I'm looking for peoples' experiences working with Socialist Alternative, or opinions about them. Where are they concentrated geographically and how do they work? I have a sense of their politics from reading some of their literature. I'm interested not so much in what they think but what they do. Thank you
Long story short, I procrastinated on taking my ITIL4 Foundation exam for quite a while, and about a week before it was going to expire I decided I finally need to get this done. I went online to book the exam and it said my voucher code was invalid. I called and after about an hour of trying finally got a person on the phone. They took my voucher code but couldn't help me immediately. A few days later they emailed me to say the voucher is invalid because I already used it. I did not use it, that is 1000% an error. I tried to reach out to them a couple more times and haven't had a reply, and now at this point it's past the date where my voucher would have expired.
Do I have any options other than to purchase another voucher? If that's all I can do, does anyone have a suggestion for the best place to buy another voucher? Passion IT Group is selling them for 500 USD which is absolutely absurd for a 40 question foundation exam.
Thanks in advance.
I highly recommend professor Rockhill's book ["Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism"](https://dn721806.ca.archive.org/0/items/who-paid-the-pipers-of-western-marxism/Who%20Paid%20the%20Pipers%20of%20Western%20Marxism%3F.pdf). It has a lot of sources cited in the book that really makes it clear why the western left has been so ineffective in fighting against imperialism and capitalism. It was designed in such a way in the first place. Clowns like Zizek can never write something this insightful and coherent.
If you wanna know more about this topic, you should also read the great late historian Domenico Losurdo's [Western Marxism: How It was Born, How It Died, How It can be Reborn](https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Western\_Marxism:\_How\_it\_was\_Born,\_How\_it\_Died,\_How\_it\_can\_be\_Reborn).
I made this with ChatGPT. The idea was to overlay an Arch logo over one of the more interesting images from the James Webb near-infrared space telescope. I'm not a creative type and this is just a basic concept for something that could be made properly by someone with actual skill. I think it's a cool idea for a nice wallpaper and would love to see a human make something similar that is more polished.
Why is it that each time I go onto the CBC website I'm inundated with shorts, American news and celebrity gossip? What's the point of having a Canadian public broadcaster if the editorial perspective is no different from American-owned media? The deep integration of the Canadian bourgeoisie with American imperialism is reflected back at us everywhere you look. This is a big reason why public ownership on it's own simply isn't enough. Mere reform can't get us to where we need to be. We actually need democratic management by everyday people and their representatives. A public broadcaster owned by a worker's government would prioritize what workers are interested in, not American politics or Hollywood celebrities.
IT admin here, used to working on Windows but familiar enough with Linux and enough of a tinkerer to make it work. Arch Linux with Xfce4 is now my home base. With Remmina I can access Windows machines I need to work on but otherwise I'm doing pretty much everything from Arch and I love it. Simple, easy for the most part. It Just Works©.
I have three years of IT experience and a handful of certifications, including the CCNA. I'm in a generalist IT support role currently, I wear a lot of hats, have done a lot of things and learned a lot but I honestly can't remember half the stuff I've learned and rely on notes a lot. I got invited by a friend to apply for a network technician role and I have an interview scheduled for next week. I'm very interested in networking and I'm reviewing all my CCNA notes and flashcards in preparation. But aside from making sure I can speak intelligently about all the basics, is there anything else specific I should do to prepare? This job is the perfect next step in my career, gets me out of help desk and onto an infrastructure path that could eventually lead to really high paying roles if I can get the job and manage to do well. Thanks in advance.
I got invited to apply for a Network Tech position that I'm very excited about. One of the things I've done in my current IT support role is automating a lot of manual tasks using SQL, PowerShell, Python and VBscripts. I can read code and understand logic but I'm not a developer, I used AI to help me build most of this stuff. Still, a lot of this stuff has been incredibly helpful and I want to highlight my automation mindset in my cover letter. I don't stupidly get Claude to just write stuff and then run it without vetting, I always review what's been produced to make sure it's secure, not going to break anything, and I usually make some of my own modifications. Should I be upfront about the fact that I use Claude quite a bit to assist with this kind of stuff? AI is kinda controversial these days. I believe in using it intelligently to reduce manual work, but I don't think I over rely on it. I never get anywhere near my credit max unlike some colleagues who seem to offload their entire job to it.
Edit: Thanks for the down votes. By all means, please keep down voting. This is absolutely not a discussion worth having in 2026. Let's all bury our heads in the sand!
For starters, I've been told by my higher ups on numerous occasions that we require a ticket, don't let anyone get away with not creating one. Don't create one for them unless there's a good reason to go white-glove with the person (C-level or really frustrated manager).
Sales guy who's been with the company 10+ years and should know the drill: "Hey I'm having this issue, can you take a look?" -Proceeds to give incoherent broken English partial description of the problem-
Me, who manages tickets across multiple ticketing systems, has a million emails and non-ticket tasks to perform: "Got it, please submit a ticket in Fresh service, include screenshots and as much information as you can and I'll try and get to you shortly."
Sales guy: "Yeah, sure. So this thing has been happening and blah blah blah" -Sends a bunch of screenshots and half-coherent paragraphs about his problem-
Me: "Please submit a ticket, we'll investigate this shortly."
Sales guy: "Sure, sure, how do I do that?" -Should know, has been shown dozens of times over the years-
Me: "The ____ icon on your desktop will take you directly into the portal. Select 'Report an issue' and follow the prompts."
Sales guy: "Ok"
-Crickets...chirp chirp chirp...no ticket-
Three days later...
Sales guy: "So I'm still having that issue and I've got a call in 2 minutes and you help me fix it right now?" -Tries to start a call on Teams
Me: "Did you submit a ticket? (I know the answer) I need a ticket, I have lots of other requests for support and I work from my ticket queue, not from Teams."
Sales guy: "It's just that this thing keeps happening and I need it fixed" -Proceeds to give another incoherent semi-English paragraph with screenshots again-
Round and round we go. I've thought to myself a few times that maybe I'm the bad guy. Maybe this guy has some kind of intellectual delay and just can't grasp simple instructions and needs his hand to be held, and I'm denying him that. On the other hand, I know that's not actually true. The guy is hella good at his job and can't be stupid. I think it's actually a sense of entitlement - he feels that because he's so good, he should get to skip the line. But honestly, I don't know what it is.
I feel it's a lack of respect for my time and for others. I'm basically a one man show doing everything and I need to triage and prioritize my work. When someone refuses to submit a ticket and tries to skip the line, it signals entitlement. When they refuse to honor my request for a ticket, it shows lack of respect for me. Unfortunately, this particular guy I have in mind is the worst, but not the only one who does this. And they all tend to be these extroverted, ADHD customer-facing types.
Thanks for letting me rant. I love my job and I actually do love the people and I have great social skills which makes working with most people really easy and enjoyable. But I also insist on order. The only people who I'm letting skip the line are the C-levels basically. But they actually never do, people at the very top are usually very courteous and avoid trying to make demands on me. It's always "I know you're super busy, please take care of this only when you have time!" The worst people are the ones who are the best at their job within their department, but don't have any manager status.
Archlinux fresh install with XFCE. I know a lot of Arch users like the tiling window managers, but personally I've always felt like any tiling WM setup I had was an unstable patchwork. XFCE gives me the ability to make pretty much everything keyboard-driven within a unified and extremely light DE.
Let's flip the script. The case for militant tenant unionism is better than you think: https://pvonline.ca/2026/04/29/new-tenant-union-promises-to-build-housing-struggles-in-toronto/
Toronto has already begun building momentum with rent strikes, office sit-ins and organizing tenants in buildings across downtown, Scarborough, and York-South Weston. Now they're building on that momentum to build a militant city-wide union that just held it's founding convention.
Build worker and tenant power! Expropriate corporate landlords and convert to social housing!
