Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

wolframalpha.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 76 posts

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#21

Post by jrp »

ck2 wrote: post #7

Check out this accidental discovery, note how the graphs remain nearly parallel over years (!) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... Weird coincidence?

I would expect the crime levels to sort of coincide over the nation. In fact, they don't: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... but it does seem that they do between these two cities. It is weird.

Here's something else: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin...

Hypothesis: the country at large has a crime rate. In addition there is a magic variable which only affects cities, but affects all cities:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+san+fr...

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#22

Post by jrp »

jarek wrote: post #20
ck2 wrote: post #7

Check out this accidental discovery, note how the graphs remain nearly parallel over years (!) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... Weird coincidence?

Um, for some values of "parallel."

Ok, let's say they track each other.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#25

Post by _delirium »

jrp wrote: post #22
jarek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, for some values of "parallel."

Ok, let's say they track each other.

Which is indeed a definition of "parallel", e.g. in definition 2 here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parallel

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#28

Post by jackowayed »

_delirium wrote: post #10
rdl wrote: post #5

Also doesn't seem to take into account income and capgains tax rates; for a single person making >120k that is a substantial cost savings on its own.

It doesn't actually seem to take the salary you put in into account at all: it gives the same 24% cheaper for $30,000 salary and $120,000 salary, even though the ratios of expenses shouldn't be the same for those two cases. At the very least, the weightings should change: someone who makes $20,000 is probably spending more than 12% on groceries, while someone who makes $10m is probably not spending 12% on groceries (…

No, I'm pretty sure that means it's being stupid.

It gives exactly 24% less regardless of what salaries you put in and not changing the "% of total" or anything. That means that it's figuring out the difference in average cost of living first, and then just reduces the salary you gave by 24% to get the equivalent.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#29

Post by natrius »

tzs wrote: post #11

OK, Wolfram Alpha kicks ass. Here's the most interesting part: | San Francisco, California | Seattle, Washington total sales tax rate | 9.5% | 9.5% When people from California tell me it must be nice to live in a state like Washington, that doesn't have a state income tax, I like to torture them by pointing out that the lack of a state income tax is made up for by a high sales tax. Then they ask what the sales tax is…

There are too many variables involved to compare a couple of types of taxes and call it a day. For instance, property taxes are another large component of the total tax burden.

California's total state and local tax burden in 2008 was 10.5%[1], which ranks 6th among the 50 states. Washington's was 8.9%[2], for a rank of 35.

[1] http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html

[2] http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/486.html

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#30

Post by natrius »

jrp wrote: post #21
ck2 wrote: post #7

Check out this accidental discovery, note how the graphs remain nearly parallel over years (!) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... Weird coincidence?

I would expect the crime levels to sort of coincide over the nation. In fact, they don't: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... but it does seem that they do between these two cities. It is weird. Here's something else: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin... Hypothesis: the country at large has a crime r…

Is "magic variable" the new street name for crack cocaine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic_(United_States)

Post reply on HN