-
28 votes
-
Hurricane season appears to be unofficially over, so let’s do a quick review and talk about bomb cyclones in the West
7 votes -
Job offer in a new city -- making friends?
Hi. I'm finishing my schooling and have received a job offer on the west coast (Vancouver). I also have comparably good, though marginally worse, job offers here on the east coast where I live...
Hi. I'm finishing my schooling and have received a job offer on the west coast (Vancouver). I also have comparably good, though marginally worse, job offers here on the east coast where I live (Toronto).
I'm familiar with Toronto and have many friends here or nearby, especially since I grew up and went to school not too far. However, the offer I have in Vancouver is "better" both in terms of compensation (though not that it makes a big difference) and in terms of the actual learning experience I would have on the job.
If this job was also in Toronto I would take it immediately with no hesitation. However, it being in Vancouver gives me some pause. I've visited the city and have some mutual, but not personal, friends there. The city overall is fairly agreeable, and I enjoy the nature and scenery a lot.
Question: have any of you made similar moves, how did you feel about it retrospectively, and how did you go about establishing a friend group outside of work?
18 votes -
FarfetchD & Def3 - Crossfire (2023)
4 votes -
Buy burned land
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California. There is...
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California.
There is no end in sight for this transition. So what can we do to at least mitigate the worst of its effects? I think the time to play defense over pure "wilderness" is long gone. The forests that haven't burned are still beautiful, but they're riddled with disease and so overgrown the ecosystems are permanently distorted.
Every year there is less pristine forest and more burned land. I'm a fourth generation Californian and the Portuguese side of the family still owns a ranch in the foothills from 1893. But I own nothing and the prospect of being able to afford land in California has forever been beyond my reach. Burned land needs to be rehabilitated in a thoughtful manner. I'm hoping once my daughter finishes college and our life starts a new chapter, that I can find a few acres where I can make the best environmental impact, such as a headwaters, then invite experts onto the land to teach me how to best heal it.
Every year I have this idea, and every year more areas become available (in the worst sense). I don't need to live on this land. I don't expect it to be much more than grasses and saplings for 20 years. I'd get out to it one or two weekends a month, rent some equipment and hire some folks as I could. I also understand that my original thought that this would be immune from future fire seasons is wrong. But at least the land can be designed to be as fire resistant as possible, with a clear understory and single large trees. And that is another part of the allure. This acreage would come with its own challenges for sure, but in some sense it is a blank slate. The permaculture people could show us how to remediate and reconstruct the land from the bones up.
I know this project would be an aggravating money sink, and even perhaps an unrealistic and irresponsible fantasy by someone untrained in forestry management. But there is so much burned land now. Every year another giant 4% stripe of California goes up in smoke. Yet this idea just doesn't catch on. It entails a lot of patience and work. I know it's not what most people want to hear. They want their idyllic cabin in Tahoe or nothing. But that time is quickly coming to an end and learning how to revive the forests that have been devastated is our only real choice.
Whenever I've tried to get serious about this, though, I learn that there is no market in burned land because there is hardly any profit to be made. No real estate agent that I can find is specializing in this because their clients are having to sell ruined land and burned buildings for pennies on the dollar. I've been advised that the best way is to find a specific spot, do my research, and approach the owner directly. But, again, there is so much burned land now I hardly know where to start. The Santa Cruz Mountains? The Sierra adjacent to Yosemite? Crater Lake in Oregon?
Any thoughts or ideas or resources would be appreciated.
25 votes -
Is cycling in the suburbs a lost cause?
20 votes -
The lone prospectors keeping the legacy of the gold rush alive
12 votes -
Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and undeniably Indigenous
49 votes -
Air Canada successfully sued after its AI chatbot gave BC passenger incorrect information: airline claimed it wasn't liable for what its own AI told customers
96 votes -
UBC student flies to school from Calgary (because Vancouver is that unaffordable to live in)
31 votes -
You don't need a license to walk
41 votes -
The neglected clean heat we flush down the drains
37 votes -
British Columbia, Canada: Family pets will no longer be considered property during divorce proceedings
15 votes -
Musical about tiny B.C. town returns to the stage... in Finland. Sointula chronicles the charismatic leader who founded the town and dreamed of building a socialist utopia.
9 votes -
Edison Motors: Meet the British Columbia lumberjacks who set out to build a hybrid electric logging truck
16 votes -
British Columbia declares state of emergency amid ‘devastating’ wildfires
35 votes -
Canada’s $30bn gamble to become an energy superpower
11 votes -
British Columbia embarks on bold experiment to decriminalize hard drugs - Possession of small amounts of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs will be allowed in Canada’s westernmost province
10 votes -
Huge 36" snowfall at Whistler made it almost impossible to snowboard some sections, glad I had my camera with me!
4 votes -
Family-friendly drag show in Victoria, BC cancelled after violent threats
5 votes -
British Columbia fishing guide catches and releases giant 10.6-foot (3.2M), 600-pound (272kg) white sturgeon
10 votes -
Flood damage cuts all rail access to Canada's largest port of Vancouver
15 votes -
Aidan Knight - Sixteen Stares (2020)
2 votes -
The ingenious ancient technology concealed in the shallows
7 votes -
'Forest gardens’ show how Native land stewardship can outdo nature
12 votes -
Beavers chewed through a cable and knocked out internet service to hundreds in a Canadian town
6 votes -
Unleash The Archers - Abyss (2020)
6 votes -
Dub Poets Collective - Soufflé de vie (2020)
4 votes -
Sexism in technology
11 votes -
RIP Captain Jen Casey -RCAF Snowbirds Public Affairs Officer that perished in crash today
7 votes -
Kid Koala - 2 Bit Blues (2012)
3 votes -
RCMP are raiding Wet’suwet’en land defender camps
5 votes -
"World's first" fully-electric commercial flight takes off
13 votes -
Former British Columbia lawmaker and deputy speaker of the BC government says he was detained by China in 2015, had his government phone searched, and was accused of "endangering national security".
6 votes -
93% of British Columbians want to scrap changing clocks for daylight time, survey says
11 votes -
Open Privacy discovers sensitive patient medical information is being broadcast unencrypted across Vancouver by hospital paging systems
9 votes -
Nikkei secrets unearthed on the Seymour: Digging up a forgotten Japanese outpost
4 votes -
Police believe they have found the bodies of fugitives Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky in northern Manitoba, ending a cross-Canada search for the men suspected of killing three people in BC
6 votes -
Death and broken livelihoods: Farmers and wildfires in British Columbia
4 votes -
Canada passes Bill C-68, overhauling the Fisheries Act and banning import and export of shark fins
9 votes -
If only experienced cyclists feel safe in a bike lane, then is it a bike lane at all? In Vancouver, a shift to “AAA” (all ages and abilities) bike lanes
15 votes -
About $7.4 billion in dirty money was laundered in British Columbia in 2018, hiking the cost of buying a home by about 5%
10 votes -
Hey Ocean! - A Song About California (2009)
3 votes -
Hey Ocean! - Make a New Dance Up (2013)
4 votes -
British Columbia ending interest on new and existing student loans
10 votes -
Unleash the Archers - Awakening (2017)
10 votes -
Dead Rising studio Capcom Vancouver shuts down
8 votes -
Vancouver man charged with ignoring medical health officer's orders for HIV treatment
7 votes -
Three Canadian cities make top ten on global ranking of most livable cities
7 votes -
Devin Townsend Project - By Your Command (Live in Plovdiv 2017)
4 votes