OT: Sens Lounge XCX: Posted to the limit, one more time edition

[saskriders]

First past the post is underrated. It has put us in a pretty good spot. I'm totally fine with parties representing the lunatic fringe remaining irrelevant. Also, I have no clue how anyone bought Trudeau's "2015 will be the last election under first past the post." It was painfully obvious it was a promise he couldn't deliver and he was just trying to syphon some naive dipper votes.

I think people underestimate how FPTP can allow lunatics to gain power and influence. Under FPTP most of the fringe simply join one of the big parties. Sometimes that fringe doesn't gain any traction in the party, but sometimes they can get their people in a leadership position. This threat is even more present when we are in times like we are now where society is getting more polarized and people are moving away from centre, however it can happen with just a leadership race with a split vote among a bunch of moderates. But the more likely way for the fringe to gain influence is to get concessions from their own party (when it is in government). Governments still have to please many factions within their own party to stay in control and it is entirely possible that parties that aren't extremist as a whole have extremists in their ranks. Under a proportional system you may get extremist parties in parliament, but (at least in theory) minority governments would look towards moderate parties to pass laws. The biggest threat in my opinion would be parties holding to firm to the idea that "the other big party" (which isn't extremist) can't get in power, even if it means "we make a deal with the extremists on our side of centre". Sweden had an election a few months ago where a couple fringe parties grew and neither of the traditional coalitions had enough seats for a majority, but one coalition managed to make a deal with a couple of the centrist parties from the other coalition for support. I'd much rather see that than have fringe factions have influence within the government.

 

[BK201]

If you dont understand trading laws and circuit breakers etc and how bit coin is not governed by such things its hard to even grasp how it is being illegally manipulated in an ungoverned market.

The fact that it was valued at $20,000 at peak and $5000 now with nothing driving the prices like gold or interest rates proves to that it IS being manipulated and people are loosing a lot of money.

If you don't believe me Bitcoin itself in chart form is used to teach investing students what a pump and dump Tulip chart formation is.

So bitcoin charts are used as examples of chart patterns that imply market manipulation on a regular basis.

Once again technically its not illegal because there is no governing body for the trading of bitcoin. Therefore manipulation is also technically not illegal.

 

[DrEasy]

Re: referendum issues, I agree with everything you guys say, and there is a lot of potential for total mismanagement, populism, short-sightedness, ect. Many, if not most, policies rely on each other for cohesive implementation and funding. Not only that, as we can see with unimportant topics such as bike lanes and gendered bathrooms, people get very emotional about things that probably do not affect them all too much, neither through direct interaction nor through taxation/funding. One thing to note, however, is that although a party system does indeed provide a vision and a sort of professional assurance, as we have seen this last decade (and perhaps in previous decades, I may just be too young to remember), it seems like every administrative change focuses on completely overhauling everything, removing policies that the previous administration worked their entire term towards, and can very easily be influenced by populism. You see this from all sides of the political spectrum, and there is a trend towards people primarily informing their voting habits out of ideology ("I am an X-party supporter, the other major party is always bad"), or simply "The current government is terrible, let's completely undo everything."

If you add to that the actual discourse between the parties in the House, where everything that they say are gross generalizations, misrepresentations, or simply a back and forth that goes like:
"Mr. Prime Minister, your party is bad, and you don't care about X."
"Mr. Speaker, your party was worse and we were voted by the people for the people."
"Mr. Prime Minister, no we were great, your party is bad."
"Mr. Speaker, then what about Y?" Booing ensues. Settle down everyone, one person speaks at a time or else it is time out for all of you, please continue. "Our party was voted in by the people for the people."

Why am I paying money for this? Perhaps you guys are right, and a referendum system is far-fetched and unlikely to produce cohesive results, but I am sincerely frustrated by this Kindergarten-style government that we have.

We have the government we deserve. On this page alone, you see this comment, by a former mod no less: "You've had some aggressively bad takes on this site, but this has to rate up among the worst of them." How do you expect our elected officials to be any better than us?

If we were more civil to each other, and willing to actually listen to each other instead of shouting at each other, so would our elected officials.

We're not open to other perspectives. I remember the attack ads against Ignatieff accusing him of having lived abroad! And regular people were then parroting it. I didn't necessarily support Ignatieff at the time, but how can it be a negative to have a richer perspective on things, to have had an education?

I'd expect universities to teach us this, this willingness to debate, to show empathy and to be open-minded. Instead the opposite seems to be happening.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

If you dont understand trading laws and circuit breakers etc and how bit coin is not governed by such things its hard to even grasp how it is being illegally manipulated in an ungoverned market.

The fact that it was valued at $20,000 at peak and $5000 now with nothing driving the prices like gold or interest rates proves to that it IS being manipulated and people are loosing a lot of money.

If you don't believe me Bitcoin itself in chart form is used to teach investing students what a pump and dump Tulip chart formation is.

So bitcoin charts are used as examples of chart patterns that imply market manipulation on a regular basis.

Once again technically its not illegal because there is no governing body for the trading of bitcoin. Therefore manipulation is also technically not illegal.

That's what scares me (a a complete noob to investing). No way I'd risk money on something like that. Even money I could afford to lose. Way too sketchy.

 

[maclean]

With all due respect:

Do not take a three year old to a movie theatre.

Just don't.

Just catching up - Depends a lot on the kid. I took my kid to the theatre when he was three and he was totally fine. From what I hear the worst offenders these days are 50-something women

 

[Daffy]

Just catching up - Depends a lot on the kid. I took my kid to the theatre when he was three and he was totally fine. From what I hear the worst offenders these days are 50-something women

Ya my girl is three now and she's always been good. The one time she was a bit loud (and not even bad) was when I brought my same aged nephew with me. So they were excited.

 

[The Lewler]

Just catching up - Depends a lot on the kid. I took my kid to the theatre when he was three and he was totally fine. From what I hear the worst offenders these days are 50-something women

That can apply to so many things.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Not attempting to start a politics discussion here, but I know some of you are more aware of the workings of the government than I am ... so here goes:

What is everyone's opinion of the Christine Elliott plan to pull together the "50 health teams" under the administration of a single entity "Ontario Health". Good thing or bad?

 

[Smash88]

Not attempting to start a politics discussion here, but I know some of you are more aware of the workings of the government than I am ... so here goes:

What is everyone's opinion of the Christine Elliott plan to pull together the "50 health teams" under the administration of a single entity "Ontario Health". Good thing or bad?

I think in theory the plan makes sense, but there is a reason why it is the way it is.

This is just going to create a massive administrative nightmare, that really isn't needed.

This has the potential to end up a lot like the Phoenix fiasco with the Federal Government, except worse since it won't just be the pay system that is changing.

There are still a lot of questions as to how it will be implemented and such, so it could be way different than what we know now.

 

[Sensmileletsgo]

If you dont understand trading laws and circuit breakers etc and how bit coin is not governed by such things its hard to even grasp how it is being illegally manipulated in an ungoverned market.

The fact that it was valued at $20,000 at peak and $5000 now with nothing driving the prices like gold or interest rates proves to that it IS being manipulated and people are loosing a lot of money.

If you don't believe me Bitcoin itself in chart form is used to teach investing students what a pump and dump Tulip chart formation is.

So bitcoin charts are used as examples of chart patterns that imply market manipulation on a regular basis.

Once again technically its not illegal because there is no governing body for the trading of bitcoin. Therefore manipulation is also technically not illegal.

I hope one day people use a cryptocurrency (whether its bitcoin or whatever) as a tool for trade like a currency as opposed to an investment.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Anyone have experience with wireless devices and computers/laptops and gigabit internet? How much of that speed/capacity can be realized if I'm on my laptop in another room?

Sometimes if I'm downloading a series front iTunes then I get frequent buffering from Netflix. I find myself planning things and running my computer overnight when maybe with better speeds I would not have to.

It all comes down to how much bandwidth you get from your provider. The modem/router comes into play as well, wireless can be a bit limited but generally its pretty good.

What speeds do you get from your provider?

 

[Harbinger]

The amount of micro transactions in gaming is quite disgusting. Ubisoft just turned Odyssey into an insane grind of a game.

 

[Canadian Time]

Wilson-Raybould is absolutely torching Trudeau during her testimony. This isn't a political post at all, just an observation that this isn't good for him and won't be going away any time soon.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Wilson-Raybould is absolutely torching Trudeau during her testimony. This isn't a political post at all, just an observation that this isn't good for him and won't be going away any time soon.

Damn, I didn't even know this was happening.

Cohen torching Trump and now this? Today is good political theatre!

EDIT: this is riveting stuff.

 

[Engineer]

This Jody Wilson-Raybould testimony is something else.

 

[5ive4Fighting]

It all comes down to how much bandwidth you get from your provider. The modem/router comes into play as well, wireless can be a bit limited but generally its pretty good.

What speeds do you get from your provider?

Too lazy to look very hard for original post.

This might be useful:

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

The OP can run it on a wireless connection, and then if possible with a device plugged directly into the router to see what download speeds are in reality.

 

[Knave]

It all comes down to how much bandwidth you get from your provider. The modem/router comes into play as well, wireless can be a bit limited but generally its pretty good.

What speeds do you get from your provider?

Right now I'm on a pretty cheap 25/10 grandfathered plan. I get some buffering and a low quality feed if I'm trying to watch Netflix and downloading something off iTunes as an example.

If I'm on wireless my speeds fluctuate considerably and the upload speed can really hurt which sucks for online games because I lag out for a few seconds.

Maybe I'll wait a few years until I move again. The idea of gigabit internet probably sounds nicer than it will be for 3x the price.

 

[Caeldan]

Right now I'm on a pretty cheap 25/10 grandfathered plan. I get some buffering and a low quality feed if I'm trying to watch Netflix and downloading something off iTunes as an example.

If I'm on wireless my speeds fluctuate considerably and the upload speed can really hurt which sucks for online games because I lag out for a few seconds.

Maybe I'll wait a few years until I move again. The idea of gigabit internet probably sounds nicer than it will be for 3x the price.

25/10 should be fine for Netflix and gaming.
I had 25/5 until going to 30/10 and I can game no problem while my wife watches Netflix.

How old is your equipment? I've found that wireless routers tend to survive only two or three years anymore. At least for the sub100 price range.

 

[18Hossa]

I have 25/5 now and I can netflix/game at the same time. May get the occasional lag spike depending on how many other people are using the network and for what. But for the most part it’s decently solid. A lot better than the 5/1 I had before

 

[Daffy]

So I won tickets to Jeff Dunham from the CTC Twitter account. 5 rows from the stage! Anyways the show was hilarious. Pretty talented guy. I hadn't seen a whole lot of him before but we had a lot of fun.

 

[Que]

More than half of Canadians say charges against SNC-Lavalin should go to criminal trial: poll

So I guess I am in the minority? What the f...

Like how do people not get that if this goes to trial they’re legally not allowed to be publicly traded in Canada and as a result will move probably costing the Canadian economy 7000 direct jobs, thousands more indirect, hundreds of millions in taxes and fantastic discounts on infrastructure projects will be lost.

Haliburton literally raised and leveled Iraq twice in the name of profits.

 

[Smash88]

More than half of Canadians say charges against SNC-Lavalin should go to criminal trial: poll

So I guess I am in the minority? What the f...

Like how do people not get that if this goes to trial they’re legally not allowed to be publicly traded in Canada and as a result will move probably costing the Canadian economy 7000 direct jobs, thousands more indirect, hundreds of millions in taxes and fantastic discounts on infrastructure projects will be lost.

Haliburton literally raised and leveled Iraq twice in the name of profits.

That's the issue with that law.

Corporations shouldn't be barred from doing work with the government if people within the org do shady things.

Go after the people that broke the law, don't punish all the employees.

HP had this exact same issue come up back in 2014 when the law was first introduced. I don't know what the outcome was, but since they just replaced my tower with an HP laptop, I figure, they didn't receive any ban. I can't find any other info about what happened after they got charged but they were facing the exact same scenario that SNC-Lavalin is facing today.

 

[Engineer]

Like how do people not get that if this goes to trial they’re legally not allowed to be publicly traded in Canada and as a result will move probably costing the Canadian economy 7000 direct jobs

And what is to prevent any company in the future from breaking the law if we are so weak that we literally re-write the laws in favour of corporations because we are afraid of losing votes in a specific province?

Why is it fair that other companies have lost out on contracts and growth because SNC Lavalin's bribery is being condoned?

The construction and engineering projects/contracts will be absorbed by competitors without SNC in the picture. The jobs will be then be absorbed by the growth of competitors.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

More than half of Canadians say charges against SNC-Lavalin should go to criminal trial: poll

So I guess I am in the minority? What the f...

Like how do people not get that if this goes to trial they’re legally not allowed to be publicly traded in Canada and as a result will move probably costing the Canadian economy 7000 direct jobs, thousands more indirect, hundreds of millions in taxes and fantastic discounts on infrastructure projects will be lost.

Haliburton literally raised and leveled Iraq twice in the name of profits.

Funny how those same folks looked the other way numerous times when it came to Alberta oil jobs. Now when it's jobs in the eastern part of the country, the standards are suddenly different.

*sigh* that's humanity for ya.

 

[Smash88]

Funny how those same folks looked the other way numerous times when it came to Alberta oil jobs. Now when it's jobs in the eastern part of the country, the standards are suddenly different.

*sigh* that's humanity for ya.

Yep. Can't really get into as it's politics, but it's hilarious to me that people are up in arms about this whole SNC thing. This stuff happens all the time, it's just that usually the AG doesn't go against the cabinet's wishes, so it never makes the news.