Notices by M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mastodon.club), page 4

@msh @ink_slinger For the people who go from Edmonton to Calgary, do they need a vehicle to get around once they arrive? Train stations that tie into local LRT are an important part of the usefulness of the Québec-Windsor corridor.

@ink_slinger Isn't the problem in YVR and YYZ the high cost of housing? Glass highrises full of condos would tend to improve things by increasing supply where people wish to live, wouldn't they?

@msh @ink_slinger I should add that the Québec City-Windsor corridor, with its frequent cities, heavily-populated central cores, and existing downtown stations and right-of-ways is the Canadian exception, where inter-urban passenger rail is practical. Indeed VIA says that the corridor is profitable [0].

[0] They probably exclude capital costs.

@ink_slinger @msh Trains are great; best way to travel. But the way Canadian cities are distributed and built, planes and cars are probably more feasible ways for inter-urban travel.

LRT systems do make sense for the larger cities.

Tramways, OTOH, have no advantage I can think of over buses. Not sure why cities want to build new tramways.

#transport

@ThatGeoGuy there isn't at the moment.

I'm in the process of setting up a separate cluster of servers that I'm going to migrate everything onto then revisit what is deployed.

I've been wanting to try out pixelfed real bad

Listening to #CBC *Ideas* discuss the legacy of #KarlMarx, the speakers seem all to take it for granted that things are getting worse for ordinary Canadians. Does anyone have facts to support that view?

I am generally aware of the complaints about crushing student loans, the gig economy, increasing wealth of the 1% etc. in the US context. E.g., https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/11/wealth-by-generation-and-age.html

How does that compare for Canadians?

#canpol

@arjaybe Quite right. It's very easy to go around making pronouncements, then justifying them on the basis of incorrect facts. We tend to start with our opinions, then try to find facts that support them.

Some might claim that teachers are underpaid, or that Canada lets in too many refugee claimants; but how many people know how much teachers earn as salary (let alone benefits), or how many claimants there are annually?

@ink_slinger It is legal and reasonable for employers to have dress codes. The arguments here should be a) that there is nothing inappropriate about a teacher wearing a turban, a yarmulke or hijab at work; and b) reasonable expressions of personal religious identity are nothing to be afraid of, not even from agents of the state.

Arguments that religious belief gives employees carte blanche for clothing, or that *any* dress code is unjust are not going to change any minds.

#qcpol

Was just listening to #CBC's *The House* from early September. PM #Trudeau was asked what he thought about Québec's new secularism (laïcité) law. What did he say? "A government shouldn't be telling anyone what they should or shouldn't wear in a free society."

Yeah, right. Let federal civil servants go to work in their pajamas or bathing suits, see how long they keep their jobs.

If people want to win debates, could they please not make absurdly broad claims?

#canpol

@nigelsezyarr Probably they'll all get through, but I won't read any for a month...

When the kids are asleep I'm tired too.

@nigelsezyarr Terrific!

@ink_slinger Even if you would have to go to Charlottetown ultimately to vote (unlikely), you'd have a real chance of meeting Mr. Tyrrell and other candidates in Edmonton. If you really care about who is leader of the federal Green Party, then join. Memberships are normally cheap.

@ink_slinger Alex Tyrrell?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tyrrell

There will probably be online or mail voting; it's de rigueur these days. Let me tell you though, the old-fashioned convention is lots of fun.

#canpol

@ink_slinger @bgcarlisle As I understand it Indo-European originally had two genders, one for words refererring to animate things and another for inanimate. Those were the roots of the masculine and neuter genders, feminine came later.

https://allegatifac.unipv.it/silvialuraghi/Gender%20FoL.pdf

The neuter #gender was dropped from many of the languages that evolved out of Indo-European. English has largely lost even femine/masculine distinctions.

@ink_slinger @keithzg @FssOfDeath Oh I've been running Debian since undergrad, so my own habits do involve the command line (mostly #eshell or via ssh); but my impression is that it can avoided, and in fact that it is easy to do so.

*Pace* @keithzg, I don't think you need to use the command line at all these days in Debian. If I'm wrong, I would be interested to learn specifically where. @FssOfDeath @ink_slinger

@FssOfDeath @ink_slinger There is no reason to worry about the usability of modern #Debian. Give it a chance.

@nigelsezyarr yup! Friday night wirks. You'll get here on time to start the holidays with the kids. Are you soending new year with yes. If yes, I will plan a little family birthday party for Alistair.