From: "Zed A. Shaw" Date: 2005-09-21T12:41:56+09:00 Subject: Re: [OT] Places for a programmer to live? Here's my opinions of the places I've lived in my life, sometimes as a programmer, other times as just a dude trying to scrape by. Guam -- Japan's Hawaii. Stay away if you hate giant flying cockroaches they try to call "palmeto bugs". Go if you want to swim with giant sun fish just off the Marianas Trench and eat fantastic food. I learned about 20 ways to eat a damn coconut there. Maryland -- Uh, it's Maryland. Yeah. Anyway. Seoul, Korea -- Kick ass place with super cool people. It's fun to stand on the subway platform and realize that you can spot all the other westerners because you're the tall ones. People kept calling me "supaman". Hilarious. Inchon is great. Itaewon was a blast. I wonder if Just Blues is still around? Best damn blues guitarist I'd ever seen. Dude played Jimi with his eyes closed. Tempe, AZ -- Small little town with a kind of hidden tech industry. Lots of semiconductor plants, and ASU is a pretty nice university. People there drive like idiots and nobody likes pedestrians. They even have commercials with the slogan, "Share The Road" telling the bikers and walkers to get out of the car's way. Summers there are hotter than Satan's Asshole after eating a gallon of Goan curry. Bellingham, WA -- Great little town where a smart guy like me (and maybe you) could go die a quiet little death. Bob Log III has played there. What more do you need? WWU is a nice little university. Great, fun people. Watch out for the chlorine plant down the road. Someday everyone's need to wipe their ass with white toilet paper will kill all of Bellingham. Austin, TX -- If you love live music then you *must* move to Austin. The people there are super nice, very funky, and really pretty. Any bar on 6th or 4th street will have tons of music in every style. I'd say the average band playing in Austin is probably good enough to be signed. My favorites (if they still play) were Mingo Fishtrap and Cadillac Voodoo Choir. Traffic there is *horrible*. There were billboards at one time calling all the roads parking lots. It's so true. Vancouver, BC -- Gorgeous rivers, oceans, forrests, beaches, and great food found everywhere. Too bad all the crackheads, meth addicts, heroin abusers, and obnoxious whiny psuedo-liberals screw it up for everyone else. The police there are more corrupt than a FAT32 filesystem after a Sasser Worm attack. Check out the "Pickton pig farm" serial murder case for an example of Police effectiveness. I have to say that I've lived all over the US and been in some really bad shady places, and I never felt so threatened and unsafe as I did in Vancouver. But hey, if you have tons of money you can just go Snowboarding at Whistler and ignore it all like all the other rich people living there. Tacoma, WA -- Used to have the worst gang violence in the US. Now they've cleaned it up, fired the corrupt police, dumped money into renovating and saving all the historic hotels, and created a tram that goes like 4 blocks. It's a start, and Tacoma I think is really poised to take off. That place will be great as soon as they clear the prostitutes and crack dealers out of the blocks around the library. You can buy some fantastic houses there for next to nothing. If you do work in any of the prison oriented businesses then you can have lots of work there. Tacoma has more prisons than Santa has hated children on his list. This is because Tacoma/Pierce County is Seattle/King County's ashtray. Portland, OR -- Ok, I didn't really live in Portland but I visited and damn I wish I had moved there. People in Portland were so damn nice it was bizarre. I thought I was a sucker in some weird reality show. I was walking down the street and a homeless guy asked me for some money. I said, "Sorry." With a shit eating grin he said, "You have a really nice day man." Another guy heard me playing harmonica and offered me free food. And who can't love a city that has both the Santa Rampage *and* Chuck Palahniuk. Anarchy rules! New York, NY -- And finally, we come to NYC. So far I like NYC, but mostly for the work that's here. The people are simultaneously great and the biggest assholes on the planet. People have no problem telling you exactly what they think, which is great since usually they say it to the other idiot who's standing on the stairs blocking the world while he talks on his damn cellphone to make a booty call. It's incredibly safe and clean for a city with it's population. I'd say NYC is cleaner and safer than all the cities I mention above, except maybe Portland. And of course nothing beats walking down the street and seeing 10 movie stars, 3 hot models, and having them all ignore you. What an honor. My only warning is that if you aren't really confident in yourself then people will pick you apart with their fashonista attitude. Enjoy! On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 07:09:56 +0900 Devin Mullins wrote: > While we seem to be rife with OT threads, I thought I'd throw in an > OT question that's been percolating in my mind for quite a while. > > Where do you recommend to live? Feel free to provide just a city > name, or to go into detail. When I say "for a programmer," I'm mainly > referring to the existence of programming jobs, but other aspects, > such as the existence of ?UGs, proximity to nerdy attractions, etc. > could play a part. Also feel free to just tell me some places to look > for ideas, and then tell me to Get to Googlin'. :)