Squid ink in a cocktail? Never in a million years would I have thought of that, but now I really wanna experience that.
Squid ink in a cocktail? Never in a million years would I have thought of that, but now I really wanna experience that.
Ruin a movie by making it about Gary. The Adventures of Baron Gary
There are ways to make pi-hole into a DoH server. Then you configure your mobile device to use your pi-hole DoH server for DNS even when off network. I use AdGuard home instead of pi-hole because of the built-in DoH, but I know it’s possible with pi-hole.
I love Canada sometimes. The folks from fauxburg (fox berg) renovated their foyer (foy yay).
🧵 Authoritarianism, Democratization, and Coalition Politics. The consensus around here is, more or less, that the United States is currently a consolidating authoritarian regime controlled by a mix of reactionary populists and fascists.
Cyclists, don't forget to wear hi viz!
My point being that part of it is that she’d been the brains before the stroke too, so folks were already used to her having some (informal) authority. In the Trump scenario, there is no analogue. Also, I presented this as a recollection and not fact. I’m not actually an authority on this subject.
In that instance though, hadn’t his wife been the brains of the operation anyway, and everyone kinda agreed the stroke didn’t really change much?
*Forrests Gump
No purchase necessary. Offer not valid in Alberta and Quebec. For details, see sweepstakes website.
Start carrying a handful of sharp gravel and throw it down like caltrops in front of the buffer?
On these two points you and the folks I was talking to would agree. “I’m gonna crap my pants and hope it offends the bear enough for them to run away” was definitely given as plan B.
I did present it as second hand info, and I could be misremembering specifics. But I was speaking with folks describing the loadout of their firearm for dealing with bears. They were worried HP rounds wouldn’t penetrate bear hide well enough, and FMJ rounds wouldn’t do enough damage. So they mixed.
Yeah, I gather hunting up there tends to include two guns: one for offence and one for defence. I mean, these are gun enthusiast types (in the @matthewdownhour.bsky.social mode), but they don’t want to cart more weight into the woods than they have to.
Yeah, even they acknowledged that. But if your threat model includes grizzlies I guess you wanna throw whatever you can down range. Keep in mind Canada has restrictions on magazine size (though there’s lots of magazines up there with the pin cut off and conservation officers that understand why).
Also, prospectors (which very much still exist in the Yukon, though in few numbers) are one of the few groups that can legally carry revolvers, and it’s due to bears.
Folks I know in the Yukon carry short semi automatic rifles, with the magazine loaded with alternating FMJ and hollow point. Idea is the FMJ punches a hole, giving the hollow point a chance to enter. I gather loading the magazine like that is illegal, but accepted in bear country.
@wongobongo.com, seems like this might be in your wheelhouse?
What part of Toronto? Toronto can be over an hour and a half from Toronto, heh.
does anyone have recommendations for inclusive/welcoming board game stores/spaces in Toronto? i have a friend who wants to get into D&D/board games but she doesn't really know where to start and i don't want to send her into a Shitty Boy Nerd game space
Running with the train analogy though, I think that to the extent that the future has car shaped transportation, electrification of anything other than bulk freight transport will make obvious financial and environmental sense.
Not the point, obviously, but that’s an S tier sight gag that I still think about 30 years later.
Re-reading the report of the Social Security whistleblower, it is striking how many times good people within SSA tried to keep DOGE from committing crimes. Here's my understanding of the timeline 🧵
So docs in the other provinces make QC residents pay directly since they can charge their local rate at point of service, and QC insurance will reimburse the QC resident. But if the doc tries to charge QC directly, they get fucked by RAMQ reimbursement prices? Yeah, that tracks.
I think it’s the Quebec exception that doesn’t necessarily exist on paper but definitely exists in practice for a lot of stuff. Weird differences in coverage aside, my NS health card got me care in Ontario for a couple years before I finally bothered to switch to OHIP (i should have within 6 months)
20 years ago I ran into a weird exception to this: I got a hernia repair at the Shouldice clinic which is semi-private and was grandfathered into OHIP because it predates it. But NS has different rules, and for whatever reason the anesthesia wasn’t covered. $2500 in local anesthetic.
You were in Quebec, right? I hear they’re notorious for poor inter-provincial chargebacks. If someone from NS gets care at an Ontario hospital, NS will pay the docs at the OHIP rates. But if a QC resident goes to a doc in Ontario, QC will pay them RAMQ rates.
I agree, it can feel wasteful. There are some reusable versions, but I can’t say if they’re any good. I use mine for sous vide rather than freezing, so the reusable stuff won’t work at all.
Some beautiful sunsets in late August up here.
Vacuum sealer would be clutch for a lot of items (excluding soups and similar). Will do a lot to reduce freeze burn.
Yeah, he was never going to be a socialist. But I thought he understood the assignment.
I held out faint hope he’d be one of those evidence based guys who arrive at surprising left wing policies by way of following the evidence that routinely shows left wing policies can work well. I still think he’s better than Poilievre would have been, but oof, it sure doesn’t feel like enough.
The “imbalance” revenue from all those dialup calls you terminated could exceed direct subscriber revenue from your dialup customers!
Smart ISPs would setup as full telcos, with a small phone subscriber base. But the real money was all the people who got a second phone line from the incumbent telco and left their computer dialed up 24/7 (this was me!).
The CRTC forced the incumbent telcos to let small players resell local phone service, and there was legit competition for long distance. What does this have to do with dialup?
It may have changed now, but back in the day it was assumed to be more expensive to terminate a phone call than to originate it, and telco’s would track minutes originated vs terminated and settle up each month by paying an “imbalance” fee. This was mandated by the CRTC in Canada.
I think we probably had one of the fastest residential internet connections in the country at the time. But man, running that mail server did not spark joy.
I briefly ran a mail server off a surplus rackmount server on the floor of the closet in the spare room of an apartment above a pizza joint I was sharing with some nerdy room mates. Since I was working for an ISP I had them run three DSL lines into the unit and I used MLPPP to bond them.
The telco I worked for used postini for spam filtering - and it was great for the era - until Google acquired them and killed it for everyone else. Fuckers.
I cut my teeth running email (and spam) for a telco 20 years ago. At no point since could you have paid me to run a personal email server, heh. Props for holding out as long as you did.
Look, it’s late, everyone else in this house went to bed and I’m winding down before I do the same. Why can’t we enjoy a little collective catch and release fishing?
Of course, it’s only when reading this reply that I see my own typo hangin’ out there. There’s a goddamn extra word just chillin’ there.
I caught shit the other day from a Canadian content creator that “criticizes the tech industry” for suggesting that age verification was bad for small firms that might challenge the big boys. And this same creator has also talked about how we need stronger domestic competitors to US big tech.
Why the ever living fuck would you think that when rah is an employee or contractor of Bluesky PBC? She literally told you she’s not, and provided links to court documents showing she’s not. You’re a fucking idiot that’s gloriously outgunned.
Also, I’m glad to hear you like proton’s VPN service. I’m in the process of moving my primary personal email over to them, and it’s nice to know the VPN that’s included has your endorsement.
I’m sorry you had to write that rah.
Look out folks, we got a glutton for punishment here.
Canadian: yeah! That’s OUR thing!
Fortunately now when I email my thoughts to Carney and my MP I can say “as a party member that supported your leadership bid” in my lead-in, which hopefully reflects in how the folks summarize the incoming correspondence for Carney.
I suspect where we’d disagree is whether we have a duty as citizen’s to vote for the lessor of two evils, with me firmly on the Yes side and you opposed. I voted for Carney in both the leadership race and (indirectly) the general, and was happy to despite knowing how he’d govern.
Personally I don’t find it hard to maintain two thoughts simultaneously: 1) a Carney gov’t is better than a Poilievre one, 2) a Carney gov’t still leaves a lot to be desired. Carney was always a lessor of two evils thing, but that doesn’t mean he’s good.
God this is embarrassing for @dalhousie.bsky.social. As a Nova Scotian I was always proud that our have-not province had a renowned research university. Shame that I’ll need to use past tense going forward.
@mary.my.id has been keeping this gist updated with all the tools and techniques for getting around the age verification stuff in the UK and MS.
Reflected on this for a few minutes, and I have to say one of the exciting things about the atmosphere is there can be independent PDS hosting, relays, appviews, labelers, etc., each sized to the ambition and interest of the maintainer. The Fediverse has independent instances, and that’s it.
People have done sillier things for pointless cosmetics in a digital service before, I’ll grant you that. I suspect some premium features like longer videos or something might be more profitable for Bluesky PBC, but no reason not to try both.
Given the national mood up here, I’ll bet someone could find some success launching a blacksky clone hosted in Canada and calling it NorthernLights. Charge a toonie a month (billed annually).
Fair. But why would they care about independent hosting? I don’t really know what Bluesky PBC’s plan is for future income, but I think blacksky and hopefully a bunch of copy-cats probably point to the future of the atmosphere.
Probably, but definitely a lot of emphasis on good and thoughtful. Sign up is when users are the least sticky.
From Bluesky PBC perspective, for sure. But as a user if I’m not trusting them with my data, why trust them with my money? For an income stream I wonder if providing managed services to firms that need social presence would be possible. SSO with the corporate user account, verification, etc.
That wouldn’t be the case here, since atproto lets you see all the likes and replies, but it could still cause a lot of potential users to close the tab. You could maybe model it similarly to how airlines will let you buy carbon offsets?
If I recall, an earlier version of the Mastodon signup flow included a step where you’d pick your instance. It seemed like a big choice, and you had no idea of knowing if you’d picked right or what the impact on your experience would be. Lots of people crashed out right there.
How is it independent if it’s something I’m paying Bluesky PBC for? Or are you imagining an affiliate program baked into sign up?
I have my own recovery keys configured for my PDS. I use Bluesky hosted PDS for now because it’s convenient, but I have a legit path to exiting their infrastructure anytime I want or need. And I get to take my data, and my social graph, with me. Mastodon can’t match that.
One client, with legal presence in the US, implemented a geo block in order to comply with the law. There are alternate clients, and alternate AppViews, that anyone can use to access the service and their account. Also, any Mastodon instance run by people living in the US should also block MS IPs.
Yes. deer.social is an alt client that uses the bsky appview, but doesn’t implement the MS IP block. Also, zeppelin.social is a forked appview and client.
Absolutely going to be the most cost effective solution. Larger upfront cost of course, but the breakeven will come pretty quick. I was looking at maybe building this: blog.briancmoses.com/2024/11/diy-...
Still annoyed that they didn't pick up the sequel series.
Yup. And it’s more challenging to self-host the whole stack (PDS, relay, app view), though it seems like we’re nearing a tipping point where there’s enough lightweight options that you reasonably could. But Mastodon admins hosting instances in the US need to be very aware of these laws as well.
I figured, but nice to have it confirmed. So many mastodon users trying to dunk without understanding the model.
Totally fair! I’ve already sent my MP, the PM, and the senate sponsor my thoughts. I wish our government was more clueful. A fucking link tax and age verification? But they conceded on the digital services tax? Impressive that the can get it so perfectly backwards.
I guess to be specific, this is the version being proposed: www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en...
Do you have any opinions or insights on the new age verification bill in Canada? The old one died in the old parliament but there’s a new version introduced with the sitting of the new parliament.
I don’t see any details about where the IP block is implemented. We can assume in the bsky client app, but are IP restrictions applied to the PDS’ that bsky operate? What about the relay?
One of my old friends often had to shop at drag stores in the village because she was 6'2" and had proportionate feet.
Hard same.
Note I didn’t say Bolton bears *sole* responsibility. But he owns a big piece of it. More than enough to see him locked away for life, and to burn in hell for eternity afterward. It’ll be a disgrace if he’s instead punished for disloyalty to Trump, and not his real crimes.
Recall that the excuse given by the administration for the invasion was to prevent the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Bolton was directly responsible for those lies, and thus bears responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost due to the invasion.
He was pretty instrumental to the invasion of Iraq, both within the administration as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and from his perch at the Project for the New American Century.
To be clear, John Bolton is a criminal who should be punished. But this administration is not punishing him for his actual crimes, but for his disloyalty. We must oppose this corruption of the law, even when it’s pointed at people we think should be punished for other reasons.
How bad is it? Well, look what we’ve been reduced to. Right thinking people now have to stick up for John fucking Bolton. If you’d have told me that in the mid-aughts it would have killed me like a Victorian child.
I’m in tech as well, and I’d say my org is about 1/3rd all in, 1/3rd don’t care either way, and 1/3rd are skeptic at best and outright opposed. Little hard to tell for sure though, because management is in the first 3rd.
My workplace. The kid birthday party I was at last weekend. The informal meet and greet for parents and kids starting school in a couple weeks.
Paris, this you? How do you square this with supporting a new regulation that imposes massive legal risk and liabilities on domestic companies that want to build alternative apps that deal with user generated content?
It’s such a glaring failure to weigh the risks, costs, and benefits in any rational way. There are good regulations and there are bad ones. The bad ones get the balance wrong, and the good ones get it right. But I haven’t seen age verification proponents dig into either the costs or benefits.
I’m in my 40s and use my wallet name as my handle here, but I’m still opposed to the idea that I should have to submit my government ID to someone to participate here. The barrier to entry argument is the weakest one, but it’s still a factor, especially if we want home grown alternatives.
In the Canadian context I’m in favour of the DST, and opposed to our link tax and the age verification proposal. And there are other regulations related to privacy and data management that I would like to see proposed.
I mean, it’s true that regulations can serve as barriers to entry. It’s a broadly borne cost. The question is whether that cost is worth paying for whatever benefit the regulation is supposed to deliver. In the case of age verification, I don’t think it is.
Fighting something because it’s bad for the industry as a whole is not at odds with still being better positioned to handle it if it comes to pass.
I haven’t dived deep into the discourse, and Meta may not want to do age verification, but it seems intuitive to me that Meta will be able to better weather the resulting costs and liability issues much more easily than a resource strapped startup.
The only problem is now I'm gonna want haskap berries all the time, and they're in short supply even when they're in season.
Admittedly, our CSA had become very successful and thus more commercial. You can now customize your box each week, so you don’t get surprises if you don’t want to. It’s still a great way to get uncommon ingredients in season, but it is a little less charming for the loss of novelty.
Heh, kohlrabi had to go on our “do not send” list. I don’t hate it, but at the quantity they were sending I was going to. We got haskap berries recently, which are basically long blueberries. We were supposed to get donut peaches this week, but something about the order didn’t save correctly.
Generally onboard with this sentiment, but one exception we found is our CSA box will sometimes throw in some uncommon thing we’ve never heard of. But they include a fact sheet and recipe. It’s been very interesting to discover new fruits and vegetables that we’d never know about otherwise.
Or provide wifi, even if limited to just the payment portal. No internet service in the area? Do it as a captive portal locally and connect to the payment processor over dialup. No landline phone service? Satellite. Too expensive? Pay a human to collect fees. Still too expensive? Don’t charge.
You see this? Do you have a plan for how Canada could avoid these problems, or the problems seen in the UK?
This would be harmful to Canadians. I’ve already sent my thoughts and feedback, and would recommend you do too. julie.miville-dechene@sen.parl.gc.ca and mark.carney@parl.gc.ca, plus your own MP are good starting points.
It’s a shame you won’t be able to hear them.
My condolences.
Attention young people: please, while you are still young, do yourselves a favor and eat all of the dairy and fried food that your body can handle. Because north of 40 you will literally be in physical pain when you try and eat these things. Also register to vote. That's important, too.