The parent comment is likely referring to Highway 17, which is the only road connection between Manitoba and Ontario. A boulder once fell on this highway leading to its closure for a period of time.
I've seen this incident be the subject of hyperbolic clickbait articles and YouTube videos discussing the complete cutting off of East and West Canada (conveniently ignoring the realities articulated by your comment). Perhaps the parent comment is vaguely aware of incidents like this and is extrapolating to unfounded conclusions?
While you make a strong point, I'm not ready to cede it. Canada has winter storms that will close that road, albeit for shorter periods of time than the boulder situation. Being able to re-route through the US is critical during that time.
I don't really see how the Highway 17 situation is unique in the context of winter storms though. As per the comment above this, most transit of East and West goods occurs via other means, meaning the Highway 17 bottleneck is hardly some vital artery. A winter storm shutting down Highway 401 for example is much more economically chaotic, and has the practical impact of making travel through its corridor impractical (and in some circumstances just as impossible as if it were a single bottleneck). This scenario does periodically happen, and people manage just fine since the closures are expected to be short-lived.
So I don't buy the argument that Canada needs the US because of the threat of transit networks being completely cut off. I am much more amiable to the argument that reciprocal road tolls like this would be stupid because they'd increase the cost of goods for all of us (Canadians and Americans alike). As noted earlier, the fastest route between East and West is through the US due to geography. But or course things like this are stupid, and I doubt an argument as to why is required here. Maybe we should pull back and stop doing all this nonsense like arbitrary tariffs on close allied nations? Especially those who's explicit purpose as described by the elected head of state is to threaten the sovereignty of the other?
Your point is terrible though. How many people live in Kenora? 15,000? There's not a highway of trucks that are backed up from Kenora, anything that needs to be transported to Winnipeg will come from the West coast, and anything to Toronto will come straight down the St.Lawrence.
As much as I would love this to happen, a high-speed rail network has been discussed along this corridor for decades at both federal and provincial governments, with no tangible actions to making it actually happen. Given the current Prime Minister is on his way out, and the party likely to follow (barring some large swing in the polls), this is unlikely to go anywhere. I'd love to be wrong though.
How is it that America and Canada are both well saturated with freight rail, but getting the right of ways and building permits for high speed rail is evidently a completely different animal? I understand that high speed rail needs different right of ways than lower speed rails, larger turns and all that, but it seems like the processes for getting shit done in one case should at least cross over to the other.
Or is it the case that all the rail we already have is from an era when we were still competent at building, and if we had to do it all over from scratch we wouldn't even be able to get freight rail done?
Our freight rail wasn’t built in recent history. Something about our cultural shifts in the interim has made it that no matter how desirable something is, we can’t possibly do it without spending a decade studying it. Governance by bureaucracy.
My personal suspicion is that when countries have excess, they waste it by CYA with endless bureaucracy. But when countries are hungry and striving for excess they are more practical and will literally and figuratively move mountains to make things happen.
Has anyone outside of China tried to tackle the kinds of long distances there are in Canada? If it costs this many billions to do it just from Toronto to Quebec City then yeah I could easily picture cutting through extant farmland across a nationas big as that one to be an incredibly expensive undertaking. Pretty sure Canada has worse problems than not having high speed rail right now in terms of money
When I hear of infrastructure projects like this, It reminds me of that article about why we can't build anything anymore. Due to regulations, studies, and a myriad of other things, there is no chance. It will cost billions in just an environmental assessment and take a decade. Unfortunately, we don't have a system where projects like this are feasible.
REM is a rare example of anglosphere building, which is ironic since it's driven by french Quebec.
REM is an extreme outlier though. Canada is filled with failed or failing transit projects that are all desperately needed:
Metrolinx is many years overdue and billions over budget on Line 5. Line 6 is also overdue, but is getting a pass since it's only bad and not horrifying. Metrolinx seems to have learned some lessons for the Ontario Line, but it's also over budget and unlikely to keep anything close to its schedule.
Calgary has spent over a decade working on the Green Line and is still a long way from putting shovels in the ground.
Vancouver keeps slipping on delivering the Broadstreet Skytrain expansion. At least Translink does seem to have reverted to the original Skytrain design pattern that has been so incredibly successful for the Expo Line expansion.
Quebec City tried for a LRT and couldn't even get the project started the cost spiralled so much and got down to a single bidder before they scrapped it and started again.
My own home of Kitchener-Waterloo managed to build an LRT and keep costs reasonable, but costs on phase 2 to Cambridge are terrifying for at-grade construction. Many euro nations have delivered full underground metros for much less per km. We've also been promised and are waiting for all day regional rail service for a decade+.
I'm a huge fan of transit, but it's hard to be optimistic.
I am glad to see CDPQ (who did REM) is part of the high speed rail proposal. They have shown a real ability to make smart value engineering choices and actually deliver projects. Is it enough to actually build some trains? I'm not sure, even if we ignore the political uncertainly surrounding the project.
As long as they remain "public-private partnerships" the goal for the private part of that relationship will be to extract as much money as possible out of the public for as long as possible.
When the contents of his book get more widely disseminated he's done. Right now Trump is just dominating headlines so anti-Trump sentiment is high. And even then Carney's still behind the Conservatives by a fairly wide margin.
This is perfect timing. Assuming that the Conservatives are going to win the next election, there are now two options:
- the Conservatives kill the project before significant money is spent
- the Conservatives can proceed with the project knowing that it won't be killed in 4 or 8 years if/when the Liberals go back in power. (On the off chance that the NDP forms the succeeding government, they'll have likely taken a position on the project in this election).
You aren't watching politics right now are you? It's happening in real time. It is actually quite dramatic - the US/CDN relationship is superseding most other political issues.
I thought this comment was bluster and looked it up.
Sigh.
Even Canadians dislike us now. How bad do you have to screw up that the Canadians dislike you? All I can say is that, (maybe?), this will only last the four years.
I'm sure conservative Canadian parties did not think Trump and Vance would go off the deep end. Neither did a whole lot of conservative Americans. But buyer's remorse won't get anyone anywhere at this point. Just have to try make the best of what you can and live with the consequences with respect to the rest.
Unfortunately for conservative Canadian parties, it's looking like that probably means absorbing some impact at the polls at this point.
> How bad do you have to screw up that the Canadians dislike you?
You just have to ignore a long standing positive relationship, threaten to annex the country, threaten to destroy its economy, and make a bunch of unfounded claims about fentanyl trafficking. Easy-peasy.
I would say that this feels like a significant rupture in the relationship completely borne out of a very disrespectful position. Trying to brow-beat population into submission typically doesn't really work that well for long-term relationships.
Even if most Canadians do recognize that the population isn't the administration it does give people pause and they certainly look to spend their money elsewhere until the people in power look to build upon relationships with their allies instead of trying to dominate them.
It'll die out and people will remember that 9 years of Liberal rule has destroyed our quality of life and we've lost ground to all our peer countries...
True question is how cons respond. Agree could just be a short bounce but I think cons have been considered MAGA lite so gen public eyes them suspiciously.
I'm not telling you any of my political preferences I'm pointing out how it will play out in the national campaign and how it has already roiled the polls. Canadians don't trust him to support the Canadian interests at least at the current moment - it's a big problem for him and the national conservatives.
Poilievre very consciously mimics Trump in slogans, style, etc. Just look at this picture and tell me it doesn't remind you of something: [0].
The question is whether Canadians want to elect someone who models himself after Trump at a time when Trump is threatening to end Canada's existence as a sovereign nation.
It's Poilievre in front of Canadian flags... Every leader of every country stands in front of their country's flag...
I guess it would be jarring to Canadians, who have a current leader who called us a post-national state and said immigrants are more Canadian than people born in Canada...
Sovereignty? There is no Canadian party that supports joining the US. If you think there is then you've really been drinking the Kool-Aid...
Edit - To add to this, read Carney's book or listen to his various speeches prior to him starting this political run... Carney doesn't believe in nations, wants to pursue a globalist future, he's been in Trudeau's ear for years and Trudeau's "post-nationalism" is very much something Carney believes in. But yeah, sure, Carney now decides he's a nationalist...
I didn't say that. It is the USA making the threats. This is causing a huge sudden swing in polls. You seem to think this momentum will "die out" why would Canadians begin to care less about sovereignty as time goes on?
Implying sovereignty is an issue at all is implying that one party cares more about it than the other...
This is a popular leftist talking point at the moment but it's far from the truth and as more information about both parties' and leaders' beliefs is disseminated yes, the momentum will die out.
The President of the United States of America has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. He calls the Prime Minister of Canada the "governor of Canada." He refuses to rule out the use of force or massive economic coercion. He's repeated this over and over again, and when asked if he's serious, he says he is.
This isn't a "leftist talking point." It's the President of the US making open threats, and Canadians are taking those threats seriously.
What you people don't seem to comprehend is that every political party in Canada has the same views on this matter. If every party has the same policy in regards to an issue, it's not an election issue.
By claiming it is you're claiming one party isn't going to defend Canadian sovereignty.
It's very obvious the constituents feel like one party values the issue more than another as the polls are showing??? Not sure what your trying to say here I feel the goalpost keeps moving...
Hardly, this has been discussed in parliament for years already, and the crown corporation responsible for it was established in 2022. It's not like the PM just woke up one day and decided to build a train before he resigns.
I am aware it has been discussed for years. I’ve been following it like many Canadians in the media. To my knowledge, this amount of financial commitment for only the planning stage is the first it was made known widely. If that is true, don’t you think it would deserve debate?
I guess we won’t know what support there is if there aren’t debates about this monetary commitment. I have only followed this in the media (presumably like most Canadians) over the years and there has been discussion but the first I’ve seen this price tag only for studies is since they committed.
> The ideal world order isn't the one where Chinese can't find out what happened on Tiananmen square and Americans can't find out what happened in Gaza.
I don't see how this law banning a social media site brings us at all closer to a world where Americans cannot get access to accurate information about major global conflicts. This is so far down the imagined "slippery slope" as to be absurd. In fact, I'd strongly argue that this law would achieve the opposite. If you're relying on Tik Tok for accurate information like this, then you are opening yourself to echo chambers, biased takes, and outright propaganda. There are many excellent sources out there in America freely available and easily accessible.
If your concern is editorial preference, then wouldn't a social media application explicitly controlled by a State apparatus be a concern?
I fail to see how anything going on at Twitter is relevant to what I mentioned. Does Twitter shifting its content priorities somehow make the plethora of excellence sources unavailable?
Escape into the woods for at least 1 week out of the year with no internet connection. It rekindles my love for reading, and helps keep that fire burning throughout the year.
I do that (for a few days, not a full week). I always read less than I intended to, because the space to be able to think, to feel, and to be is more valuable than the space to read.
It's been a while since I've read the book / seen the movie, but I believe the ship intercepted a resupply payload launched from earth as it was performing it's slingshot.
Using a computational fluids model like OpenFOAM is overkill for reasonable estimates of aerodynamic performance and stability, provided you stick to normal-ish designs. The term you want to Google is "vortex lattice" and/or "potential flow" solvers, of which there are many open source softwares available specifically geared towards typical aircraft configurations, with simple, easy to use interfaces.
Some good ones to look at to get started with nice guis
- VSP Aero
- XFOIL (for 2D airfoil analysis only, also generates inputs for 3D VLM solvers)
- AVL
And some others if you want perhaps a little higher fidelity, and don't mind text/code interfaces:
-FreeWake
- Datcom (not technically a potential flow models, but a database)
To get the most value out of these softwares, you will need some background in aeronautics. You need to have an understanding of what a potential flow models can and cannot accurately model. It also helps to have knowledge about what forms aircraft stability/control and performance data is typically communicated in, as these softwares will use that terminology.
The 2D model alone maybe be sufficient for OPs needs, but I'd advocate for going at least a little further with some form of 3D model. The wing tip effects are significant enough to warrant some form of "next step" after the initial 2D analysis. Although simple algebraic relationships are likely good enough to satisfy this end.
However, the 3D tools above give you a little bit more, that I feel warrant their consideration by the op. These models can yield performance of wing-tail-body configurations that include wake effects. They also can give stability analysis in both longitudinal/lateral axes. The stability effects being especially important if OP wants to design a flying-wing, which are a tad more challenging to get right than just slapping a "good-enough" sized tail on a classic config plane.
Cool stuff for sure! But cheeky comments like this (and others I personally have made in this thread) are to do with the "AI" branding aspect of a thing that is just bog standard mechanical engineering work. Hooking up optimizers to simulation work is far from new. But that's being called "AI" now to drive news article clicks (and presumably to fish for investor capital).
> Hooking up optimizers to simulation work is far from new. But that's being called "AI" now
It that being called "AI" just now, or has it been called "AI" since the beginning? A lot of the optimization algorithms we take for granted nowadays originated from AI research.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/article/how-crews-cleared-a-...
I've seen this incident be the subject of hyperbolic clickbait articles and YouTube videos discussing the complete cutting off of East and West Canada (conveniently ignoring the realities articulated by your comment). Perhaps the parent comment is vaguely aware of incidents like this and is extrapolating to unfounded conclusions?