We had a not too dissimilar experience here in Australia with the privatisation and/or ‘deregulatory’ sabotage of our public infrastructure (SECV in the ‘90s, Telstra in the ‘00s, NBN in the ‘10s); I liken it to pigeon politics - they fly in, shit on everything, then promptly fuck off!

I imagine with the amount of snow cover you guys get up there - solar wouldn’t be feasible for ~40% of the year and likely cause massive load balancing issues in the summer due to the glut of supply, so that’s probably why they try to cap the size of systems you can install.

Feels very short sighted though, could be putting surplus production towards industry, rather than incentivising them to shut down!

Best of luck to you, hopefully Carney is going to be able to help address some of the issues you guys are facing!

If you’re still curious:

I’m a Data Analyst, I’m always curious! 🤣

You’re getting absolutely railed on your connection charges; that’s like $4.88CAD a day!?

I recently resigned with our provider so we only have 21 days of usage, we’re in summer, and we have a 5 bed, 3 bath two-storey home with solar panels for 4 adults and a child:

Factoring in the exchange rate, $1CAD ~= $1.12AUD; just makes the comparison even worse.

My state’s energy composition locally is ~35% renewables, mostly wind and solar, with the rest being a mix of natural gas, black & brown coal.

As an aside, our feed-in tariff (i.e. how much we get paid to export excess solar into our grid) has absolutely cratered over the last few years: down from ~15c during COVID to only ~3.3c this year - it really incentivises us to explore solar batteries as an option.

Damn, that’s a pretty good rate! Hydro power - I assume? We also have a daily charge to maintain a collection at ~ $1 AUD/day… is it similar there?

Sure this was a thing back in the day with incandescent lightbulbs - but like, you can leave a 10W bulb on for like 4 days straight for the price of ~1kWh (~20c USD here in Australia), right?

Oh, absolutely!

My morning caffeine clearly hadn’t kicked in because I stupidly forgot to circle back round to that point. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Ultimately, my biggest worry is that Trump’s absolute piss-poor understanding and implementation of tariffs has very likely ‘poisoned the well’ to the point that they could probably never be successfully implemented in our lifetime by an actual competent Government - assuming the US ever gets another chance to elect one ever again.

Smart, specific targeted tariffs paired with grants/incentives to American companies to foster local production of critical goods (think CHIPS Act) can be a good thing, if they are done in such a way that it doesn’t send an entire industry/market into financial shock.

Like, if you want to onboard silicon wafer manufacturing (as a prime example); you would announce a small tariff to start off with, and a clear road-map of it increasing over time - allowing time for companies to build the necessary infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities onshore.

Once the industry has settled and matured, those tariffs could begin to be slowly pared back to ensure that free-market competition continues to keep prices in check.

But this would only work in an actual free-market economy, and not in the oligopoly-in-a-trenchcoat that currently exists in the states.

I’m an Australian, so I feel kinship with Canadians over this entire issue.

I wasn’t being serious in the argument, rather using absurdism to point out that the entire “Canada as the 52st state” is unworkable - and would gloriously blow up in Trump and the republicans face.

It’s honestly a much less stressful thought exercise than the potential balkanisation of the United States - nuclear power experiencing a civil war would not turn out well for anyone.

2 quick points;

1. I’m not American and I don’t want to see Canadians lose their sovereignty.

2. I was using argumentum ad absurdism to point out that this entire “proposal” would be self-defeating for Trump and the Republicans. It’s an absolute non-starter.

At least make the offer enticing, give Canada the option to join as 10 states (one per province); giving them an allotment of the 435 house seats and 20 senators.

I’m pretty sure that would be more than enough to swing the house, senate and presidency towards the left for the next few generations at least.

Canada could literally save the US if that were the case.

I imagine that FC6 should play at least as well as FC5; and I’m glad that you enjoyed it!

I was primarily referring to the fact that it has the lowest review % on Steam of the modern Far Cry games (FC6 at 70%, 3-5 all at 80%+).

I’m sure I’ll give it a try once the kid’s a little older, I have more time on my hands, and it goes on sale to the point that I can pick it up without second-guessing the decision (probably sub-$20USD?)

It has Metastasised.

Seeing as Murdoch was born in Australia, and Trump is a well-known rapist… this is an even more apt comparison than you may have thought!

Far Cry 5 did a lot right, and significantly improved on the formula that was in place from Far Cry 3 (which was also an incredible game, at the time).

I tried Far Cry 4, but found myself not liking the map design (not sure if it was the verticality, or the colour palette); but I might revisit it again one day. Have never tried 6, but the general consensus seems pretty ‚meh’.

It feels like the odd-numbered Far Cry games tend to be better received, so hopefully Ubisoft can continue that tradition with the inevitable Far Cry 7!

Leaning more into the management style of games, might be worth checking out Two Points Hospital (spiritual sequel to Theme Hospital), and the more recently released Rwo Points Museum?

This whole things reminded me a bit of a lot of the whack-a-doo numerology nonsense that was big in the Qanon movement. Wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of the members of this White House’s staff were Q freaks…

…what ever happened to them, anyway? Feels like they just faded away after 2020.

So far, the only „proof” they’ve presented has been decoding his finger tattoos as secretly meaning „MS13” - right?

Never mind the fact that you could easily assign ANY meaning to them you wanted to… 🤦🏻‍♂️

How’s that old saying go again?

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

For the price they were asking, I honestly would’ve expected physical (e.g. floppy disk shaped flash drives) copies of Doom 1&2, equipped with controls onboard to play the games directly off of them.

Has there ever been a person elected president who has so convincingly lost their home district/state? Besides Trump 2016 and Trump 2024, that is.

But if a tangent from the post, but you raise a valid point. Copying is not theft, I suppose piracy is a better term? Which on an individual level I am fully in support of, as are many authors, artists and content creators.

However, I think the differentiation occurs when pirated works are then directly profited off of — at least, that’s where I personally draw the distinction. Others may has their own red lines.

e.g. stealing a copy of a text book because you can’t otherwise afford is fine by me; but selling bootleg copies, or answer keys directly based off it wouldn’t be OK.