Spyke

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Why does bi-weekly mean "every two weeks?" This has always bothered me because intuitively it should mean "twice a week."

I was taught that the "bi" prefix was a multiplier and "semi" was a divider.

That meant biweekly, bimonthly, biannually were every 2 weeks, months, years and semi-weekly, semi-monthly, semi-annually were every half a week, half a month, and half a year.

Then the real world intruded and I've been confused ever since. About the only time I hear "semi" and "bi" used on a regular basis the way I expect is with pay periods. Biweekly is every two weeks and semi-monthly is twice a month.

Canada, by the way.

PS: I suppose bisexual and semi trailers also fit my expectations.

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Young Canadians are being priced out of home ownership and even parenthood. Why on earth would mandatory national service make them love their country more?

Maybe if the mandatory service were installing fiber to rural areas the way we managed to get copper out there or dealing with infrastructure (especially water and schools) in Indigenous and remote communities. Maybe health care or emergency response.

But guns and bombs? No thanks.

Also, I'm old enough to be exempt by any rational measure. If it came to a vote, my vote shouldn't be counted.

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*Permanently Deleted*

I can't speak to the general problem, but I can tell you why I left construction and manual labour more generally.

A lot of the work is still as damaging to the body as it was in 1930.

Toxic coworkers enabled and even encouraged by psychopathic supervisors.

Safety is not only not built in to procedures, but actively mocked and even deliberately worked around, even when doing so slows things down.

And all that for less than double minimum wage for experienced workers when it used to be easily triple minimum wage to start.

canada

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Truck driver who caused deadly Broncos crash loses latest bid to stay in Canada

My biggest problem with this whole thing is the legal framing of his actions.

If the bus had instead been a car with a single, middle-aged occupant, I think everything would have gone quite a bit differently.

If that single occupant had not been killed, but made a full recovery, it definitely would have gone a lot differently.

If it had been merely a cop observing the infraction, he would have escaped with just a ticket. At worst, I suppose he might have got a temporary license suspension.

I have difficulty accepting that the identical behaviour should have such radically different punishments just because pure chance leads to radically different outcomes.

Note that I'm not saying that someone who kills someone else should be getting off scott free, regardless of the behaviour that led to the death. But maybe there is room to increase the penalties when dangerous behaviours have little or no consequence as well as room to move on how we handle behaviours that rarely have devastating consequences. Let's face it, the vast majority of those who even deliberately blow through rural stop signs will never even get a ticket, let alone kill someone.

Personally, I don't see this person as a threat to our society, so I see no reason to deport him.

canada

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'We are not backing down': Premier Moe says legislation on parental rights coming this fall

What about my parental right to have compulsory schooling actually teach about the real world as it exists and help me prepare my child for life in that world?

What about my parental right to expect that the institutions and employees charged with providing that compulsory schooling ensure that my child is treated with respect for who they are and protected from those who would do otherwise?

If we're going to talk about parental rights as though children have none, then let's put it all on the table.

canada

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Police force under fire for releasing woman's personal information to her cyberstalkers

So now that police have a clear connection between the original threats and the people who made those threats via the presumably real identity of the person who made the freedom of information request. This means that the investigation into the original complaint can move forward quite easily, right? Right?

Also, since when is it reasonable to keep secret the identity of those making successful freedom of information requests.

canada

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Senate bill would require age verification for Canadians accessing porn sites

This cannot work safely in the current legal and regulatory environment.

In principle, there seem to be ways to securely, anonymously, and privately handle age verification. To the best of my knowledge, no such system has been deployed or mandated.

Thus, we are left with only the requirement to hand over critical documents to those who have no "standards of care" that make it safe to do so.

Have none of these people ever heard of any company or government agency losing control of personal information? How about they put some effort into fixing that first.

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[Lemmy.ca Discussion] What should we do about Lemmit.online

I think that the active participation of members is how we get strong communities. One way to be an active participant is to take responsibility for what you want to see. If you don't like the bot, block it.

This is analogous to walking out of a movie you dislike rather than calling for it to be banned.

As far as I can tell, it's not breaking any terms of service or policy. That doesn't mean that terms of service and policy can't be modified, but that should be done only to address general principles, not specific cases. (Although it may be that a specific case makes obvious the need for change.)

canada

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Education assistant with racy OnlyFans account fired for what employer calls 'egregious' conduct | CBC News

As I said elsewhere in response to this story:

What's needed is for a bunch of education workers to hold a public rally somewhere off of school grounds with as many people as possible naked from the waist up.

Baring of breasts in public is legal in Canada. It should not be legal to fire someone for engaging in legal activities while not at the disposal of the employer. If what she was doing was legal, then it's nobody's business but hers.