Yeah, I installed Enterprise edition on my desktop, which allows you to cut out all the bloat and spyware. But it takes a long time to do, and I’m not sure I got everything since Windows Updates can change anything.

That love of tinkering is why I’ve landed on not using an immutable distro for my first time installing Linux since the 00s. CachyOS is what I landed on; now I just need to catch up on work so I can take a day to tinker with my setup.

For context, I semi-broke my current Windows 11 install by trying to manually edit the registry to remove all traces of a piece of invasive, uninstallable bloatware (that comes direct from ASRock… the bastards) I accidentally installed. Turns out my sound drivers are from the same company, so when I deleted all entries with that company in the search terms, I FUBARed my Bluetooth audio and 3.5mm microphone. And didn’t backup the registry.

I like to tinker, and if I need to reinstall my OS anyway, so now is the time to finally switch!

Do you need to tell them? I never did. I just assumed there’s some sort of government system to track which citizens are residents in each province, if nothing else to keep people from “double dipping” in two provinces’ healthcare systems.

Then again, BC charges health premiums to seniors, right? So maybe keeping an AB health card is a way seniors might try to dodge that, I guess? (I’m just here on vacation, really!)

Nah. You need to laminate it yourself, which is technically not allowed for some reason, apparently, but everyone does it anyway.

Dementia and Parkinson’s. That sucks.

My kiddos love listening to his self-narrated stories on Spotify. (“OK Google. Play Robert Munsch stories.”) His love for children is so clear in his interactions with them in those recordings.

The article also suggests the “trade war” is the reason Canadians aren’t traveling to the US, and not the plainclothes government thugs who could grab you off the street and hold you without any legal process in inhumane conditions indefinitely. Where a Canadian his died from being denied access to medications.

But yeah, right. It’s the tariffs.

I mean… What are Canadian MPs supposed to do about US corruption? It’s up to them to figure it out. It’s the host country’s choice where to host it; if the US administration chooses to line their own pockets, it’s up to US legislators/courts to hold them to account.

Or am I missing something?

Literal newspeak, straight from 1984.

Lawnchair doesn’t seem to allow gestures on icons/folders, so it’s a non-starter for me. I use swipe actions all the time to launch apps. Like, tap for SMS, swipe down for WhatsApp, swipe up for Signal; or tap to open a folder of utilities, swipe up for Root Explorer and down for KeePass. I want to be able to launch all of my frequently used apps with 1 action from my homescreen. If anything, I’d like a launcher that allows even more swipe actions (right & left).

I just want a full app drawer and a single homescreen with shortcuts/folders that can be overloaded with swipe actions. IDGAF about widgets or search. If I need to type anything, I’m doing too much work to launch an app.

I think most people learned that because of COVID, didn’t they? N95s (worn properly) block 95% of pm2.5, which takes a danger level of 400 μg/m³ (well into the hazardous range) down to 20 μg/m³ (about half the cutoff for “unhealthy”).

Yet only a handful of people locally were wearing N95s when the levels were that high, locally. People just don’t care about their health, I guess? Not sure how else to interpret it.

The Paradox of Tolerance

Holy shit, that’s insane. No wonder the US has triple the healthcare spending of their peers with worse health outcomes.

Sure, but even so: that hardware isn’t going to be obsolete or wear out for a long time.

Compared with going to a concert that can be $10K for 2 people to attend a single show.

idk about these; I haven’t driven significantly in Toronto in over a decade, but Calgary has mobile speed cameras in unmarked cars, so they can be moved around. They just look like a car parked on the side of the road. And people slow down for school zones in Calgary.

I think they’re very effective. As soon as you cross the border to BC, where automated speeding cameras are illegal, people drive about 10km/h faster, it feels like. On Deerfoot (in Calgary), you’d occasionally have someone pass at +30. On the Island Highway, +40 isn’t atypical. (That’s 150 km/h… Crazy fast, especially knowing that kinetic energy is the square of velocity.) And people regularly blast through school zones in BC at +30, and +40 isn’t overly unusual (70 km/h in a 30 zone). (Comparatively, 50 in a 30 zone was the usual max I noticed in Alberta).

Or maybe it’s just that BC drivers are massive speeders, and the speed cameras thing isn’t the reason. Hard to know without data.

Or keep the live service model, but label things correctly:

You’re getting a subscription to the service that’s guaranteed to last at least until [planned minimum end date]. Make it illegal to label anything using “buy” that doesn’t grant a permanent, non-expiring license to the software or digital good.

There’s nothing wrong with charging for a subscription. If that’s their product, and the only way they can offer the product, then clearly market it that way and there’s no legal problem under the proposed rules.

Granted, that still sucks for videogame preservation, but at least it’s honest. And I’m not sure how many people will be willing to shell out $80+ for a “minimum 24 month subscription” to a new game, or pay $9.99 for a "micro"transaction they’re guaranteed to keep access to for 8 7 6 5 months.

I should probably have been more precise; their produce prices are generally roughly equal, plus or minus a bit, but the produce quality is almost always great, and it’s easy to return if/when you get a rare dud.

Any other food item is almost always cheaper: dairy and other refrigerated foods, meat (great quality), non-perishable food, etc.

If you’re happy to buy in bulk quantities, I haven’t found any good alternatives to Costco.

Nobody here has mentioned the elephant in the room: Corporations are being allowed to “legally” dodge $15 billion in taxes every year

That’s incorrect, I’m pretty sure. It’s not that they’re overstating, it’s that they’re the wrong visas. See my reply below for more details.

I looked this up since it’s not fully explained in the article. They entered legally on B-1 visas, but B-1 visas are for things like business meetings, not “actual” work.

They should be entering on H-1B or L-1 visas, which are for temporary (1 or 3 year) technical workers who can’t be sourced locally. But the US caps these visas, and they can’t get enough.

So, the US lobbied to get investment from these companies/South Korea in the US, but then didn’t give them enough visas to get the factories built. So now, they’re pulling all South Korean employees in the country who are on B-1 visas, stalling all capital investment in the factories the US lobbied for.

This particular case is intended, because it was lobbied for by Democrats, and they’re the other team, so anything they’ve done should be set on fire. (In this case, EVs.) But this will (or course) have chilling effects on all investment in the US going forward and will lead to project cancellations, delays, and cost overruns.

That’s my read.

I could have written your comment, lol.

With inflation hitting food prices especially hard, getting the best value per dollar at Costco makes a huge difference. Anything at Costco is almost always ½-¾ what we’d pay elsewhere, and their return policy is incredible, so there’s much lower risk when buying durable goods, too.

I’m all for minimizing buying American, but I’m not going to pay double to shop local.