Are there real positions these days?

I get rejection for every single position that I apply to. Often I read literally a description of myself in job posting, and it's still "we decided to no move forward".

At the same time, I hire people and see that 8/10 candidates are just trash. Not in the sense they "are not aligned", or "emit wrong vibes", or other bs. They literally can't write a single line of code, on their own laptop, in their own IDE.

Make it make sense.

A lot of fake positions. It is not even from the company, just recruiters recycling old job postings. I know it is fake because I’m in the company and the project is long dead.

It’s bananas how many utterly crap candidates we get at the moment too.

One low point was an interview with a guy who connected with his current work laptop and couldn’t find the $ key on it for a basic scripting question.

I can’t make it make sense either.

Because the hoards of people who can't find the ` or | or $ on their keyboard outnumber competent people 100:1. I had this exact experience too, so frustrating. Moved to a strictly referral model where I pay my SWEs $10k if a candidate they refer gets hired.

We had a guy interview for a senior C++ position that hadn't used Git before and had no idea what a "merge" was.

A person who only has real industry experience can very easily have never needed git at all. I know this shocks people who only have hobby or startup experience but git works very poorly at large scale and there are many big organizations who don't use it either because their solutions predate git, or they are newer companies that simply have good taste.

I’ve been in dev since CVS was a thing and did migrations across all of them really, svn, mg and finally git. I’ve worked in a broad swathe of industries and never once over 25 years have I ever seen an org not using source code management.

I just don’t believe this at all.

I think you misread what I said.

It is almost like the current system favours cheaters spamming fake CVs while most real people do have imperfections (eg gaps in employment)

You'll need to ask companies that are going to get that government refund.

Do nicotine pouches give you mouth cancer?

I don't think zyn has been studied enough to be conclusive, but it does have some negative effects similar to dip I suppose? Dip on the other hand is described as using something like 'fiberglass' that cuts your mouth so your gums can absorb the nicotine quicker, of course the tobacco industry denies this. I've only tried dip once, and it was like a kick to the face. I'll stick to casual cigar smoking (its been 4 years though!).

Someone's delusions are fuelled by books, let's regulate books.

Maybe it's cheaper to make something that doesn't have be small as an iphone.

Because it IS good, even if you don't like it.

I'll call you a pdf, put banners on every utility pole where you live, and even set your bicycle on fire. Will it count as I just "hurt your feelings"?

What does setting things on fire have to do with freedom of speech?

I think this is how it goes: The people who set things on fire weren't directly associated with Greenpeace. But the argument is that Greenpeace's rhetoric incited them to do so. So it becomes a freedom of speech issue. If you tell people something is evil and must be burned, are you responsible for that thing getting torched?

The Hutus that committed genocide in Rwanda were not directly associated with that radio host that called for murders, yet he's a criminal.

Smoking used to be a very effective social interaction catalyzer back in my young days.

It still is. I gave up for 15 years, and just the last two years i have been smoking. In these last two years, I've met a lot of people in my company out in the smoker's den, and quite a few of them are really interesting people.

I no longer smoke as a habit, but when I have to travel solo (like for work) I sometimes will buy a pack just so I have an excuse to strike up a conversation with other humans without being called a creep or weirdo. "Hey, you got a light? What brand you smoking? How are you liking the conference so far?"