Most drives are going to be purchased from one of those two sites, or through somewhere like Fry's. Fry's pricing is, effectively, identical to the lower of the two, within a couple dollars. Other than that, you're looking at grossly inflated locales, like Best Buy.
Hi, someone living in South Dakota, with tmobile service. I've made the trip from San Francisco to here (or back) several times now. During the trips back and forth, I've been able to stream normal quality Pandora Radio for most of he trip and hold multi-hour phone conversations. I believe the worst area I'd encountered was in the Rockies an hour or two East of SLC and on the salt flats themselves.
The service coverage is great, actually. Locally, it's usually through an AT&T tower, but about 30% of the time it's through a partner. Coverage is better than Verizon offers, it seems.
The biggest agitation? Data service. They gimp it at 10MB/month if you're "roaming", which makes dealing with a service buyout or something like that really, really irritating. Sorry, it isn't reasonable that you'd have to finish out a contract after moving just to avoid having to buy it out...
So should I then also be able to make a Superman movie, with the Superman logo, the Superman soundtrack (you know, the one composed by John Williams for the 'original' 1980s Superman), and so on? Where does the line get drawn?
I see it as being able to use another company's trademark - their logo or name of a product. If they're not using it anymore, it's fair game. If they are using it, it's strictly forbidden, as is anything which might be easily mistaken. End of story.
On the contrary, managers simply have less brain power to actually commit to such things. They're more preoccupied with the trappings of their life - golf, their new Cadillac SUV, where they're going to lunch, football season, more golf - to dedicate much brainpower to things like work.
Except China has yet to really produce much for Western consumption which isn't generally considered to be 'crap'. Yes they produce some things for other companies, under external control, but nothing "Chinese". So why is that? They've been exporting to the US and the West as a whole for much longer than Japan had to spin up their electronics and car excellence.
I'm not saying it won't happen, I'm just saying it hasn't happened yet, and I'm curious as to why. We've even got companies moving back to stateside production (Whirlpool) because China production sucked, had high costs for turnaround and development, and lead to a lack of significant improvement for the most part of a decade.
There are swear words, and then there is vulgar language. Just becaues they're not banned on the radio does not mean you won't get in trouble in school for saying them.
And of course, we're more than willing to borrow from other languages and dialects (eg. British or Australian) - punter, plunk, farie, twat, bollocks, etc.
Yeah, except Samba 4 is less important than Samba 3.
Samba is/was useful because it interfaces many different systems together, providing file and print services based on those other systems.
Samba 4 doesn't do this. It is those "other systems" - it's the whole ball of wax, and you have no option to not make it be your DNS or authentication backend. This is almost entirely useless for eg. people using other systems for authentication as their backend (LDAP) already who do not want to make Samba 4, a stack which is yet untested by time and lacks a lot of the necessary documentation for 'production' systems, their single point of failure.
If samba 4 had come along in 2003 or 2004, this would be another story. There was a lower standard set for "production" then, and Windows has improved markedly as a server platform since. As it stands, it's nowhere near ready - so there's no place for it.
you make the assumption that those who possess guns will not be rationed bullets when they purchase their hunting license for the year. No more than 5, of course - nobody needs 10 bullets to kill a deer!
Then imagine people who get their once-in-a-lifetime elk, moose, or cougar license. Or the African safari. They want to make sure they hit it, but they're still only allocated 5 shots for the year for that license...
While I agree with you, the obvious demographic for this product will be the 'expensive hunter' demographic.
I didn't say the Enlightenment or the Industrial revolution, I said the modern technology revolution. You know, the one that started somewhere in the 1970s (or 1950s, or... wherever you put it). While Europe certainly had its part, it was largely spearheaded and made successful by the backwards Yanks - or people who immigrated to become Yanks, like Torvalds (regardless of the fact that he started Linux in his home country, he came here). But again, I do note that Europe and Europeans played a non-trivial part; it just didn't become critical mass in their society. Einstein was a German Jew; neither Israel nor Germany were responsible for the innovation of the nuclear industry after the fact, it was the US (and the USSR, to a lesser degree).
As for implications that I'm saying that Europe/Europeans are "technologically backwards, bigoted, ultra-nationalistic and racist"? I did no such thing. I did, however, make several clear rebuttal points against the GP's claims that the US is " stubborn, arrogant, and resistant to change" by stating multiple instances of cultural, political, and technological events/trends/whatever where the US was and is responsible for taking the lead in the spearhead formation.
It could certainly be argued that, while the US has been first in some places (eg. social changes) they are not the best. Just like other countries are by no means the best at things they've started, at this point. But it can not be said with integrity that the US is backward technologically (we're leading), arrogant (we do more than lipservice to the UN despite the capability to go unilateral and, as a nation, give more than the whole of the UN or European countries in humanitarian aid as individual contributors), or resistant to change (we have a near polar shift in our political representatives every several years, it seems).
Companies used to put lead ingot weights inside electronics - such as, for instance, in house phones which would not necessarily be screwed to the wall - for the very purposes of not making them 'feel' cheap. Why would they 'feel' cheap? Because people expected things to have weight to them, and the plastics the phones were made of were not heavy like the Bakelite or metal phones they were replacing. It didn't matter that they were functionally superior, luddites didn't like them because they 'felt cheap'. (Same for the Nokia-come-iPhone users who dish on everything else, I imagine.)
That said, a lot of this might just come down to the tactile appreciation for weight in the things we use as tools. I know I appreciate heavier handguns and knives, and love how 'sturdy' my HTC HD2 feels (because it's heavy).
Sorry, I just did. Adjusted for inflation in reverse, I would have paid 14% less (of my total income!) on federal income in 1980 than I do today (21% vs 35%) - or should I say, in 2013.
I was in his situation. I couldn't get food stamps and a number of other things I saw people who were much better dressed and who drove up in much nicer cars were obviously able to receive. I wasn't getting offered the "next job that came along" because nothing on the list fit my skillset.
that maybe, just maybe these people's drug problems are caused by poverty, instead of the other way around?
That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life.
I suppose Paris Hilton's crack problem, Charlie Sheen's drinking problem, and who knows what, are all caused by poverty, too?
If you are trading money - or the things you need to survive, like fucking food - for drugs, then yes, those drugs (or at least, the decisions to buy them) are indeed directly responsible for your poverty. Because, you know, the absence of both money and the necessities of life, like food, is kinda how we define poverty.
I would never have met the girl I'm currently dating if I'd not stumbled upon her profile on okcupid. We really don't share all that much in common regarding our existing lifestyles - very, very different groups of people and activities. But we do have a little overlap, and our personalities and worldview are freakishly compatible. Some of her lifestyle is uncomfortable, I will grant you that, but it's the good kind of uncomfortable not the BDSM or crappy groupy kind of uncomfortable.:P
While it is somewhat true that marriage is not as good of a deal for men as it used to be, that is not entirely a bad thing. Women have more career options than they used to.
Bullshit. Have you been married? How about divorced?
Marriage in and of itself is not the unappealing thing for a man - that's still pretty appealing. It's the potential negative cost and lack of safety associated with it.
To use an analogy, let's use one with a blue car and a red car. The blue car comes with a 40 year warranty with a full replacement if there is damage within 20 years, and a discount on your next model in the 20-30 year range. What's more, the blue car becomes more valuable as it ages, not less. The red car is super fast but guaranteed to be less valuable and slower as it ages. With the red car, you only get a service warranty, and you still have to pay for it at the shop. Naturally, red cars are more likely to be stolen, because who doesn't like a fast car? If the car dies, you'll potentially get to file it on your insurance claim, but at best it's nice and fast for a decade or two, and reliable for the rest of your life without any of the typical things which happen to red cars when they hit menopause.
Yeah, it's not quite that bleak, but that's largely the situation in a 'traditional' family with a single income. Career options have nothing to do with it - career options for women only make divorce a more viable option for women (and thus, a potentially more appealing option) and in no way make it less of a shitty situation for men.
Women's value on the dating market is different than men's. Women's is based on sexual vitality and appeal (mostly). Men's is based on economic viability. Just because they peak sexually at 21 and 36 doesn't mean the other aspects aren't more significant when finding a partner. And just because you're 30 and incredibly economically viable doesn't mean you're going to have the best of luck (or really the desire) to find a 21 year old female partner - who would want to put up with that level of shit?
Well, for starters, we geeks (particularly of the 'sysadmin' variety) tend to have a difficult time with relationships. Particularly the good ones who have focused on our careers throughout life instead of learning 'social skills'. We may be kind, loving, thoughtful, and self-sacrificing in our personal relationships but, for the most part, our careers have to come first.
Many women do not understand this. In fact, in today's culture where women are a significant part of the work force, with today's general work ethic, most people in general do not understand this. It's not necessarily a healthy approach to life, but it's how we're wired.
We also happen to be fairly direct and logically oriented. Things like not understanding why a woman would want flowers may sometimes result in us not realizing we should be doing special things for them.
Personally, I'm just coming out of a 10 year marriage. She left for another man she started seeing while I was out of state working and sending money back home. It hurts a hell of a lot, no lie. But I want to be in "a relationship", that's something I need. But I've got kids. How do I juggle my work schedule (oh yeah, I'm on night shift now), full child care responsibilities, and a dating life?
Pretty much the only traditional option I'm left with is strip clubs and a babysitter. Maybe take a little bit of each if I were to get lucky.
So I tried a couple dating sites and met a woman who is astoundingly compatible with me: that is, I enjoy her company like I have no other woman's, we have similar interests and worldviews, and we make each other happy. I wasn't actively seeking, just putting out a line, and I am blown away by the results. If I believed in divine intervention instead of heuristics, that's what I'd say made it happen.
There IS a very big cost associated with online dating, by the way. The 'findings' in the linked article are wrong. Relationships do commerce in trust. The financial side of a relationship is largely extraneous; it isn't what's important, and it isn't what is being bought or sold. If you're looking for a long term relationship, you're expecting your partner to want to do things for you which require trust: make you dinner, bring home a pay check, suck your dick, spread their legs, share their/your inner-most feelings (thoughts and emotions). Without being vulnerable - paying the other person - there's no way you can expect the other person to respond in same, and the relationship ultimately ends. So yes, you very much do still have an 'economic exchange' - nobody emotionally stable can effectively be vulnerable with everyone, it's not possible.
(Oh yeah, a fun thing... best match I got on OKCupid? While most of the matches were in the 20-30% range on relationship/friendship, only a handful stood out: my current girlfriend, and my ex wife. I'm not sure if I should intrinsically distrust my girlfriend as a result of this, but she did score (a lot) higher than my ex on lifestyle, so we're giving it a shot.)
Raise the taxes on the "rich" - people making over $250k a year.
Drop the government funded programs into the sea, starting with the ones which have been shown to have diminishing if not negative results: TANF, SNAP, Section 8, Earned Income credit, retirement benefits exemption, and particularly the Dept. of Education (the most expensive waste of money this country has made in the past century for a myriad of reasons). Naturally, you'll only be able to do a year over year fractional reduction of these programs, but it will help - a LOT. (Dept. of Education costs over 30% over military funding, which should be cut, too.)
But you also need to cut the taxes on the lower middle class and the working lower class. People making under $35k a year or so in this country scrape by and have little financial means for advancement.
Apparently you've never met someone who's the sole breadwinner for a family, or most of the people you know make so much it doesn't really matter (eg. they're single and making 50k+).
Try being single and making $35,000. You get a $1,000 a year raise. What happens? You're going to be paying $2500 more in taxes (give or take). That's $7050 and $12,000, respectively.
Or married with children and your spouse doesn't work (or simply married with an non-working spouse). Make $47k? Cool, you're paying 15%. Make $48,000? Awesome, you're paying 25%.
And then, depending on which state you live in, you're going to be stuck Yes, I have had to refuse pay raises from an employer twice, because I couldn't afford it. I left for a (marked) pay increase so I could afford the tax hike.
I was divorced last year. I'm pleased as punch that I'm going to save 10% of my income this year (unless I go and do something stupid like get married again).
Right. That's precisely why America is responsible for starting:
* the sexual revolution * most worldwide cultural trends in style * international outsourcing * international democracy dispersion * guilt politics * white guilt * the technology revolution * pretty much everything successful you use on a daily basis
Sorry; these are not things of a stubborn, arrogant, or resistant people.
Meanwhile, Europe is stuck using political systems popularized in the 1930s... yeah, that's right; I said it.
Ask a black Frenchman, Welshman, or a Gypsy how open and accepting his fellow countryman is some day.
Slashdot Mirror
How is that misleading?
Most drives are going to be purchased from one of those two sites, or through somewhere like Fry's. Fry's pricing is, effectively, identical to the lower of the two, within a couple dollars. Other than that, you're looking at grossly inflated locales, like Best Buy.
Hi, someone living in South Dakota, with tmobile service. I've made the trip from San Francisco to here (or back) several times now. During the trips back and forth, I've been able to stream normal quality Pandora Radio for most of he trip and hold multi-hour phone conversations. I believe the worst area I'd encountered was in the Rockies an hour or two East of SLC and on the salt flats themselves.
The service coverage is great, actually. Locally, it's usually through an AT&T tower, but about 30% of the time it's through a partner. Coverage is better than Verizon offers, it seems.
The biggest agitation? Data service. They gimp it at 10MB/month if you're "roaming", which makes dealing with a service buyout or something like that really, really irritating. Sorry, it isn't reasonable that you'd have to finish out a contract after moving just to avoid having to buy it out...
You mean like someone who wants to take advantage of me financially? Like Apple?
I really hope Dell doesn't kill their server side. They and HP are the only two I like right now.
So should I then also be able to make a Superman movie, with the Superman logo, the Superman soundtrack (you know, the one composed by John Williams for the 'original' 1980s Superman), and so on? Where does the line get drawn?
I see it as being able to use another company's trademark - their logo or name of a product. If they're not using it anymore, it's fair game. If they are using it, it's strictly forbidden, as is anything which might be easily mistaken. End of story.
Maybe you should manage to innovate paragraphs next time, then.
On the contrary, managers simply have less brain power to actually commit to such things. They're more preoccupied with the trappings of their life - golf, their new Cadillac SUV, where they're going to lunch, football season, more golf - to dedicate much brainpower to things like work.
Except China has yet to really produce much for Western consumption which isn't generally considered to be 'crap'. Yes they produce some things for other companies, under external control, but nothing "Chinese". So why is that? They've been exporting to the US and the West as a whole for much longer than Japan had to spin up their electronics and car excellence.
I'm not saying it won't happen, I'm just saying it hasn't happened yet, and I'm curious as to why. We've even got companies moving back to stateside production (Whirlpool) because China production sucked, had high costs for turnaround and development, and lead to a lack of significant improvement for the most part of a decade.
There are swear words, and then there is vulgar language. Just becaues they're not banned on the radio does not mean you won't get in trouble in school for saying them.
condombreak jizstain pinprick chode smeg/smegma felch quiff assmucus quim scully douche gangbang slut cunthair facial skeet shlong shlort
And of course, we're more than willing to borrow from other languages and dialects (eg. British or Australian) - punter, plunk, farie, twat, bollocks, etc.
... Jabber?
You're making a problem out of nothing to make an (invalid) point.
Yeah, except Samba 4 is less important than Samba 3.
Samba is/was useful because it interfaces many different systems together, providing file and print services based on those other systems.
Samba 4 doesn't do this. It is those "other systems" - it's the whole ball of wax, and you have no option to not make it be your DNS or authentication backend. This is almost entirely useless for eg. people using other systems for authentication as their backend (LDAP) already who do not want to make Samba 4, a stack which is yet untested by time and lacks a lot of the necessary documentation for 'production' systems, their single point of failure.
If samba 4 had come along in 2003 or 2004, this would be another story. There was a lower standard set for "production" then, and Windows has improved markedly as a server platform since. As it stands, it's nowhere near ready - so there's no place for it.
you make the assumption that those who possess guns will not be rationed bullets when they purchase their hunting license for the year. No more than 5, of course - nobody needs 10 bullets to kill a deer!
Then imagine people who get their once-in-a-lifetime elk, moose, or cougar license. Or the African safari. They want to make sure they hit it, but they're still only allocated 5 shots for the year for that license...
While I agree with you, the obvious demographic for this product will be the 'expensive hunter' demographic.
I didn't say the Enlightenment or the Industrial revolution, I said the modern technology revolution. You know, the one that started somewhere in the 1970s (or 1950s, or... wherever you put it). While Europe certainly had its part, it was largely spearheaded and made successful by the backwards Yanks - or people who immigrated to become Yanks, like Torvalds (regardless of the fact that he started Linux in his home country, he came here). But again, I do note that Europe and Europeans played a non-trivial part; it just didn't become critical mass in their society. Einstein was a German Jew; neither Israel nor Germany were responsible for the innovation of the nuclear industry after the fact, it was the US (and the USSR, to a lesser degree).
As for implications that I'm saying that Europe/Europeans are "technologically backwards, bigoted, ultra-nationalistic and racist"? I did no such thing. I did, however, make several clear rebuttal points against the GP's claims that the US is " stubborn, arrogant, and resistant to change" by stating multiple instances of cultural, political, and technological events/trends/whatever where the US was and is responsible for taking the lead in the spearhead formation.
It could certainly be argued that, while the US has been first in some places (eg. social changes) they are not the best. Just like other countries are by no means the best at things they've started, at this point. But it can not be said with integrity that the US is backward technologically (we're leading), arrogant (we do more than lipservice to the UN despite the capability to go unilateral and, as a nation, give more than the whole of the UN or European countries in humanitarian aid as individual contributors), or resistant to change (we have a near polar shift in our political representatives every several years, it seems).
Yep.
Companies used to put lead ingot weights inside electronics - such as, for instance, in house phones which would not necessarily be screwed to the wall - for the very purposes of not making them 'feel' cheap. Why would they 'feel' cheap? Because people expected things to have weight to them, and the plastics the phones were made of were not heavy like the Bakelite or metal phones they were replacing. It didn't matter that they were functionally superior, luddites didn't like them because they 'felt cheap'. (Same for the Nokia-come-iPhone users who dish on everything else, I imagine.)
That said, a lot of this might just come down to the tactile appreciation for weight in the things we use as tools. I know I appreciate heavier handguns and knives, and love how 'sturdy' my HTC HD2 feels (because it's heavy).
Sorry, I just did. Adjusted for inflation in reverse, I would have paid 14% less (of my total income!) on federal income in 1980 than I do today (21% vs 35%) - or should I say, in 2013.
Nice try, though.
Two words: soup kitchen.
Sorry, but there's no reason why this is no longer a tenable option.
Your brother, like me, is honest.
I was in his situation. I couldn't get food stamps and a number of other things I saw people who were much better dressed and who drove up in much nicer cars were obviously able to receive. I wasn't getting offered the "next job that came along" because nothing on the list fit my skillset.
that maybe, just maybe these people's drug problems are caused by poverty, instead of the other way around?
That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life.
I suppose Paris Hilton's crack problem, Charlie Sheen's drinking problem, and who knows what, are all caused by poverty, too?
If you are trading money - or the things you need to survive, like fucking food - for drugs, then yes, those drugs (or at least, the decisions to buy them) are indeed directly responsible for your poverty. Because, you know, the absence of both money and the necessities of life, like food, is kinda how we define poverty.
I would never have met the girl I'm currently dating if I'd not stumbled upon her profile on okcupid. We really don't share all that much in common regarding our existing lifestyles - very, very different groups of people and activities. But we do have a little overlap, and our personalities and worldview are freakishly compatible. Some of her lifestyle is uncomfortable, I will grant you that, but it's the good kind of uncomfortable not the BDSM or crappy groupy kind of uncomfortable. :P
While it is somewhat true that marriage is not as good of a deal for men as it used to be, that is not entirely a bad thing. Women have more career options than they used to.
Bullshit. Have you been married? How about divorced?
Marriage in and of itself is not the unappealing thing for a man - that's still pretty appealing. It's the potential negative cost and lack of safety associated with it.
To use an analogy, let's use one with a blue car and a red car. The blue car comes with a 40 year warranty with a full replacement if there is damage within 20 years, and a discount on your next model in the 20-30 year range. What's more, the blue car becomes more valuable as it ages, not less. The red car is super fast but guaranteed to be less valuable and slower as it ages. With the red car, you only get a service warranty, and you still have to pay for it at the shop. Naturally, red cars are more likely to be stolen, because who doesn't like a fast car? If the car dies, you'll potentially get to file it on your insurance claim, but at best it's nice and fast for a decade or two, and reliable for the rest of your life without any of the typical things which happen to red cars when they hit menopause.
Yeah, it's not quite that bleak, but that's largely the situation in a 'traditional' family with a single income. Career options have nothing to do with it - career options for women only make divorce a more viable option for women (and thus, a potentially more appealing option) and in no way make it less of a shitty situation for men.
Women's value on the dating market is different than men's. Women's is based on sexual vitality and appeal (mostly). Men's is based on economic viability. Just because they peak sexually at 21 and 36 doesn't mean the other aspects aren't more significant when finding a partner. And just because you're 30 and incredibly economically viable doesn't mean you're going to have the best of luck (or really the desire) to find a 21 year old female partner - who would want to put up with that level of shit?
Well, for starters, we geeks (particularly of the 'sysadmin' variety) tend to have a difficult time with relationships. Particularly the good ones who have focused on our careers throughout life instead of learning 'social skills'. We may be kind, loving, thoughtful, and self-sacrificing in our personal relationships but, for the most part, our careers have to come first.
Many women do not understand this. In fact, in today's culture where women are a significant part of the work force, with today's general work ethic, most people in general do not understand this. It's not necessarily a healthy approach to life, but it's how we're wired.
We also happen to be fairly direct and logically oriented. Things like not understanding why a woman would want flowers may sometimes result in us not realizing we should be doing special things for them.
Personally, I'm just coming out of a 10 year marriage. She left for another man she started seeing while I was out of state working and sending money back home. It hurts a hell of a lot, no lie. But I want to be in "a relationship", that's something I need. But I've got kids. How do I juggle my work schedule (oh yeah, I'm on night shift now), full child care responsibilities, and a dating life?
Pretty much the only traditional option I'm left with is strip clubs and a babysitter. Maybe take a little bit of each if I were to get lucky.
So I tried a couple dating sites and met a woman who is astoundingly compatible with me: that is, I enjoy her company like I have no other woman's, we have similar interests and worldviews, and we make each other happy. I wasn't actively seeking, just putting out a line, and I am blown away by the results. If I believed in divine intervention instead of heuristics, that's what I'd say made it happen.
There IS a very big cost associated with online dating, by the way. The 'findings' in the linked article are wrong. Relationships do commerce in trust. The financial side of a relationship is largely extraneous; it isn't what's important, and it isn't what is being bought or sold. If you're looking for a long term relationship, you're expecting your partner to want to do things for you which require trust: make you dinner, bring home a pay check, suck your dick, spread their legs, share their/your inner-most feelings (thoughts and emotions). Without being vulnerable - paying the other person - there's no way you can expect the other person to respond in same, and the relationship ultimately ends. So yes, you very much do still have an 'economic exchange' - nobody emotionally stable can effectively be vulnerable with everyone, it's not possible.
(Oh yeah, a fun thing... best match I got on OKCupid? While most of the matches were in the 20-30% range on relationship/friendship, only a handful stood out: my current girlfriend, and my ex wife. I'm not sure if I should intrinsically distrust my girlfriend as a result of this, but she did score (a lot) higher than my ex on lifestyle, so we're giving it a shot.)
Why is this even a question of either/or?
Raise the taxes on the "rich" - people making over $250k a year.
Drop the government funded programs into the sea, starting with the ones which have been shown to have diminishing if not negative results: TANF, SNAP, Section 8, Earned Income credit, retirement benefits exemption, and particularly the Dept. of Education (the most expensive waste of money this country has made in the past century for a myriad of reasons). Naturally, you'll only be able to do a year over year fractional reduction of these programs, but it will help - a LOT. (Dept. of Education costs over 30% over military funding, which should be cut, too.)
But you also need to cut the taxes on the lower middle class and the working lower class. People making under $35k a year or so in this country scrape by and have little financial means for advancement.
So what I hear you saying is that people of means should not be able to provide for their children as they see fit?
That's not an entitlement program. The parents give it to them; it's their's to give.
If they feel entitled, that's another thing. You can feel entitled without being on an entitlement program.
(Let's use words as they mean instead of stretching their meaning, hmm?)
Apparently you've never met someone who's the sole breadwinner for a family, or most of the people you know make so much it doesn't really matter (eg. they're single and making 50k+).
Try being single and making $35,000. You get a $1,000 a year raise. What happens? You're going to be paying $2500 more in taxes (give or take). That's $7050 and $12,000, respectively.
Or married with children and your spouse doesn't work (or simply married with an non-working spouse). Make $47k? Cool, you're paying 15%. Make $48,000? Awesome, you're paying 25%.
And then, depending on which state you live in, you're going to be stuck
Yes, I have had to refuse pay raises from an employer twice, because I couldn't afford it. I left for a (marked) pay increase so I could afford the tax hike.
I was divorced last year. I'm pleased as punch that I'm going to save 10% of my income this year (unless I go and do something stupid like get married again).
Right. That's precisely why America is responsible for starting:
* the sexual revolution
* most worldwide cultural trends in style
* international outsourcing
* international democracy dispersion
* guilt politics
* white guilt
* the technology revolution
* pretty much everything successful you use on a daily basis
Sorry; these are not things of a stubborn, arrogant, or resistant people.
Meanwhile, Europe is stuck using political systems popularized in the 1930s... yeah, that's right; I said it.
Ask a black Frenchman, Welshman, or a Gypsy how open and accepting his fellow countryman is some day.