delucain

The game mentions that and says something like, "Deal with it. This is a game."

Taking a subset of statistical average income is not the proper way to define the "Middle Class." It's better defined by what you can achieve with a specific income. Can you afford higher education both for you and your offspring? Can you afford to own your home? Can you afford reasonable and convenient means of transportation for your area (multiple family cars in rural areas, but maybe one or even none in urban ones)? Can you afford occasional leisure activities? Can you afford to have a savings and retirement account? Do medical expenses not worry you?

Meeting most or all of these requirements is what sets people into the middle class. I agree with the article that this number is different as you need to take into account local cost of living, but a lot of these requirements are not tied to local costs. I also think this probably puts this number at a higher point than many people think. I have many friends that think, "Oh, I make $20/hr. I'm middle class now!" And I don't agree. You're still going to struggle with bills at that level of income. Middle class is about being above that struggle most of the time. There's a freedom that comes with not having a loan for your education, vehicles, emergency spending (credit cards), etc. And a middle class family should have that freedom.

I don't know that I can see $250k being middle class still, but I do think in the SF Bay area, a family making $150k is quite reasonably still middle class. The upper bound of the middle class is I think harder to define than the lower bound. Once you always have the option of not working for long stretches of time (more than several months) that might be a good indicator of upper class.

I think throughout the last 40 years or so we've gradually become so accustomed to the diminishing size of the middle class. We don't realize what it used to mean. We forget that a time existed where a family with a good budget could live on one income and still afford a house, two cars, college funds for the kids, vacations, and savings.

They're on my list for sure.

Black's opened a second location in Austin on Guadalupe near the University of Texas. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm curious.

I'm not an expert, but I've had both (and dozens of others), I smoke my own brisket, and I feel like I have a decent understanding of it. Salt Lick mops their brisket with a mustard based sauce. They smoke their meats indoors over a direct heat, open pit. Franklin uses a "domino rub" of just salt and pepper (for brisket). They're dry smoked (no sauce) in closed, indirect heat, offset smokers (the wood is in a chamber to the side of the grills). Franklin can control the temperatures of his smokers MUCH better than Salt Lick can. You can taste the meat and smoke better on a Franklin brisket. Salt Lick has a lot more sauce flavor though, and the mopping does add moisture but not tenderness. I have a very strong preference to Franklin's. I think his is the best brisket I've ever had, but that being said, it's not so much better that I want to wait in line for 4 hours (It's a guaranteed wait of 4 hours whether you show up at 7AM or 10AM, but show up after 1, and they're sold out) more than once a year or so.

I bet you're looking forward to the last episode of HPMOR on Saturday.

From what the article says, the city fears losing control over its local government because Google employees would outnumber the rest of the voting citizenship. They seem to want to handle this addition of houses and infrastructure slowly, but if Google employees have a majority in the vote for local issues, they could move ahead as fast as Google wants, since it's in their best interest to keep their employer growing.

In Austin AT&T and Grande (Local ISP) both started offering Gigabit shortly after the time Google announced Austin as a fiber city. It's working.

Does this mean that one neuron can carry a signal that is more dense in data than a 0/1 binary spiking signal? Like a single neuron can transmit a complex feeling instead of just if it's touching something or not?

But, have we (the US)? We're a good solid decade or two into the age of free-flowing information, and we are trending the other direction in a frighteningly fast pace. The middle class is gone. More wealth is getting concentrated to the top than ever before in our country's history. And all the while, we have the least productive congress in history whose re-election is entirely dependent on the handouts given by those corporations that Abraham Lincoln warned us about. The few bills that are being passed are often written by those very corporations. We've lost the representation in our government. The Republic is no longer for the people by the people. The Republic is lost.

I think you've hit it right on this. I'd also add that the cost variations probably do play a big factor into what piracy does exist. I'm a lot more likely to take a shot in the dark on a $7 indie game or even a $30 indie "blockbuster" than I am a $60 AAA game (where half the cost is marketing anyway). Piracy probably just appeals more at the higher price points.

Sure, it's a VERY extreme example of "First World Problems" or whatever the meme is, but do you want a job when the offer is a con from the start? What kind of relationship with your employer does that create?

Journalistic flair?