Fair point - debt levels here are high as well. "I've found California to be populated by people with some strange attitudes towards society" Some people are OK with strange attitudes. The chunnel connects France and Britain. I use the term Britain here in its geographic sense. No such rail route exists from Ireland to Britain. Ferries go between them, but between a ferry, train to London, and finally train to Paris, flying is both cheaper and faster.

"Note. with all the NSA scandals, lack of welfare, poor security, crime, human rights violations, war crimes, etc. that the US has got going, I'm starting to wonder why I'm relocation. On the other hand, I did all the paper pushing... So I might as well try it out :) Anyways, feel free to tell me why the US is so awesome, I kinda need it..." I moved from California to Dublin last January, and just got the best job I've ever had. The people are friendly, the bars good (even if the food is mediocre, admittedly), and Europe is a short flight away (wish it were a train ride, but being on an island with a small population prevents that from being built). The culture, at least in the startup sector, appreciates the importance of both getting shit done AND taking time off to enjoy yourself, as opposed to being in the office 11 hours a day just to look driven. The drivers are more considerate to cyclists. I notice you're in Denmark; honestly I can't imagine leaving there if only because of the cycling infrastructure, but hey, the grass is always greener I suppose. The US, generally speaking, sucks. It is an amoral (not immoral, necessarily, but really doesn't care about right or wrong in what it does) declining hegemony with hilarious amounts of debt, no regard for the fourth amendment, and a vastly inflated sense of self-importance. The first time you venture to Fresno or Bakersfield you'll have a hard time believing you're in the same country as SF, much less the same state. Come to think of it, I'd support a California secession movement (maybe Oregon and Washington could join in), but unfortunately the US is not terribly enlightened about self-determination and would likely not listen to a referendum. For what it's worth, though, San Francisco (and, I'd like to add, Berkeley) are some of the finest places you will find in the country. Smart people, excellent food and beer, beautiful scenery, and a decent transit system (by US standards - I'd say it's roughly on par with Dublin but nothing like a northern European city). Wages are high too, but note that the average 1 bedroom apartment is $2800 per month in SF; closer to $3500 for Nob Hill or SoMa. Good luck! Life is short and the world is big, so enjoy. I have to say, though, that I hope to stay here in Ireland.

Since the whole point of open source is being able to see what the code is doing, does obfuscated JS count? After all everything's open source if you go to a low enough level; just decap the chip. While common libraries (jQuery, etc.) are open-source and reduced down to minimized versions, much software on the web, even if "open source", would be a pain to actually look at.

Everyone here does seem quick to say "Oh just do an ROI calculation on college and don't take it for granted you should go" without recalling that for decades now we've pretty much shoved the idea that "if you don't go to college you're a complete shit and failure of a human being (what are you gonna do, flip burgers? Because people who flip burgers are subhuman shit after all)" down everyone's throats, and most people don't want to be thought of as complete shit.

I work for a company with offices in SF and Dublin (Ireland, not the one by Pleasanton). In both cases they strongly encourage the use of public transit, and we go out to local restaurants for lunch most days. Interaction with folks in the community is encouraged. Perhaps the issue here isn't tech, but rather the isolation that comes from working in remote suburban campuses far away from the city people want to live in. Thankfully I work in the center of both of these fine cities. If only most Googlers were so lucky! I assure you if these same companies put their campuses in places you could easily get to via BART (or even Caltrain; right now it's great for getting to a point 5 miles from your job) you'd see plenty of people taking normal transit instead of the private buses. As it is now I'd say it's a hell of a lot better to put one bus on the road than 45 cars.

Yeah, sadly that is a good point.

Yet another great reason to ride your bicycle!

Yeah, Americans are assholes. I spent two years commuting by bicycle in Los Angeles and I hated, humanity and wished them all a horrible, slow death. Since leaving that country my outlook has improved immensely.

If you hit somebody and leave them to spend their last gasping breath in a gutter, it is not an "accident". It is manslaughter, or if a prank as described above, cold-hearted murder. I hate, hate, hate the US' auto-centric point of view. Tens of thousands of people per year are killed because of it. It needs to end. I hope I can get permanent residency outside of that cesspool.

This is how we ended up with "Ye olde whatever" - "The" was a thorn with an e over it, but then English lost the thorn and people interpreted it as a y, since in blackletter it looks quite a lot like a y.

"in an 20 min interview with the Australian public television," So do they all just huddle around the one television? Must get crowded.

If only it had a hardware keyboard so one could type messages more than 28 characters long without massive frustration.

What's wrong with a standing desk? I hardly see how it's bad to let people use the desk that suits them best.

Ride a bike to work. If you're between 8 and 15 miles away this is perfect, but short of that biking to work and then hitting the gym really quick on my lunch helped me drop about 40 pounds.

Your broader point really strikes a chord - I find my friends have a hard time understanding why I would spend $500 on taking a class at a community college (after about 6 of them my career improved immeasurably thanks to the skills earned) or $1000 getting a visa to work in a different country (which is cheap, really), yet they seem fine with spending boatloads of cash on a fancier car, or eating out all the time. To each their own, and if that's what they want to do then good for them, but I don't get their surprise.