That looks like a blast
Yup. My town has a pretty active subreddit, and the Cyberpunk RED subreddit has great material.
If there were any doubts that this image was supposed to reference the Blade Runner movie, the lawsuit said, Musk "erased them" by directly referencing the movie in his comments.
"You know, I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future," Musk said at the event. "I believe we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the, uh, not the bleak apocalypse.”
...
But producers argued that defense is "not credible" since Tesla explicitly asked to use the Blade Runner 2049 image, and there are "better" films in WBD's library to promote Musk's message, like the Mad Max movies.
That we're gonna do something real about the whole climate change thing. We're doing a bunch of window dressing, but there are too many entrenched interests fighting it.
My current hope is that my kids (and their kids) can make the best of whatever a +2C or +4C world looks like. And we manage to survive despite any ecosystem collapses.
I'm glad David Coon kept his seat.
Higgs seems to have built his career on taking stuff away from minority groups. And keeping NB safe for Irving. I won't mourn his departure from the legislature.
There’s also the stuff that “you get to know before it becomes news”, which also won’t be on Mastodon because it lacks the “gossipers” and the mass of users that is needed for having people “everywhere”
It's not the gossipers, it's a trending view. Mastodon doesn't tell users about active conversations as they happen. That makes it really hard to get breaking news, because you need to be following someone who is posting about it AND you need to recognize that it's breaking news.
Maybe that has improved in the year or two since I used Mastodon.
Yep, same problem Lemmy has vs reddit. Only the nerdiest tech nerds got on here. Not many communities from reddit or just in general here. For example, I had to go back to reddit for a good sized general anime community.
I've had the same experience. I still post here because I want the platform to take off, but Lemmy doesn't fulfill my needs.
Ark Patrol is a great recommendation. Thanks for bringing it up.
This will include ... ads that refer to US elections, their processes or outcomes.
Google is expecting Trump and co to publicly contest the election. They're trying to stop the ad platform from being used to spread election misinformation.
Props.
The headline does not make this clear at all.
we've been seeing these "twitter's in biiiiiiiiig trouble now!!" headlines for how many years now?
this time it's for realsies.
yet people refuse to just delete it
Many journalists want to feel connected, and since many politicians have a presence on Twitter, they feel like they can't. That means Twitter gets referenced way more than necessary in news stories, which feeds its popularity.
The reasons mentioned in the article:
One reason is that it seemed tech-savvy users heavily dominated the platform, making it difficult for regular social media users to find their way and feel comfortable on the platform.
I think that's saying the content tends to be very niche and it's hard to find people with similar non-tech interests.
and
Users have described their timelines (and even the explore tab) as “stale” because there’s often not much interesting content to consume or engage with.
This lines up with my experience: it's hard to find people with similar interests. Even when you do, people aren't saying much of interest.
That sounds really cool.
I'm glad the article discusses the irony of a pacifist writer producing a well thought out war game. It sounds like a duality of modern culture: we know war is terrible and destructive, but we also fetishize it.
I'm GMing Cyberpunk right now. Battlemaps are reskinned screenshots of Google Maps or floorplans of actual businesses.
I still burn tens of hours translating them into a gridded map, but still. It is sort of easier.
OP is talking about building communities. IRL interactions are situated in a context: a group of friends/neighbours/coworkers or an explicit community meeting.
When people are talking in that context, they think about the opinion of the rest of the group. Saying something unacceptable will burn bridges. Being impolite can do the same thing.
But interacting online typically doesn't have that risk. We split off into our echo chambers and align with people who share our beliefs, so there isn't a cost to saying something unacceptable.
The app now needs to validate the response from the back end. If the attacker can bypass the purchase check, what prevents the attacker from bypassing the response from the back end?
A great example of what this Lemmite said is the fact that they got downvoted without a response.
In a face to face setting, the downvoter would need to interact with the speaker out they'd have to bad-mouth the speaker behind their back. Those are more social actions:
-
Interaction with the speaker would make it easier to find common ground.
-
Badmouthing the speaker would open the downvoter to criticism from other people in the conversation.
Thanks for the tip. I've added it to my watchlist.
it looks mostly post-apocalyptic but there's a shot of people wearing VR helmets so who knows, maybe there's some cyberpunk buried in there too.
Yeah. I think cyberpunk went mainstream sometime after Facebook won the friend network wars. Nobody noticed because the mirror shades are optional, but the dystopian bits are becoming mandatory.
A plan to strengthen OAS, help younger Canadians and reduce the deficit? Thanks, affluent boomers! - The Globe and Mail
A motion from the Bloc will increase benefits for affluent retirees, to be paid for by younger (and poorer) Canadians. The advocacy group for Canadian seniors has proposed a much fairer alternative;
> [Canadian Association of Retired Persons's proposal] would strengthen OAS, help younger Canadians, reduce the deficit and save Parliament. This would enable MPs to make the most significant improvement to generational fairness in the federal budget in my professional lifetime – rather than play political games by proroguing Parliament or launching an early election.
...
> In my previous column, I costed out some options. The government could start to claw back OAS at an individual income threshold of $70,000 or a household income of $90,000. These alternatives would free up $12-billion and $48-billion, respectively, over the next five years.
Original link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/young-money/article-a-plan-to-strengthen-oas-help-younger-canadians-and-reduce-the-deficit/
More real estate developers face insolvency owing to high debt levels and construction costs as Canada is on track to reach about 240 real estate insolvencies this year
The federal Liberals and Conservatives want to "solve" the housing crisis by making it easier for builders to build new units.
Sadly, with interest rates and construction prices at current levels, it seems unlikely that private companies will be able to provide the 3.5 million houses we need to restore affordability.
We need all levels of government to start building housing, not just wait for white knights from the private sector to ride in and save our middle class dreams.
> Residential property developers are facing rising insolvencies as they struggle with higher borrowing and construction costs – and industry experts warn the trend is likely to worsen as interest expenses remain elevated.
...
> At this pace, Canada is on track to reach about 240 real estate insolvencies this year, which would be 57-per-cent higher than 2023 and 13-per-cent higher than 2009, when a wide swath of businesses ran into problems owing to the financial crisis and global recession.
...
> And that does not include the number of developers and projects that have been forced into receivership for not paying bills. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy does not include receiverships with its publicly available bankruptcy statistics. However, insolvency experts say they are seeing more projects go into receivership.
> So far this year, the real estate sector accounts for 55 per cent of the receiverships recorded by Insolvency Insider Canada, a website that tracks the largest insolvencies in the country. That compares to 30 per cent last year and 33 per cent in 2022.
...
> Today, the cost of residential construction is 81-per-cent higher across Canada’s major cities compared to 2017 and more than double – up 107 per cent – in the Toronto region, according to Statscan data.
What's a word for collecting conversation starters?
I try to collect conversation starters so I have things to talk about with people I like.
Some of them are general and work on anyone, like: "I'm moving soon!" or "how was your weekend?" or "did you see that ludicrous display last night?". Others deal with shared interests or common friends, so they're person specific.
What's a word to describe collecting conversation starters? Borrowing from other languages is legit.
Just got a call from the kids' daycare...
... some kid in the daycare has lice.
We went through this a couple of years ago: one kid had a tonne of lice in his hair, my wife got infested and ended up shaving her head. The other kid and I lucked out.
Regardless of what happens, we've got some short summer haircuts in our future.
Meanwhile, in cyberspace
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15835822
> Door of Durin by poppel > > https://teia.art/objkt/769117/listings
Selling the four-bedroom family home they bought 10 years ago will save loads of money each month
> The family is moving to find more financial flexibility. Owning their current home is a financial burden, and the stress would only get worse with a mortgage renewal coming up soon.
...
> Proceeds from the sale plus a cash top-up will mean they can live mortgage-free in their new three-bedroom townhouse. Current mortgage costs are $3,965 per month. > > As well, Ms. Deane has estimated that her family will save on electricity, heating, insurance, property taxes and maintenance. Even with strata/condo fees of $710 per month at the new place, Ms. Deane calculates overall savings of $4,640 per month.
Props to them for making a smart move.
Ottawa taxi lawsuit finds City negligent in allowing Uber to operate in 2014
An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the City of Ottawa was negligent in its enforcement of the city's taxi bylaw when it allowed Uber to begin operating in 2014, harming the city's established taxi industry.
> "The evidence establishes that the City knew that its failure to properly enforce the 2012 Bylaw would likely cause harm to the taxi industry. > > "A multinational giant was invading Ottawa, and because of the City's unpreparedness and its lack of efforts to develop a plan to enforce the 2012 Bylaw, the City's enforcement efforts against Uber drivers were ineffective."
More than 6.5 million Canadians are without a family doctor. Some would like to see nurse practitioners step in to ease the crisis in primary care
> Nurse practitioners could help fill the void, advocates for the profession say, if more provinces would adopt policies to integrate them into primary care and pay them fairly for their work. Some physicians’ organizations have pushed back against that approach, arguing that NPs don’t have as much training or education as family doctors and therefore should only be funded publicly when they’re embedded in interdisciplinary teams with MDs.
Aren't these the same organizations that have been dragging their feet on recognizing foreign credentials?
I've been seeing a nurse practitioner for the last couple of years. So far, she's provided the same level of care I'm used to from family doctors: prescriptions, forwarding me to specialists when appropriate, providing the usual advice during checkups. It's fine.
https://archive.is/PkAdd
Edit: took out my grumbly summary, since our healthcare spending seems to be middle of the pack, compared to peer countries.
Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.
> In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those “some” who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management. > > Given the way our institutions and economic and political elite create and perpetuate poverty in Canada, particularly among disabled people, we should be particularly sensitive to the implications of the country’s MaiD regime for those who are often ignored when warning about the dangers of the law.
...
> While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.
Anyone else doing the Loblaws boycott?
Is anyone else boycotting Loblaws? I don't have many alternatives, but I'm doing my best to take my business elsewhere.
U.S. authorities believe the criminal ring laundered US$653-million between 2016 and 2021
US regulators have found evidence that TD's anti-money laundering fraud detection is insufficient
> For months, analysts have predicted a fine in the range of US$500-million to US$1-billion, but that’s now jumped. “We believe cumulative fines could easily hit $2-billion,” Mr. Dechaine wrote.
Meanwhile, in Canada, TD is facing record fines (archive) from Canadian regulators.
https://archive.is/e0SGA
Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm
> The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.
OCDSB shouldn't ax Early French Immersion
Almost 70 per cent of families enrol their children in the Early French Immersion program.
The Ottawa Carleton District Schoolboard is winding up to drop early French immersion.
wtf
Ottawa’s plan for a (very limited) increase in the capital gains tax? It’s a start
There are lots of third rails in Canadian politics. Since governments won’t dare to go there, Tony Keller will
> Let’s start with one of the highest-voltage [third rails] in federal politics: Old Age Security. > > OAS only begins to be clawed back once a senior’s income exceeds $91,000. And payments aren’t zeroed out until income hits $148,000 – or $154,000 for those 75 and older. Senior couples earning a quarter-million dollars a year, and living mortgage-free, are getting cheques from younger and (much) lower-income taxpayers. > > That has to be fixed. The OAS threshold should be lowered – to, say, $60,000 – and the clawback sharpened, with benefits tapping out at $100,000.
...
> End the capital-gains exemption for principal residences. It’s even more untouchable than OAS. It’s also more economically harmful and inequitable. > > It pumps up housing prices and pushes more and more national wealth into housing. It’s dumb economics, plus the tax break only goes to the two-thirds of families who own a home. And the richer you are, and the more home you own, the bigger the tax break. It adds up to a hyper-regressive policy to make Canada less productive.
...
> Let’s restore the two percentage points of Goods and Services Tax the Harper government cut. Our tax system is too tilted to income taxes, and away from taxes on consumption. And the cut to the GST costs Ottawa about $20-billion a year. > > If the GST were raised, some of the proceeds could beef up the tax credit for low-income Canadians.
There's some good stuff in there.
https://archive.is/GDzQG
The number of workers in Canada’s public sector has soared in recent years, outpacing the private sector, but economists warn the growth of government jobs is not sustainable in the long run
Interesting article on growth in public sector jobs over the past decade. What I got from it: lots of people were hired during the pandemic to handle pandemic-related initiatives; aside from that, lots of people were hired in general; governments appear to hire in times of economic uncertainty (e.g. growth under Harper during 2008+); federal unions argue staffing levels are returning to "normal".
But the killer is the last section where the author tries to figure out if we're getting value for money. The answer is short and sour: Canadians don't think so, and internal targets aren't being met.
> Are Canadians getting bang for their taxpayer buck? > > ... One way to gauge that is through surveys, which doesn’t leave Canada looking good relative to its international peers. The OECD polls residents at its member countries on their satisfaction with public services such as health care and education, and between 2017 and 2022, Canada experienced the largest decline in satisfaction among G7 countries for education (from 73 to 67 per cent) while the drop in health care satisfaction matched that of the United Kingdom, but to the lowest level in the G7 (from 69 to 56 per cent). > > ... The share of respondents who said their provincial government had done a “good” or “very good” job fell overall from close to half in the first quarter of 2019 to 30 per cent at the end of 2023. Both B.C. and Quebec, two provinces that have seen public-sector job growth rise particularly quickly, registered some of the worst declines. > > ... the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reviewed four years of results reports to see how the government measured up against nearly 3,000 performance targets it had set for itself. The assessments weren’t promising. For fiscal 2021-22, roughly 25 per cent of targets were not met, up from 20 per cent in 2018-19. But that didn’t capture the full scale of the performance shortfall. One-tenth of performance targets included no information on results, while another one-third stated results would be achieved at some point in the future.
Yeah, that mixes provincial services with federal ones.
https://archive.is/m0qtc
What do dystopias look like in 2024?
What's the next wave of dystopia in popular culture?
I think the classic CRTs, mirrorshades, and black synthleather look of cyberpunk doesn't really work with our expectations in 2024.
In the 70s and 80s, we expected acid rain, ozone holes, and lawlessness to fill our future, as companies took over from (relatively) responsible governments and civility/civilization collapsed. The outfit fit with that: keep the burning rain and sun off, while protecting against looters and raiders. Meanwhile, writers didn't see how technology would shrink and get better.
In 2024 we expect our dystopia to be hot: the world is heating up, so black synthleather is out. Maybe mirrorshades stick around. Corporations aren't taking over any more, governments are becoming corrupt/evil (e.g. Hunger Games). And technology is tinsy tiny, verging on invisible.
I'm thinking of the Hunger Games and Upload. (And the first five episodes of Fallout)
Feds announce $1.5b to expand affordable housing
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces creation of $1.5-billion rental protection fund to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale
It's good to see some kinda/sorta/almost direct spending on affordable housing being announced:
> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the creation of a $1.5-billion rental protection fund that will provide a combination of loans and grants to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale.
It's nowhere near enough, but it's better than the neoliberal tHe FrEe MaRkEt WiLl SaVe Us shoveling that both the Liberals and Conservatives have been pushing.
The article explains how the number of homes affordable to people making $30k annually is crashing across the country (but less so in Quebec).
https://archive.is/ocuud
Introducing the top stocks in sectors with limited competition
Canada: three oligopolies in a trenchcoat.
> Bank service charges and overdraft fees can infuriate consumers, and more choices could lower their temperature. > > From the perspective of investors, though, Canada’s cozy network of oligopolies – in which a few players dominate one sector – can look very different. Slim competition can keep upstarts out and profits in, driving strong shareholder returns and attractive dividends over the long term. > > “We have a handful of oligopolies that are able to fend off new entrants (whether regional or foreign) without needing to destroy profits for an extended period of time, or where we need a government financed solution,” Ian de Verteuil, head of portfolio strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, said in an e-mail.
https://archive.is/1BPVW
There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living
> Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents. > > On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late. > > “Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time. > > So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.
... > But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone. > > We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.
... > To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe. > > That’s why we pay for our pollution.
This dude gets it. We need to do so much more, but walking back the carbon tax is a terrible idea.
https://archive.is/kpZQu
Newfoundland’s Auditor-General probing province’s expensive travel nursing contracts - The Globe and Mail
The announcement arrives in the midst of an uproar in Newfoundland about the cost of travel nurses, who are hired from out of province by private, for-profit agencies
> Toronto-based Canadian Health Labs, had inked contracts with health authorities in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and charged rates that in many cases worked out to more than $300 an hour per nurse. That is roughly six times as much as nurses earn in the public health care system.
We've systemically underpaid nurses for decades. We've failed to train enough nurses. Their real pay has shrunk, while their workload has grown. It isn't surprising nurses have left the public system for less shitty jobs.
Canadaland Commons has a great interview with a nurse who has seen the decline.