John Doe 🍁

To me, Church is the most obvious candidate for this in the history of the world which is why it'll never happen

"shuttle buses are not operating"

What the fuck?

"Hi everyone, sorry the subway is down for planned work! No, you don't have another option to get around"

These new apartments would be great for local seniors to downsize into. This development would destroy zero housing.

"beloved Lawrence plaza"

I live nearby and frequently avoid going there

Crossing the parking lot to get to Metro is insane

OH BABY

The only parasocial relationship I have is with Adonis and if he shows up in the emails I'm going to be UPSET

I live close to Lawrence square and it's actually incredible how often I specifically avoid going there becuase of how much of a nightmare it is to walk the 50 feet from my car to the stores, it's basically a highway between the parking lots in the middle and the stores on the outside

You can't follow toronto city council closely and maintain good health.

Like many things good in Toronto and environs, it succeeds in spite of itself

Two things are true:

1) living today in a developed country is scary/uncertain and we are backsliding

2) since I've been born, I've witnessed the greatest improvement in worldwide quality of life in history

The people who want to go back to some "golden age" are full of shit

I went through it today and... It's... Actually really nice?? We can still build nice things!

It's such a pain to have to wait 5 mins to cross the Allen (and having cars stopped on the crosswalk every time). What an improvement

"I wish I didn't have to pay 50% of my paycheck to a landlord"

"Smh you yimbys only care about your personal interests"

This will not be news to regular readers, but it's worth noting whenever Toronto council debates housing (or transportation or neighbourhood amenities) that just three of the 25 wards absorbed three-quarters of the city's population growth between 2016 and 2021

Almost everywhere in the City of Toronto has fewer people that it did 50 years ago

In my brief block by block encounters with crossing guards I see how drivers menace them, inching towards. What a whole shift must be like.

The Premier and other politicians, Toronto Police, other forces, have taken the lid of all this. A death drive amid other bs rhetoric of public safety.

Your elected officials loudly hate when their wards are successful, culturally or economically. This is why Toronto is where it is

Your elected official would rather save 3 minutes on their commute than make their ward an interesting/good place to live, and that is not an exaggeration

Small government conservative wants to define a list of what stores can sell so they don't accidently sell zany things with little value

Really love how much conservatives care about small government and cutting red tape

This is also why any serious conversation about govt efficiency needs to begin with "we need to pay govt employees way more"

Incompetence is *expensive*

Imagine working for Metrolinx.

I would get fired if I printed an incorrect number on page 48 of our investor reporting package, meanwhile these guys get to fuck up all day, every day, while getting taxpayer money, hide their mistakes from the taxpayers, and nothing ever happens

Holyday absolutely fucking loves taxes

This is really bad, actually

This has been my gripe for a long time now. If you took the words seriously, rigorously, if we established a clear right to housing in the Charter, then you'd basically nuke municipal zoning nearly in its entirety — certainly as it's practiced in Ontario.

One of the biggest reasons why I can't wait until I have a bigger place is so that my parents would no longer have to spend $1000+ every time they want to come see me here, it's insane

This pre-emptively ruined my weekend thank you so much

Gonna email Doug and tell him I'd do it for $8M, and he'd have it tomorrow

To be more specific. We have been forced to use AI to check our outputs at work. We know what went in, we know what should come out

~ 50% of the time, the AI check is incorrect, and forces us to do MORE work to figure out why it was wrong. It's been a significantly negative-value product for us

The reason average people think chatgpt is magic is becuase the use it to search for things that *they don't know*

The second you start using it for things you're adept in, it's so blindingly obvious how bad it is

"Summarize this file that I haven't read"

Vs

"Summarize this file that I wrote"

Make public sector work an aspirational goal with a competitive hiring process by paying above market rates

Fire underperformers quickly

Send corrupt officials to jail

It is a massive, massive problem that I make as much money as the MAYOR OF TORONTO

I move numbers around a spreadsheet and have few direct reports. The mayor of Toronto manages... Toronto

The mayor should be pulling 7-digits

Like the entire point of govt is to be a monopoly. Govt should be the biggest bully on the block when it comes to poaching talent, and just as big of a bully when it comes to releasing underperformers