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Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

seattle.gov

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Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#41

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ahelwer wrote: post #34
hoka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fix that whole rain thing and I'll be there tomorrow.

Yep. 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.

Summers 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-mu...)

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#42

Post by loeg »

rdl wrote: post #36
amckenna wrote: post #5

it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet

The 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…

Can 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.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#43

Post by clauretano »

marshray wrote: post #2

Hooray! Now I have one less thing to lose by leaving Kansas City! RE: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917132 (from today)

Just make sure you move to Actual Seattle and not the sprawling suburbs. As someone who has used PhoneFactor for a few years, thanks, congrats, and welcome to Seattle soon!

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#44

Post by heynk »

ahelwer wrote: post #34
hoka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fix that whole rain thing and I'll be there tomorrow.

Yep. 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.

The summer is the time for sun in Seattle. This entire summer was clear skies every single day.

http://www.seattleweatherblog.com/rain/record-dryness-windin...

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#46

Post by marshray »

clauretano wrote: post #43
marshray wrote: post #2

Hooray! Now I have one less thing to lose by leaving Kansas City! RE: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917132 (from today)

Just make sure you move to Actual Seattle and not the sprawling suburbs. As someone who has used PhoneFactor for a few years, thanks, congrats, and welcome to Seattle soon!

Thanks, good to hear it.

Alas, we'll probably land in the burbs for all the usual uninteresting reasons. But it won't hurt to have the right people seeing Gb internet across the lake.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#47

Post by rdl »

loeg wrote: post #42
rdl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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…

Can 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.

Lower 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.)

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#48

Post by hosh »

octaveguin wrote: post #10
dmishe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private health insurance sucks ass in WA, but other than that it does look good :)

That 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 :(

Traffic and public transport in Seattle is not as bad as Atlanta.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#49

Post by clauretano »

octaveguin wrote: post #10
dmishe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private health insurance sucks ass in WA, but other than that it does look good :)

That 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 :(

Seattle has fantastic transit, as long as you pick the right neighborhoods to live in. Basically, any neighborhood surrounding downtown has fantastic transit, as well as the U. District. Transit to the major job centers in the suburbs is also quite good.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#50

Post by rdl »

amckenna wrote: post #5

it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet

WA 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.

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