13 years on Reddit. I was part of the Great Digg Exodus... now the Great Reddit Exodus.

I deleted all my comments on Reddit, all of my posts, and then toasted my user account just before the API deadline. Not looking back.

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

estimate age based on a webcam scan of a user’s face.

Ummm... right... VPNs are going to have a LOT of business in Canada.

I can really relate to this. I lived outside of Canada for 25 years. I recently-ish moved back to Canada and am totally blown away by things here. Life isn't always amazing in any place you pick on the planet, but god damn, Canadians need to stop contemplating their collective belly button lint and focus on some of the massive issues that need attention.

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...

That would explain a lot.. things seemed normal until about 2013...

Generally, you use the radio network from mobile phone to cell tower, and then fibre optic to the switches. Sometimes they use microwave line of sight for surface-to-surface connections where fibre doesn't make sense, or is unviable (terrain, distance, cost, difficulty of laying fibre, etc.). It's possible that there could be a satellite connection in the process, but unlikely unless you're on an airplane, a ship, etc.

The GPS on the mobile phone definitely does use satellite (receive only though, no transmit).

Stroads... Canada is FULL of them. I wish they'd design streets here like they do in the Netherlands. I lived there for years and it was awesome.

"Appears to show"

/me: Checks videos... sees a VERY clear still from the video clear and unquestionably showing a police office with his knee on the neck of the man on the ground.

Ummmm.... right....

Those used clothes are often more expensive than new.

My wife and I try to shop for clothes for our kids at places like Once Upon a Child. We find George (Walmart) brand clothing there with prices higher than buying new at the local Walmart. There's not a lot of incentive to recycle clothing when it's priced like that.

Value Village is picked clean... There are some "vintage" clothing stores nearby as well... they are shockingly expensive.

It's really difficult to try and recycle clothing and buy or source used clothing When it is priced at the same as or higher then brand new.

People said the same about Digg

I moved to Alberta in late 2020 because I was told the COL was lower... it wasn't. Some things were slightly cheaper than BC, but once I included all the things like car insurance, electricity costs, and... even housing.... and then factoring in winters, snow, that brown muck that covers EVERY surface of Calgary from November to March... I bailed and moved back to BC.

I'm old enough to remember that grocery store only had paper bags, and replaced them with plastic bags because we were using too much paper and it was killing all the trees.

Now we're back to paper bags...

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.

Yes... 13+ years on Reddit on my main account (different name than my Lemmy account), and it's gone. I've deleted all my posts and thousands of replies. I was active in several communities, including the Linux and open-source communities.

I used a script to edit my post history and replace my posts with random text, and then after a waiting period, delete the posts entirely. It took a couple of days to sift through it all. Then once I was down to zero posts... deleted my account.

You're not the target market for FF16 then.

Microsoft office

I'm rather impressed with the MS Office compatibility and comparability of FreeOffice - https://www.freeoffice.com/ The free version trails the paid by one release... seems like a fair compromise. It's not pure FOSS, so purists might not like it, but it really gets the job done, especially with rountripping documents. There are always corner cases where things go boink, but hell... things even go off the deep end between versions of MSO.

Snap is a steaming pile of excrement. So much of the crap on the Snap Store is obsolete and out of date. Anyone and their monkey can post a snap on snapcraft, and.. they do. Canonical is just as bad. They took it upon themselves to package up a lot of commercial-level open-source software 3 or 4 years ago... and then have done fuck all with it ever since. Zero updates to the original snaps they put there in the initial population of the Snap store (yes they do maintain a select few things, but only a small percentage of the flood of obsolete software in the Snap store). The result is people looking to install apps who poke the Snap store, go "oh hey, the application I want is there", install it, and then get all pissy with the vendor... who looks about in surprise wondering how a potential customer managed to find such an old version (happened with at least 2 of my employers, and I've come across many more). Go search Reddit (or Google) for obsolete snap discussions. There's no shortage people pointing at the same issue.

Have you EVER traveled anywhere overseas? A simple comparison... Amsterdam vs Vancouver (I've lived in both cities). Vancouver transit is absolutely terrible in comparison, and the Dutch have to deal with swampy ground and water everywhere. Amsterdam has trams, buses, trains (local and long distance), and glorious cycle paths EVERYWHERE. The city is pedestrian friendly too... Vancouver is just a generic typical north American city built for cars and little else.

I can afford my house even at 5% because I intentionally bought WAY under what I was approved for. I knew the lower interest rates wouldn't hold... and there was no way I was willing to buy into a multi-million dollar home at 1%. Rates go up and down over time. I bought based on the assumption that a renewal would be in the 6-8% range. At 5% I can afford it just fine... question is, do I want to?

A LOT of people I know bought right at the max they were approved for, and at 1-ish percent interest. Renewals are coming up within the next 12 months or so, and they are already panicking. That $2M home is going to suddenly become VERY expensive... well beyond their ability to pay for it.

I plan to sell this year... and take that equity, whatever we get, and set ourselves up elsewhere outside of Canada.