prodigalsorcerer

joined 1 year ago
[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It's Niccol. I was briefly confused and thought that I somehow missed Nichelle Nichols in Gattaca.

That said, is Gattaca forgotten? And what was wrong with his later works? I haven't seen them all, but the ones I've seen have been pretty good. They're all pretty much a bleak and dire warning about our future, and Gattaca may have done it best, but there's nothing wrong with his other films.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

Where can you get a BYD Seagull outside of China for that price? When they install all the required safety features, it's much closer to 20k Euros (30k CAD).

That's still a little cheaper than anything we have here, but not so much cheaper that it's worth the human rights violations and loss of local industry.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

I don’t know, it just feels like we haven’t tried much of anything here.

You're absolutely correct in that. We've mostly just allowed for monopolies and oligopolies to take over industries in a way that only supports their bottom line.

This is one place where I think the free market could have worked, given enough time and sufficient enforcement to prevent this sort of conflict of interest, but the time for that was a decade or two ago. Now we need strong interventions by multiple levels of government to fix this problem.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago (4 children)

if you’re not increasing supply then you’re failing your free market duty

I disagree. Brooks is correct in saying that it's not their job and that its two separate industries. Affordable/social housing is the government's job, not theirs.

In theory, the free market should see this increase in rental prices and react by building more units. Why isn't that happening? Largely it comes down to the fact that a lot of developers are also landlords, and thus have a huge conflict of interest in this area. This is where regulators need to step in. But landlords (on their own) do not, and should not, be responsible for building housing.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago

I went to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. They explained that riding elephants is incredibly stressful for the elephant's back, and that in order to train them to obey, torture is usually involved.

I'm against zoos as well. I know some do good work with rehabilitation and such (and we should support them), but a lot just capture animals for our enjoyment. Even if they're not explicitly mistreated, it's pretty cruel to just keep them in a cage for the rest of their lives.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Ontario had a program called micro FIT (feed in tariff) to encourage people to generate electricity. It paid higher than the going rate for electricity and was a really good deal if you could install solar. I think it was capped at 10 kW systems, but wasn't dependent on your own usage. New sign ups ended years ago, but the existing contracts were something like 20 years.

Now the best you can get in Ontario are credits that expire in a year.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

This fine isn't even punitive. It's just the wages owed plus interest, which is the same as if they'd paid the wages properly the first time.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

If only the NDP had made electoral reform a part of their deal to support the liberals. None of the other parts of the deal mattered - they could easily do all that and more after winning the next election. But instead, we get a bunch of half measures and they don't have a chance at winning a majority.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 weeks ago

No such thing.

The $10k Chinese EV is only $10k in China. When localized for other markets, it's much closer to the same price as all other EVs. Some of this is tariffs, but there's a bunch of changes they need to make to meet safety requirements. Even the $15k Seagull they talk about in the article is expected to be the cheapest offering in Europe, eventually, and they're aiming for 20k Euros, which is 30k CAD.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

Keep in mind that the "housing" cost includes either moving to a bigger property, or simply assigning part of your current mortgage costs to your child. If your house is sufficiently large, there won't be any much additional cost here beyond an increase in utility usage.

Similarly, transportation downloads a lot of the cost of a vehicle to your child. Maybe you do need a bigger car, in which case that makes sense. But maybe your car is fine, so the only added expense is gas and maintenance for the extra mileage for children's activities.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you're talking about the "Value" booster, your LGS probably won't (and shouldn't) stock those. That's for grandmas to buy at dollar stores and Walmart checkout aisles. It's an absolutely scummy product, but it shouldn't cause SKU issues at your LGS.

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