Random Rants Q': I protest against subtitles

[Broken_Erika]

There goes my ability to go anywhere in Ontario on my own

Greyhound Canada shutting down all bus service permanently

Company will no longer offer domestic service, but U.S. affiliate will still offer cross-border routes


Greyhound Canada is shutting down all of its remaining bus routes in Canada, permanently.

The bus company says all of its remaining routes will cease operations as of midnight Thursday.

The iconic bus carrier pulled out of Western Canada in 2018.

It then put its remaining routes in Ontario and Quebec on pause when COVID-19 hit in 2020, but now it is pulling out of domestic Canadian service permanently.

"A full year without revenue has unfortunately made it impossible to continue operations," spokesperson Stuart Kendrick said. "We deeply regret the impact this has on our staff and our customers, as well as the communities we have had the privilege of serving for many years."

Greyhound Canada has been in operation in one form or another for nearly a century. The company says anyone with a ticket booked can get a refund up until the end of June.

• Is German FlixBus the fix for Canada's bus woes?

Anthony Perl, a professor of urban studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., says the news did not come as a surprise, since the company's business model has been on a slow decline.

Financial challenges
"They're a for-profit company and they've proven after trying for decades that you can't make a profit trying these routes with relatively small populations," he said in an interview.

He says governments need to step up to fill the gap to ensure that bus-based transportation networks can exist, either by subsidizing them like urban bus systems or by helping to develop a hybrid model such as a co-operative, which many other countries have seen success with.

• Greyhound service in Western Canada stops at midnight: Now what?

• Void left by Greyhound unlikely to be filled by smaller bus companies

"Bus services are an essential part of the future because of their lower environmental impact," he said. "We just have to think of a way to make it economically viable."

While Greyhound bus service between Canadian destinations will end, Greyhound's U.S. parent will continue to operate five cross-border routes that either start or finish in the U.S. They are:

• Toronto to Buffalo, N.Y.
• Toronto to New York City.
• Montreal to Boston.
• Montreal to New York City.
• Vancouver to Seattle.

In Windsor, Ont., bus patron Bobbi Day says she would normally use Greyhound to travel to Toronto on a regular basis, so she was disappointed to hear of the shutdown.

"We need more transportation here, not less," she told CBC News in an interview. "I'm going to have to carpool, I guess."

Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says the federal government was also disappointed to hear of the company's decision, because so many communities depend on bus service to connect them to the rest of the country.

"We will work with our provincial partners to explore options to address this gap and provide Canadians with safe, reliable and affordable transportation across the country," he said in a Twitter post.


The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents workers at the bus line, says about 400 jobs will be lost, of which 305 were unionized positions, and governments must bear some of the blame.

"The collapse of Greyhound was not a foregone conclusion; this could have been avoided if our federal and provincial governments actually cared about those in remote communities who relied on intercity bus service," ATU president John Di Nino said.


The federal NDP also laid blame on the government. "The loss of all remaining Greyhound bus routes leaves many communities without affordable, safe passenger transportation," Transportation Critic Taylor Bachrach said in a release. "And it disproportionately affects the most marginalized residents, including Indigenous people and seniors."

Conservative Shadow Minister for Rural Development Dane Lloyd said it is telling that the company is choosing to stay in business in the U.S. but not in Canada.

"As Greyhound continues to operate in the United States, it is difficult not to place the blame squarely on the dire economic situation in Canada," he said.


Prof. Perl agrees there are major equity issues at play because the communities and groups most likely to depend on a service like Greyhound are those who were already disadvantaged.

"It's often groups that have been treated less than fairly as a whole, First Nations communities, women of colour ... You're really condemning people to economic and social isolation," he said.

"Marginalized groups will be most affected."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/greyhound-canada-1.6025276

 

[Ajidica]

I thought you Canadians just rode moose everywhere, or canoed down the maple syrup rivers?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I thought you Canadians just rode moose everywhere, or canoed down the maple syrup rivers?

There are a lot of communities that are far enough apart that if you don't drive or have someone to take you, the bus was your only way to leave town (other than hitchiking, which is illegal in some areas and very dangerous anywhere).

No Greyhound is why I had to rely on a seniors' centre to get me to the hospital in a neighboring town for my eye surgeries two years ago. No Greyhound or any other public transport for disabled people outside the city is why I'm stuck here - no matter if we have a pandemic or not.

It's nice that they had a bus route between Calgary and Banff-Canmore so people could spend a few hours there in the mountains and return. That would do a world of good for my mental health if I could do that. But I'd need to get to Calgary first.

As I said in the comments on CBC, it's ludicrous for them to "pause" service for a year due to the pandemic, then claim that the routes haven't been profitable for the past year. Of course you won't make money if you're not providing the service.


Some would consider this a rant and others a rave: Jason Kenney's caucus is revolting.

I mean that in the verb sense. In the adjective sense, they have always been revolting. Two who took it to social media have been booted and are sitting as independents.

 

[r16]

ı was ejected out of dreamland at about 6:45 this morning . Driving the Civ lll Balrog around , because ı got my second at 450th turn and will possibly use it as my primary unit in my invasion of Angmar , ı noticed ransomware style sentences and lines , things you can't read being a random mix of letters . This second probably comes from reading a blog article on cyberwarfare in which like any State suffers from random ransonware attacks with XP or Windows 7/8 being in abundant supply in any Goverment service .

though getting an open eye after like 3 hours of sleep was brutal , ı have no doubt ı could have solved it on my own with my other Balrog in its private army and 3 dragons , so maybe the Dreamcaster was telling me something ? Like a possibility when the curfews end so that the webcafes will be open ? Not following any social media , ı heard it later than the city or whatever that her friends might invite the Stuntwoman to a wedding or something this summer , lovely in view of the current rocket battles in Palestine and nobody thinks anybody of loudest will volunteer to be down there on their own , and this boils up ? Even the infighting between mafia bosses can spill over like because some rich guy in the big city nearby hass been named as the buyer of cocaine in South America to be placed on ships and they might try impress people with paying people to teach a lesson to third parties to look big and mean and scary ?

come on , am over 50 like totally , am old enough to summon a Balrog for real !

 

[The_J]

Had a 1h phone call with my GF, and we nearly broke up.
5 minutes later she calls and said it would be silly, and asked if I'll fly over next week.
I don't like the rollercoaster, and I'm not fully buying the current status either. Told her I'll book the flight on Sunday, but only if we talk the next 2 days. Let's see.

 

[Kyriakos]

While I think that the fantasy fiction seminar is better than my first one, it pays less (because it is roughly 4/6 the size of the other seminar). It also seems that I won't realistically be getting thousands of euros/month like I did (only) once.
This is a bad state of affairs, given it means I have (again!) to create something new for added pay.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

While I think that the fantasy fiction seminar is better than my first one, it pays less (because it is roughly 4/6 the size of the other seminar). It also seems that I won't realistically be getting thousands of euros/month like I did (only) once.
This is a bad state of affairs, given it means I have (again!) to create something new for added pay.

Do these have to be in any specific area? Or can you do them on any topic you want?

Reason I'm asking is because history seems to be popular now. There are several medieval/Tudor YouTube channels I follow, partly for research (as the presenters actually experiment with what they're talking about so they're not just regurgitating something they read in a book), and partly because I appreciate knowing what parts of the historical fiction/drama I read and watch are authentic and what parts the author/producers just made up.

(in some cases, I already know what parts they just made up; in the case of Reign, the only parts they didn't make up were that Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Catherine de Medici were all real people; the rest is organic bovine waste)

 

[Kyriakos]

They don't have to be in literature again, but it's not like I have an established line for non-literature (insofar as seminars which I was ever paid to do; the philosophy ones were only offline and paid little). I don't want to do a philosophy seminar anyway.

 

[Gori the Grey]

So I guess me and the other 52% of the population who like mustard on a hamburger can just suck it, eh?

 

[The_J]

What's wrong with people?
https://www.gmx.net/magazine/panora...ngeleinten-hund-angeklagter-schweigt-35822650
1 guy went out with his dog. He meets someone else who's dog is not on a leash, and tells him to put it on. They get in a fight, and later the other guy (without leash) talks himself into a rage, goes to find the guy (with leash) and kills him with a knife.
What?
There are many reasons where I can follow why you'd kill someone. Gang rivalry. Drugs. Cheating spouse. Lots of money. Fine. Makes sense.
But because you got told to put your dog on a leash?
Seriously...people...

 

[Kyriakos]

What's wrong with people?
https://www.gmx.net/magazine/panora...ngeleinten-hund-angeklagter-schweigt-35822650
1 guy went out with his dog. He meets someone else who's dog is not on a leash, and tells him to put it on. They get in a fight, and later the other guy (without leash) talks himself into a rage, goes to find the guy (with leash) and kills him with a knife.
What?
There are many reasons where I can follow why you'd kill someone. Gang rivalry. Drugs. Cheating spouse. Lots of money. Fine. Makes sense.
But because you got told to put your dog on a leash?
Seriously...people...

Why not? Obviously the crucial concept here isn't cause, but trigger. You don't need the trigger to be very strongly tied to the objective cause, much like (as contrast) you don't need more reasons to examine some specific variation of a function if your test explicitly asks you to do just that. Some people carry unresolved questions from a tied test.

 

[Zkribbler]

Aging is the pits. I was having dizzy spells this afternoon. I thought maybe it was a stroke. In retrospect, I think it was most probably hyperacidity. I took a couple of Maalox, belched, and felt much more stable.

Rigo had been working on his house in Mabini, but he's come back. There might be one place in Jagna that has an EEG, but more likely we'll have to go into Tag.

 

[Tee Kay]

borrowing someone else's rant because this is so very much me irl

 

[The_J]

Why not? Obviously the crucial concept here isn't cause, but trigger. You don't need the trigger to be very strongly tied to the objective cause, much like (as contrast) you don't need more reasons to examine some specific variation of a function if your test explicitly asks you to do just that. Some people carry unresolved questions from a tied test.

I do understand what you say, but I'd hope that people would have some restraint.
Just saw something else: https://www.gmx.net/magazine/regio/...tiegen-kunde-sticht-kaputter-flasche-35824260
Customer attacked employee at a takeaway with a broken bottle, because the falafel price had been raised by 50 cents.
Seriously.
I that the lockdown effect or something? My god.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Aging is the pits. I was having dizzy spells this afternoon. I thought maybe it was a stroke. In retrospect, I think it was most probably hyperacidity. I took a couple of Maalox, belched, and felt much more stable.

Dehydration can also cause dizziness. Drink lots of water every day.

 

[The_J]

The neighbours above me are renovating, Normally not a problem, but today they started drilling from 8 on. I normally sleep until 9:30 . I hope they'll be done today and don't have to continue tomorrow.

 

[Samson]

I am so gutted. I think my car is broken, but not broken enough to get fixed.

I hardly ever use it ATM, and I went to get my second jab today and as usually had to charge up the battery first. It goes fine, but the roof refuses to go down and the stereo thinks it is stolen and beeps to make it unlistenable. I have a rule that I will not pay a professional to fix a car if it still goes, turns and stops (with a concession to the man these days of getting the paperwork in order). I may be able to fix it, but I am not hopeful about the stereo in particular

 

[Kyriakos]

Books suck. Particularly if you start a new one without having finished the previous one. Now I have 75 pages for one book, and half of another book (something like 200, but those are far smaller pages, so ultimately roughly the same as for the first).

 

[Sarin]

Books suck. Particularly if you start a new one without having finished the previous one. Now I have 75 pages for one book, and half of another book (something like 200, but those are far smaller pages, so ultimately roughly the same as for the first).

It's not the book's fault that you can't pay attention to it. Even with hundreds of video games, movies and TV series at my fingertips, books are among my favorite means of entertainment that can be done at home without specific kind of company.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's not the book's fault that you can't pay attention to it. Even with hundreds of video games, movies and TV series at my fingertips, books are among my favorite means of entertainment that can be done at home without specific kind of company.

It was a joke, Sarin. If I actually thought books sucked, I wouldn't be reading them.