I miss Ezra as well, he was a great example of someone who moved things forward just because he cared. Ezra also put way more effort and passion than anyone could reasonably expect into growing the Ruby and Rails ecosystem and community. I enjoyed listening to many of his talks.
Right now the "similar books" thing is based on a "topic-model"...
So books are more likely to be similar if they're roughly in the same genre and discuss similar kinds of topics (dragons, computers, romance, spies, war, shopping, time-travel, magic, hunting, etc).
Someday I hope the "similar books" feature will be a bit more sophisticated, where other kinds of "similarity" will also be relevant, beyond just the topic-model... Other things like: story structure, narrative voice, irony, vocabulary, sense-of-humor, lyricisim, etc...
Anyone that has money and lack of political power. Middle class is a vague term, but currently, a flat % income tax takes evenly from rich and poor, so it benefits the rich.
What will happen now is that IL will increase then 5% income tax to 6% or whatever they have to go meet their needs, and so it will continue to benefit the rich.
Until it gets to a point where the lower income people realize they can make the rich pay more, and vote for marginal income tax rates. That’s when the screws will start getting turned on higher income people.
Once that happens, I would assume anyone with disposable income will have their incomes taxes go up. It only failed 47 to 53 this year, so I imagine it will be soon, but I predict the marginal income tax rates will ratchet up even at a “middle” class household income of $80k+.
And then as more rich people leave, the more the marginal income tax brackets have to be expanded and/or percentages increased.
In any case, there’s no relief until sufficient benefit recipients die, and that stupid COLA is no longer in effect. That is one of the most egregious examples of corruption I have seen. Anyone with high school math can see a 3% annual COLA increase would destroy you unless you had the power to print money.
I’m really curious what this map looks like for last decade instead of just 2017:
Only the extremely wealthy would leave. An average person does not move their state of residence just to save $1,000 on state taxes. That could be disruptive: leaving family and friends, your job, etc. All to save a grand.
It’s more like $10k to $20k (and ever increasing) per year for dual income professional households compared to a no income tax state like Washington. Over a career of 20 to 30 years, that adds up to a substantial amount of savings.
Basically, the families earning $100k+ would be saving 5%+ of state income tax and at least $5k+ in extra property taxes compared to a non debt burdened state and tolls and all the various other taxes that need to be collected to pay for the compounded debt of pensions and whatnot.
The issue with Chicagoland isn't the property taxes currently, it's the uncertainty on the guaranteed raises that will occur. Sure, you can buy a $650,000 house in the city and pay $13k/yr in property tax, but that might go up to $20k/yr at which point you're underwater on your mortgage and spending an extra $800/mo.
I have the money to buy and the day the city files for bankruptcy and restructures their pensions is the day I purchase. But not a second sooner.
There's a game from the 90s called Hyperspeed by MicroProse that I wish someone would do a similar writeup on. I freaking loved that game and I can't find it anywhere now.
I do art on the side and came across Shibasaki's videos maybe a year ago. I agree with others on the thread, he's a wonderful man.
One note: if you are inspired to try watercolor after seeing this article/videos, don't be discouraged if you struggle. Watercolor seems easy (that's what kids do, right?) but it's very difficult to master.
