> Maple trees need to consume around 50 litres of water per day. Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is that it is coming from Montreal’s leaky pipes, which lose 500 million litres of water per day.
>Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is ...
I feel like this is burying the lede. What can be done to reduce leakage?
Seems like a better question is, why didn't we design our urban and suburban hydrology to water those trees, instead of shunting rain to an already overburdened storm system?
This is hardly a pipe dream. Village Homes demonstrated the concept[0] over five decades ago.
Sewer systems are bankrupting municipalities worldwide. Either the city fails to grow (and can't afford to fix the pipes), or the city grows (and can't afford to shut down traffic to fix the pipes).
Far from being unaffordable, fixing our broken urban water management is the only affordable option.
I see this response a lot, as if it's insightful or useful, but it really isn't. There are good times to save money and bad times to save money, and it's almost never the sole point of consideration. There are lots and lots of things we could spend more money on. Is that the goal?
Any cost to a city that doesn’t have immediate utility to the people governing the city has to fight an uphill battle against everything else. And a in a lot of cases all available money is already allocated. In such an environment people generally don’t choose to make long term investments. Cheaper is easier to sell politically. And if large projects like a subway get greenlit it’s usually for an unrealistically low budget and the project ends up costing 2 or 3 times more because it’s easier to raise taxes based on sunk cost than careful planning.
Thanks - that's a hell of a lot better than the original comment. I disagree, though. Officials are elected based on projects they want to undertake. Nobody is saying "I'm beating the national average cost of building a bridge by 17%!!" in their campaigns, they're saying they're gonna build a bridge. And it'll be damn impressive. A legacy, even. Might put my own name on it.
Citation needed. Curbs are expensive. Sewer pipes are expensive (for the last 60 years, Montreal has separated rainwater and wastewater sewers in all new construction).
Montreal likely doesn’t do it because it would lower the density of buildings.
Do we really want that? Thousands of people are being killed each year by heat strokes. Keeping those trees alive by its environmental services is much more valuable in terms of lives and also energy saved. Maples have soft big leaves but also reduce the asphalt temperature by 5-10 degrees. If required just plant a tree species that can live with less water.
While there are some interior pipe lining solutions, they are just kind of a short term bandaid that will cost more in the long run and has its own complications, the only real answer is to bury brand new pipe. And that can get expensive if a lot of stuff has been built on top and around it which is why most municipalities just live with even major leaks and kick the can down the road until it breaches the surface and starts flooding areas. It is probably cheaper to replace them sooner rather than later in the long run, but no politician cares about how well a city's finances will be decades after they are gone.
>The spelling lede (/ˈliːd/, from Early Modern English) is also used in American English, originally to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from the metal lead or the related typographical term "leading".
Why should anything be done to reduce leakage? They take water out of the St Lawrence and, as much isn't diverted by trees, it goes back in (cleaner then when it came out.)
Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing.
I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation.
As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website.
I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government.
I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP.
In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns.
Hello,
it's not working for me, "send emails" fails with:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'selectedMeps')
at Object.showSelectionFeedback (takeAction.js:546:41)
at Object.selectAllRepresentatives (takeAction.js:542:14)
at HTMLButtonElement.onclick ((index):1:13)
Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process
The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject. Of course informally they can discuss with the Commission and let the Commission know what they would or would not pass.
> effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments
This is true. But you maybe forgot another body, the EU Commission.
EU Council, Council of the EU: Represent member states
EU Commission: Represents the EU
EU Parliament: Represents the citizens
I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".
> The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject.
Note that this means that, crucially, the Parliament also cannot repeal laws. Which means that they can just try and try and try again, and if it passes once, it cannot be withdrawn except by initiative of the commission.
It's like the IRA said to Thatcher, you have to be lucky every time, they only have to be lucky once.
To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process
I think that's misleading. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1]. Meaning that the Parliament can neither change nor reverse course - it is completely decided by the Council. All the Parliament can do is limit how fast that course is followed.
Edit: Sorry, what I wrote about the "Council" should have been about the "EU Commission" instead. The Council may in fact have equal power, as you wrote.
[1] Which I think (but was unable to explicitly confirm) extends to removing old legislation. I.e. the Council only has to get its way once, and then we're stuck with a law, unless the Council proposes to remove it. A ratchet.
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1].
EU Council (Meeting of EU countries' head of states): Proposes what should be done
Council of the EU (Council of ministers of EU countries): Proposes what should be done
In general, for larger (> 10TB) drives, most definitely. < 10TB drives have been mostly unaffected.
The direct impact on larger drives is entirely dependent on brand (Toshiba's Enterprise drives appear to be less in demand than Seagate's Exos, for instance), recording process (CMR versus SMR), and, to a lesser extent, power consumption. In virtually all instances though, the price has jumped significantly [0]. 16TB Exos more than doubled, for instance [1]. In large parts of Europe, large drives have been back-ordered since the beginning of April; my orders are scheduled for delivery in August, yet I would be surprised if I saw anything before September.
This is not terribly uncommon in Europe; let alone Denmark. As with the other banks in Denmark doing the very same thing, Danske Bank is merely passing their own expenses onto their customers [0]. There is probably a discussion to be had about where the specific thresholds should be in terms of both stimulating the economy through encouraged spending versus ensuring people save an adequate amount.
About every bank in the Netherlands, though it usually starts at either €100K or €250K, so that's a bit higher limit than this Danish bank.
I don't think this policy is actually a problem for many people here. Most people above that limit either invest it, put it into a "savings deposit" (you agree to not touch the money for some pre-definied time and in exchange you get better, positive interest rates), or spread it out across multiple banks (since savings accounts are usually free, but only guaranteed up to €100K when the bank fails).
In Austria the Supreme Court of Justice (OGH) specifically ruled that banks aren't allowed to do it. At least for private people's savings accounts. Banks are pretty happy to raise various service fees though, so I guess they'll get creative about getting their money back.
in italy fineco bank decided to enable itself to kick out clients with more of 100k in checkings accounts because by law they cant charge negative interest rates.
Other italian banks will probably follow
Don't bother. It's hard to do it correctly. If you look through the snippets (or the MDN docs[1]), the value is retrieved using the getParameter() function. You might be tempted to override the function by doing something like
gl.getParameter = () => "test"
but that's easily detectable. If you run
gl.getParameter.toString()
You get back
"() => "test""
whereas the original function you get back
"function getParameter() { [native code] }"
In general, don't try to fix fingerprinting via content scripts[2]. It's very much detectable. Your best bet is a browser that handles it natively.
You can easily hide it by hijacking Function.prototype.toString to see if `this == fake gl.getParemeter or this == fake toString`. Then the js code needs to find a real Function.prototype.toString by creating an iframe, but then you can detect that. Then I'm out of ideas on how to rescue the original toString
So the issue is that the fingerprinting code can detect the anti-fingerprinting code? Doesn't that mean the best solution is for everyone to override the same functions with the same dummy information?
Disable cookies directly in your browser..? As for the obnoxious popups, if the above does not address those, several extensions will block them for you.
Yes. Why not give the Mueller report a read? Annotated versions are widely available, e.g. [1]. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, give Sarah Kendzior's Hiding In Plain Sight [1] a read. It is a quick but exceedingly well-researched and well-documented read which neatly summarises the travesty that the Trump administration has been.
I don't have a deep interest in the topic to read about it. I just wanted to know the conclusion. I'll take your word for it, thank you, thats all i needed to know.
