Pxtl

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Does Alberta have a provincial sales tax yet?

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Canada’s 3 major nationwide political parties, from right to left:

1. Cruelty
2. Complacency
3. Idiocy

Pxtl, 4 months ago

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax_in_Alberta

Sales tax in Alberta consists only of a federal consumption tax, the general goods and services tax (GST). Alberta is the only province in Canada with no provincial sales tax (PST).

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Good to see that Favreau is directing, not Filoni.

I like Filoni’s world-building - imho he “gets” the Star Wars universe in a way that other writers don’t… but I absolutely cannot stand his writing and directing. I remember watching his episode of Mando, the one where Ashoka fights in a Japanese-esque village, and the dialog was so awful I immediately googled to see who was making that awful ep and sure-enough it was him. I want him commanding the ship but not steering it.

He’s got a good sense of vision and a nice stable of continuous characters to carry forwards the franchise, but I can’t stand any of the shows he makes. Somehow they manage to be both tedious with infodumps of backstory while at the same time they make it feel like you’re missing most of the background because you didn’t watch a zillion episodes of his TV shows.

And while his capturing of the Star Wars “feel” is better than most, it’s still very prequel-y compared to others.

With him at the helm, even with good directors like Favreau involved, it will likely feel like the recent MCU films - okay-ish movies bogged down with too much CGI and too much continuity from previous entries that weren’t good-enough to deserve a follow-up.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Want to save the electric car dream? Subsidies aren’t enough. Large EVs are far more expensive than conventional large vehicles, and road-tanks like the F150 represent a threat to the kind of small vehicles that we should be supporting. Subcompacts, e-bikes, and new things filling the space in-between (eg enclosed electric motorbike-class vehicles like the Arcimoto) are an important part of the post-fossil-fuel future, but they’re not safe to take on to a road full of gigantic motor bricks. I drive a Prius Prime and the darn thing’s roof is lower than the hood of some jacked-up pickups.

I’m not saying that pickups and similar vehicles should be illegal, but we need stronger disincentives for people buying such things. Like rate vehicles based on various objective criteria - bumper-compatibility, mass, front cross-section, front visibility, visual obstruction to other drivers, etc. and then classify the more dangerous ones as “high risk vehicles”, and give those ones stricter licensing requirements (like a class D) and stricter penalties for infractions. Need a pickup for your job? Then you’re a professional, and you can deal with professional vehicle licensing requirements.

I mean, if you need one to pull a boat? Well, you can afford some extra fees (or fines for infractions), and to go through a stricter licensing process.

Also, PHEVs are a seriously underrated option. I think we leapfrogged something important with this jump to full BEVs. I love my Prius Prime - I live in Hamilton, which is built as an old-fashioned streetcar-suburb, and daily commute rarely hits the gas-engine.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

I agree they’re a trade-off, but they’re a necessary middle-step in the process of getting off of carbon fuels while the battery industry develops enough to fully convert the rest of the auto industry.

I’d rather see every passenger-vehicle made after 2020 be a PHEV than a handful of guys driving around in Teslas and Lightnings with bloated batteries while 95% of new cars on the road are still gas-burners.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Sony’s excuse is bullshit. If they really were convinced these were counterfeit 3rd party controllers, they should’ve popped up an on-screen message “defective counterfeit controller detected, please only use properly supported hardware”. That would’ve made the error clear. But random disconnects are just sabotage.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

I don’t think the controllers are literally “damaged”, it sounds like just muddling legal terminology with technical terminology.

The controllers are still physically functional in the same way they were before the patch, they’re just mo longer consistently connecting to the ps5. If Sony rolls back the patch they will return to normal.

That said, returns and reputational damages would be substantial to these companies and the fine does sound too small for such blatant anti-competitive and anti-consumer action.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Fun bit of context: if I, an individual, found a way to remote into Sony Playstation and hack them in such a way that they disconnected from their controllers?

I would be in prison. For years. Remember what happened to Aaron Schwartz? Kevin Mitnick? They do not fuck around on computer crimes.

But when a corporation does it to their customers and competitors? Pay the fine and get back to business as usual.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

I’m shocked, shocked to learn that Forbes doesn’t know anything about green energy.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Surprising, I thought thermal solar power was going the way of the dodo.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

yes-wojak.jpg

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Ick. “Mouse” went to the trouble of building the game’s whole aesthetic around depression-era animation. This game is a generic horror horde shooter but with a boss monster that looks hastily modded in, like when somebody adds Bender from Futurama to L4D.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Here in Southern Ontario it’s basically British winter; rain and fog, and practically zero snow so far.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Well yes but actual no. While 4X games are turn based strategies where most rules are implemented through simple math, the obscene scale and complexity means they’d be impossible to implement on a board. And that’s before even considering fog of war.

For a TBS to work as a boardgame, it must have a real-world mechanical solution to its secrets (cards, Stratego units, etc) and it must be simple enough for humans to execute all of the logic within the game.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

It’s not really about the strategy – jumping from board to a digital counterpart, it’s the book keeping that is the huge difference. All the stuff that happens automatically between turns - in civ, this is income, maintenance, trade routes, research, culture, production, population growth, happiness, religious pressure, diplomatic decay, auto move, terrain development, experience, etc figuring in all the bonuses and penalties applied by every citizen, every trade deal, every tech, every wonder, every cultural development, every special land, etc.

In theory in a 4X you’re supposed to be aware of all those rules and factors that are in play but in practice the game is too large to account for every instance.

In a boardgame, you’re executing that by hand, so it’s much more direct.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

That’s what we got from Hussen, but it looks like Fraser is a bit more motivated. Hopefully he can keep it going.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

Cute but the preview shows a lot of google apps that have been rebranded. How out of date is this?

Pxtl, 4 months ago

What’s wrong with it? I loved how the map had hand-drawn maps for fog of war.

Pxtl, 4 months ago

“empty or not for usual residents.” is a useless metric. Student houses are considered “empty” if the the students have a family home to return to and haven’t updated their mailing address.

Pxtl, 5 months ago

One interesting thing I was reading is that 4.5 day work-weeks are somewhat common in Pakistan, in order to accommodate both the international weekend (saturday/sunday) and the Muslim prayer on Friday afternoon.

Adopting that more widely could be a good incremental step, especially in places that offer remote options.

One thing I’d say that’s underrated is shorter opening hours in retail. The retail industry is too happy to be open 9am-10pm 7 days a week because workers are cheap, which means it’s economically impossible to pay a living wage without losing out as your competitors are open during hours when you’re not. They’re selling the same amount of stuff, just smeared over longer time and thus burning more employee-hours for the same output. The minimum wage hike here in Ontario seemed to produce a ratcheting back of these extreme hours; my local store went back to closing at 9pm, 8 on Sundays.

Pxtl, 5 months ago

Would email be better if you couldn’t send/receive emails from people with Gmail accounts?

Pxtl, 5 months ago

Is the cabal in the room with us right now?

Pxtl, 5 months ago

Start. Learning. To. Read.

Pxtl, 5 months ago

If it becomes a problem, the fediverse can cut the bridge when they need to. No sense doing it pre-emptively.