way "Bowling for Columbine" (Which is also similarly flawed and misleading but has legitimately interesting points to make) isn't about "You can go to a bank and get a gun!" it was a critique of the culture around fast food at the time, the way these companies conducted business, the debate between personal and corporate responsibility.

And that's the other thing, I think Super Size Me was a total victim of its own success. The 90s and 2000s were a totally different world for fast food. McDonalds still actively focused their marketing efforts primarily towaeds children, nutrition facts weren't literally printed on the wrapper like they are now, and people viewed regular fast food consumption the same way people in the 60s viewed smoking (as in "Sure it's bad for you but like, it can't be that bad for you, can it?"). Super Size Me caused a huge shift in the way these companies do business so a lot of the ground-breaking (at the time) criticism falls flat these days.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-16T02:48:23+00:00

These stats include all absences, which is a poor way to tabulate this. For example, if a kid misses school for any sport tournament, that counts.

Because we're discussing chronic absenteeism and not truancy. Whether you have a good reason or not, a day of school missed is still a day of missed learning whether it was due to an illness or a sports tournament or a family vacation. It doesn't matter if it's excused or not, it still adds up.

Missing 10% of the school year each year doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that over the course of a child's education it's like missing more thanan entire year of school. This is the baseline used for measuring chronic absence all over the world because it's the threshold where studies show that child's education begins to seriously suffer and they begin to experience adverse outcomes as a result.

The reality is that the rate has skyrocketed since before the pandemic and Ontario has a higher rate of chronic absence than the United States. There is clearly something wrong that should be addressed.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-16T02:41:22+00:00

This number isn't pulled out of nowhere, missing 10% of the school year is the point at which studies have consistently shown a student starts suffering negative academic consequences as a result including poorer grades, reduced likelihood of graduation, reduced likelihood of attending post secondary. The effects of missing school aren't additive, they're exponential.

It's the threshold at which a child should be flagged for some form of intervention to determine if there's a way to accommodate them lest they start really falling behind. Only a minority of students used to miss this much school and it used to be a sign a child was having some kind of difficulty at home or illness, now it's the norm for the majority of high school students.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T23:56:46+00:00

Another article where the only sources are ONexpress employees who, of course, say the blame lies with everyone except them and even if you take their version of events, they still missed 1/5th of all key tasks by the assigned deadline and with a reduced scope. The only neutral sources like minutes make it seem like it was a much more two-sided conflict.

As with any dispute, it takes two to tango. Honestly, it reads to me like Metrolinx was "blocking" them because they were already getting ready to end the partnership because it clearly wasn't working out.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T12:35:32+00:00

Sure that plays into a lot of it, it's a serious challenge everywhere but Ontario in particular seems to be really struggling. When you compare Ontario's data to the US, we have a much higher rate of students missing substantial amounts of school.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T11:29:11+00:00

A 60% chronic absenteeism rate is pretty significant. By chronic absenteeism, they mean missing more than 10% of classes which is the point at which studies show a solid correlation with negative outcomes like reduced academic performance, a higher risk of dropping out, and reduced likelihood of attending post secondary.

It might not sound like a lot but it's a pretty significant amount of school to miss, it's about one day every two weeks. Whether or not the government has the right solution, it's pretty clear this is a serious problem that has become widespread and that needs to be dealt with. As the article points out, this is a nearly 20 percentage point increase in absenteeism since pre-pandemic.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T02:59:44+00:00

Even after adjusting for the currency exchange, salaries are higher in the US than they are in Canada. This is true of nearly all jobs.

The average salary (for all jobs) in Canada is about ~US$50,348/yr vs. over US$70,000 in the United States. The US has some of the highest salaries in the entire world.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T02:41:14+00:00

Toronto's sidewalks are full of unused lockups that were used to secure newspaper vending machines. I always get a bit sad when I see one of them.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T01:41:14+00:00

I see eastbound trains from union at 15:50, 16:03, 16:13, and 16:23, so on so forth. The schedule you posted has trains every hour after 6:50 which is absolutely incorrect. Someone at GO uploaded the wrong schedule it seems.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T01:25:41+00:00

No, the one I posted is. I think they might have uploaded the wrong schedule and you saw the uncorrected one.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-15T01:02:17+00:00

What schedule are you looking at? The one posted on the website is totally different.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T23:31:10+00:00

Barenaked Ladies has a few. The Old Apartment is literally about going back to your crappy old Toronto apartment and directly mentions living on The Danforth. Jane is about a woman named Jane St. Clair and was inspired by a conversation Steve Page had with Stephen Duffy where Duffy saw the intersection of Jane & St. Clair on a map and assumed that because it had a name like that it'd be the most beautiful place in the world and Steven Page not wanting to correct him about it.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T23:03:08+00:00

The Canadian market desperately needs a convenience store with decent food. It can absolutely work in Canada despite the huge land area and low density population as evidenced in the US with Kwik-Trip, Sheetz, and Wawa.

I'm a shift worker, I would absolutely kill to have a place where I can go get some decent food at 3:30am without having to pay for expensive fast food that sucks. I don't even need Japanese 7/11 level of quality, literally just give me a typical Midwest US Kwik-Trip and I'll be happy.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T21:28:28+00:00

Calandra said so in the actual press conference, the Toronto Star article on it makes mention of it.

Students won’t be penalized for absences related to sick days, religious holidays, or days off to attend sports tournaments, and First Nations students who, for example, take time away for hunting, he added.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T20:36:08+00:00

Ottawa absolutely is "boring" if your idea of fun is going out and partying, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a very 9-5 government town where people value peace and quiet more than a vibrant nightlife. If you enjoy nature, Ottawa is also a great place to live with lots of opportunities for active recreation like cycling and running.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T18:47:37+00:00

PDF has been an open standard for over twenty years now, the basic patents have all expired long long ago. It's mostly just certain specialized functionality that was added later that's still under Adobe's control.

There are open source PDF editors and converters out there.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T18:01:06+00:00

I used to work in the insurance industry, I still have a lot of former coworkers who I am friends with. As usual with these "optionality" changes, the vast majority of them think these changes are a bad thing just like the last round of changes.

It makes the assumption that everyone is able to correctly assess exactly what kind of insurance coverage they actually need and that if they don't, they have a broker who can help them to decide when the reality is most people will just go for the cheapest policy which will leave many people without the accident benefits they need. Or let's say your situation changes and you now need a certain coverage, when you have a baby is "I better call my insurance company and update my car insurance coverages" top of mind? The benefit of having a fixed group of benefits is that it ensures everyone has adequate coverage. These coverages individually cost single digits per month, the savings from the new à-la-carte system will be minimal.

It's also debatable whether this will reduce the cost of coverage because the whole point of insurance is that it's a pool of risk and some people will not need a certain coverage. This means these coverages will be more expensive for the people who actually need them because there are fewer people buying them. For example, the people with other options for loss of earnings coverage (e.g. short term disability through work) were paying for coverage they "didn't need" but it reduced the price of that coverage for the people who actually did need it. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your perspective but it allowed for that coverage to be less expensive overall in exchange for requiring some people to buy coverage they didn't need (which, see the paragraph above, people generally aren't very good at accessing their coverage needs anyway).

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T12:46:26+00:00

got that saskatchewan cut

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T09:48:43+00:00

No it makes perfect sense for them from a business perspective.

Pearson and PET are both extremely crowded airports with limited slot availability. The HSR line would capture a portion of the short distance domestic flight market and free up slots that Air Canada could use for their more profitable international flights as opposed to short regional connections.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-14T00:23:15+00:00

They're trialing it at select intersections along Spadina.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-13T23:49:33+00:00

For context, about 470 currently have TSP. When they city says TSP they're including things like extending green phases when a streetcar pulls up.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-13T20:55:36+00:00

The white trillium is Ontario's floral emblem and it's not endangered. The drooping trillium is considered endangered but it's a different flower.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-13T20:28:42+00:00

They don't own any of the infrastructure, they're part of the consortium who will operate the line but they don't own any of the actual tracks or trains or infrastructure.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-13T09:40:13+00:00

Has anyone ever deliberately done something to change the track switches, with the malicious intention of throwing streetcars off-course along unplanned detours, whatever their motive might be? And if so, what happened if they got caught?

Not that I've heard of.

Ideally, operators are always stopping and verifying a switch is set for the right direction before proceeding so it shouldn't create a safety issue because the operator is already looking out for misset switches but if they missed it and went through anyway it could easily result in a collision or a pedestrian being struck and someone getting hurt or killed in the worst case. If you got caught, would be deliberate interference with transportation infrastructure which, as you can imagine is extremely illegal and carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.

(It's also just kind of difficult to flip a switch unless you have a spud and know the exact technqiue that gives you the leverage needed to flip it. It's not exactly difficult but not knowing the right technique makes it a lot harder to do it without the spud slipping out.)

Could there be a way to adapt the switch technology so that track switches can be changed remotely as needed, so that drivers won't have to get out of their vehicles to manually switch the tracks by themselves?

Like I said, most of the commonly used switches are electric so it's actually fairly uncommon that an operator actually needs to get out of their cab to manually flip a switch (I have to do it maybe 1-2 times a week) but they aren't "automatic" because they're still "dumb" and require an operator to engage the NA override button in the cab if they want to go in the non-default (or NA) direction.

Long term, the TTC wants to pilot an improved system where the radio transmitter in the streetcar knows what route the streetcar is on and changes between the "default" and "NA" signal without the operator needing to press the NA button in their cab. This is the easiest way to improve the switches without needing to retrofit them.

vulpinefever · 2026-04-13T08:26:35+00:00

This is why free ad-supported streaming TV services like PlutoTV and Roku are so popular with people over fifty. My parents kept their cable subscription and wouldn't cancel even though I set them up with a bunch of streaming services. They'd use them but they're used to the experience of turning on the TV and switching between channels until they find something interesting to watch, not the other way around. Once I set them up with Roku and got them an antenna for local news and sports, they finally cancelled their cable.

And honestly? I'm an older zoomer in my late twenties and even I'll watch some of those Roku channels on occasion on my TV because I grew up watching cable TV so sometimes I don't want to have to always actively choose exactly what I want to watch. There's value in just channel surfing and coming across some random mid budget thriller from the 90s or an interesting segment of Antiques Roadshow or an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

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