Here in Québec it’s the gas companies that are doing that.

And they won with just intimidation. The town that was sued tried to ban all fossil fuel, but had to make an exception for natural gas because it’s obviously a renewable clean source of energy and not al all a fossil fuel.

“Our regulation addressed fossil gas and absolutely did not talk about renewable natural gas (RNG), which, according to our definition, is not a fossil gas,” he said.

So the gas company dropped the lawsuit.

The company, which is today back under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is launching its open beta to the public

Huh. I assumed Rose would still be behind stuff like this, but didn’t expect Ohanian.

I’m a ‘Digg refugee’ that fled to Reddit around 2009, I think? I knew Digg from Rose, because I was watching Tech TV and The Screen Savers, around 2002.

Anyway I turned my back on Digg when Rose sold out and I’m also going to avoid his new attempt at money making with an AI thingy.

Digg is dead and is gonna stay dead to me. I don’t want its rotting dug up reanimated corpse with a sticker saying “now powered by AI!”

EDIT: Coming to think about it, Tech TV turning into G4 might have been an early form of enshittificarion.

No shit

You should tell Gemini about it!

Seriously I don’t know what version started what but Android is slowly getting more and more annoying for me to use. It’s like Windows where you have to spend multiple minutes, if not hours, in personalizing and removing bloatware. But then an update brings or restore more shit.

I know it’s not all Android’s fault, but it adds up.

For example, I know they are forced by the EU to lower the volume after a while, but sometimes I use weak bone conducting headphones and I NEED the volume to be at max.

Or another are the mandatory presidential/amber alerts, where the government decides to make your phone scream an end of the world alarm because a child is missing 200 km away. I’d like to have normal notifications for that but no, only end of the world alarms.

This one is on Android though and I’ll need to find how to disable that annoying “you haven’t used those apps in a while so permissions were removed” thigny. I don’t open some apps often, like my backup app, but it’s still used, unless Android decides to revoke permissions automatically. Like, I don’t use Wahoo in winter but when I want to use it back in summer, it cant find my sensors because permissions have been revoked.

I’ve been annoyed and tired of using Android for a few years now. And I obviously won’t go to Apple. Maybe next time I’ll get a dumb phone and just carry a small computer with me for the rest.

A gas station chain as a client and the type of work that came with it. I was working as a help desk tech subcontractor and already had about 20 different clients. I’ve been doing this for a decade but because the new ones always messed up their work, we had tons of reminders and automated tasks in Teams. So I was already on edge because of the constant Teams notifications and all the triple checks.

Then they introduced this new client, a gas station chain, with hundreds of locations. I already worked in gas stations when I was a teenager and hated it. I hated the constant beeping for pumps to be unlocked when someone wants to buy gas. And I certainly didn’t want to have stressed teenagers on the phone telling me it’s super important that all their pumps are working on a Sunday afternoon while my instructions were to simply convince them to wait until the next business day if all we tried didn’t work. Fuck cars. Fuck oil companies. I can usually tolerate working with Microsoft even if I hate it, but Microsoft + oil companies. Fuck no.

I still haven’t found the will to get a new job, but my bank account is now starting to push me with insistance.

He’s right but there’s a point where I can’t entirely agree. The one about not looking up schedules. It varies a lot and sometimes it’s worth checking the time table for planing purposes. It’s correct that people shouldn’t really have to worry or check a time table before taking public transit, but because the world isn’t perfect, it really helps to know how to do that anyway. Because it’s not just the US that is stuck with this type of “oh public transit is impossible here”, and other countries also have those issues. He recommends travelling but if you do that, you’ll also sometimes encounter even worse than in the US.

Before going to some Caribbean islands I like to at least research if it’s possible to get around there without a car, using public transit. Sometimes every comment I see on the place says that it’s impossible, that I’ll need to rent a car or use taxis, but it turns out to be entirely false. And sometimes it really is impossible unless you’re feeling really adventurous.

I went to Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten and checked the bus routes online, but there were none. This tiny island does have buses, but apparently locals are used to take them and know where they go and when they pass. There’s no published schedules. So as a tourist, you’re highly encouraged to rent a car or use taxis. And it was true. I saw bus stops and bus “terminals”, but no information posted anywhere. I ended up using a taxi most of the time. I also wanted to cycle parts of the island but just getting to a shop that rented bikes was complicated and I gave up.

However I also went to Guadeloupe and also looked up the routes and schedules before going. Most comments I saw online told me I would need a car, that public transit was unreliable, that it would be absolutely impossible to use it. My host strongly insisted that there was “no public transit to the hotels”. Yet, there was. The only thing unclear before going was how to pay and the exact location of the stops. But I knew there was public transit, and I used it. It was like being back in the early 2000s where I live in Canada, with online PDFs of the schedules and the routes, but it was fine, aside from the obviously underfunded system. I gleefully cycled on the wonderful island of Marie-Galante and got there with public transit despite being told multiple times that it would be impossible.

So it’s a useful skill to have. I live in a city with decent public transit. I don’t check the schedules for the metro because they come every few minutes. I also don’t check the schedules for a few frequent bus routes that I know. But, it becomes useful and/or necessary if I’m not familiar with the area or the system. Trip planning shouldn’t be dismissed on the count of a bad system. Sometimes you want to know where the bus/tram/train is going, and when it will reach its destination.

Sports fans will never boycott anything. They are loyal to their teams, not morals nor logic. Can’t diverge from the groupthink. Gotta be a team player.

There’s multiple psychology papers on this exact subject.

I’ve been talking to my parents about this for 30 years.

They can see the winters are fucked up. They can see the frequency of natural disasters increasing. They say the climate changed since they were kids.

Yet, when I’m the one saying it, they reply that we will see, there are no concrete effects yet, electricification is a scam, etc. It’s so disappointing to hear.

I don’t know much about the US system, and I would chose the Canadian system any time, but ours sucks too, in a different way. Sure, if you break a leg or have cancer, you will be helped first and should not end up with crippling bills. However, I hope you don’t have a mental issue because seeing someone will take multiple months, if not years. I hope you don’t need glasses. Or a dentist.

I’m in Quebec and I don’t even know about the other provinces, but I have no family doctor since the pandemic. The previous one retired. At one point I was prescribed Concerta, after finally seeing neuropsychologists, but when my doctor retired, I wasn’t able to get a new doctor for a follow-up or renewal, so I just stopped. I still have no doctor since the pandemic. The system is so run down that we have to fight for appointments at the walk in clinics. You call at the clinic at 8 AM when they open but they’re already full for the day. In fact, they’re full at 00:01 AM. When I need to see a doctor, I have to call 811 and get a rendezvous at the walk in clinic.

I understand that it could be much worse, and I appreciate what we have, but it’s also very difficult to praise in any possible way.

Especially when I’m on a bicycle.

Like, they pass me dangerously then they get stopped at the next traffic light and I end up by their window anyway, looking at them with disappointment. Bravo, champ.

In French, il has always looked a bit weird when typed at the beginning of a sentence.

Il y a un I suivi d’un l.

Just click/tap the link to go directly on imgur. It’s imgur that blocks hotlinking and forbids other sites to display its images. They want people to go on their website, watch ads, stay captive.

Imgur is a terrible place to host images if they’re not intended to be viewed on imgur.

It’s always the cyclist’s fault.

You’re a Cyclist Who Was Just Struck by a Car Driver. Here’s Why It Was Your Fault

Not really.

After having my bike stolen while locked on the side of a Walmart, I am more protective of the new one. I’m a bit more aware of where I lock it, but I also bought a decent U-lock instead of just a cable.

But I also stopped using my own bike if it isn’t an absolute necessity. Sometimes I need the bike for the panniers or the trailer, so I take a risk. But if possible, I’ll use a bike sharing system when I go to some sketchy places.

I even got a bike stolen in the garage of my apartment complex, so now it lives with me, in my studio.

Just engage in the army and kill people for free health care.

I’m not an expert but from what I can find online, houses under 700 square foot (65 sq/m) are not covered by the local construction code so most municipalities don’t want anything smaller. It’s also forbidden to build a house with a single bedroom smaller than 320 sq/ft (30 sq/m), or a house smaller than 275 sq/ft (25 sq/m). According to old number, the average house here is about 1950 sq/ft (180 sq/m).

But ultimately it’s the municipality’s choice so it can vary depending on the region where you want to build it. I dreamed of having a small house to keep as much land as possible, but after looking into what’s possible where, it would be much simpler to just buy something already built that is grandfathered with the land.

No I just live without a car and make it a point to cycle everywhere I go, and I’m pointing out what I find unrelatable about micromobility in a place about this.

Unfortunately that person seems to live in a region where cycling is reserved for specific places, and moving a bike around town is done with a giant pickup truck.

It’s a fun experiment but its not like this is useful for anything.

I like Seth’s videos but I absolutely cannot relate, as he brings his bikes to the trails using a giant pickup truck. I pull my bike trailer with a kayak through my city’s bike lanes, and I’m glad I don’t need another vehicle to carry them both from one place to another.

Also depends on local law. I live alone, always wanted a mini house, but they are illegal in most municipalities here because there is a minimum size for a house. So if I really want a mini house, it has to be in a mini house approved neighbourhood, along with other mini houses. Like a mobile house park but for mini houses. They can’t be built anywhere; they have to be specifically approved.

After all, we can’t build a small house among bigger ones. Think about the neighbours’ property value!