13 ms·
it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet
by amckenna 14y ago
it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet
- hoka 14y agoFix that whole rain thing and I'll be there tomorrow.
- elteto 14y agoBetter start packing up then! See this: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/12/does-it-really-rain-all-time-in-seattle.html http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/12/does-it-really-rain-al...
- cpeterso 14y agoIt doesn't rain all the time in Seattle, but it rains almost every day most of the year. When I lived in Seattle, I remember some months when the sky was gray 24/7. Crushing, relentless gray. It felt like living inside a concrete dome. :\
- rdl 14y agoOTOH, grey skies make photography easier and better.
- meej 14y agoNo it doesn't. Seattle has some of the best summers anywhere; it's one of the city's best-kept secrets. July and August are gorgeous. The relentless gray of which you speak is true of months like December and January.
- majorlazer 14y agoExactly, the summer only lasts for July and August. November to February it rains non-stop, and every other month is hit or miss. You can't really plan any trips because those clouds come out of nowhere. And that was the worst part. I would wake up and the sun is shining. I decide to go ride some trails on my bike, half way to the location it starts to rain. Plans ruined.
- loeg 14y agoOutside of winter (November -> March) the rain is really light and doesn't interfere with wandering around outside. But I'm a Seattlite =).
- meej 14y agoYes, this. An old roommate of mine who was a Seattle-area native called it "spitting drizzle". It's like an agressive fog.
- meej 14y agoThose two months are the best summer you'll find anywhere. When I moved to SF, I missed them dearly. SF summers are terrible, and I found three of them more depressing than seven rainy winters in Seattle ever were. I'll also take nonstop rain from Nov-Feb any day over the snowy winters in the Midwestern states where I grew up. Finally, the key to not letting your plans get ruined by rain is to always plan for the possibility of rain. =)
- cpeterso 14y agoYes, Seattle summers are beautiful. 10 months of rain makes for a very green summer. :)
- specialist 14y agocpeterso is likely a member of Lesser Seattle. Started by curmudgeon Emmett Watson as a way to discourage Californians from moving to Seattle. When I travel, I always emphasize the rain, the cloud cover, the risk of death by volcano, the very real likelihood very overdue The Big One earthquake, how traffic sucks, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Watson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Watson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Seattle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Seattle
- marshray 14y agoWhatever you do, don't tell them about the statue of Lenin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle
- philwelch 14y agoNo, we used to have a concrete dome, and it didn't actually feel the same. It was much nicer inside the actual dome.
- cpeterso 14y agoGood point! And I remember when they blew it up. :)
- codex 14y agoThe problem with Seattle isn't as much the rain, as it is the cloud cover and lack of sunlight in Seattle. In the wintertime, those two combine for a fairly negative effect. That said, sometimes it does rain a lot in Seattle. Some years ago there was a stretch of 35 consecutive days of rain.
- l0c0b0x 14y agoCome on!.. it only took me 17 years to get used to the rain (Came from South America).
- ahelwer 14y agoYep. I have an internship there this summer, and I'll be moving from Calgary, which gets the most hours of sunlight of any city in Canada. Hope the change won't be too jarring/depressing... it was overcast every day when I was there for interviews.
- aaronbrethorst 14y agoSummers are why you live in Seattle. 80°F, sunny, and beautiful every day (after July 5th)! We get about 16 hours of sunlight on the summer solstice. There are actually cases of people getting SAD from the over abundance of sunlight in the summer (http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/10/depression-from-too-much-sun.html?m=1 http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/10/depression-from-too-mu...)
- mahyarm 14y agoMoving from seattle to the bay area you basically get that for about 8/9 months on end.
- heynk 14y agoThe summer is the time for sun in Seattle. This entire summer was clear skies every single day. http://www.seattleweatherblog.com/rain/record-dryness-winding-down/ http://www.seattleweatherblog.com/rain/record-dryness-windin...
- kyllo 14y agoThis summer was awesome, but it was not typical. Summer 2010 was terrible. 60 degrees and cloudy/rainy throughout.
- Danieru 14y agoSo far that makes 3 confirmed interns, it would appear microsoft has recruited half the comp sci department. I used to live a few hundred kilometers away from Seattle in the same temperature area, I can say for sure I'm looking forward to this summer!
- MartinCron 14y agoWhy fix what isn't broken? Some people enjoy the rain.
- netghost 14y agoIt's great, I totally don't have to water the garden most of the year. Thanks nature!
- WalterBright 14y agoIt doesn't actually rain here. We just tell people that to keep out Californians.
- dmishe 14y agoPrivate health insurance sucks ass in WA, but other than that it does look good :)
- octaveguin 14y agoThat and the transportation. Otherwise, Seattle is probably the place I like to live in the states the most. The traffic and lack of good public transport options is a serious negative :(
- majorlazer 14y agoThat and the horrible weather. If the northwest's weather didn't suck so much, I would never have moved back down to the bay area.
- stephengillie 14y agoOur summers are glorious :) Don't you get bored with the constant sunshine?
- potatolicious 14y ago> "Don't you get bored with the constant sunshine?" NO (former Seattleite, and the weather has been the absolute greatest gain from moving away)
- majorlazer 14y agoThe summers were amazing. For those 2, maybe 3 months if we were lucky, I enjoyed the hell out of life. But as soon as the rain started, I had trouble staying motivated. I wasn't depressed either, cause I was happy and had a great time there, but there is only so much you can do while it's raining and cold.
- nanodeath 14y agoI've been living in Seattle for over 8 years now without a car, public transit is good enough for me...
- sage_joch 14y agoNot to mention the tech industry, super heroes, and nature trails. I am bullish on Seattle.
- joonix 14y agoNeed to get myself to Seattle.
- rdl 14y agoThe bad thing about WA state is the tax structure -- no corp or personal income tax (good), but the B&O tax is a gross receipts tax, really complex (it varies by county and by type of business), and has pyramiding (as do all gross receipts taxes) -- it's equivalent to a 12-15% corp income tax for many businesses. If you don't use 2-3 levels of contractors, or have a lot of work done as subassemblies, it should be ok -- for a software/internet startup who buys hosting from a single provider only, it is probably more like a 3-4% income tax. It's still better overall than most states, but I'd prefer a different corporate income tax structure. Even a 5-10% corporate income tax, with no minimum, would be fine. The worst part about California corporate taxes is the $800 minimum; if you got rid of that, it would be pretty reasonable I think.
- loeg 14y agoCan you expand on why the lack of personal income tax is a good thing? Instead, WA has roughly 10% sales tax which some would say disproportionately taxes the poor.
- rdl 14y agoLower personal income tax, all other things equal, is better. I wasn't trying to directly compare sales tax vs. personal income tax vs. payroll tax vs. corp income tax vs. capital gains vs. property tax. Just that B&O/gross receipts is worse than corp income tax. I'm personally pro something like a broad VAT with a $20k credit or $50k exemption, including property. In general, consumption taxes seem preferable to income or investment taxes, in that they deter consumption vs. deterring investment. Consumption has fewer inherent positive externalities than investment or income. And then add additional taxes for the purpose of capturing and offsetting externalities like pollution, traffic, etc., rather than strictly as revenue. And I'd really like to see experiments on taxing status goods. Create or find things like they have in game economies, which are not really necessary or important, and which are purely purchased for signaling value, and tax those. Raising the taxes on those things, thus raising cost, is beneficial to the buyers and to society. (I think Scott Adams from Dilbert has proposed this.)
- guyzero 14y ago
- rdl 14y agoWA also has relatively permissive firearms laws, especially compared to California and NYC. For me, that's a good thing; I guess for some people it's a bad thing. They're not quite as good as NV or some other states (SBR, automatic, etc. require a business engaged in that as a business, or a trust, vs. personal ownership), but essentially fine. I'd probably have an FFL07 side business if I were up there all the time anyway.
- MartinCron 14y agoPutting high speed Internet (and weed, really) on the same level as marriage equality feels a little...cheap. But, I agree with your sentiment. I love living in Seattle.
- philwelch 14y agoLegalizing marijuana keeps people out of prison sentences which ruin their lives and strikes the first blow against the war on drugs, which is the greatest civil rights disaster of recent decades. Marriage equality makes a little bit of legal paperwork more convenient and provides symbolic equality. An injustice, but a smaller one.
- drewrv 14y agoThe drug wars effect on minority communities is often overlooked. The legalization of weed is a civil rights victory.
- MartinCron 14y agoGood point. I have a hard time shaking my "white stoner kid" stereotype.
- RobAley 14y agoHigh-speed internet (and better internet access in general) is a win-win for communication & education, leading to a more open society and encouraging and facilitating change like marriage equality.
- rozap 14y agoThe war on drugs is perhaps the biggest civil rights fiasco currently. Unnecessary and unjust incarcerations are absolutely inexcusable, and they fall almost exclusively on the minorities. i502 is not a bill about getting high, there is so much more to it.