healthetank

One of the bigger problems is the failure of the construction industry as a whole. Compared to many other jobs, typical home builder trades (carpenter, roofer, brick layer) aren't competitive with white collar jobs.

-The hours through the summer are awful, with 16+ hour days being the norm. Then you hit the winter and are laid off and have to go on EI. If you're not good at budgeting, that swing can fuck up your finances.

-Work is physically demanding and often leaves you going home, eating, and sleeping to repeat the next day

-Pay is highly dependent on your company. Many only offer you an hourly rate while on site and working. Commuting (which can vary from a half hour to 2+hrs each way per day) is either on your own dime or at a discounted "travel" rate.

-Often people have a hard time starting an apprenticeship even if they're great workers with the education requirement done. The boss won't fill out the paperwork and actually teach the stuff they're supposed to, just using them as cheap/subsidized grunt labour.

-Bosses and the culture is awful. There are likely those who don't mind it, and there are companies which are better, but by and large my experience with various trades is highly misogynistic, dashes of racism, and lots or brash yelling instead of actual instruction. Communication is awful, and new workers are treated like shit to "earn their way in"/"do their time".

So it's hardly a surprise when there's less interest in trades/manual labour, especially when the pay is good, but not great.

I hate the "turn to the government"/why didn't anyone foresee this and subsidize the training that these articles often have. Sure, a portion of it is that. But a larger portion is the last 30 years of "Go to University to get a good job" that parents and schools have been pushing, plus a general unwillingness of the construction industry to improve their culture or increase wages to attract good workers/talent.

I feel like even if they had just prioritized the rail line growth in the early 2000s we'd be fine. Barrie is just starting to get their second line so there can be two way trains all day. All of the other Toronto suburbs need to have dedicated rail service accompanied by densification near those stations.

Biggest problem is that we have been using plastic as part of our infrastructure for a long time. Creating/introducing a creature that eats it seems like a tricky balancing act

Interesting case. I would agree that if someone started a fire out of negligence (ie unattended fire), then they should be held liable in some way for the damage done, especially given the significant problems we've had in Canada the last few years with wildfires, and the likelihood that we will continue to experience these problems.

I guess it really boils down to where the line is for negligence, and it seems like the courts have ruled he should have done more to ensure it was under control and fully extinguished before leaving and not returning to site. To be honest, him not realizing that fires can go underground seems kinda dumb to me, considering he was burning brush from his land. Fire is an enormous danger -if you don't know how to do large, controlled burns over extended periods of time, consult firefighters first and/or the local government so at least your ass is covered and you can say "I did what the experts told me to do."

Did you read the article? Unless I'm missing something, this was always a temporary setup (4-6 wks) for them to get settled. It's now ending, which means we'll have to take fewer, or just use the federal 2wk program, which is less than ideal.

I've been playing the early release Furthest Frontier which has been good. Not buggy for me, though it is lacking a decent endgame IMO.

Age of Empires is a pretty standard one, though more war focused than exploration/growth.

I've played They are Billions and it's pretty good, though general online consensus is that the campaign is entirely unforgiving if you use your upgrade points in an unoptimized way, but is otherwise good. The one offs are fun and overall a well designed game.

On a smaller scale, This War of Mine is a really good game, though not quite a full colony sim it hits the same itch for me and has a lot of stark and rough choices.

Ehh, reading the article makes it clear that the farmer fucked up.

Best case, he gave it a thumbs up to show he read it and then forgot to ever follow up or reject the contract. However it seems like he had previously accepted and executed contracts via text, which reduces this likelihood.

Worst case, he did the thumbs up to show he agreed to it, and now is trying to back out either because he can't make the deadline, or because the price of it has shot up.

Neither case is great for the farmer. Contracts can be made from whatever form - verbal contracts are perfectly acceptable, so I'm not sure why people are freaking out about this. If he had said "Agreed", or "yes" in response to the text then that would be taken as confirmation of the contract too.

So background - Civil engineer with ~5Years of experience. Now fully licensed in Ontario. Have a wife and expecting our first child this year.

My FIL is dual and has been harping on me to move there since I graduated. Pay is, on average, much higher. Current 85k CAD, likely 100-120k USD if I moved.

However as a P. eng I'd need to rewrite two massive technical exams before I'd be able to be licensed there, and not all states have reciprocal licenses, meaning if we moved in the states I may have to rewrite them again. Additionally, with a family, average insurance costs eat up all/most of the difference in salary - my FIL is C-suite executive and that's roughly what he paid for his insurance yearly between co-pays and premiums.

Then add on more tribalism, high prevalence of guns, and the generally huge wealthy disparity they get, and Ive decided it's not worth the move.

But weigh the factors for yourself. If you can, try to go work somewhere for a month or so to see how it feels

I've got the 2021 Kona EV and while you do lose range in the winter, it's more like 100km/450km. That's with intense grip heavy winter tires and the heater running. In Ontario, so regularly ran it with -35c temps. It's cold and you lose some range, but not 400miles out of a 700mile range

One option, if you live somewhere where this is a likely event, is to prep an ice room - an underground room that is small, with thick well insulated walls. That alone will keep it ~5c which is good, but it can be lowered further by freezing blocks of ice and stocking the room up when the power goes out/heat waves hit.

Note this requires a number of things - a large Chest freezer to freeze big blocks in (small blocks melt quicker. Bigger the block, the longer the room lasts). It also requires a basement you can modify, and a floor drain for when the ice slowly melts.

It's a lot of work and likely not worth it unless you Need to use it regularly, though with climate change it may become more useful. As always, consider radon readings in your basements, as well as a CO monitor. Bad air sinks, and the whole point of this is you don't want to die

Wish there was more info regarding why she was called to the bar

Tl;Dr: Labour talks fall apart. Business owners turn to government saying "please force them back, look at how much money they bring in".

Well shit man, if it was me and they were bringing in that much money, seems like you'd be more willing to negotiate. There was no claims of unreasonable demands in the article, which makes me think they werent crazy