The subway is as great as they say. It might give you permanent brain damage though. Until conclusive trustworthy information about that becomes publicly available, it’s probably worth it to wear a cheap P100 mask indoors and to eat outdoors.
My assessment of the risk is different. I do have a P100 that I’d wear at the airport, but I don’t think the risk is high enough right now to wear in subways. I do think it’s worth wearing a N95 though if it’s crowded, which I do.
The housing can be cheaper depending on the area. It’s worth thinking about.
Yeah that is true. I actually talked to a real estate agent actually to discuss the areas. It does seem like there are some more affordable areas. It’s just that they probably wouldn’t be the areas I’d want to hang out in as much, and so I’d be spending a good amount of the time on the subways commuting into the more central areas. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, to be clear.
I never noticed unusually cold weather in DC. Maybe compared to the west coast, sure. It’s the summer heat and humidity that’s the problem; if you get a cheaper place with no A/C, buying a window unit is necessary, and still saves a ton of money.
Oh ok. I actually was just assuming that it’d be similar to NY, where I grew up, and it gets cold there. But it also gets hot as well, yeah, heat and humidity are also a problem! Which makes me realize how much I love the moderate weather in Portland.
Jobs. You have to send out a ludicrously large amount of applications at the beginning, but once you’re in, a smart person with the most basic quant skills can get all kinds of bizarre, interesting jobs (e.g. python, R, even a couple college-level statistics classes)
Personally I work remotely as a programmer so my location doesn’t really matter, but that is cool to hear that about DC. I’ve experienced having to send out ludicrously large amounts of applications at times as well. Not fun at all.
Cars give a competitive advantage over other people. The social signalling alone more than pays for it, and the signalling value pales in comparison to the instrumental value. Some people prefer to be the change they want to see, but abstaining from having access to a car is like burning half of your money to help the government slow down inflation.
Hm, that is not matching my intuition. Do you have any examples in mind where having a car would provide that sort of useful social signaling? I’m genuinely curious about this.
As an anecdote, I do remember this one time when I was having trouble finding a job. A recruiter was seeing if I want to pursue this opportunity in Vegas that’d require me to have a car for. I said no, because I don’t have a car. The recruiter (unprompted) said I am making a bad life decision to not have a car and it’ll be very hard for me in my career without one. Fortunately, neither of those things turned out to be true.
The only cases I can think of where cars are an important signal are dating (not having a car signals that you’re poor) and entry level jobs (where the ability to show up to work on time is 90% of the qualifications). I don’t think either of those things apply to you though.
Yeah neither of those things apply to me, but they do make sense. Although re: dating, I have a perhaps unconventional take. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who’d view not having a car as an important signal, and so not having a car would provide me with good signal about someone who’d want to go on a date with me, while also helping me avoid dating someone I wouldn’t want to be with anyway.
Edit: Hm, actually I think I was being too uncharitable here. Not having a car does seem like a strong signal that someone is poor. And it does seem reasonable to not want to date someone who is poor.
My assessment of the risk is different. I do have a P100 that I’d wear at the airport, but I don’t think the risk is high enough right now to wear in subways. I do think it’s worth wearing a N95 though if it’s crowded, which I do.
Yeah that is true. I actually talked to a real estate agent actually to discuss the areas. It does seem like there are some more affordable areas. It’s just that they probably wouldn’t be the areas I’d want to hang out in as much, and so I’d be spending a good amount of the time on the subways commuting into the more central areas. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, to be clear.
Oh ok. I actually was just assuming that it’d be similar to NY, where I grew up, and it gets cold there. But it also gets hot as well, yeah, heat and humidity are also a problem! Which makes me realize how much I love the moderate weather in Portland.
Personally I work remotely as a programmer so my location doesn’t really matter, but that is cool to hear that about DC. I’ve experienced having to send out ludicrously large amounts of applications at times as well. Not fun at all.
Hm, that is not matching my intuition. Do you have any examples in mind where having a car would provide that sort of useful social signaling? I’m genuinely curious about this.
As an anecdote, I do remember this one time when I was having trouble finding a job. A recruiter was seeing if I want to pursue this opportunity in Vegas that’d require me to have a car for. I said no, because I don’t have a car. The recruiter (unprompted) said I am making a bad life decision to not have a car and it’ll be very hard for me in my career without one. Fortunately, neither of those things turned out to be true.
The only cases I can think of where cars are an important signal are dating (not having a car signals that you’re poor) and entry level jobs (where the ability to show up to work on time is 90% of the qualifications). I don’t think either of those things apply to you though.
Yeah neither of those things apply to me, but they do make sense. Although re: dating, I have a perhaps unconventional take. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who’d view not having a car as an important signal, and so not having a car would provide me with good signal about someone who’d want to go on a date with me, while also helping me avoid dating someone I wouldn’t want to be with anyway.
Edit: Hm, actually I think I was being too uncharitable here. Not having a car does seem like a strong signal that someone is poor. And it does seem reasonable to not want to date someone who is poor.