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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Barring any global events probably. I am quite fortunate.

    To start with me and my wife are both sw engineers.

    I earn some nice big company stock, from when I started to 5 years later it’s 10x’d. I was a few years late to really hit jackpot but I still made a lot and will hopefully continue to gain. My company also matches the first 6% of my rrsp (a 401k for canadains) and I contribute 8%. I also have a maxed tfsa.

    I am a pretty aggressive budgeter so I make sure we spend below our means and build uo other savings as well.

    There’s a bit of a “problem” at my company where many of the senior staff basically have blank cheques because only they understand the overall architecture. I hope to also end up in this position. I knew a guy that worked 2 half days a week for at least 2x my salary with vacation time to boot. All he did was answer questions for a few hours then go home.

    I bought a house during a panic price drop in 2020 got a really cheap price and then sold it for a huge profit and bought a run down duplex that is a bad investment property but a good place to live for my polycule (in a super walkable neighborhood to boot!). I plan to die in This house. I got what will probably be an all time low interest rate of 1.7% and have been paying it off faster than necessary. When it renews next year at 4-5% I will hopefully keep the same monthly. If my monthly doesn’t grow above that then I’ll be pretty on track to have it paid off before I turn 45, giving me more money to save and also lowering the amount I need a month.

    If interest rates go down or me/wife gets some nice promotions or my company stock does another big climb then kids might even be on the table.


  • The petition was ostentatiously for “free speech and the right to bear arms” created by elon musk. If you signed this petition (which collects a lot of data for the republican party) and also registered to vote you could enter a lottery to win a million bucks. If said lottery was purely chance then that’s against election laws. Elon thus argues that he rigged it intentionally, to quote the article they were " not chosen at random but based on their “suitability” to serve as PAC spokespeople." This latest lawsuit is from petition signing who thought they were entering a true lottery and were thus (allegedly) fraudulently mislead.

    Signing the original petition definitely helped trump and the republican party.



  • saigot@lemmy.catopolitics @lemmy.worldQuick Note on the Election:
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    8 days ago
    1. No self posts.

    I strongly think this rule should change, it is important we are able to humanize each other, make our own arguments. Self posts are important way to do that. I think some guidelines to keep it constructive and high effort is warranted but an outright ban I’m against.

    1. No meme/image/shitposting.

    I’m fine with this, but maybe a weekly mega thread to blow off steam in would be healthy?

    No calls for violence. Full stop.

    I understand the legal obligations here. I’ll also point out the president elect is openly calling for widespread violence. If some can say “cops should shoot/arrest/deport <xyz>” that is a call for violence.

    Mods, You have a hard, thankless job, so thank you.



  • Where I live you can either use those cornstarch types or paper bags (very similar to yard waste bags). I like the paper bag for the big bin that goes in the roadside, but cornstarch ones for the one in the kitchen that only sticks around a day or two. Perhaps raise the idea with your local council.

    I prefer curbside system because it is able to accept many things that my at home compost can’t handle like dog shit, meats and those biodegradable “plastics” that need industrial facilities. Also apartments.









  • A certainty.

    Liberals have been in power for a decade at this point (5th-6th longest term in history depending on when exactly the election happens), and have picked up a ton of baggage, from corruption scandals (some more manufactured than others) , oil pipeline flubs that left everyone mad, blackface scandal, political interference, broken promises of electoral reform, even a divorce. They currently hang on to an extremely weak minority with the NDP. The only reason there hasn’t already been an election is that the NDP is too broke to put up a real fight.

    Anyone right of centre will literally foam at the mouth at the mention of Trudeau, anyone left of centre is disappointed and disinterested. The NDP is likely to pick up seats, but they have never held power and the current leader is seen as pretty weak, they don’t stand a good chance of gaining power.

    the conservative party is polling with a 20point lead right now, look at this map. Furthermore they have been taking a hard right turn over the last few years to avoid losing out to a far-right party that has emerged, the new leader poilievre is a populist and the furthest right I have ever seen a viable Canadian candidate. He’s also french speaking, which has traditionally been a strength of the liberals and weakness of the CPC. He is actively campaigning on reducing trans folks (and especially trans children) access to healthcare, ending the carbon tax, reducing immigration and has been dog whistling hard about restricting abortion.

    The question is not If he takes power, but rather how quickly we can rebuild left wing power and how much can we mitigate the damage. Personally I hope Greens pick up a few seats, liberals get their shit together within a year and no-confidence Mr.PP. He mostly won’t be winning because he’s popular but rather his opponents are politically radioactive.



  • saigot@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlOn prison abolition
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    14 days ago

    I don’t think you can start with prison reform.

    You can’t rehabilitate someone who is stealing out of necessity or because they are mentally unwell. Have to start with providing UBI and universal Healthcare (including and especially mental health and addiction rehab). Probably also should solve homelessness and provide cheap educational options too.

    Once that’s in start improving prisons, make them not slums, provide some ways to keep up with the times (an excon with no concept of the internet is not going to be functional in today’s society) and provide job programs and some way of protecting excons from excessive discrimination. The number one metric to measure the success of a prison should be the recitivism rate.

    Now maybe after all this is done there’s a few people who cannot be classified as insane and are deadset on committing violent crimes. I will point out that a lot of organized crime would fall apart when there isn’t a fresh supply of disenfranchised people to exploit at the bottom and a lot of white collar crime does not need full exclusion from society more than exclusion from the system they were exploiting.thise few remaining murders and terrorists can go be in prison.

    Tldr: to fix prisons you must first fix society.