shortcuttomoncton

@Rexuis-Twin: you don’t need to agree to receive advertising emails. That’s optional. Only to the Rules.

Absolutely love this article and the photography — but I have to say, it badly needs a proofreading! :)

@onawalk: that’s a great question. Other than that practice used to be explicitly offside Facebook’s Terms of Service (which they seemed to stop enforcing 7 or 8 years ago when they realized they needed more commercial money), one easy answer is that a lot of small companies don’t actually follow contest laws regardless, so they’re always a tough comparison. But I suspect the best answer is that email anti-spam is regulated (in Canada) and you are explicitly not allowed to hinge email consent on receipt of services (you might remember when stores like the Gap started doing that when you bought jeans a decade+ ago, but then stopped). But that rule does not apply to social media subscribes. I guess it’s arguable whether the social media requirements are actually something of value, but I think email is clearly offside. The east answer to your second question is that I filled out the form without adding my email consent and it said I had submitted. It’s possible they’re removing entries on the back end but that would be pretty deceptive.

@onawalk: that’s not how email signup works in Canada. There’s no requirement to opt out; only to opt in. And it cannot be a mandatory provision of the service being offered. (And separately, it would be considered value necessary to enter and be offside their rules and contest laws up here.) So if they took they route you’re suggesting, it would be illegal. Of course that doesn’t mean they’re not doing that. But logically speaking it would make more sense for them to avoid that danger.

@Bmxtar: none of this is relevant for this contest. It is structured as a random draw for all entrants. Consenting to marketing emails is completely optional (which is required in Canada). If the random draw odds were altered based on who provided their optional marketing consent, the company would be offside their own contract with contest participants, conducting an illegal contest in Canada, and really exposing themselves to liability if that were to get out. Would not be worth it at all. Who cares about marketing signup from one person? Give them a free bike and they’ll probably be a spokesperson for life!

It shouldn’t, unless the contest is structured to add entries based on signing up. Companies that change the odds based on that would really be setting themselves up for a class action lawsuit.

Bangers edition

MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!

@hilldescentcontrol: yeah it’s super interesting for sure. But the media hype ignores the energy inefficiency of making this fuel. Last I checked hydrogen fuel cells were something like twice as inefficient as BEV, so I’m sure that having to make synthetic fuel is likely much worse than that. Having little-to-no tailpipe emissions is fantastic, but it’s only half the story. Based on my limited research it feels like synthetic fuel will end up being some sort of high-performance, super expensive solution unless there’s some production breakthrough...

@hilldescentcontrol: I wonder if that’s what he was referring to? Synthetic e-fuels seem like a possible specialized solution for certain performance vehicles, but it is still super experimental, production is nowhere near potential supply, it is mind-boggling expensive, and it still doesn’t address the issue of how energy inefficient it is compared to BEV. I’m not aware that anyone is actually proposing Porsche’s synthetic fuels as a mass-market gasoline alternative….