Yup, also while prices may have gone up across the board the spread of prices seems to have reduced. At this point eating out is a bad value but I feel like spending $30 on a good meal gives me better value than a nearly $20 fast food meal.

I’m pretty sure the connector on a sodastream bottle is not proprietary. It’s very similar, if not the same, as the ones on the paintball canisters I used to fill (at least the threaded one).

Maybe if I used my selfie camera more often than never.

Honestly, if you want “quick unprofessional photos” stick with a smartphone.

Standalone cameras don’t have nearly the processing or automated modes of modern phones. So while bigger sensors and better glass can get you a better image it comes along with needing to know how to use the camera and processing the photos afterwards.

That said if you still want something at a decent price I’d be looking at a used Fuji x100 or Sony rx100.

I’ve been to China a number of times and it is a very interesting place with many amazing people. A government doesn’t necessarily represent the people that live there.

That said, it is up to you and your moral system whether to visit a country with a government you disagree with.

This is all political grandstanding, and I’m tired of hearing about it. No Canadian shipyard even bid. The choice was either no ferries at all (on a system that already doesn’t have capacity or reliability many weekends), or they get built outside of Canada.

Other’s here have covered the why’s of how China became a manufacturing powerhouse, but it is also interesting about how they continue to build things even though China is no longer the cheapest place to make things and hasn’t been for awhile.

One of the most amazing things about manufacturing in China is how extensive their supply chain infrastructure is. This allowes your suppliers to react quickly and do things in days or hours that would take weeks elsewhere in the world. I’ve got suppliers in China that I know will get it right the first time, and will build a brand new product in 6-8 weeks rather than 12 weeks anywhere else in the world. The way the supply chain worldwide revolves around China is both amazing and scary. There are many items today that are nearly impossible to get outside of China at any price.

The other thing is people. Due to the years of experience China is the place where the best tooling and manufacturing engineers are. There are so many people concentrated in the manufacturing centers that if you need to hire 1000 people in a couple days to assemble widgets then you could feasibly do that.

That said, there is definitely a push to diversify manufacturing outside of China and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose some of these advantages in the coming years. This started with the original US tariffs against China, continued due to how China locked down during the pandemic, as well as the current round of US tariffs.

This is the result of kicking the can down the road continually rather than spending tax money on maintaining and building the infrastructure needed by the populace. Everything ends up in a failure state but at least you paid $50 less in tax each year!

The issue I have with “leagues” is that by assigning them you are essentially reducing your potential dating pool because of an assumption. The whole point of flirting and getting to know someone is to evaluate your compatibility with each other. You can’t know whether you are someone’s exact type without interacting with them.

I’ve been surprised enough times by which women do and don’t find me attractive that I know better than to make any assumptions.

Uhh… Probably don’t want to use that one.

The options suck because there is no real competition, simple as that.

What the carriers actually care about is average revenue per customer (ARPU), so you will find that no matter the “deal” you get, you will be paying about the same minimum cost regardless of carrier at the same level. This is about $70/mo for Telus/Rogers/Bell, and $35/mo for their discount brands Koodo/Fido/Virgin. All that really changes is the amount of data you get, which they can easily give more of since the data itself is practically free. The only reason that these companies would ever do anything to deviate from the status quo is if a new company came in and challenged them, or they were legislated to change their policies, otherwise all they care about is maximizing revenues for shareholders.

Most cars are black, white, gray, or silver.

I fucking hate these new vehicles with the paint that has no sparkle to it, especially the horrible grey one. So called Putty ass-whips

In many places doorknobs are being phased out of codes precisely because they aren’t accessible like a lever style is.

I’ve had banks reach out about possible fraud and it always seems scammy. I have definitely been on the phone and had a text or email with a code that I had to repeat to the person on the phone. So it isn’t even universal that you don’t give the code to the person you are talking to.

The best policy is that if your financial institution calls you is to hang up and call the number on the back of your card. You might have to wait on hold for a bit or explain to the operator but it is the only way to be very confident that you are speaking to the bank.

I’ve interviewed many people and most people are terrible in that situation, even when I try to help them along.

Nervousness is the number one thing that throws people off during an interview. Instead of taking a breath to calm down and think things through they either immediately start speaking without a clear plan, or they clam up and don’t give me anything to talk about. Using the STAR/START method of answering questions works great to give a framework.

The next is that they just don’t demonstrate their skills or that they learn over time. I’ll ask a technical question about something and they show no understanding of why they did something. I love asking questions about what a person learned while doing their work, so many people just don’t have anything to share.

Lastly, interviews are way easier if the other person treats it like a conversation rather than a one way Q&A session. I get a much better idea of what they will be like to work with and I’m more comfortable when I can ask questions that continue on the discussion. On the flipside, some people take over conversations and don’t get that our time is limited and answers need to be concise. That said, even if the interview is the conversation style, make sure to save at least a couple questions for the ending when you are inevitably asked for questions.

In order to produce more goods you need the energy infrastructure to support it. The problem is that things take time and a lack of investment over time in various sectors means we will be behind for some time.

I think the critical question here is why are these men vulnerable to it? Then take this knowledge and use that to fight back against bad actors.

My 2 cents on the topic is that many young men feel unimportant and lost and are therefore looking for someone to guide them. Unless society takes it seriously they will continue to follow those that seem to listen and acknowledge their issues even if they are using it to manipulate.

The US tariffs are applied with no basis in reality. Unless you could somehow magically move the entire supply chain for goods into the US at once businesses’ costs will go up with widespread tariffs applied. Because of how worldwide all supply chains are these days this is a completely impossible task. Not to mention the higher labour costs and lack of workers willing to do those jobs in the country.

Most businesses don’t have the runway for an unstable business environment and it is in their best insterests to diversify out of uncertain markets. Hopefully we continue to see more companies look towards Canada as an option for serving their international customers. I’m all for incentivizing this as long as we aren’t selling out the benefits of these companies bringing tax dollars into the country.

Yeah, that is the downside of dual booting, you are almost certainly going to end up learning how to chroot to fix the bootloader at some point. But dealing with a VM, especially if you want to pass a GPU also has its own difficulties.

Canadian Tire already owns SportChek and Mark’s, they are already in the clothing space.

I also take issue with the description of Canadian Tire, they are a department store focusing on automotive, tools, home and garden, kitchen, and sporting goods.

Their businesses aren’t that drastically different, and it sounds more like they want the brand for a smaller range of goods using HBC stripes.