Sounds about right. We took advantage of the Greener Homes Grant a few years ago to get all our windows replaced in our late 70’s build. It’s a very long process where you have to pay up front for an inspection/evaluation from one of their approved providers, which are often booked months in advance, then you have to pay up front for all the work done. In our case we paid 50% up front then had to wait a few months for the work to be done, then had to book another inspection/evaluation. If one wants get multiple qualifying items done they all have to happen between both evaluations. After that second evaluation you can ask to close it out and receive the grant. Most, but not all of the cost of those evaluations is covered when the grant is approved. IIRC the grant ended up covering about 20% of the cost, but it was over a year to go through the whole process. The Greener Homes Loan came out after we had already received our grant, and if we wanted to do more work to take advantage of it now we’d be on the hook for another post-work evaluation. It is a step in the right direction since you it helps cover some of the up front costs of eligible retrofits. Sask also had a home renovation tax credit available at the time(conveniently implemented just after I built my shed which would have qualified) so it was nice to double dip and get another 10% of the cost rebated, but it’s also something where a person has to pay up front and wait for tax time to see the benefits.

Its great for people that can afford to have the work done and in our case it was probably the difference between us being able to do all our windows at once vs just doing the high priority ones and leaving others for later. It’s pretty much worthless for so many that are already struggling day to day and would probably see more energy savings than those who can otherwise afford to keep up with modernizing their home.

I feel like I’ve also seen the same effects of overestimating energy savings that the article brings up. It’s like they’re standard is a home that’s 50+years old and has seen minimal upgrades done in that time. Air sealing and insulation is more impactful if you have an ancient, lower efficiency furnace, than a modern high efficiency one. That goes the other way too in that an old drafty house will see more benefit from a new furnace than a well sealed and insulated one. Really, without these kinds of grants available it’s rare for energy upgrades to actually provide a real return, aside from a handful of relatively cheap/simple ones like air sealing or adding attic insulation.

One program that does really benefit those in need is the one from Sask Energy. It’s free to participate, and rental properties are eligible(with landlord approval). It includes things like a clothes drying rack, sink aerators, LED bulbs and a smart (ecobee lite) thermostat. They also have a newer program that I haven’t really had a chance to look into yet that does things like doors. These are the kinds of programs we really need.

Yep, this is the tricky part. We can’t just roll over and take it because in the long run that just ends up hurting us and they get their way. We have to be careful about our response since they’re going to try spinning whatever we do as making us more responsible for the negative effects of the tariffs then the tariffs themselves. I think the key is targeting the response in a way that hinders the people responsible for this mess, mainly those billionaires that know that they can take advantage of the upcoming chaos to further concentrate their wealth.

Definitely helps if the EU and elsewhere gets in with us on some things. Coordinate on the things that the US really can’t or would be prohibitive to do locally. Raise prices on those resources that Trump keeps saying they don’t need. Charge Hollywood through the nose to film in popular locations, limit access to core technology patents, or ease up on local copyright/patent legislation that tends to benefit American interests.

It’s tough for Canada alone to win an economic fight against the US, but I think it’s in the best interests of most places to get involved because what’s to say the US won’t just keep expanding their reach as long as it works.

I think you still need a minimum wage, probably something in the range of 1/1800th of what the UBI is. Otherwise we end up with UBI essentially subsidizing businesses that would get away with paying arbitrarily low wages. Then you just scale up regular income taxes so people can still see a significant benefit from working those minimum wage jobs compared to the current system where benefits can get clawed back so hard that the difference between working full time min wage and being on benefits is negligible.

Yep, and they’ve got some parts that are pretty good from earlier. Things like being able to copy text out of a picture, or enter text from a picture anywhere. Flagging your vehicles location when the Bluetooth disconnects, noticing where “work” and “home” are and your usual schedule to offer navigation at the right time. I was looking forward to Apple Intelligence building on those kinds of things and making them more reliable. Some days though it seems like the stuff that used to work has become less reliable, and the new stuff isn’t mature enough to be really useful.

Tell that to the people that follow those restrictions. Kosher is one thing that we never really got into at my last job, but the people that don’t eat beef or only eat halal don’t really feel accommodated when you only have vegan options rather than a halal and/or non-beef meat available. The vegan options also aren’t necessarily halal, and the kosher people expect a pretty high standard of cleansing of equipment used on multiple products. Though in all cases there’s people that are more or less demanding when it comes to someone else doing their best to accommodate.

I’m also looking at it from the perspective of University food service where you have students on meal plans where you’ve committed to certain accommodations and providing for their complete nutritional needs. Most restaurants can get away with just not having halal proteins or just not having kosher options at all, but Universities that do dorm style housing with full meal packages have to put fort a little more effort.

Their 60% number is maybe misleading. What it probably means is all their meal items are served separately so if they’re doing a beef roast with roasted potatoes, and steamed veggies, that’s 66% of those offerings are vegan. It’s hard to get a good metric for what that means without also considering things like which vegan options are high in complete proteins, do all meals have good and varied options(if it’s the same vegan soup and salad bar for all three meals that gets old quickly) and if most of the vegan options are essentially side dishes for meat forward dishes or something that stands out as it’s own thing.

Admittedly it can be tough, because there’s so many groups to support. Some need vegan, gluten free, halal, dairy free, no pork, no beef, plus less common allergies. It’s hard to accommodate everything with dishes that are still going to appeal to people that don’t have those restrictions, or significantly increasing costs to accommodate 10% of your customer base.

Cost, and having something dedicated to the space. Maybe also that it controls your smart home stuff so you want it to stay in place and not be taken out of the home. I can see something comparable to an Apple TV with a built in display/speakers/camera. Don’t need much power, but something that can run your streaming services, YouTube for cooking videos, and a FaceTime camera for calls would be neat.

Yep, lots of things like cars, home appliances, home theatre components, etc. get regular, if not yearly, updates even when some of those things have a 10+ year lifecycle for the average consumer. It’s not like Apple stops supporting devices after a couple years. With things like the Apple TV that aren’t updated as often I end up putting off buying something that I want because, like you said, it might already be 2+ years old and I wouldn’t want to feel behind when the new one comes out less than a year later. I’d rather see smaller updates more often so there’s always something recent when I’m looking to buy.

I might argue that moving to just USB-C for the 2016 era MacBook pros was a little premature. In 2018 I opted for a refurbished 2015 largely because I wanted the variety of ports, and it seems they’ve stepped back a bit on the latest releases. Now though, if they didn’t move to USB-C I’d say they’re waiting too long. The issue with adopting new ports is most customers already have a plethora of devices with the existing standard, so many tend to carry on with that momentum rather than adopt the new thing and it’s growing pains. At some point though we need to rip off the bandaid and standardize on the best option. EU regulations are a big step to making this happen, and Apple is the kind of company that’s able to push the market based on what they support in their devices.

Remember the benefits of USB-C are that you can have one(or a few cables) that scale between 5 W and 240 W charging, USB 2 to Thunderbolt 4 data rates(plus things like audio/video, etc.), and even if you’re limited by the cable or the device at each end, there’s still some backwards compatibility that provides some base functionality rather than being completely worthless because the ports don’t match. You’re better off being able to connect a USB-C product at USB-2 speeds than have a micro-USB Super Speed cable/product that doesn’t connect at all.

Either way, people are going to complain. Some that there’s little innovation and things are too much the same as they were years ago. Others that the new innovation breaks compatibility and they need to replace cables/accessories to stay up to date.

Maybe, though it’s shitty that we got two years, then four more. I held out since the iPhone 7 for the 12 mini, but I feel like 4 years is a good run and I’d like to upgrade this year. I also feel like if they keep the S.E. line going then every other year is better. 4 years feels rough for people looking to purchase in the second half of that cycle.

Some systems already have that. Replaced a switch yesterday and re-arranged some things on my network board and got a HomeKit notification that some things were offline and when it came back. Knowing when something goes offline isn’t as useful as keeping things up though. With something like a hardwired camera/NVR, even if your ISP service is interrupted the cameras can still record, and you can put a UPS there to keep things going, even if the rest of the network is down.

That was my thought too. Wonder what the timeframe was because if it’s data collected over multiple years you’d expect to see an overrepresentation of vehicles that were sold through that whole period while models that get discontinued, or launched in that timeframe would be underreported. Also maybe some demographics, like was the high number of S-10 while it was available new and presumably driven by people that recently purchased those new vehicles, or is it 10+ years after it stopped being sold when it’s the old farm shitbox or a young guys first truck.

I think there’s a middle ground there, though it depends on the kind of game. Something like a first person shooter is a non-starter on iPhone to me due to the smaller display and touchscreen controls. Something like a turn based strategy I like better on mobile because being able to tap through commands and menus is nicer than a controller to me. Maybe also a stronger push for some of the games to have cross platform saves, like being able to play on my Apple TV at home, but also do some grinding a few minutes at a time while I’m out.

Really, I think Apple TV is where the real gaming potential is. It might not match consoles in power, but it’s also in a lot of households that might not have bought a console but will buy a couple good games on Apple TV.

My wife wanted to upgrade so we both got new Series 9 this year. Her Series 3 went to her mom as an upgrade to a Fitbit, and I figure I’ll keep wearing mine at work until it gets smashed or otherwise dies. All of our Macs are well past macOS support, but no real plans to upgrade until an old one actually dies, or some killer feature prompts an upgrade.

What are the gas and electricity rates in your area? In Sask, we’re paying about $0.16/kWh for electricity and about $6.40/GJ. There’s about 278 kWh in a GJ, so the electricity cost works out to about $44/GJ, or about 7 times the cost of gas. A good coefficient of performance for a heat pump seems to be about 3, and modern gas furnaces are easily above 90% efficiency so the actual cost difference for gas to electric heat is about 1:3.

Now, newer houses are better insulated, so your heating load on a 2012 build is going to be a lot lower than a 1977 build. You also didn’t mention your heat source. Ground source pumps are pretty good efficiency year round, but cost a lot for the initial install, while air-source pumps have a large seasonal variation in their efficiency, which is particularly troublesome in central/northern Canadian climates.

Yep, in Sask right now natural gas is about 1/7 the cost of electricity, which means at best a heat pump only costs about 2x as much to run as a modern gas furnace. Maybe as our grid transitions to renewables and carbon prices rise those costs will become even or shift towards benefiting heat pumps, but I suspect at this point you’re not going to hit break even over the typical life of a heat pump. Much more affordable to stick with gas for now, and maybe start moving to heat pumps 10 years from now. Same argument for water heaters, gas is going to be cheaper than a heat pump for most cases. Maybe new builds lean towards a heat pump because it doesn’t need venting which minimizes HVAC needs, and/or if a person has a solar system that minimizes their electricity costs.

There’s also methods to potentially shelter some of that too. If a person has RRSP room and doesn’t actually need the whole amount available you can use that to delay paying the tax and hopefully reduce the rate paid. You can also make some investments within a TFSA, which means no taxes owed on the growth. Both of those options have caps on contributions so they’re a great for low-moderate income earners to minimize their taxes, while higher income earners can only shelter a portion of their income.

That’s the argument, but it doesn’t really hold water to me. That would lead to an environment where those with little capital get taxed on their entire income, making it hard to save more capital. Those that already have lots of capital could then leverage that capital to generate a tax-free(or limited tax) income, which seems like exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We do have TFSAs which do allow us to grow our assets tax free, and they’re limited to prevent those with excessive capital from dodging their entire tax burden.

To some extent, you might want it the other way around, those providing labour and covering basic living expenses should pay limited taxes(which is kind of how things work now when you consider the basic exemptions, GST rebates, child tax benefits, etc.) while those who have essentially a passive income should pay a higher rate. The argument for the current capital gains taxation is that you want to encourage people to invest in things like a business that grows the economy, rather than purely financial vehicles like bonds and loans that mostly just concentrate wealth without contributing to a healthy economy.

I like the cut of your jib. Some of the most vocal complaints are things like someone holding a cabin or other piece of land for an extended time, and then having to claim the gains in a single year. Especially in cases like an inherited cabin that’s held for 30 years then passed to next of kin so a particular owner never actually paid or was paid for the property, but probably did spend as much on maintenance over that time as their assessed gains. Spreading those gains across multiple tax years that have already been assessed would seem fair(letting them claim the gains at a lower marginal rate by spreading it over multiple years) though administratively difficult. I would also like the idea of putting in a lifetime exemption around the $250 k range which would make a big difference for those who might only ever pay capital gains due to that one property, but not really affect those who make most of their income as capital gains.