Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#271

Post by handbanana » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #269

handbanana wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are down voting because of the dice roll part. But it's not that far off reality when compared with other western nations

I'm not overly concerned, this forum is extremely USA-centric. Across the entire UK there were only 4 police shootings in to 2016 and only 2 total in all of 2012-2014. I'm willing to bet America has 4 yesterday (even adjusting for proportion populations)

Well, UK officers don't carry guns as much as US officers do. UK officers also don't have to worry about guns as much. However, the lack of centralization of the US system and culture/mindset of the US officers (as a whole) are the main problems IMO

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#272

Post by foldr » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #268

foldr wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

230 billion USD is, according to Wikipedia, Russia's annual spending (not just military spending). I can see how that figure could have been interpreted as referring to military spending in the context of my post, but that's not what my post actually said. The figure of $69 billion overall military spending seems consistent with the 10 billion figure I gave for Russian spending on nuclear weapons. I got that figure f…

Russia is about as broke as the Soviets were - nukes are by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power: http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/02/news/russia-defense-spending... Calling them "Upper Volta with Missiles" was a bit harsh - they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference. After all - nobody feels partic…

>by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power

Cheap compared to what alternative? It's not clear what you mean by this. They're spending a fat chunk of their military budget on nukes, they're spending far more on nukes than they need to spend just to be a nuclear power (since they're maintaining all three delivery options), and they're spending more on nukes than any other country except the US.

>they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference

Just check the figures. Russia's military budget is a bit higher than the UK or France's. Russia generally ranks 4th or 5th in the world for military expenditure.

>. After all - nobody feels particularly threatened by Canada...

Because Canada doesn't have nukes or anything like the same military budget. You seem to be confusing GDP with the level of military threat posed. They're only loosely related.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#273

Post by walshemj » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

laurencerowe wrote: post #251

walshemj wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No property taxes are very low in the UK some one in a 10M house in London pays less than an upper middle class person does in some US states

And tenants are anyway liable for paying Council Tax, the property tax equivalent.

And in which country is that not so? the landlord just in creases the rent to cover his expenses.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#274

Post by zeristor » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 9:47 AM UTC

Strangely the discussions seem to be focused on salaries and the cost of living in the UK.

The article talks about academics being lured away from teaching, which is a problem, I imagine that academics could perhaps guide students in the companies they employed at, like a paid course? Although there's a difference between pure research and getting stuff done.

With all these people working at US companies it creates hubs of knowledge, networks of people, that in turn could spawn new companies, which in the long run is surely a good thing.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#275

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

jingleheimer wrote: post #181

vilhelm_s wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of frictions did you see?

It's town vs gown. You have separate areas and generally don't mingle. There is an age difference as well as a cultural and class difference. Much of Cambridge is gated off into colleges that a town person can't go unless escorted by someone connected to the university. I was in the gown group, but even within this group there are additional degrees of stratification.

Is Mill Road considered a town or gown area?

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#276

Post by justsomedude43 » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 9:12 AM UTC

maccard wrote: post #171

justsomedude43 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am thinking about moving from US to London. So, I am curious to know why you prefer UK to US despite the salary gap." Because it's not all about the money. People make mistake by comparing salaries on their own which is not correct, you need to compare what's left of your salary after you've afforded the same level of lifestyle. You might look at $140k as a lot of money and £40k as very little money but you need t…

I agree with your sentiment but - > you can't put a price on a 5min commute to work and letting your children play outside That's very achieveable in parts of the US, and unachieveable in parts of the UK. > having ghettos or "bad areas" in your city Not exclusive to the US by any means. Plenty of nice cities in the UK have ghetto/bad areas. > sending your kids to university without paying anything If you live in Engl…

Thanks for commenting maccard, but looks like you haven't read my comment or read it superficially.

Nevertheless, since I'm commenting already might as well add two more things. One thing is I get 29 days of PAID annual holiday. I've head from my US colleagues that in US you can take about a week or two of UNPAID holiday in a year.

Not to mention that women can go on maternity leave for a whole year and then come back to work without losing any rights whatsoever and also get paid 40 weeks of their maternity leave while in the US women can take up to 3 months of UNPAID maternity leave and only if they've worked for a company at least a year.