Comments

1

Those Amazon people need the money. Bellevue is expensive.

5

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/2/7/the-democrats-will-not-save-you

7

Yeah let’s keep shouldering the burden of this pandemic on children by requiring them to wear masks to offset the viral loads circulating in bars, restaurants and god knows what other entertainment venue that pays the Strangers rent. We got vaccines, well fitting masks for those who want them, we cannot indefinitely live in a state of health emergency and regulate how people gather.

8

@5: How low can you go? From the article:

"It is not farfetched to believe rich, white Democrats have made a calculation similar to the one many white liberal South Africans made, as the spectre of apartheid rose in 1948. That is, they may quietly recognise that there is no urgency and things should not be too bad for them under the new regime."

Al Jazeera is becoming the mirror of Fox Nation. Who knew?

9

Sir Toby the second, you speak the truth. I've been a software engineer / code monkey for 25 years, and the dev shortage seems to get worse every year. You won't start out at 300k but decent beginning devs make 100k at good companies, over 100k starting is not impossible. And there are thousands and thousands of jobs at 75k+, for people starting out. So many jobs. Just learn to program, do math. Programming is part engineering, part creativity. I do have to use my brain, but boy do they pay you.

10

@2: your entire comment has shown us all that you literally have no idea what people actually do at Amazon. They are a retailer. The bulk of their work is dealing w/ vendors & customers not computer science or higher mathematics. For example I have a friend who spent the better part of a week taking down images of manti-hose and yelling at the vendors because the product image included erect penises so as to better display the “tube”. The most technical thing anyone in her department uses is a pivot table.

13

@8. Hits close to home, eh?

14

A woman was randomly bashed in the head with a baseball bat in Belltown today. 6 PM, just walking home, and a guy walks up behind her and bashes her brains out, then walks away leaving her lying there on the pavement in a coma.

Do I even need to tell you this was a homeless guy with over a dozen prior convictions (including several felonies) and the city of Seattle was kind enough to release him into transitional housing?

Apparently he had been walking around acting crazy and swinging his bat around for weeks, and tons of people had seen him, and the city did nothing.

But you won't hear this story in The Stranger. In a sane, normal world, an utterly horrifying and disgusting story like this would be front-page news and cause a serious reassessment of our public safety policies. But in Seattle it's not even news, and people with an agenda will try to pretend it didn't even happen.

The truly sick thing is that Dan Satterberg will probably get this downgraded to a misdemeanor assault, using the excuse that his office is "too busy." If only The Stranger's darling NTK had won the election, he'd be back on the streets with his baseball bat by tomorrow evening.

I just hope the poor woman doesn't have permanent brain damage or paralysis.

In my mind, she's a victim of The Stranger. Rich Smith and his cohort have consistently pushed for a complete abolition of all public safety measures and degraded anyone with concerns about the violent homeless population. So things like this happen, and they just lie to their readers by omission by not talking about it, and then every election cycle attack the people who care by calling us hysterical right-wing billionaires or whatever.

Here's the story. https://komonews.com/news/local/video-shows-woman-being-attacked-by-man-with-baseball-bat-in-seattles-belltown

15

@2. Yeah, feel free to start a GoFundMe for their tuition, books, housing, etc. If you become a computer scientist because you want to make money and have job security you're an idiot chasing stability over honoring your own path in life come what may. Money is cheap, time is not.

16

@12. Also, none of those AWS apps mean shit without people (and increasingly robots) to package up goods and move them around. People think they can always make things harder, better, faster, stronger until they unbalance the entire equation which comes crashing down around them.

18

www.freecodecamp.org

Here you go, ST. You too can make 300k a year for free if you have the time. Or you can spend it reading and commenting on SLOG every day complaining about criminals. If you change careers, you can just move to an ivory tower away from all the raff.

19

Or move in with Swifty in Bellevue where you can get on SLOG and gloat about how great it is to be bored there.

22

https://youtu.be/HfFM4Ilt4Rs

23

@13: Ahh, now I'm confident that you never had any moral clarity or integrity.
@19: Now you slipping into Grizelda babble.

24

@23. It's a shame you were not born a minority, then you could look your moral clarity in the face from outside your own box. Besides, your massive comment history and constant fence sitting apologist rants for rabid Republicans more than makes his point for him.

25

@16: Amish country would suit you better.

26

@2 -- Good God, what an idiotic statement. Hey, if you want to make the real money, just play in the NBA. There are guys a year out of high school making millions. Some of them didn't even go to college. There are plenty of professional trainers out there that will help you. So simple!

Look, dipshit, I've worked with really smart people who suck at programming. It is common for companies to try and get their software testers to write code to automate some of their testing. Successful testers typically have good analytic and communication skills, but that doesn't mean they know how to code. (The opposite is true as well -- I've known a lot of programmers who are terrible writers.) Yeah, sure, with more practice they can get decent, but they will never be really good. They could never get into the computer science degree program at most universities, let alone the UW. You can't just take the upper level classes -- you have to do really well to advance in the program -- it is highly competitive. Your average writer (as smart as they are) would never be offered 100K out of college. They could probably go to community college and then get a decent job and work their way up. But unless they had some natural affinity with it -- some desire beyond just making good money -- they won't go anywhere. They will continue to write shitty code, and bounce around at shitty jobs.

There is a reason why companies pay this kind of money for a handful of workers. It is the same reason the world isn't full of actuaries, despite the fact that it is a very desirable job. It's hard. Or at least, it is hard to do it really well. The same is true for elite athletes, best selling authors, and pop stars. You have to have the skills (and desire) in that field to have any chance of making it at that kind of level.

27

@24: Homosexuals are a minority.

28

@24: What you call fence sitting others call an open mind.

29

@25. I'm no luddite, I just believe that taxing the wealthy the same as the poor without loopholes can pay for enough well trained police to protect them and keep the streets clean. Why should the wealthiest pay the least for the privilege of safety and cleanliness they deny those they push out of society?

Don't cut yourself on all that edge rainderp, it doesn't suit you.

https://youtu.be/3mLOXLEbIqM

30

@27. Oh really? Are you a homosexual black man whose ancestors went through the Middle Passage? Maybe you can take the author's word for it when he sees things you don't.

31

@29: I concur with your first paragraph.

https://youtu.be/4drkNcIHmIs

32

@2 Of course all of this misses the fucking point that Ms. Keimig made, that went sailing over your tiny head. America has become a highly stratified, winner-take-all society. Modern day robber barons make enormous sums that rival those of the gilded age. Salaries for a handful of people in non-essential jobs are extremely high, while people who perform essential work (nurses, teachers, counselors) get shit. This is fucked up. I'm not saying that a successful inventor, or entrepreneur shouldn't make good money. An elite basketball player should be paid well, too. But I think as a society, if hard working people can't afford to keep their kids well fed, then maybe we should address the ridiculous level of inequity in this country. And yes, that means taxing people and companies, not suggesting that all of those nurses and teachers just become programmers.

33

@30: Na, more like First Class suites on the White Star line. But that shouldn't make any difference, right?

34

@17 "But when a person eschews skills and careers that are profitable they shouldn't denigrate those who choose a more profitable path. "

Yeah, all you nurses, paramedics, teachers, social workers and day care workers -- shut the fuck up! You made your choice. Instead of making the big bucks, you focused on making the world the better place. Fucking losers. Saving lives? Who cares. Making a lasting difference in society? Idiots. You should have been a petroleum engineer, or worked for a cryptocurrency company.

35

@14: That crime occurred 8 days ago. Not sure why it would be on SLOG today. Also, the victim is not in a coma. Also, the dude has been charged with first degree assault.

36

@35: The "dude" huh.

37

@21 -- Exactly. In this state, that was clearly the case, as many of the strongest supporters of an income tax would be taxed heavily.

I would add that it is also common in the software world to look at what you make and think "this is fucking ridiculous". I never made that kind of money as a software engineer (I never knew anyone below management level making anywhere near that) but I was paid well (enough to retire early). It was nuts to make way more than registered nurses or paramedics, let alone a nurse practitioner. The jobs just isn't that important, nor did it take that much education. Most programmers got into it because it was fun, and they were really good at it. It is like solving a puzzle. I'm not saying it isn't hard -- real professionals are always learning new skills to avoid falling behind. There are times when it sucks (read Dilbert). But overall, it is a pretty cushy job for many, that pays way more than it should, and just about everyone in the industry knows that. It is only arrogant pricks that feel otherwise. It is one thing if you are an arrogant surgeon, it is another thing if all you've done for the world is twiddle a few bits and profited from it.

38

@29 I assume you mean as a percentage of actual income because from an absolute value metric those who make above $100K pay the vast majority of federal and state taxes. Those in the bottom tiers pay little to no taxes. I'm always curious when people start trotting out the "fair share" scenario. What is the fair share?

39

@37: Without computer programers, cloud computing, VMs, data science, redundancy, scaling, and the like we would still be waiting for a covid vaccine.

So there you go.

42

One would hope that a Washington State income tax would ease the burden on property tax payers, both rich, poor, and in between.

44

Jesus Jas, tell me you don't actually understand how the Supreme Court works, without telling me you have no idea how the Supreme Court works. The ruling is keeping the (shitty, mindblowingly gerrymandered) drawn districts in place until they can hear oral arguments from both sides. That doesn't automatically mean the lines are going to stay as they are now. Maybe instead of screaming into the void and proving to everyone you know fuckall about how government works, you could, I dunno, do some reading. Hell, follow @sharonsaysso on IG if that's all your little brain can handle.

I also hate to tell you, but I, not a software engineer or even a developer of any kind, don't make far off from the maximum Amazon just raised to $350k. Sorry you chose an unfortunately underpaid job.

45

@35 DOUG re @14 AceCH: Thank you for further clarifying what happened in Belltown. That really is horrible. I hope the victim is okay. She will likely be traumatized for the rest of her life. What to do when the roaming crazies are only getting crazier and more dangerous?

Just yesterday I was headed home on my local bus (outside Seattle) from Downtown.
There was a guy taking up the entire bench in a bus shelter, fiddling with a Smartphone. He asked me if I knew anything about Smartphones and did I have one? I calmly said no. Then he asked if I had a smoke? Again I said no. He became agitated and went on the defensive:"Sorry for asking so many questions!" I calmly responded that I didn't have a phone and don't smoke. Obviously since he wasn't going to get anything from me, Smartphone then moved on to another pedestrian, a 20-something guy who happened to have a Smartphone. Same ol' schpeel: "Uh, I can't get my phone to work--I'm trying to call my Mom. Do you know anything about Smartphones? Can I borrow yours?" (Or maybe steal yours after knocking you senseless?).
When the other guy said no, he was meeting his girlfriend, turned, and kept on walking, Smartphone went after him, screaming vulgarities and threatening to physically attack 20-something dude. Luckily no violence occurred, except for Smartphone's interestingly telling loud retort after 20-something: "I'm SICK of all you fake people!" Fake? Smartphone-come-lately should have shuffled into the closest men's room and taken a good look in the mirror. I decided to keep walking rather than wait at that stop. I did not want to be pestered any more by Smartphone, and was glad that nothing escalated any further.

Three days earlier I was headed to the bus transfer station to catch my bus home when I saw flashing police lights. I heard yelling and screaming. Several squad cars were at the scene. Lately a woman had made a habit of hauling trash in a filthy shopping cart and screaming vulgarities at people along that particular avenue. Apparently she decided to brave getting in the faces of transit employees and riders on the bus station concourse. Local authorities finally had enough of it and hauled her off to the cooler.
These events did not take place in Seattle. From reading local and regional news, I am left with the disquieting impression that the homeless / transient situation is exponentially worse in Seattle than in the city where I reside. And it's getting worse each day.

I think Greyhound, Trailways, et al responsible for hauling all this transient garbage from whatever part of Hell's Buttcrack they're coming from to the Puget Sound region / PNW / West Coast should be billed for toxic waste dumping. While there are understandably many people legitimately down on their luck for no fault of their own and at least trying to contribute to the community and society at large, and a good number from within that number are burdened with unaddressed mental health issues, come ON. Seattle and the surrounding communities are getting overrun by far too many drifters and opportunists lately. It's time to send them on their way out of town.

46

Congratulations, Elsie Mae, on the birth of your adorable newborn elephant seal pup at Deception Pass State Park! A friendly reminder: anyone who sees seal pups alone on the beach, it is best to leave them alone. If they are injured report them to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1 (866) 767-6114. Otherwise, their mothers will abandon their young if suspecting human contact.
Also, for entangled whales found along the Washington, Oregon, and California coastline call NOAA Fisheries Entanglement Reporting Hotline at 1(877) SOS-WHALE, or 1 (877) 767-9425.

Nothing else happened today, except for further glaring reminders that RepubliKKKans are truly horrible excuses for people.

Back to you, Jas.

47

@45: Agreed and seconded


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