OT: Sens Lounge -The four seasons edition

[Big Muddy]

I don't think there is much reason to stick with one specific cable provider. You might be able to pull the "I'm going to cancel!" routine and get the best possible deal via Rogers or Bell, then just rinse and repeat when your promotional period is up. If you already have other over the top services like Netflix, and you can get a few of the channels you want with an over-the-air antenna, the only reason to stick with cable is hockey or sports. Because of how regional deals are structured with sports leagues, unless you're out of the territory of the team, there is no cheaper (legal) way to follow a specific sports team or watch specific sports that you want. With that said, if you just want to watch a few hours of sports a week and don't care about the specific team, there are games on both over the air, and some streaming services.

Cable is going to die as soon as the regional sports bubble collapses and/or streaming services get all the sports, along with their older user base all dying. Sports are the only non-negotiable reason for most people to get cable.

In the U.S., to watch your favourite non local hockey team (like the Ottawa Senators), you can catch most games on a streaming service like ESPN+. But, there’s still some games (like Senators versus any of the NYS teams) where they are only available on cable channels. Then, if you want watch another sport like NFL football, you can watch some games on national broadcast cable channels, Amazon Prime for Thursday night games, and Youtube (who now have the broadcast rights equivalent to Sunday Ticket) if you wanted to pick the game you prefer watching.

Its getting pretty fractured. With the multi-trillion dollar giant tech companies getting into the content game, it's just different companies making the money and replacing other companies who have provided the content & service in the past. I’m not sure the consumer is that much further ahead although I suppose some would argue that. With the bad code that Crowd Strike distributed, a major supplier of security software to Microsoft that took down 8 million Microsoft machines, you have to wonder (for other reasons besides this one outage as well) if the anti-trust rulings aren’t that far off.

 

[Stylizer1]

WFH was a temporary thing due to a global pandemic, as we all know.

Our insdutrial society business model was built around the commute to work. Restaurants, coffee shops, tailors, sandwich shops, etc...you name it, there was an entire industry and business model that relies on theis model.

We can certainly have the discussion that the business model may beed changing, as there are better efficiencies to be found, and a better work/life balance. However, there are a few factors that always needed addressing:

1. The business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed, they need to be fully compensated and retrained should the business model change. I won't hear of "well find another line of work" crap that PS people say. That's bullshit. The PSW should find another line of work because they were hired under a certain structure and the onus is for them to return to their workplaces, not the other way around. If they help the business owners properl.y that are affected, then change it.

2. If they are going to chage this business model, the govt has to further accelerate sales of these buildings, even at 1$, in order revitalize the core with more affordable housing paid for by government. This govt is really good at wasting money, but this terrible investment will pay dividends in the end. They have to have the right people to convert, and maintain and control the rents in these buildings. It is the only way. It is incredibly socialist, but capitalism has its limits. If you flood the rental market with 4,000 units downtown, at rent controlled prices (which those waiting lists have thousands of people on their lists), this will drive down demand, and lower rents across the city. It is the only way.

No better way to prep people for 15 minute cities.

 

[Stylizer1]

This is nuts. It's like saying that we should compensate and retrain business owners who were destroyed by Amazon in the past decade.

Running a business does not entitle you to anything. You do that knowing there are risks involved. Having technology advance so that the local office space becomes obsolete is one of those risks.

At the end of the day people only care about themselves. If they knew 20 years ago that supporting Costco, Walmart, Amazon etc. would have a detrimental effect on their economy we might be in a better place today. All of these box stores and foreign owned corporations extract our wealth because we are primarily consumers now. They designed the city poorly as with most in North America so there is no going back. Making affordable units downtown is a bandaid to a much larger problem.

 

[Masked]

At the end of the day people only care about themselves. If they knew 20 years ago that supporting Costco, Walmart, Amazon etc. would have a detrimental effect on their economy we might be in a better place today. All of these box stores and foreign owned corporations extract our wealth because we are primarily consumers now. They designed the city poorly as with most in North America so there is no going back. Making affordable units downtown is a bandaid to a much larger problem.

Don't be lumping Costco in with those two.

 

[milkbag]

WFH was a temporary thing due to a global pandemic, as we all know.

Our insdutrial society business model was built around the commute to work. Restaurants, coffee shops, tailors, sandwich shops, etc...you name it, there was an entire industry and business model that relies on theis model.

We can certainly have the discussion that the business model may beed changing, as there are better efficiencies to be found, and a better work/life balance. However, there are a few factors that always needed addressing:

1. The business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed, they need to be fully compensated and retrained should the business model change. I won't hear of "well find another line of work" crap that PS people say. That's bullshit. The PSW should find another line of work because they were hired under a certain structure and the onus is for them to return to their workplaces, not the other way around. If they help the business owners properl.y that are affected, then change it.

2. If they are going to chage this business model, the govt has to further accelerate sales of these buildings, even at 1$, in order revitalize the core with more affordable housing paid for by government. This govt is really good at wasting money, but this terrible investment will pay dividends in the end. They have to have the right people to convert, and maintain and control the rents in these buildings. It is the only way. It is incredibly socialist, but capitalism has its limits. If you flood the rental market with 4,000 units downtown, at rent controlled prices (which those waiting lists have thousands of people on their lists), this will drive down demand, and lower rents across the city. It is the only way.

Lol dude, what? I'm guessing you're one of those business owners?

Opening a business involves risk, the government can't just prop up every single bad business venture. Times change and taking advantage of x market during y time period doesn't entitle you to a lifetime of benefit.

I agree with point two, we need to accelerate the affordable housing market and this is a no-brainer way of doing it. Sorry to the business owners, but you win some and lose some.

 

[Loach]

Lol dude, what? I'm guessing you're one of those business owners?

Opening a business involves risk, the government can't just prop up every single bad business venture. Times change and taking advantage of x market during y time period doesn't entitle you to a lifetime of benefit.

I agree with point two, we need to accelerate the affordable housing market and this is a no-brainer way of doing it. Sorry to the business owners, but you win some and lose some.

Isn't that how capitalism works? When things are good the gov't has to go away, no taxes for us, trickle down etc while it doesn't because they pocket all the money. When things go bad the gov't needs to step in with billions of dollar bailouts, paid for in taxes by the people they where fkcn over in the good times. The system is broken, the pandemic just sped up the process 10 to 15 years. It's all going sideways in the next 20 years.




......I sound like a certain poster. Sorry folks. I'll go back to my New Fish.

 

[Stylizer1]

Don't be lumping Costco in with those two.

I feel you but dem da breaks

 

[2CHAINZ]

Isn't that how capitalism works? When things are good the gov't has to go away, no taxes for us, trickle down etc while it doesn't because they pocket all the money. When things go bad the gov't needs to step in with billions of dollar bailouts, paid for in taxes by the people they where fkcn over in the good times. The system is broken, the pandemic just sped up the process 10 to 15 years. It's all going sideways in the next 20 years.




......I sound like a certain poster. Sorry folks. I'll go back to my New Fish.

And people often ask me why I invested so heavily into bitcoin.

 

[Stylizer1]

And people often ask me why I invested so heavily into bitcoin.

how much bitcoin you have?

 

[2CHAINZ]

how much bitcoin you have?

I'm obviously not going to disclose that. I will say that one of the biggest factors in my belief in bitcoin is that governments are just to inept when it comes to economics and that inflation will be a catalyst for vaulting bitcoin up.

Always remember that Bitcoin has no top because the dollar has no bottom

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

WFH was a temporary thing due to a global pandemic, as we all know.

Our insdutrial society business model was built around the commute to work. Restaurants, coffee shops, tailors, sandwich shops, etc...you name it, there was an entire industry and business model that relies on theis model.

We can certainly have the discussion that the business model may beed changing, as there are better efficiencies to be found, and a better work/life balance. However, there are a few factors that always needed addressing:

1. The business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed, they need to be fully compensated and retrained should the business model change. I won't hear of "well find another line of work" crap that PS people say. That's bullshit. The PSW should find another line of work because they were hired under a certain structure and the onus is for them to return to their workplaces, not the other way around. If they help the business owners properl.y that are affected, then change it.

2. If they are going to chage this business model, the govt has to further accelerate sales of these buildings, even at 1$, in order revitalize the core with more affordable housing paid for by government. This govt is really good at wasting money, but this terrible investment will pay dividends in the end. They have to have the right people to convert, and maintain and control the rents in these buildings. It is the only way. It is incredibly socialist, but capitalism has its limits. If you flood the rental market with 4,000 units downtown, at rent controlled prices (which those waiting lists have thousands of people on their lists), this will drive down demand, and lower rents across the city. It is the only way.

lol...dude.

When business owners modernize their operations and lay off 90% of their workforce, the government doesn't step in and make the individuals workers whole. When businesses shut down for whatever reason, no entity comes in an makes workers whole.

But business has to go through a change in society and suddenly the government should be bailing you and your buddies out? Get real.

I am so sick of the privatize profits and socialize losses crap from the business world.

 

[Ice-Tray]

Imagine forcing people to travel to a central location to do work they can do from home, just to capture them in a place where they may have to spend some discretionary money on food and parking.

Talk about parasitic behaviour.

Things have changed. Revitalize downtown with more housing and there will be people living there to eat out occasionally. Trying to put the genie back in the bottle to try and keep a dead market on life support is backwards thinking at its finest.

 

[Terrier]

This bus is parked across from where I live in Newton, Mass.

 

[Tuna99]

Reasonable to me and reasonable to you are obviously going to be different, that seems pretty obvious, no? So what does it matter. And in the case of driving down a highway will vary depending on the conditions. It's a pointless question, if I say going the speed limit is the only thing that is reasonable, or going up to 120 and no further, doesn't change anything, it's just an attempt by you to change to focus away from your weak positions to a new target.

Here's my position, if you are willing to exceed the posted limit , you should also be willing to pay the fine associated with it. I am for being accountable for my own actions, if I get a ticket, I have nobody to blame but myself.

This everybody stay in your lane and follow all the government rules and pay your fines because you were a bad boy by going 10km Over the speed limit while the rich get richer completely f***ing over regular people who never catch a break is why so many people want the worlds to burn. They fix our bread prices and nothing happens and then these same assholes who protect the richest man in Canada from price fixing also hand us fines for speeding - it’s 100% these things that make people feel they are under eh government thumb while the rich literally break all the Ruels and have Trudeau and ford and Polievre are there bought and paid for to protect them from any speeding ticket and let them run wild on regular people

The attitude that your life can be so perfectly boring to never disrupt a speed camera and that if you get upset that the government has a speed camera in a speed TRAP totally feeds into the same argument as “we can film everything you are doing because if weren’t doing anything wrong you wouldn’t mind being filmed” which is a anti-human and anti-freedom

Put a speed camera up in the offices of politicians when we’re setting up the LRT and let’s fine those people. They get to completely sink 2 billion into a useless system and then shrug their shoulders and say “who knew” but if you go over 10 KM an hour on the parkway you get a fine - it’s why people hate this political system - regular dudes are accountable for every single thing they do wrong or right and the ploiticians and the rich fleece us (which is what a speed camera is it’s just an ATM for the government) and they protect their billionaire friends who fleece us and get away Scott free

 

[jbeck5]

WFH was a temporary thing due to a global pandemic, as we all know.

Our insdutrial society business model was built around the commute to work. Restaurants, coffee shops, tailors, sandwich shops, etc...you name it, there was an entire industry and business model that relies on theis model.

We can certainly have the discussion that the business model may beed changing, as there are better efficiencies to be found, and a better work/life balance. However, there are a few factors that always needed addressing:

1. The business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed, they need to be fully compensated and retrained should the business model change. I won't hear of "well find another line of work" crap that PS people say. That's bullshit. The PSW should find another line of work because they were hired under a certain structure and the onus is for them to return to their workplaces, not the other way around. If they help the business owners properl.y that are affected, then change it.

2. If they are going to chage this business model, the govt has to further accelerate sales of these buildings, even at 1$, in order revitalize the core with more affordable housing paid for by government. This govt is really good at wasting money, but this terrible investment will pay dividends in the end. They have to have the right people to convert, and maintain and control the rents in these buildings. It is the only way. It is incredibly socialist, but capitalism has its limits. If you flood the rental market with 4,000 units downtown, at rent controlled prices (which those waiting lists have thousands of people on their lists), this will drive down demand, and lower rents across the city. It is the only way.

WFH was a temporary thing due to a global pandemic, as we all know.

Our insdutrial society business model was built around the commute to work. Restaurants, coffee shops, tailors, sandwich shops, etc...you name it, there was an entire industry and business model that relies on theis model.

We can certainly have the discussion that the business model may beed changing, as there are better efficiencies to be found, and a better work/life balance. However, there are a few factors that always needed addressing:

1. The business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed, they need to be fully compensated and retrained should the business model change. I won't hear of "well find another line of work" crap that PS people say. That's bullshit. The PSW should find another line of work because they were hired under a certain structure and the onus is for them to return to their workplaces, not the other way around. If they help the business owners properl.y that are affected, then change it.

2. If they are going to chage this business model, the govt has to further accelerate sales of these buildings, even at 1$, in order revitalize the core with more affordable housing paid for by government. This govt is really good at wasting money, but this terrible investment will pay dividends in the end. They have to have the right people to convert, and maintain and control the rents in these buildings. It is the only way. It is incredibly socialist, but capitalism has its limits. If you flood the rental market with 4,000 units downtown, at rent controlled prices (which those waiting lists have thousands of people on their lists), this will drive down demand, and lower rents across the city. It is the only way.

But it wasnt just a temporary thing. Companies and the government were switching to laptops so you can work from home if need be before the pandemic. Some departments even started letting people work from home regularly before the pandemic.

So a lot of people thought it only made sense that the pandemic sped up the process of making it feasible to work from home.


Because let's face it. Anyone who works at a computer can generally work from home. Video calls. Spread sheets. Word. Excel. SharePoint. Teams. All this stuff can be done infront of your computer at home. It only makes sense.


1) they just need to change their locations. The coffee shop that doesn't succeed downtown anymore, all of a sudden can succeed in Kanata or Nepean or Gloucester or Orleans or Barrhaven... So much more demand for food and beverage in the suburbs where there's plenty of retired boomers, and plenty of work from home people running errands on their lunch break who would love to pick up a nice cup of coffee while doing so.


Just using Orleans which I know best, in the last 20 years as many have been retiring, or working from home, Orleans is busy all hours of the day. Innes is full of traffic. 10th line is full of traffic. Orleans Boulevard is full of traffic. Jeanne Darc is full of traffic. The amount of food options in Orleans has skyrocketed. There's everything on Innes. There used to be nothing in Orleans but st Joseph Boulevard for restaurants and shops.

So it's not that shops are struggling. It's that shops in a specific area of the city are struggling. All they have to do is not renew their lease and then sign a new lease in a booming neighbourhood. That's what plenty of restaurants and service industry has had to do all over the glove throughout history. Adapt. Don't need to overhaul and pick a hole new industry. Just adapt with the times.

2) I've been suggesting converting buildings to residential with the bottom two floors being like malls (like they used to be) and then you've got your 15 min city downtown.

You talk about waste though, and selling them for a dollar or whatever would be waste.


I did hear it would cost a lot to convert these buildings though...for plumbing and electric. Going from one area with a bathrooms per floor to every unit having their own bathrooms and showers and sinks...it would be costly, but if they can make profit on their rent, would make it back.

I think we generally agree on 2. Sell all the buildings or renovate them and get revenue from renting them...and let the workers who can work from home do so.

 

[jbeck5]

At the end of the day people only care about themselves. If they knew 20 years ago that supporting Costco, Walmart, Amazon etc. would have a detrimental effect on their economy we might be in a better place today. All of these box stores and foreign owned corporations extract our wealth because we are primarily consumers now. They designed the city poorly as with most in North America so there is no going back. Making affordable units downtown is a bandaid to a much larger problem.

No one wants to pay $8-9 for a brick of black diamond cheese when Walmart has them at 2/$11 or something.

It adds up.

I was showing friends how much cheaper Wal Mart was to the stores like metro, Sobeys, Loblaws, etc.

I looked up ~$200 worth of identical items, and the Walmart bill was almost $50 cheaper. Saving 25% on your groceries adds up.

A box of cereal (not the family size) was like $6.99 at Loblaws...

3/$9 at Walmart. So $3.33 per box vs $7. It's crazy.

Having companies having buying power to make things cheaper isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

It's like having mega companies like Toyota is better than having 200 different car companies where you're not sure what you're getting. Imagine buying some car from a company no one has ever heard of.

For a cookie or a beer? Sure. For an electronic or any big purchase? No thank you.

For most people with sports, there isn't going to be a better legal option than cable. It's more about just working their systems to get the best possible deal.

OTA is really underrated, but it depends a lot on your location. If you're one of the lucky people who can manage to get the entire catalogue of what is available to Ottawa OTA, you get a lot of major sports but it's just impossible to be choosy. As in, you'll get weekend NFL games on CTV, but you can't follow the Redblacks or CFL because it is exclusive to TSN. So it's good for someone who just needs a few hours of random games a week and doesn't care who or what is playing, but that probably isn't your use case.

We got a sweet deal with bell. It was 20 or 25 a month for cable, and another 20-25 for the full sports package. It also allows my gf to watch a couple reality shows that aren't on Netflix or prime or whatever.

It's a bit more than paying for the hockey streams, but then I get every sport...so it seems like a good deal. Can PVR everything.

 

[jbeck5]

This everybody stay in your lane and follow all the government rules and pay your fines because you were a bad boy by going 10km Over the speed limit while the rich get richer completely f***ing over regular people who never catch a break is why so many people want the worlds to burn. They fix our bread prices and nothing happens and then these same assholes who protect the richest man in Canada from price fixing also hand us fines for speeding - it’s 100% these things that make people feel they are under eh government thumb while the rich literally break all the Ruels and have Trudeau and ford and Polievre are there bought and paid for to protect them from any speeding ticket and let them run wild on regular people

The attitude that your life can be so perfectly boring to never disrupt a speed camera and that if you get upset that the government has a speed camera in a speed TRAP totally feeds into the same argument as “we can film everything you are doing because if weren’t doing anything wrong you wouldn’t mind being filmed” which is a anti-human and anti-freedom

Put a speed camera up in the offices of politicians when we’re setting up the LRT and let’s fine those people. They get to completely sink 2 billion into a useless system and then shrug their shoulders and say “who knew” but if you go over 10 KM an hour on the parkway you get a fine - it’s why people hate this political system - regular dudes are accountable for every single thing they do wrong or right and the ploiticians and the rich fleece us (which is what a speed camera is it’s just an ATM for the government) and they protect their billionaire friends who fleece us and get away Scott free

You had me at "set up a camera in the politicians office"

I don't know how every single official conversation isn't recorded and reviewed.


They have cops walk around with cameras for information in case of investigation. Politicians should have something similar.

Is there an ATIP on this yet?

 

[Loach]

But it wasnt just a temporary thing. Companies and the government were switching to laptops so you can work from home if need be before the pandemic. Some departments even started letting people work from home regularly before the pandemic.

So a lot of people thought it only made sense that the pandemic sped up the process of making it feasible to work from home.


Because let's face it. Anyone who works at a computer can generally work from home. Video calls. Spread sheets. Word. Excel. SharePoint. Teams. All this stuff can be done infront of your computer at home. It only makes sense.


1) they just need to change their locations. The coffee shop that doesn't succeed downtown anymore, all of a sudden can succeed in Kanata or Nepean or Gloucester or Orleans or Barrhaven... So much more demand for food and beverage in the suburbs where there's plenty of retired boomers, and plenty of work from home people running errands on their lunch break who would love to pick up a nice cup of coffee while doing so.


Just using Orleans which I know best, in the last 20 years as many have been retiring, or working from home, Orleans is busy all hours of the day. Innes is full of traffic. 10th line is full of traffic. Orleans Boulevard is full of traffic. Jeanne Darc is full of traffic. The amount of food options in Orleans has skyrocketed. There's everything on Innes. There used to be nothing in Orleans but st Joseph Boulevard for restaurants and shops.

So it's not that shops are struggling. It's that shops in a specific area of the city are struggling. All they have to do is not renew their lease and then sign a new lease in a booming neighbourhood. That's what plenty of restaurants and service industry has had to do all over the glove throughout history. Adapt. Don't need to overhaul and pick a hole new industry. Just adapt with the times.

2) I've been suggesting converting buildings to residential with the bottom two floors being like malls (like they used to be) and then you've got your 15 min city downtown.

You talk about waste though, and selling them for a dollar or whatever would be waste.


I did hear it would cost a lot to convert these buildings though...for plumbing and electric. Going from one area with a bathrooms per floor to every unit having their own bathrooms and showers and sinks...it would be costly, but if they can make profit on their rent, would make it back.

I think we generally agree on 2. Sell all the buildings or renovate them and get revenue from renting them...and let the workers who can work from home do so.

Have to rethink how communities are built. Go back in time to neighbourhoods instead of kms of suburbs. My buddy lives at Stonebridge and it's 10 min drive to get to anything. There isn't One Decent Pub anywhere! A neighbourhood pub with a dart board! It's blasphemy! The marly fckn cow or that other chain.... It's a sad state of affairs all around.

You had me at "set up a camera in the politicians office"

I don't know how every single official conversation isn't recorded and reviewed.


They have cops walk around with cameras for information in case of investigation. Politicians should have something similar.

Is there an ATIP on this yet?

Nixon tried that didn't he?

 

[Micklebot]

This everybody stay in your lane and follow all the government rules and pay your fines because you were a bad boy by going 10km Over the speed limit while the rich get richer completely f***ing over regular people who never catch a break is why so many people want the worlds to burn. They fix our bread prices and nothing happens and then these same assholes who protect the richest man in Canada from price fixing also hand us fines for speeding - it’s 100% these things that make people feel they are under eh government thumb while the rich literally break all the Ruels and have Trudeau and ford and Polievre are there bought and paid for to protect them from any speeding ticket and let them run wild on regular people

The attitude that your life can be so perfectly boring to never disrupt a speed camera and that if you get upset that the government has a speed camera in a speed TRAP totally feeds into the same argument as “we can film everything you are doing because if weren’t doing anything wrong you wouldn’t mind being filmed” which is a anti-human and anti-freedom

Put a speed camera up in the offices of politicians when we’re setting up the LRT and let’s fine those people. They get to completely sink 2 billion into a useless system and then shrug their shoulders and say “who knew” but if you go over 10 KM an hour on the parkway you get a fine - it’s why people hate this political system - regular dudes are accountable for every single thing they do wrong or right and the ploiticians and the rich fleece us (which is what a speed camera is it’s just an ATM for the government) and they protect their billionaire friends who fleece us and get away Scott free

This is just whataboutism, just because the rich aren't always held accountable doesn't mean everyone should be allowed to drive however fast they want with impunity.

By all means, we should hold the rich and powerful accountable too, instead of a selfish attitude of they get away with stuff so I should too.

 

[jbeck5]

Have to rethink how communities are built. Go back in time to neighbourhoods instead of kms of suburbs. My buddy lives at Stonebridge and it's 10 min drive to get to anything. There isn't One Decent Pub anywhere! A neighbourhood pub with a dart board! It's blasphemy! The marly fckn cow or that other chain.... It's a sad state of affairs all around.


Nixon tried that didn't he?

Depends what you count as bars or pubs, but I'd say there's lots of options in Orleans, for example. But then again, it depends if you count places like Boston pizza as a bar. They have a restaurant side and a bar side. I've went countless times with friends to order a pitcher and watch the game. To me, it counts as a bar. So if you count those, there's like 30 bars in Orleans because plenty of restaurants have a bar in them.

You want to shoot darts? Moose McGuire's has darts. Anyways, there's so many breweries, restaurants, or bars. You could go to a different one every weekend day of the year and still not make it out of Orleans.

I don't know about nixen. I would need to brush up my American history knowledge.

 

[jbeck5]

This is just whataboutism, just because the rich aren't always held accountable doesn't mean everyone should be allowed to drive however fast they want with impunity.

By all means, we should hold the rich and powerful accountable too, instead of a selfish attitude of they get away with stuff so I should too.

I think his point wasn't that common folks should get away with things...

I believe it was more along the lines of right now, the focus is on catching the common people. There is a lot more benefit to catching the ultra rich doing shady things. Perhaps the focus should be more on catching the wealthy doing shady things before they start putting resources to catch the common folks doing slightly bad things.

Some rich person scheming their way out of millions or neglecting people in their watch is way more important than catching Joe blow going 50 on a 40 street that was designed to travel at safely at 60, ya know?

 

[Micklebot]

I think his point wasn't that common folks should get away with things...

I believe it was more along the lines of right now, the focus is on catching the common people. There is a lot more benefit to catching the ultra rich doing shady things. Perhaps the focus should be more on catching the wealthy doing shady things before they start putting resources to catch the common folks doing slightly bad things.

Some rich person scheming their way out of millions or neglecting people in their watch is way more important than catching Joe blow going 50 on a 40 street that was designed to travel at safely at 60, ya know?

This assumes it's an either or situation. You can, and should do both, putting up speed cameras in no way prevents or hinders our ability to go after white collar crime. Like I said, it's whataboutism.

Also, there seems to be an assumption that it's perfectly safe to speed where the speed camera are because that's the way the road was designed, the problem is safety goes beyond road design, it's a combination of many factors, a big one being usage. Things like pedestrian traffic, bike traffic, public transit stops, driveway access, ect all factor in, if I design a road that's straight as an arrow and wide, but the usage and road design are out of sync, the speed limit needs to be adjusted to reflect usage, not road desing, and ideally, the road should have traffic calming measures added that reduces the "natural" speed a driver feels comfortable going. Add speed bumps, bike lanes that narrow the road or other lane narrowing measures (ideally bike lanes are completely separate).

 

[Stylizer1]

No one wants to pay $8-9 for a brick of black diamond cheese when Walmart has them at 2/$11 or something.

It adds up.

I was showing friends how much cheaper Wal Mart was to the stores like metro, Sobeys, Loblaws, etc.

I looked up ~$200 worth of identical items, and the Walmart bill was almost $50 cheaper. Saving 25% on your groceries adds up.

A box of cereal (not the family size) was like $6.99 at Loblaws...

3/$9 at Walmart. So $3.33 per box vs $7. It's crazy.

Having companies having buying power to make things cheaper isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

It's like having mega companies like Toyota is better than having 200 different car companies where you're not sure what you're getting. Imagine buying some car from a company no one has ever heard of.

For a cookie or a beer? Sure. For an electronic or any big purchase? No thank you.



We got a sweet deal with bell. It was 20 or 25 a month for cable, and another 20-25 for the full sports package. It also allows my gf to watch a couple reality shows that aren't on Netflix or prime or whatever.

It's a bit more than paying for the hockey streams, but then I get every sport...so it seems like a good deal. Can PVR everything.

Walmart, Costco, Amazon have created the conditions that we live with today. They never sold us things in the beginning at the true cost because they had so much money that they could come into a market, undercut everyone, establish the market, and then gradually increase their prices when their competition lost market share. You see it everywhere especially with American corporations that have basically taken over our market. They pay taxes but all of those profits leave our economy. Toyota builds a product, Walmart doesn't, they provide a service. I take a city like Pembroke for an example. Back in the 80's and 90's It was a small town with a bustling main street full of stores and a local economy. They had a mall with a grocery store on one end and a Zellers on the other. When Walmart moved in Gradually over the next 10 years it killed so many businesses. As well with the chain restaurants, Home Depot etc. they destroy local economies because people don't understand the true cost of not buying local. 30's years ago people weren't complaining about prices being too high but everyone still wanted to save. When Walmart moved in during the mid 90's It was the first major domino to fall which led to the overtaking of our retail market. When Zellers was overtaken by Target that all but killed our department store industry. They left and a hole was left that has never been replaced. It almost feels like a this was planned and wasn't because of oversight by Target.

Photo: Where the Lowest Price Was the Law

When Target swept into Canada like a big, red wave made of bullseyes, it didn't enter an unoccupied niche. It swept up here because it was a...

actsofminortreason.blogspot.com

"Walmart is a powerful chain that sells everything from soup to shoes, Prime Time News anchor Pamela Wallin told viewers that night.

It offers consumers lower prices and often drives competitors right out of business."

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-walmart-set-its-sights-on-the-canadian-market-1.5418192

These competitors were our National chains and local businesses and that money stayed in Canada.

It's like if the CFL dropped its import ratio's and allowed teams to put as many American players on their roster, The product would dramatically improve but that would mean next to no Canadian players would be signed or drafted. Down the road this would lead to even less people in Canada having the opportunity to play football professionally and kill what little interest is left.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

...

I don't know about nixen. I would need to brush up my American history knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

As an interesting thought experiment, consider the wrongdoings of Nixon and his people and contrast that with how those things would be perceived today. Society has changed alot wrt how we judge our leaders (and not in a good way).

 

[Loach]

Depends what you count as bars or pubs, but I'd say there's lots of options in Orleans, for example. But then again, it depends if you count places like Boston pizza as a bar. They have a restaurant side and a bar side. I've went countless times with friends to order a pitcher and watch the game. To me, it counts as a bar. So if you count those, there's like 30 bars in Orleans because plenty of restaurants have a bar in them.

You want to shoot darts? Moose McGuire's has darts. Anyways, there's so many breweries, restaurants, or bars. You could go to a different one every weekend day of the year and still not make it out of Orleans.

I don't know about nixen. I would need to brush up my American history knowledge.

Boston pizza is exactly what neighbourhoods don't need. That's chain garbage. I remember Moose Mcguires. Worked right next to them at Oktober Fest in Vankleek...shit...a looong time ago. Lol. Nice folks.