Wow, I lived in Canada for almost 6 years, and never knew that Canada spends so little on roads.
There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
91–100 of 477 posts
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#92Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never had Google try to take me anywhere really ridiculous and I've played with its routing algorithm in places like Death Valley and it does seem to avoid "interesting" shortcuts if there's a more reasonable alternative. But once you get below well-traveled paved roads, you probably want some local knowledge because there's not a lot of mapping data that differentiated between a well-graded, good condition dirt…
I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.
There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow and Google probably applies various corrections. But there are plenty of tracks, especially in the American West, where their status as a "road" is somewhat a function of weather and opinion.
[1] https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series...
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.
I don't have one personally but if I did more solo hiking in more remote areas, especially in the Western US I'd probably break down and get one. Cell service isn't dependable and I'd likely convince myself that it was cheap insurance in the grand scheme of things. Of course, people managed for a very long time without having the ability to call for help or check in and they generally were OK with that. (And calling…
People also died in the back woods a lot more than they do now. There are tons of injuries that go from minor to fatal if you don’t have timely rescue. A rescue beacon or call doesn’t guarantee a good outcome, but it drastically changes the odds.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Castanet is gloriously imperfect. I hope they never change and never fade away. It's exactly what it looks like: a hodge-podged effort by some local folks with little experience and ability among them, besides an earnest desire to report local news with a local perspective, that has stood the test of time (it launched in 2000!).
So, an outsider's perspective: 1. It loads super quick 2. The list of articles is clear and easy to scan 3. There aren't a shit ton of adverts 4. There are no bloody popups, cookie notices, donate banners, etc. 5. The entire page doesn't load, me start reading then suddenly completely greyed out with an overlay because of badly implemented 4 6. No auto-playing videos that are impossible to find to stop If this is 90s…
To add to this, it appears to work perfectly without lifting any of my NoScript restrictions.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#96One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…
That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.
They're super common now for backcountry hikers and trail runners. The plans start at $15 a month on a per-month plan (no lock in).
There has been speculation that Apple would build this into their phones, which IMHO would be a killer feature. Imagine having an emergency feature that could be used anywhere on earth. How much would you pay per text? $5 per text message would be an absolute bargain in many of these remote locations.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#97Lower Mainland Secessionists-- this is your moment!
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Castanet is gloriously imperfect. I hope they never change and never fade away. It's exactly what it looks like: a hodge-podged effort by some local folks with little experience and ability among them, besides an earnest desire to report local news with a local perspective, that has stood the test of time (it launched in 2000!).
So, an outsider's perspective: 1. It loads super quick 2. The list of articles is clear and easy to scan 3. There aren't a shit ton of adverts 4. There are no bloody popups, cookie notices, donate banners, etc. 5. The entire page doesn't load, me start reading then suddenly completely greyed out with an overlay because of badly implemented 4 6. No auto-playing videos that are impossible to find to stop If this is 90s…
The key with 90s web design is the relative absence of Javascript. There's virtually no asynchronous requests; and Castanet works fine with NoScript, most modern sites do not.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Castanet is gloriously imperfect. I hope they never change and never fade away. It's exactly what it looks like: a hodge-podged effort by some local folks with little experience and ability among them, besides an earnest desire to report local news with a local perspective, that has stood the test of time (it launched in 2000!).
So, an outsider's perspective: 1. It loads super quick 2. The list of articles is clear and easy to scan 3. There aren't a shit ton of adverts 4. There are no bloody popups, cookie notices, donate banners, etc. 5. The entire page doesn't load, me start reading then suddenly completely greyed out with an overlay because of badly implemented 4 6. No auto-playing videos that are impossible to find to stop If this is 90s…
Is this a perspective on Castanet?
Because there is literally at least one super distracting animated GIF ad in view 100% of the time while I scroll that page (which, on my iPhone, is not exactly easily readable due to lack of responsiveness).
On the OP article I see zero ads but I think that’s possibly my PiHole kicking in (which notable fails to block any of the presumably locally hosted adds on Castanet).
I agree with some of your other points but let’s not go to far :)
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#100For just a bit of context/anecdata, I'm talking to my brother who lives in Vancouver and he wasn't even aware this was a problem. The road closure[0] on hwy 1 near Abbotsford/Chilliwack is a good one hour drive away from Vancouver core[1]. So while it sounds noteworthy for an entire city be technically flooded in, unless you were driving to the boonies, you're probably not actually impacted in any meaningful way.
He also mentioned the weather cleared since yesterday, so floods should start to subside. You can follow the updates here[2]
[0] https://www.drivebc.ca/mobile/pub/events/id/DBC-35180.html
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vancouver,+BC,+Canada/Abbots...