Numpty @ Numpty @lemmy.ca

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Joined

2 yr. ago

I moved back to Canada after living over 20 years in Europe. I regret it every day. My family and I will be returning to Europe as soon as the paperwork comes through.

I'm planning to move. I was born in Canada. I worked overseas for several years. I came back to Canada and I'm leaving again. Hopefully permanently. Better pay is definitely one aspect (although it'd take 10x increase to get me to move to the USA), but it's not the only one. Quality of life is another MAJOR point that Canadians miss out on in a big way. Yeah you get a bigger home... and a fancy big truck... but to get that, you work yourself to death, you pay insane prices for things, and you have to live with stroads...

You're lucky to get treatment in 4 hours at urgent care. Where I live there is one clinic for over 100,000 people. You show up at 4am and that's usually too late. They regularly put up a sign on the door that says "Was are only seeing 10 people today. Go to the local ER if you need medical care." When you go there you can wait up to 2 days... or you give up and go home... or try in another nearby city.

My family and I save up our medical needs and get it dealt with when we travel. It's faster and easier to pay cash for medical treatment when we are overseas visiting family than it is here in Canada.

Have you tried to get in through the bonkers immigration system though?

It's a mess... a massive mess. It favours people who know how to abuse the system. TFWs are exploited and worked like slaves while high skilled immigrants who would contribute in big measurable ways - like doctors - are blocked at every turn. I personally know 4 doctors who all tried to come to Canada. None can get in... they can't get the mandatory residency positions because they are full up with many many many more people wanting a spot than are made available... meanwhile Canadians are literally dying in the clinic queues because we don't have enough doctors.

Yah... food is overrated.

It's showing up in all the things... the chicken breast packages used to be 1kg for $9, and in the short term they've increased to $15 or so for 650g. The prepared chopped salad (you can argue it's not a smart buy, bu it illustrates the differences) used to be 450g to 500g and you'd pay $4, now it's $6 and you get 365g.

Consistently across the whole shopping list I'm seeing smaller packages for significantly more money.

Suddenly, sales are up 15% and traffic to the company website is up 300%.

Lol. You're not a parent are you?

It's not lazy, it's being involved as a parent. I teach them. I council them. I explain the good and the bad.

They don't have unfettered access to the internet either. I carefully limit to what is appropriate to their ages. As they get older and are more able to understand the implications I relax the restrictions.

My kids will survive just fine not playing in an environment that encourages bed behavior.

Roblox is filled with "quality" content like this: https://www.roblox.com/games/8110845141/POOP-WITH-FRIENDS

My kids used to play on Roblox... then they invited me to try it... and I started watching what is going on in there. It's pretty bad. LOADS of grooming going on... shitty games... games that encourage anti-social behavior... horror games targeting under 5s... now they aren't allowed to play it anymore.

Germany has its own insanity in the housing market :-P I lived in Germany or several years. I rented vs buying and I dreaded moving because facing that shit show of a rental process (at least in places like Hamburg) was... too much. Queuing up with 100 other people all racing to fill in the rental application form first just so they'd get a chance at a place. I quickly learned to use an agency to line up rentals... and ended up renting a VERY nice newly built flat for the same price as the old many-times-renovated flats in the same district.

I did buy a house elsewhere in Europe and it was... interesting as an expat. It was substantially cheaper than Canada... granted it was many years ago, so not a fair comparison.

The Canadian government makes noises about "fixing" the housing crisis in Canada, but... I honestly don't think they can. Houses are currently priced out of reach... WAY out of reach for the average new home buyer. People can't save up a 5% to 20% down payment fast enough to keep up with the rising cost of living. The cost of everything is increasing at multiple times their potential salary increases (if they even get any).

Start with income perspective. The average annual salary in 2022 was just under $60,000. Nationally, the average house price in summer 2023 was a bit over $750,000. These incomes and house prices are affected pretty strongly by the lower incomes and lower housing costs in rural Canada vs the major cities like Vancouver and Toronto

So.. shift attention to the cities. In Toronto and Vancouver, the average house price is around $1,200,000 give or take a little. You need at a combined income of least $280,000 to qualify for a house like that (or have substantial equity built up in previous home purchases). Most people are earning at or close to the national average... with a few - especially those in STEM careers (sw devs for example) up over $100,000 per year.

I live in a suburb city (I own my house)... it's inconveniently located if you want/need to be in the core city centre for work (I'm about 3 hours commute right now if I needed to go in to a downtown office.. thankfully I don't). Houses on my street are relatively new (most built in 2019 and 2020). The houses currently for sale are listing between $1,250,000 and $2,350,000.

Renting can be really awful in Canada too... you get stunts like this https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/this-is-egregious-sisters-shocked-when-toronto-landlord-raises-rent-to-9-500-a-month-1.6548845 simply because they can...

tl;dr Housing in Canada is bonkers

The company I work for is one of many in the IT world that "gets it" that WFH is an advantage and makes employees happy.

No Windows boxes anywhere. Windows is banned as a base OS (allowed in VMs only). It's OSX or Linux only. I'm good with that :-) Oh that generous budget was $3000 USD to spend as I wanted on whatever equipment I wanted. Since I already have a desk, chair, monitor etc, I spent almost all of the budget on the laptop :-) It's a good'un. Hehe

But you'd have to install it yourself in a scenario where you manage your company machine yourself.

I'm permanently remote in my job. When I was hired, I was given a generous budget to buy whatever home office equipment I needed including whatever laptop I wanted. I was free to either buy a MacBook or a PC - if I bought a PC, I was required to wipe the OEM Windows OS and install whatever Linux distro I wanted (which is the choice I went with). I and a LOT of other employees run whatever Linux distro makes us happy. IT tracks the asset number, and that's it. There's no spyware...

There has been attempts at it in the past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_car

It's like that with ANY new car/truck regardless of fuel type. The current generation of ICE/PHEV/EV vehicles are ALL incredibly complex machines. The days of purely mechanical controls, and a simple combustion engine ended back in the mid-1970s. The more complex they system the more potential points of failure. Not justifying the fails...

You should try immigrating to Canada. The barriers they put in place for skilled people are bonkers. I personally know of 3 doctors who all want to come to Canada, and 2 more physically IN Canada who are not allowed to work until they get a residency spot (despite being trained surgeons). They are trained/educated in accredited universities outside of Canada, so their credentials are not an issue... The medical board is the issue. They put so many barriers in place and intentionally artificially restrict the number of medical professionals who can enter. The potential doctors have to complete a Canadian residency and there's a VERY small number of spots.. the doctors also have to complete a series of lengthy exams that are eye wateringly expensive and time consuming. A lot of potential doctors that we desperately need in Canada give up and go work elsewhere in the Commonwealth/Europe/MiddleEast where they are welcomed and put to work almost immediately.

You and I see through the fluff... and we are in the minority. PP is just saying whatever people want to hear. No facts, no proof, just fluff that riles up the voters.

Configuration flag?

Sounds like Ubuntu underneath your Plasma. I've had the exact same experience when using Neon, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu+KDE. I install any non-Ubuntu based distro with KDE (like openSUSE) and whiz bang everything is working again.

Linux needs more GUIs for managing complex settings.

openSUSE has YaST which covers almost all complex settings... it's not perfect, but it tries