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cmonagle

91 karma · joined November 26, 2016

Developer in Montreal. https://cameronmonagle.com
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cmonagle··on Ask HN: IP cameras that don't require an app or internet?
I'm not sure if this is specifically what you're looking for, but some folks have developed software for the budget "Yi" cameras. It complements (doesn't replace) existing firmware, but you can bypass account creation and disable the manufacturer's cloud. I use mine only occasionally so I don't know how it stands up to frequent use.

There are different maintainers for different models, but as far as I can tell they're all pretty similar: https://github.com/search?q=yi%20hack&type=repositories

Edit to add they work pretty well with Home Assistant with this HACS integration: https://github.com/roleoroleo/yi-hack_ha_integration

cmonagle··on NYC skyscrapers sit vacant
> Many office buildings are old, with tiny windows surrounded by load-bearing walls.

Just a nit-pick: older buildings with windows and load-bearing walls are actually better candidates for residential conversion than newer buildings with glass curtain walls and structural columns. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...]

cmonagle··on Google promised to delete sensitive data. It logged my abortion clinic visit
In the North American context, "maternity care" would probably be understood as midwifery, which is not Planned Parenthood's main vocation.

That said, you're correct that Planned Parenthood offers many more services than just abortion, but the category they'd be in is "sexual and reproductive healthcare," not "maternity care."

Many advocates are pushing for "abortion forward" language to de-stigmatize the procedure, and (at least in Canada) some clinics are opting for less euphemistic names.[0]

0. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-clinics-language-1.6...

cmonagle··on Chile to Nationalize Lithium Industry
> This looks like the national electricity model in Quebec, where the public absorbs risk and the private part of the private-public partnership absorbs profits. Just the best!

I'm not super sure what you're referring to, Hydro Quebec's (often significant) profits are returned as dividends to the government. This year was $3.4 billion[0], and while I'm sure they have private contractors, but I can't imagine they're raking in anywhere near that.

0. https://globalnews.ca/news/9503363/hydro-quebec-record-finan...

cmonagle··on Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
Typically you carry your groceries in a bag. Some people have wheeled bags for bigger trips.

In neighborhoods with a traditional urban form (or "15 minute cities"), you wouldn't usually take mass transit to the grocery store, it's within a short walking distance. With groceries close by, it's natural to make frequent, smaller trips.

cmonagle··on Citymapper Joins Via
I hope this is appropriate, but I work at Transit and we do have some openings right now:

https://transitapp.com/jobs

cmonagle··on The vertical farming bubble is finally popping
I think this has come up on HN before, but Low Tech Magazine has a great piece about citrus production in the Soviet Union: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cul...
cmonagle··on Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
While GHG emissions are not the only environmental metric, remote working (for most) likely results in a net increase of emissions.[0]

0: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ac3d3e/...

cmonagle··on Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
The parent comment is presenting a hypothetical of how a similar degree of regulation would look for cars, not saying that airplanes have that specific regulatory mechanism.
cmonagle··on Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
It's also worth noting that Manchester, NH, which is where an Amherst resident is likely to spend a non negligible amount of time (nearest shopping mall, hospital, etc), has a comparable (slightly higher violent, much higher property) crime rate than NYC.
cmonagle··on Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
It would be very interesting to see more comparisons between merchant's perceptions of mobility and reality, but this[1] Toronto study is the only one I'm aware of. As expected, merchants were proven to not be credible sources.

> • 72% of visitors to the Study Area usually arrive by active transportation (by bicycle or walking). Only 4% report that driving is their usual mode of transportation.

> • Merchants overestimated the number of their customers who arrived by car. 42% of merchants estimated that more than 25% of their customers usually arrived by car.

Similarly, Toronto compared credit card transaction volume by mode in evaluating the Bloor bike lane. The area with the new bike lane saw increased card transaction volume, by slightly more than the control areas [2]. Merchants did report an increase in customers at this time.

[1] https://www.tcat.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bike-Lanes-On...

[2] https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2017/pw/bgrd/backgroundf... (Page 15 for Moneris data).

cmonagle··on Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
This is false. 200 bank accounts were frozen for organizing or significantly financing an illegal blockade of our capital.

Nobody had their bank account frozen for "saying mean things about Trudeau."

cmonagle··on Tesla driver dies after his Model 3 stops on highway, gets hit by two other
Human error does happen, but it results in death an order of magnitude less frequently in buses, trains and airplanes than in private vehicles.

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

cmonagle··on Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act
I'm not sure what more proof I can provide that the blockades and occupation are both an unpopular and illegal.

These responses are non-sequitors and proclaim with confidence what will happen in the future (as though we have a crystal ball). This seems like a good time to stop engaging.

cmonagle··on Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act
> People generally support what they represent.[...] The smearing is going to have an effect.

It's not smearing to accurately describe them based on their actions and words. We have a free press in Canada and they're right to report on the backgrounds of the organizers. They're holding press conferences demanding the dissolution of the government that we just elected, the organizers (not just participants) have documented white supremacist rants. This isn't popular, and I'm not surprised most Canadians haven't fallen for what some people on the internet are trying to represent them as.

> Like what? That's the thing about peaceful assembly charter right

Repeating "peaceful assembly" over and over again doesn't change the nature of the occupation. Constant 150 decibel noise is damaging to health and well being. Stockpiling illegal arms is not legal. Threats to bodily harm are not peaceful. Attempted arson is not peaceful. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "city bylaws have no [bearing]", we're all subject to the same laws.

Re injunctions:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/protesters-violate-cou...

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/judge-hears-argument...

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/judge-grants-injunction-against-no...

You can disagree, but the courts have decided, and they are the authority on legality.

I think the most interesting point is this:

> I have a right to peacefully protest. Someone else showing up and being violent doesn't remove my right.

That's absolutely correct. If you're not violating noise limits, not parked illegally, and comply with the same laws as everyone else, you can ABSOLUTELY continue demonstrating. The Emergencies Act doesn't change that.

cmonagle··on Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act
I don't think your assessment reflects the current attitudes in Canada. With such a polarizing topic, it's easy to fall into a bubble. I think this is true (and fairly normal) for any political in-group--we tend to overestimate our public support.

In this case, though, it's really just not there.

> Even those on the left are seeing this as way too far.

Generally, people are [sympathetic](https://globalnews.ca/news/8610727/ipsos-poll-trucker-convoy...) to the occupiers, but I wouldn't read too much into that--I'm in the large minority that have "sympathy" for them, but I want them gone as soon as possible.

Canadians say their opinion is unchanged, or that they're more likely to support vaccine mandates because of the occupations and blockades. A small majority want mass arrests and criminal charges, and significant majority want it to be ended by force. [source](https://angusreid.org/trudeau-convoy-trucker-protest-vaccine...).

Indeed, rather than this being "way too far," for most Canadians, it's not far enough.

> The Ottawa police have been unable to end the protests because they are legal peaceful protests.

The occupation is in violation of several court injunctions, which makes it illegal. As for peaceful? I'd disagree--there's been too many incidents of violence for me to characterize it that way, but frankly that's secondary when you're in systematic violation of court orders (without even considering all of the civil violations like parking, noise, public defecation, etc.)

> the reason Trudeau has gone this far is because there is no roadmap to no restrictions. Restrictions are staying. The protesters forced hishand and revealed this reality.

Every single province had a pre-existing deconfinement plan. They've been accelerated as the hospital situation continues to improve.

cmonagle··on Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
OP is, very explicitly, trying to find a workplace ith people who prefer being in the office.

We could easily rework this kind of statement:

> People who like working from home want to force me to spend hours on Zoom, and subject me to constant Slack interruptions, just so they never have to "see" me, or interact with me as a complete human. No thank you.

> If the remote people would just work remotely, things would be fine. But no, when a single team member is remote, everyone has to adopt their preferred ersatz remote practices.

Of course, this is silly, nobody is trying to force anyone into a work environment that they hate--why would I want my colleagues to be miserable ?

I believe we'll end up self sorting, so everyone can be happy, and to that end there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking advice on how to find your preferred work environment, whether that's in office or remote.

cmonagle··on Penny Stocks Are Booming, Which Is Good News for Swindlers
Classic consumption taxes (sales taxes and VAT) tend to be quite regressive.

I haven't read the whole report, but this was studied in 2005[1] and they had to add a "Family Credit" (basically a UBI) of 500-1000$ per month to balance it out, and recovered approximately 65% of individual and corporate income taxes.

1. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/taxreformpanel/final-report/...

cmonagle··on What We Can Learn from Japanese Prefab Homes
If you're interested in the economics and history of home construction, with a focus on different levels of prefabrication, Brian Potter has a very relevant substack. Below are a some articles I think are relevant to North Americans looking to understand the state of prefabrication:

[1] reviews prefabrication systems, broken down by technology. The conclusion suggests it's difficult for these systems to reach the scale necessary for success.

[2] explains the primacy of balloon frame construction in North America through the frame of "worse is better."

[3] most recently, a survey of componentization technologies.

1: (Two parts) https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/book-review-indus... and https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/industrialized-bu...

2: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/balloon-framing-i...

3: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/building-componen...

cmonagle··on The Last Message Sent on AIM
It's worth noting that AIM did make several attempts to integrate social media features, admittedly a bit late (the same year Facebook launched Chat).

https://mashable.com/2008/05/19/aim-bebo-integration/

cmonagle··on Cerulean: Experimental micro-blogging app for Matrix
This is a really interesting use of the protocol and looks very cool, congratulations!

I am curious how this experiment fits with the longer term goals for the project. Do you see Matrix as a social media protocol in addition to chat? If so, do you have plans to integrate with the fediverse/speak ActivityPub?

cmonagle··on Map of quotation marks in European languages
Have you considered the CSA layout? It's QWERTY, but the most commonly used accented characters are easily accessible. It's not ergonomic for programming, but switching between US and CSA doesn't require a significant adjustment (once you're used to it, at least).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSA_keyboard

cmonagle··on Inuttitut, a language shaped by humility, poetry, and the land
The decline of Inuktut wasn't principally caused by displacement or natural population decline, but rather the residential school system that attempted to completely assimilate young Inuit (and other indigenous) kids. Children were systematically removed from their communities and sent to English (sometimes French) religious boarding schools. They were physically punished for speaking their mother language. [0]

Inuktut is mostly stable, though "vulnerable," and strongest in Nunavik (the region in the article), I suspect because the somewhat-devolved region employs it as the primary language of instruction. [1]

[0] Excerpt from the Truth and Reconciliation commission's report: http://wordalive.wycliffe.ca/stories/what-residential-school..., also https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/en/timeline-event/indian-resident...

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuit-inuktitut-stats-c..., https://www.kativik.qc.ca/school-board/

cmonagle··on Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'
I wish there was a way for individuals to make that decision for themselves alone.

As a pedestrian being observed by AVs, your [valid] choice has a significant impact on my ability to choose privacy over convenience.