Yeah, all the lack of crime, horrible taxes, environmental disasters, over crowding and urban blight covering everything sucks. I can actually see stars at night, even from downtown Indy.I also have a 90k 1,200 square foot historical home on almost an acre of land in a nice quite town 30 minutes from Indy. And my cost of living is at least 15% less while my income is close to national averages. I’m half an hour from two towns with full time orchestras, one of the best out door concert venues in the states, and two major league teams (Colts/Pacers), and three minor league teams (Indians/Ice/Indy Eleven)
I’ve lived up and down the east coast, and I’ve lived in the south, and Hawaii, and the Midwest is just a nicer place to live. And even though we’re the heart of the bible belt and all homophobic and racist out here, we still manage to have fewer race riots and homophobic murders than either coast. Not to mention it’s been a while since the police department here accidentally plugged half a dozen innocent people aiming at a criminal. (Now, IMPD does stand for I Must Patrol Drunk, we’ve had our more than fair share of drunken officers ruin people’s lives, but that’s car accidents, not shooting at the wrong car, or into a crowd of people.)
If I seem sensitive and over-reacting, I likely am. But really, I get tired of people shitting on “fly over land”, not just on here, but in family on the coasts and in the media. I don’t shit on where you live, please avoid acting like where I live is filled with jacktoothed retards.
I’m a lifelong Wisconsinite, and proud of it. I probably complain more about winter nowadays, but I still enjoy the distinct change in seasons around here.
I never said Indiana was full of jack toothed retards. I’m just mostly not a fan of weather.
Indianapolis isn’t a bad place at all. They have always been really welcoming when I’ve gone to GenCon, although in 2003 which was their first year in Indy and the locals were probably wondering just WTF was going on. It’s not at the top of my list of places I want to live. Mostly due to the crappy weather (compared to CA at least).
Chipping in late, but I just wanted to say screw you and your cheap petrol!
Seriously! $2-3/gallon!?
Our local station charges £1.07/litre, which translates to US Gallons and Dollars as $7.44/Gal - and our local is a subsidised supermarket forecourt. The out-in-the-sticks-so-we’ll-charge-more forecourt near my parents charges £1.12/litre, which is $7.75/Gal.
The UK and Europe have much better public transportation (at least in the cities) than the US (especially the western US) does. Also isn’t most of the reason petrol is so expensive over there because the governments tax it so much? There would be revolution in this country if our government did that and even our dumbest politicians realize it.
That’s true, it is heavily taxed. So is owning a vehicle. It gets really weird when you add up how much of owning a car is actually taxed.
You buy the car: initial excise duty, value added tax, import tax (for vehicles specifically imported), licensing fee
You insure the car: insurance tax, paperwork fee, value added tax on that transaction
You tax the car: vehicle excise duty, a fee applied annually to help maintain national highways and motorways, how much you pay depends on the weight and economy of the car (I pay zero tax, my car is 0.8tons, does 60mpg, and has a stupidly low carbon emission - my last car, a 1.6litre Ford Focus, was £140/year)
You fuel the car: value added tax, and fuel tax
You maintain the car: Annual MOT exam to ensure the roadworthiness of the vehicle, more VAT.
While Apple, who also gets government subsidies makes 48%. Insurance companies, which have a government mandate to buy their product make 12-15%, and most other companies consider less than 10% a dismal failure.
Oh, and alternative energy companies wouldn’t even exist without government subsidies. And let’s not even bring up ethanol subsidies, a total and complete waste of food and a useless savings.
The government makes more money on gas than the oil companies do, and multiple times what the actual gas station makes. In fact when gas was close to $4 a gallon gas stations were losing money per gallon because of credit card fees.
Also keep in mind many people in America drive distances to work, or for fun, that aren’t even possible in Europe. I used to have an 82 mile commute, one way, for work. And I’ve known people who have driven farther. Last weekend we went cruising and covered about 100 miles of Indiana countryside. There are places in America that are hundreds of miles from any kind of public transportation. I’ve driven places where the next gas station was over 100 miles away. It’s big out here. I’ve driven for scores of miles in some places with no sign of human habitation other than the road and power lines.
Is there any actual good reason for whois “privacy” blocks?
I suppose that some could argue that it protects people from censorship, but is seems to me that the only real use is to prevent people from tracking down scammers and spammers.
Stops those of us with our own domains getting random idiots causing issues. While it hasn’t been an issue for me, I do know of people who’ve had problems because their address was in their domain’s public WhoIs records.
At one time I sold Kirbys. Actually, I demoed a lot of Kirbys, never sold any. That job cost me money, and never saw any back.
Kirby is one of those lovely companies that classifies all of their salespeople as “independent contractors”. They suck people in by promising a great salary, but you don’t find out until much later that salary requires 100 demos a month, which is nigh-impossible the way they have things set up.
I used to have a Kirby. The first one was the one that my mom bought when I was too young to remember, and it was still going strong when I was 23 and my brother took it. I shelled out the extravagant funds for a new one, and it wasn’t nearly as good as the one from the 60’s. My Rainbow is a better machine, though also incredibly expensive. I don’t use the Rainbow much any more since I have the Neato. The Neato isn’t as good a machine, but then, I don’t have to do much other than empty the bin once a day and clean the brush once a week.
Aww the Neato thing looks cute! The Henry machines are somewhat of a British institution, and unlike Dyson (and his lies) aren’t built on shaky science and questionable design ethics that seem to deliberately cripple the vacuums…
