Insanely high price on DSU international student insurance

I've been at Dal for 2 years now. Last year I paid around $930 for the international student insurance plan. This year it cost me around $1330, over 43% increase. Considering the family plan, the total rose from around $2330 last year to $3550 now. Even with multiple grants this was painful.

Is this normal for Dalhousie, or for Canadian student insurance? I would expect a 3-10% yearly increase or similar due to inflation, but not this. We pay the same taxes and rent, and contribute to the same economy. What is the justification for this increase?

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u/willherondale18 — 8 days ago

I just got home from work, man

How is this even a conversation at this point? Didn't the Iran and China stuff get disproven to the ground?

u/willherondale18 — 2 months ago

I genuinely don't understand, based on his description they're perfectly leftist

Saw this YouTube post by a youtuber I saw a video recently from, he's complaining that a leftist org in Czechia is anti-US, anti-EU and anti-NATO, which I thought was perfectly standard for a leftist (anti-capitalist) org.

He even goes out of his way to say they have some "weird love for Russia or China" even though he never mentions a reason for that.

Worst of all, in the last paragraph he compares anti-semitic conspiracy theories as equally weird (or the R word) as thinking that capital and the west are the enemy. Genuinely don't know how this is possible.

Of course the comments are all approving of this...

u/willherondale18 — 3 months ago

What is this?

I swear I get the weirdest AI slop ads lately but this one...? Is it a real church?

u/willherondale18 — 3 months ago
▲ 213 r/halifax

Yesterday's wildfire sun

I was horrified to know the reason for this.

Taken with a digital camera

u/willherondale18 — 3 months ago

Alternatives to Google Fitbit heart rate monitors?

Basically what the title says. I'm trying to buy a wrist heart rate monitor and it seems this Fitbit brand has the best quality, but everything I'm reading about it (owned by Google, on its way to implement AI features) does not sound good. Why does a heart monitor need AI features or GPS data?

Edit: just in case, I'm looking for *wrist* heart rate monitors, not chest ones.

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u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

"Ethnostates are good actually" and "Palestine is an ethnostate, not Israel"

Made a humorous comment in a humorous post, and instead of normal behavior I get downvotes and nuclear-level gaslighting. These people are to my brain cells what vampires are to blood

u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

What's the deal with Amnesty International?

I have been trying to look into Amnesty International to see if they're legit or not. They are vehemently against China's alleged Uyghur genocide but it's very hard to read their reports about it without feeling like something is off. They mostly cite their own reports so it's very circular. And they claim that China "ignored" the UN report but they actually responded with a pretty detailed paper on terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. Is Amnesty intentionally ignoring this? Are they a source of misinformation? What's going on?

From the Wikipedia page it seems they have quite a number of controversies, but nothing out of the ordinary from such an organization. What strikes me more is that Wikipedia states they received funding from the U.S. around 2008, yet they cite documents from Israel.

So yeah, I just want to be informed, but there's a lot of information flying around and it's hard to find what to believe. And I think people on this sub might know more about this.

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u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

"far left just as bad as far right"

Context: the initial post had nothing to do with far left politics. The company Proton (alternative to Google for mail and stuff) did a sponsorship with a far right French dude, got called out for it, recognized the mistake, and removed it. The commenter brought up "Stalinists" just to say they're as bad as nazis as a response that basically both or neither should be sponsored.

u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

About China's work ethic

I understand that the general position of marxists nowadays is to appreciate China as the socialist alternative, due to its massive economic success and the government's efforts to ensure good quality of life for all its citizens.

But I cannot make sense of the contradiction between this perspective and the existence of the so-called "996" companies (9-to-9 work, 6 days a week) which are apparently illegal yet they still operate largely untouched, including huge corps (e.g., Huawei, ByteDance, Shein). "Sweatshops" are included in this too. In some situations this could be considered borderline slavery. I have been finding many stories of workers that have no days off and very little pay. They also have one of the highest rates of work-related deaths per capita.

Why is all of this still so normalized? What is the government actually doing about this?

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u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

Is this cutting still alive?

I have had this fig plant cutting for 6 months growing in a glass with water. I forgot to water it at some point and the leaves dried up. However, when I was going to throw it out, I noticed the root portion is still green and has new growth. Is there still hope for it?

I give it indirect sunlight and just tap water. Been meaning to pot it but life got busy

u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

What is happening to my plant?

I have had this plant for around 2 months, repotted it last week with storebought pot soil plus remnants of my previous house plants' pots before it started flowering. I put it in direct sunlight and water once a week or whenever I see the dirt get dry for more than 2 days. Suddenly there's these tiny things covering the flower. Are these bugs? What's going on?

u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

Iran protests death toll

Is there an actual believable estimate of the death count of the recent Iranian protests? I cannot find any reliable source on this topic, and Wikipedia's page parrots NYT and "Iran International" (UK based), both obviously biased

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u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago

Spotted in the wild in NS, Canada... 🤦🏼

The exaggerated false narrative is already bad, but on top of that displaying this in one of the most successful projects of colonial genocide is very upsetting

u/willherondale18 — 4 months ago
▲ 6 r/excel

Is there a way to plot chronological events in a continuous logarithmic X axis that represents time?

Essentially, I'm trying to get the graph on the left to look more like the drawing on the right. I have a set of historical events, and their corresponding time values (in years ago), and I want to plot them in a continuous time axis, ideally logarithmic.

https://preview.redd.it/ctxluvig1i1h1.png?width=1918&format=png&auto=webp&s=1edf9544f051a23981cd58b2b42920e890bfb489

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u/willherondale18 — 5 months ago

Endless lint residue over our clothes (desperately need help)

Especially visible with black clothes, but all clothes when shaken after they're dried let off tons of lint and dust onto the air.

Context: we moved to a new apartment in Canada where the washing machine (pics 3-4) has (to my surprise) no filter system to catch the lint. It all stays with the clothes during washing. Only the dryer has a lint-catching system, but even when using it not all lint is removed, and most of our clothes are not dryer-friendly. None of the windows open wide so we cannot just shake the lint off outside.

We always wash at cold/cool temperature, extra water volume, and rarely using fabric softeners or extra stuff, just conventional detergents (pic 5). We do not have any pets.

We have tried everything:

* Cleaning the washer with cleaning pods, over 5 times.

* Using the dryer's air fluff mode to catch lint (pic 1 is before dryer, pic 2 is after dryer, still not enough)

* Using lint-catchers for the washer (pic 6, still not enough)

* Using a lint-roller (it's too much effort for everyday washing)

This has been going on for over a year now. I will try anything.

u/willherondale18 — 5 months ago