Lemmy.ca

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33170590

Quick Facts:

• The changes to the bylaws follow similar changes recently adopted in Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
• Between May and June 2025, B.C. has received nearly 780 job applications spanning all health regions: 181 for Interior Health, 154 for Fraser Health, 121 for Vancouver Coastal Health, 112 for Island Health, 70 for Providence Health Care, 66 for Provincial Health Services Authority and 63 for Northern Health (some applicants may have applied to more than one health authority).
• The Province is taking a Team B.C. approach to recruiting health-care workers from the U.S., and is working in collaboration with health authorities, regulatory colleges and other partners.
• The Province launched a targeted U.S. marketing campaign on June 2, 2025, in Washington, Oregon and select cities in California.

To further improve recruitment, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. (CPSBC) implemented bylaw changes on July 7, 2025, that benefit doctors trained outside of Canada. Since then, CPSBC has received 29 registration applications from U.S. doctors.

Imagine this - high quality, locally-grown leafy greens - without pesticides - ALL year round, AND grown on a large scale. Our Audra Brown travels to King City, Ontario to peek into Canada's first fully automated, hands-free greenhouse.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33242966

Alt video if above not accessible: https://youtu.be/aX-MgadWJr0

Before Tetris took over arcades and consoles, it was just a computer game.

Not even a Western one. It started on a Soviet mainframe.

What most people don’t know is that its first home versions were for DOS. The very first DOS port came out in 1986, made by Vadim Gerasimov—a Russian developer who adapted Alexey Pajitnov’s original concept for IBM PCs.

Then came the flood. Lots of other DOS ports followed, some barely licensed, others “licensed” in the Cold War handshake sense.

But the first official DOS release made specifically for the West? That was Spectrum Holobyte’s version in 1988. It beat the NES. It beat the arcade version.

And yes—this version was still based on Gerasimov’s DOS design.

Now, I don’t think it’s the best home version of Tetris. But it’s easily the strangest—and maybe the most interesting.

For starters, Spectrum Holobyte leaned hard into the Cold War theming. One of their print ads straight-up asked: “What are the Three Greatest Things to Come Out of the U.S.S.R.?” The answer? The Bolshoi ballet. Stolichnaya vodka. And Tetris. That was the pitch. The ad featured dancers in mid-leap, a frosty bottle of Stoli on ice, and a red game box with Cyrillic text and Saint Basil’s Cathedral slapped right on the cover. It was less a software ad than a cultural export campaign—equal parts kitsch, nationalism, and Cold War tourism. You didn’t just buy a puzzle game. You bought a Russian moment.

Inside the game, every screen drips with Soviet vibes: fishing vessels, space cosmonauts, Russian folk music, even a reference to the “Miracle on Ice.” The high score list? Labeled “Top Ten Comrades.” That kind of commitment.

This was deliberate. Spectrum Holobyte’s CEO literally asked the devs to preserve the “Soviet spirit,” not tone it down. He wanted Americans to want to buy a Russian product. Which, in 1988, was a pretty wild ask.

There was also a plane that flew across the title screen—an easter egg referencing Mathias Rust’s illegal flight into Red Square, which had humiliated the Soviet military the year before. Elorg, the Soviet licensing agency, didn’t love that. It got patched out. Along with a bunch of other Cold War touches. Fighter jets? Gone. Submarines? Replaced with a man on a horse.

Pajitnov himself insisted that Tetris be “a peaceful game heralding a new era in superpower relations.” Apparently, that meant fewer tanks.

Technically, this version of Tetris is barebones—but in a foundational kind of way. It’s missing a lot of what we now take for granted. There’s no hold piece. No wall kicks. No 180° rotation. Some versions don’t even give you bonus points for clearing four lines. Which, let’s be honest, kind of defeats the point of a Tetris.

Instead, scoring is mostly about how fast you drop pieces and whether you survive. That’s it. There is a hard drop, though. And you can set the starting height and level. Which was a nice touch.

Rotation is basic. Just clockwise and counterclockwise. No fancy adjustments. If a piece doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t. There’s no wall-kick logic to save you. And once a piece touches down? It locks immediately.

No second chances. No little delay. You either commit or you stack badly and panic.

Even visually, it’s oddly compelling. Only CGA and EGA are supported—VGA was still too new—but the artwork is stylized in a way that sticks with you. The backgrounds are moody and distinct. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be flashy. It feels… ideological.

I know the Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST versions had more colors. And some fancier music. But the DOS version has character. It’s a cultural time capsule disguised as a puzzle game.

Also worth noting: this version sold like crazy. Over 100,000 units in its first year. The average player? Mid-30s, probably an engineer or middle manager. Half were women—which, for a PC game in the ’80s, is almost unheard of.

And if you’re running this today? You’ll probably get a divide overflow error. You’ll need a patch just to launch it.

This wasn’t just a game. It was a diplomatic artifact. A licensing mess. A Cold War curiosity. A version of Tetris that, for all its simplicity, tells you more about 1988 than most history books.

Not posted here was a Carney-Sheibaum meeting this week that had general headlines on this theme.

Significant US economic activity was generated from Canada-Mexico trade and NAFTA/USMCA from fuel and transit taxes.

I can't confirm how solid these plans are, but this is an obvious step that Canadian politicians could highlight to disprove incompetence and slave gaslighting.

Bridge Constructor Studio discount

15% off Bridge Constructor Studio on Meta Quest
User profile: @TimmyKimmel
15% off Store link
#BridgeConstructorStudio #BridgeConstructor #MetaQuest #MetaStore #MetaQuestStore
@metastorediscount

From VA Marine Mammal Rescue Society via this RSS feed

(This is perfectly legal where I live if that matters)

I'm really curious because I used to have a lot of misconceptions about mushrooms of the psilocybe variety and I'm wondering how fly agaric would compare. From what I've heard it's more dissociative and less euphoric and the visuals reflect that too but I'd like to hear some first hand knowledge. I'll probably try some fly agaric tea (that way it's not neurotoxic) at some point, only a small amount to get to know it. I just think it's a fascinating species in general and basically I want to experience some of what it has to offer. But if I do I'd like a rough idea of what to expect.

A little understood aspect of the big, ugly bill could cause devastating problems for seniors and others.

Norman J. Ornstein
July 16, 2025

PAYGO is not a term that crosses many lips in daily discourse. But it may soon be used more widely, as its impact resonates in the aftermath of the passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Act. While the enormous and damaging cuts in Medicaid have dominated discussion since the bill was enacted—cuts that will take millions of Americans off of health insurance, force the closure of many rural hospitals and nursing homes, and likely put enormous increased pressure on emergency rooms across the country—another shoe is soon to drop. And that is major cuts in its sister program, Medicare.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48233546

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48233545

Moonstone originally came out in 1991 for the Amiga and PC, and is generally known as a cult classic for these platforms. It’s especially well known on the Amiga, where it’s got a great reputation. It’s a gory mix of genre where up to four players guide their own knight on a fantasy quest in an Arthurian-inspired fantasy version of England, on the hunt for the magical Moonstone.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alta-jasper-fire-1.7588534

👉 The report

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33147151