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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 31st, 2023

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  • Here in Canada we had a similar system and I had friends on CERB for some time. Many of them didn’t know what to do with themselves. The ones who took it well were already accustomed to finding their own fun in the world, and did everything from DIY renovations to prototyping products they want to sell.

    I wouldn’t know personally, I was working the whole time. Longest I’ve been off for was 3 months and I was more concerned with survival than keeping busy. But I’d like to think I have a lot of projects to work on. I’d love to move out of the suburbs into the country proper and have a workshop. Making custom furniture and electronics is so fun but I barely have time for it.




  • AtkinsRéalis (known as SNC-Lavalin at the time) is a Canadian construction company that was at the centre of a huge scandal in Canada. They were caught bribing the son of Libian dictator Gaddafi to get a contract to build a prison, allegedly for political prisoners.

    While the Justice Minister was having this company prosecuted, the Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau) demanded that she give AtkinsRéalis a slap on the wrist and a deferred prosecution agreement. When she refused, she was driven from her position.

    Canada’s government has a history of propping up bad actors like this, and goes out of their way to support several oligopolies that run significant chunks of the Canadian market. Bell/Rogers/Telus own most of Canada’s mobile and internet offerings, Loblaws/Sobeys/Metro own most of Canada’s grocery stores, much of Canada’s produce and meat are controlled by cartels, etc… The maple syrup cartel is very powerful and wealthy and yes you’re reading that right, there is a maple syrup cartel and even a maple syrup black market.

    One special mention goes out to the Canadian Real Estate industry, which is full of actual crooks all over the place and just disgusting. Did you know in Canada it is legal for a real estate agent to represent both sides of a purchase? Agents also will refuse to work with any of the bargain agencies that charge less than the standard 2.5% commission, basically locking them out of the industry. This crap is part of why housing prices have bubbled so hard, and together with price fixing by landlords they have managed to keep Canadian housing prices at levels so stupid homelessness has increased several times over.

    Canadian people are often too fixated on not being seen to be a problem, what some call “politeness”, to the point they won’t even stand up for themselves. That unwillingness to protest or try to change things has allowed this to happen for a very long time. Because of this awful “politeness” many Canadians are even cheering on new laws limiting union action.

    tl;dr Canada is a banana republic and Canadians are cucked






  • It took me 3 years and over 700 applications to get two interviews and one underpaid job, which I took because it beat working for minimum wage and getting no experience. I worked that for 3 years and then they ran out of work for me. I was not able to leverage that experience into a new programming job despite my efforts and have since moved onto administration.

    Yeah now I understand why so many admins hate “developers”: they’re actually real fucking ignorant about so many things, especially licensing. I’ve had to do battle with Oracle twice because our people don’t understand the difference between personal use and commercial use.