[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 49 points 3 months ago

Corporate taxes used to cover over 30% of government revenue, it's 10% now. The top marginal income tax rate peaked in the 1960s at somewhere around 80% on income exceeding ~3M/year (today's money). We've had 4 decades of tax cuts while the cost of delivering services has increased more or less with the inflation rate. Private equity funds now have favourable tax treatment, and stock buybacks, previously considered illegal stock manipulation is a common practice. And so on and so forth.

If you want what you had, you have to do what you did.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 16 points 3 months ago

That's been a thing forever in the Atlantic provinces. Fish, forestry, military or move.

I ended up moving from NB in 2009, with the company saying I could move back when work improved. Fifteen years later, I'm still in the West and the people who made the promise are long gone.

I'm hoping to retire and move home in a few years. I've had enough.

"Oh, I miss the green and the woods and streams
And I don't like cowboy clothes
But I like being free and that makes me
An idiot, I suppose"

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 14 points 4 months ago

The feds could negotiate deals with the individual provinces. If your province opts in, they get federal assistance, if they don't they get bupkis.

There is no requirement for the feds to compensate provinces who choose not to sign on to programs.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 18 points 5 months ago

The $12000 charge from the utility is a "fuck off" fee.
It's not like the next person to build a house in the area is going to pay for a new distribution transformer. That's not how things work.

He made the right call in just getting the 30A charger. Even if he drained it down to almost nothing, he'd still be fully charged overnight.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 18 points 8 months ago

Alberta makes up a bit under 12% of the population. Best offer? 12% of the CPP. Good luck with that.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 74 points 8 months ago

Positive feedback loops, how do they work?

We've known about this for decades. An example: heating causes permafrost to melt releasing CO2 and methane, which cause more heat to be trapped, which melts more permafrost, which releases more green house gasses, etc.

Positive feedback loops tend to be very unstable, and can lead to runaway situations.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago

Just like assuming a perfectly spherical cow, or a frictionless surface, you can completely ignore the economics, the massive cost and schedule overages to make nuclear work.

Flamanville-3 in France started construction in 2007, was supposed to be operational in 2012 with a project budget of €3.3B. Construction is still ongoing, the in-service date is now sometime in 2024, and the budget has ballooned to €20B.

Olkiluoto-3 is a similar EPR. Construction started in 2005, was supposed to be in-service in 2010, but finally came online late last year. Costs bloated from €3 to €11B.

Hinkley Point C project is two EPRs. Construction started in 2017, it's already running behind schedule, and the project costs have increased from £16B to somewhere approaching £30B. Start up has been pushed back to 2028 the last I've heard.

It's no different in the US, where the V.C. Summer (2 x AP1000) reactor project was cancelled while under construction after projections put the completed project at somewhere around $23B, up from an estimate of $9B.

A similar set of AP1000s was built at Vogtle in Georgia. Unit 3 only recently came online, with unit 4 expected at the end of the year. Costs went from an initial estimate of $12B to somewhere over $30B.

Note that design, site selection, regulatory approvals, and tendering aren't included in the above. Those add between 5-10 years to the above schedules.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 38 points 11 months ago

Back when I was in junior high in the early 1980s, I found a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my father's bookshelf, and started reading it. I can't remember how far I got into it, but I do remember thinking it was just awful in just about every way: story, writing, pacing, everything.

I asked Dad about it, "Oh, that. It's terrible, isn't it?" A friend had given it to him. Neither one of us finished reading it and after that it ended up at a book reseller.
On the plus side, he'd gone through his books and gave me James Clavell's Shogun to read, which was an awesome novel.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago

I rather like kbin and feel no need to go back to the other place.
At least not until it starts randomly logging me off.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 28 points 11 months ago

At one point we had a remote office in a bank. One of my coworkers, W, had a pretty severe intestinal condition.

Anyway, I'm using the facilities, and one of the bankers comes in and heads to a stall. His phone rings while he's in there, which he answers. It's obviously a work call.

By this time, I'm heading over to wash my hands, just as W slams open the door with an panicked look. He violently shoulders open a stall, drops trousers, and unleashes just an absolutely unholy flume of waste, accompanied by a couple of mercy flushes.

"Uh, I'll call you back".

I'm assuming lessons were learned that day.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago

Not sure if corporate ball-washer or incredibly naïve. Facebook (not using their attempt at rebranding) have more than enough resources to research new and innovative ways to screw over federated instances for their gain. Their goal isn't to win, it's to completely dominate. But I'm sure a plucky bunch of volunteers stand a chance against a demonstrably malevolent corporation with infinite money.

I've had nothing to do with Facebook or its offshoots since 2015. They've used their algorithms to pump all sorts of disinformation and manufactured outrage at the expense of society. That alone should be enough for people to defederate. The abusive information gathering is just the shit icing on a turd cake.

I will likely be shifting to an instance that defederates from Facebook. If that makes me "toxic", that's a cross I'm willing to bear.

[-] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

Legally, saying 'sorry' is not an admission of guilt in Canada, but a thumbs up is enough to agree to a contract.

Glad the judiciary is keeping us on our toes.

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Sir_Osis_of_Liver

joined 1 year ago