canekong

That is largely a luck and legacy thing. inReach is an acquisition by Garmin. They haven’t made significant changes to hardware and software besides rebranding things and adding integration to their newer units, e.g. I can trigger SOS from my watch.

In fact the billing is completely separate.

They pass the test if the witches can do the 7 wonders.

As a gay man on prep, I find this comment quite offensive.

Within my circle of friends (some of whom are quite adventurous) none of them says “let’s donate blood and see what happens”.

Furthermore being on PrEP requires strict complete STD testing (Chlamydia, Syphillis, HIV, included) testing every 3 months before allowed to be prescribed again. The same time interval as any recommended STD testing.

I had a discussion with my Dr last week about Truvada on similar topic. Her reply was that Truvada is not enough to suppress viral load and thus they can be detected if a person is infected still and is not on treatment. Also Truvada is not magic pill and can take time to take effect (about 1-2 weeks) and there have been cases of people getting infected while on PrEP because their drugs haven’t taken effect yet.

Hey John, I work at MS too and welcome! As for how this may impact you, you should speak with your recruiter and connect with your hiring manager. Please do not hesitate to ask.

Personal experience differ, but here's my story. When I joined MS 9 years ago it was in the midst of the big layoffs, and my recruiter reached out immediately after news broke and made sure that everything is still in place and I am still due to start in the summer after my graduation, and I've been happily working here since.

Good luck!

Thanks for the article, read through it. True that Vancouver may have higher public transit ridership, but what they neglect to mention is that different cities may have solved the public transit problem in a different way.

First off, many major tech companies SF (and to some extent in Seattle) offer private buses. Automatically, these people are no longer counted by the study. In a city like SF where there is a huge Google/Facebook/Adobe/Company XYZ population, they all offer buses or shuttles from urban areas to Palo Alto, Cupertino, and even within other places in SF. Nonetheless, almost 100% of the people I talk to that lives in SF either doesn't own a car or owns a car but almost never drives it because their companies offer alternative transportations. They also don't ride the BART or Muni or CalTrain much because of Uber/Lyft.

Secondly, places like NYC, SF and Seattle have a big ride sharing culture. Obvious Uber and Lyft are prevalent around the city with their staches' and U's. Recent stats in NYC indicates that there are now more Uber drivers than taxi drivers. These ride sharing economy definitely takes the ridership out of public transit. In fact, on my recent trip to SF I decided to take Uber to my door instead of the normal BART because they cost similar except I don't have to get off at a BART station and transfer somehow. Compare that to Vancouver, where Uber and Lyft are outlawed, with the city even going to extra step to make sure they don't even get a start over existing taxi services, it's definitely going to push more people to public transit.

Also, I don't think this article or study is even non-partisan at all because of the upcoming city-wide transit referendum. Honestly, I am taking this with a grain of salt.

IMHO low interest rate can drive a lot of people to making insane decision up and down the financial food chain. It's essentially "free" money, except the principle has to be paid back.

Much of this has been the seed of the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Funny how crisis in one industry turned out to be a boon for another.

i stand to be corrected on the subsidies part! Did some more research this morning. It seems that the reports are generally focused more on how other cities are providing more subsidies than Vancouver, rather than Vancouver stopped providing subsidies.

Definitely agree Vancouver is awesome to live in. To be perfectly honest, I'd love to move back to Vancouver. It's a very nice city, nice enough that I'd want to visit twice a month! I have to be honest, for the right job and at the right time in my life, I wouldn't mind taking a slight pay cut to enjoy the life style here. I'd love to still enjoy a place of my own though. :(

Funny last weekend I was in SF Mission and a friend recently bought a new condo there. $600K, and small just like the Vancouver ones. However our sentiment is that SF can support that kind of market because the price is mostly backed by the crazy tech money. Unlike Vancouver where the housing price don't seem to be backed by any economic boom.

At the end of the day, I guess money still talks. Especially if one tried to raise a family or do anything significant in life like owning a home.

I definitely think Vancouver has great transportation... As long as you live close to a Skytrain station. Many new developments in Vancouver outside of DT seem to emphasize on walking distance to the Skytrain. Some are even built on top of or next to the Skytrain stations, like the ones around the Cambie Canada Line! Otherwise, I don't think Vancouver's bus system is any particularly better or worse. Also, with some of our light link rails and street car projects coming online in the next 24 months, the situation will definitely improve in Seattle. There is already planning into extending the LLR to the Eastside to Redmond/Bellevue areas.

It's an inside job thing. These people basically trade within themselves to prop up the property price.

Born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver and graduated from UBC, now working in Seattle and regularly commute to SF (once a month) and almost twice a month to Vancouver. I've been observing this for quite a while and try to put my finger on where the problem is for Vancouver. Have been trying to talk to people up and down the coast who are similar as well to understand more.

It's a complex comparison because:

- SF has crazy amount of capital flowing around, people are earning crazy $, but there's also high cost of living and tax rate

- Seattle is not as crazy as SF, but still has plenty of high paying engineers. Cost of living is quickly rising. Locally, it's starting to become a problem in some areas like Capitol Hill, like SF's Mission area. However, WA don't have personal income tax. So while on paper we don't make more than we do in SF. The general consensus from those that made the move north from SF says they end up keeping more.

- Vancouver doesn't have crazy tech capital. But it's got a really nice environment. Has public health care whereas in the States we have to account for health care cost. Generally American tech jobs provide health care with co-pay/deductible options but it's still thousands out of pocket before the 100% insurance coverage kicks in.

The Canadian brain drain thing has always happened since early 2000. I think the biggest problem with Vancouver is that there isn't enough venture capital flowing in. In many places where there doesn't exist an already established tech scene, like Detroit, the government has a lot of subsidies for companies to move there. However, there doesn't seem to be enough or any for companies that want to move to Vancouver. In fact, many of our subsidies are starting to expire, and that's why many gaming and SFX studios are shutting down. Without the much needed capitals, start-ups have harder time competing with Seattle and SF which offer comparable/better climate and surrounding with much better pay. Often time when I hear a Vancouver company pitch it's by saying how nice and active the city is. Sure, the city is nice but is it worth the difference in pay? To me, at least not at this point. Not at least with the money I am making I can afford to come back whenever, or fly down to SF for a few days. Especially not with the pay I am making after tax in BC, and have to pay for housing and transportation.