I never really got into tea because I always found the flavour disappointing compared to its aroma. But I recently tried yerba maté, which isn’t a tea but definition, but is similar. It’s made from the leaves and stems of Holly and has a strong, bitter flavour that definitely does not disappoint. It’s enjoyed in places like Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil. Now I start my day with a mug of coffee, then sip on maté the rest of the day.

This is insanity. I’m glad she’s safe here in Canada and edit: HOPE she will be granted status to stay and complete her PhD that she’s almost done. It sounds like Srinivasan is the kind of person we want to welcome here: intelligent, hard working, slides with justice.

I hope Canada will continue to be a safe place for people who work hard for a better life not just for themselves, but others also.

Personally, I’m not sure we can assume there will be an election in four years. Or if there is one, that it won’t be an “election”, like in Russia.

(Likewise, if the US ever did take over Canada by force, I’m sure we would be a territory like Puerto Rico and not have a vote.)

I had a booking/confirmation number and everything. I even showed the CC statement from my phone, which also had the booking number, too, but the counter agent didn’t have the ability to change it even though he could see my name and seat on the flight. I had no time left, so I paid again and ran to security and then to the gate.

At least the the counter agent gave me a voucher for the trouble. I got myself a beer on the plane with it, because I needed it at that point!

In general, I prefer using cash because of less information being generated, but I agree that we shouldn’t pretend that CCs don’t also have advantages (if you’re not one to rack up debt). Smaller purchases where carrying cash is reasonable? Absolutely. Larger purchases where you need some insurance? CC.

The other day I made a purchase at a store and noticed I was charged for something I didn’t buy (not that something was charged twice, it was an entirely foreign item that wasn’t even physically there). The transaction had to be voided and then re-done. The cashier and the manager (who was needed to void the tx) both said it was good I had paid by credit instead of debit because it’s a lot harder even for them to return money via debit. I have no idea why, and neither did they.

Some years ago, Air Canada’s system said I didn’t pay for my flight when I tried to check in. But I was already on the manifest and had already been assigned a seat. How could I possibly have an assigned seat if I hadn’t paid? The desk agent was sympathetic but could not overrule the system, so I had to pay again for the seat that was already assigned to me. Air Canada could not refund the original payment because I supposedly had never paid it in the first place. I had to use a chargeback to get my money back. If not for CC chargeback, I would have lost that money entirely.

Dogs taking away jobs from humans? What a disgrace! Surely dogs are DEI hires, if I ever saw one. They’re not even people!

There are very many normal human sounds that are not speech, including, but not limited to: laughter, crying, yelling/screaming/yelping (in surprise, pain, fear), groaning, moaning, yawning, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, singing, whistling.

What constitutes human speech? There are languages that have sounds that don’t exist in other languages (said as someone still trying to get a hold on rolling my Rs).

In any case, we should all learn some sign language. Seriously, it’s useful to be able to communicate silently or just visually (e.g. Across a noisy room), plus it makes life way more inclusive for Deaf people.

Wow, the Russian (probably) movement went hard on that one.

My respect to you for going back and checking it out.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. Was their main target in-store shoppers? Their location is too far for, I suspect, most people when a L&M (or even other small, independent stores) is much closer.

This is the first I’ve heard of it. Can you share your source, please? I want to see it myself whether it’s reputable before I form an opinion.

Zarqa, the funniest thing I’ve ever watched. A spiteful, middle-aged, Pakistani Muslim divorcee in Regina tries to manage/rehab her reputation and ego… With disastrously hilarious results. It’s a short mini-series that can be watched in about two hours.

I just stumbled upon Gangnam Project. It’s about two biracial Korean-Canadian teens who go to S. Korea to connect with their roots and get all caught up in the K-Pop making machine. It’s meant for the tween market, but it’s just so different than anything I’ve seen (maybe I haven’t seen much) that I find it interesting. Plus who doesn’t live an eternally optimistic lead when the real world is crazy times? Obviously it’s dramatized, but I am kind of peripherally aware that idol-culture is a very serious deal in Asia, esp Korea. (Last year some K-Pop star publicly apologized for having a boyfriend?!) I wonder how much of it is based in reality and how much is just made up.

DEI can still be achieved without using that terminology directly.

I agree that not longer having a policy or metrics around diversity doesn’t mean that the people in a company won’t still value it. I’m a part-time student and the school’s director recently did an AMA. He said an upcoming event was renamed to avoid the threats that are being directed at “DEI”, but the event itself is still about cultural diversity. I forget what the new name was, something about the stories of our people or something like that.

If this doesn’t work for someone, there’s also Red Cross. They have volunteers teams that help people even with small scale disasters like someone’s home burned down. It’s not a big disaster, but for a family that’s perhaps lost everything, having someone to sit with them, give them blankets and maybe some food is a help.

https://www.redcross.ca/volunteer/emergency-management-volunteering

I absolutely agree that Internet should be a nationalized service, with the option of private players. Saskatchewan has (for cellphones) Sasktel by the government, and all prices are lower even from the for profit companies. We should have crown corps + private enterprise for everything that is an essential service. Mail has Canada Post + private couriers.

The nationwide Rogers outage… When was that, a year ago? Put all kinds of businesses, banking, local payment systems, etc. on hold. How is it acceptable to the nation that essential infrastructure is entirely private?

ISPs will provide service so long as it is profitable. It is not profitable to go to northern, remote areas through all the trees and terrain for the relatively few people who would be customers, even at 100% market share. If there was profit to be made by expanding to remote places, they’d be there already.

Although this thread is about Internet, this is also why it’s incredibly stupid for people to whine about Canada Post not being profitable. Of course its not profitable, its a national service that services literally every unprofitable community and person in the country. Even with the recent price increase, it definitely costs a lot more than $1.24 for Canada Post to deliver a letter from Windsor to Iqaluit.

Carney’s win was not a surprise, but I think the margin that he won by was a surprise for many.

I understand your point generally, and would agree with you under most circumstances. However, you’re talking about the guy who came out swinging from Tariff Town before he was even inaugurated, which has already made for negative economic movement. Under his watch (if you would even be so generous to say he’s “watching” at all), there’s already been all kinds of administrative chaos for the USA by wanton firings and other cuts and more EOs than you’ve ever seen in your lifetime.

So, yes, absolutely the country can blame Trump, at the very least for putting all his attention to causing chaos and not on the things he campaigned on. (Not that I ever believed he had any intention to ever pay attention to them.)

To be slightly more specific, we accumulate PFAS, carcinogenic “forever” chemicals, in our blood, and our bodies have no way to process or rid ourselves of it. Emerging research suggests that blood donations reduce the amount of PFAS in our blood because, well, we’re basically bloodletting it out.

PFAS is in both everyday things from Teflon cookware to fire storeroom foam and its worked is way everywhere in the environment due to human activity, of course. Everyone has PFAS in their blood, even newborn infants.

Search “PFAS blood” or “PFAS newborn” to be disappointed in life 🙁

The best use, for me, is asking ChatGPT to give me five (or however many) scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on a topic. Then I search for said articles by title and author name on my school library database.

It saves me so much time compared to doing a keyword search on said same database and reading a ton of abstracts to find a few articles. I can get to actually reading them and working on my assignment way faster.

AI is a great tool for people who use it properly.

I don’t understand what you mean by Firefox’s development is driven by the community? It’s not a community contributed open source software; my friend worka on Firefox and is a Mozilla employee.