If most of you are aware, I've resumed applying to jobs. Well, most of them were rejections, but today, I got a response. The pay of the job is ₹60,000 per annum. Yes, you read it right.

And what's the message I've received?

>Hi /c/velox_vulnus@lemmy.ml, > >Are you flexible on your salary?

Is ₹5,000 per month not already low enough? Even school-dropout blue-collar workers make more than me at ₹25,000 per month. Rent of a room alone costs around ₹7,000-9,000. I am so done with this.

I had to replace the display cable from another broken laptop, and thankfully, it was compatible with mine. Also changed the screen from AUO to Innolux, so I'm loving the matt display - but the tint is now a little yellowish. I would've increased the RAM, if not for the DDR3L vs DDR4 modules not being compatible to each other, so I'm suck with just 4GB. And also switched from normal swap to zswap with lz0 compression and zpool of type zsmalloc. I can't fold the laptop anymore, but well, it works decently for now.

Pardon me if I get this wrong - but I'd assume that if one were to return packages back to a online shop (Amazon, Ebay, etc), they would have to:

• print a label, package the box and then return to a post office, right - maybe also pay a little fee?

• return to a designated locker/warehouse

• initiate a label-free return to a nearby supermarket

Perhaps this is how it works in North America and maybe Europe, right?

Well, I wanted to talk about the system set in India used by every online shops (including Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Puma, etc). Here's how it goes:

• if you want to return the product, you access the homepage, and initiate a return

• you'll get a message ensuring that a delivery agent (assigned by logistic companies like DTDC, Blue Dart or Delhivery) will be by your house by tomorrow, or day after tomorrow

• you're not supposed to re-package the delivery box, because the agent will come to your door, check the contents briefly, and then carry the product with them

• after a few days, or maybe a week, the team at the warehouse will inspect the product properly, and then immediately initiate a refund

Sure, it is convenient, but I can't help and think of how exploitative this is to gig-workers. Am I in the wrong to feel this way?

I've been looking to buy a Thinkpad from Ebay. Compared to the refurbished market in India, the prices are really low, even after the addition of shipping costs.

For example, consider a Thinkpad X13 Gen 1 with i7-10510U/10610U (6c, 12t, I believe), 16GB onboard RAM and 512TB storage being sold for ₹12,000-₹18,000, plus ₹6,000 for shipping, versus paying ₹35,000-₹65,000 overall when buying from a refurbished laptop seller locally.

Are there addition expenses to pay - like for example, import duty? What other stuff should I take into consideration?

Ever since I've graduated on September 2022, I've not had a job. Maybe a crappy internship, but I wasn't provided with a 'certificate', or letter that proves if I've worked for them. That was around October 2022, and I quit voluntarily at the end of January 2023. Since then, I've not worked anywhere as a software dev, be it internship or full-time, because the job market is so fucked up in India.

Now, how do I explain this to avail scholarship? I have yet to read other scholarship docs from other countries in Europe, and I'm already shitting solidified blood-clots reading this from the DAAD Helmut-Schmidt announcement document:

>a curriculum vitae in reverse chronological order including the date of issue (format: europass, please note: the europass template does not include a date, please add it yourself) with exact information about your studies and practical experience; gaps of three months or more must be explained

(Update: And I just realized that I am an idiot for not reading that this is only for non-STEM folks. Well, it looks to me that DAAD for STEM is also almost the same, with more stringent requirements.)

In my college, there was no research programs - I mean, you know the typical 'Indian colleges encouraging academic plagiarism', so I didn't learn or do shit. And obviously, I have no job experience. I did contribute to open-source from GitLab, a few Ruby gems, a new unknown front-end framework for JS, then Nixpkgs and now Guix, but that's it. Honestly, I wouldn't even call it contribution, because only a few patches were merged - most of it was just me interacting with those folks. After that, I've done nothing since September 2023, because my laptop broke and there were no spare parts. Maybe a little bit of playing around with Nix and Guix, writing package expressions and that's it.

How do I explain this? CVs are supposed to be at least 2-3 pages, but this? I can't even write half a page with this.

CS degree is kinda useless, right? I haven't slept the whole night applying and thinking about this...

This beef is related to XScreensaver being forced to make a privacy policy, but this list is pretty fucking based.

I under-estimated comb size 21 on my Braun trimmer (still can't figure out if it's millimeters or freedom units), and used it to trim my head. I was also under the assumption that using size 13 on the sides would give a fade.

Well, turns out that there's really not a lot of difference between 21 and 13, at least to the visible eye - so there's no 'fade', and me being at at Norwood scale 3 makes it even more worse, almost like a Tonsure Mini Pro ™.

Now I look like Jason Statham if he was a pedophile monk. Kids will look at my franken-hair fuckery and piss off their pants.

One of the used Thinkpad I was looking at has a MDM. Is it going to be an issue? If so, can I bypass it? I'm going to be using Linux anyway, so would it cause any issue?

I was screen-shopping a few unopened Pixel 3a on eBay, and it was a good deal at 66$. I could have had them shipped to India, or bought them through my relatives, effectively bypassing the need to pay duty, delivery fees or taxes. But lo, it's Verizon-locked. And maybe I could be wrong here, but apparently, flashing international ROM or custom ROM can't bypass this. So annoyed by this shit, because factory-unlocked devices get sold quickly, or are deliberately expensive.

I will not invalidate the mistreatment and hate towards Bihari people, and I think that it is a valid concern. But this isn't about that. The people of Bihar can, for all of eternity, curse and blame the rest of India for their poverty and downfall, but is it really the case?

When the rest of India was against the faulty tax-distribution between states, because we object to our taxes going in the pockets of scummy politicians, but they keep getting to power, is that not a valid justification?

The four-lane Sultanganj-Aguani Ghat bridge has collapsed twice in two year, and god-knows how many shitty infrastructure was built in Nitish Kumar's time? Or does no one keep track about such incidents, because the bridges are apparently not for them?

Oh, and about education. Bihar is plagued with paper leaks for almost any exam that happens in that state. There's no good universities or industries in that pitiable state, and the youth are forced to migrate to other states, making it difficult for the natives to get job. But was that not their own fault? Why did they vote back Nitish Kumar again to power, knowing that their state is failing?

I've been trying to find P1/X1 Extreme (Gen 1/2/3) and X1 Carbon laptops (Gen 7/8) that come in the configuration of Intel 8th/9th/10th gen (newer is better) in i7, or the AMD Ryzen equivalent of it, 16/32GB of RAM, 512GB/1TB of storage space, FHD display and preferably 2xSODIMM, if possible. No dedicated GPU, because I'm not going to be playing games. Also, no operating system, because I'll be using Linux. So far, this effort hasn't been going well. What will improve the success rate for finding a refurbished/renewed device?

The budget isn't finalized, but I've imagined it to be somewhere in the ₹30k-40k range. I'd prefer if it were in ₹20k-30k. Country is India, by the way, and I am open to getting them imported, as long as I can get it for cheap, and have it last for almost four years, and get parts readily available. I've tried looking in DesertCart and UBuy and they're expensive in both the sites. E-Bay does not have enough devices.

I remember listening to Fly To High by Younha, and around that time, I started reading the manhwa and I was in love with it. And when I learnt about the anime becoming a reality, I was so excited about this song being used, or maybe something as good by her. Contradiction by Tyler Carter sounds like a repetitive rip-off of Camellia's glitch-hop. Similarly, other manhwa series like Solo Leveling or Tower of God have opening themes I just can't vibe with.

In all seriousness, please don't blame me for being ignorant - the current mainstream media is filled with the vilest, most vitriolic bullshit, so I've stopped watching the TV, and then there's hardly a few legitimate news sites with proper Atom/RSS support that I can keep track of.