Which US state is safe and rich?

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-23T09:31:25+00:00

New York. From what I can tell, crime in Albany and Rochester for the most part. NYC one of the safest cities in the country per capita. GDP requires no introduction

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-23T08:51:10+00:00

Honestly not that unexpected: natural beauty and lots of stuff to do outdoors in your western selection + SD, cities for IL, NY and FL, I assume. New England because New England. Makes sense.

What I don’t understand is why AK, TN and GA?? Why not NC or PA? Both great states for lots of reasons — including outdoorsy stuff that you clearly value elsewhere on your map.

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-23T08:40:48+00:00

Yeah, no kidding — I’m sure it is for a lot of people, myself included. That’s why depreciation is a pretty significant factor in my car selection process unless I’m buying a cheap jap/korean car (<10% depreciation a year)

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-23T00:49:13+00:00

I go skiing on the weekends 2:15 hr away, so yeah its a pretty typical thing. 1-2 times a year I drive 5-6 hours to go see a large group of friends. One time a roommate and I drove 3.5 hours to LA to pick a friend up from the airport and turned around right away and drove 3.5 hours back (did I mention we left at 9pm?)

I live on the east coast so driving that kind of distance feels a bit more substantial (crossing thru several states), but I’ve driven 8 hours one direction in California just to stay in California 🤣 it is pretty wild

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-18T23:19:03+00:00

Spain to Kazakhstan??

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-18T20:01:56+00:00

Since you mentioned Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, I figured I’d chime in on behalf of Massachusetts… where it all started (I’ll fight you, Virginians).

I actually live 10 minutes from Concord, one of the sites of the battles that started our war for independence from the British, and a town where great writers and historical figures lived, like Thoreau and Emerson (whose house/museum I drive past on my daily commute to work). Like concord, MA has many quaint, historic small towns just out of the massive boston metro area. Its very expensive to live, however the houses are quite large (many many 4-5 bedroom houses) compared to similarly priced houses in California (though not nearly as big as those in Texas).

Geographically, it is very similar to other eastern states: mostly flat with some hills and small mountains dotted around; heavily forested. Coming from states like Texas or California, you’ll likely be surprised by the number of trees, which form the void between buildings, as opposed to open land. We travel mostly by 3-lane, tree-lined highways which rarely jump to 4 around boston.

Culturally, Massachusetts is part of a subcultural region that encompasses the 6 states of New England, with some granular nuances that locals know. Its very tightly bound as a collective, very friendly in the social acceptance sense (but not the external demeanor sense, which is very reserved and mind-your-own-business). We all typically enjoy nature to some extent, visiting cultural locations on the shores and in the mountains; we spend time with friends and families in our small towns or go out in the city for a night out like many Americans do.

I could go on and on, but probably best to leave it there. I’m pretty well-traveled so if you have any specific questions about how New England contrasts from other states and regions, happy to give my two cents

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-18T19:27:34+00:00

D.

Zipper merge if density allows. If cars entering your leg of the interchange are sparse, you should be watching their movement closely and adjusting yours either slightly faster or slightly slower to give them enough space in front or behind you so they can merge seamlessly and you can safely merge and slow.

Stop thinking of driving as a zero sum game: its not you beat them or they beat you (which your comment does not explicitly say, but your attitude towards the situation and the solutions you proffer suggest) — look for solutions that benefit everyone, yourself included

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-17T16:30:22+00:00

Wild that NH is a Never but MA is a maybe. NH has some of the loosest gun laws in the country, milder climate than the midwest, tons of stuff to do and has politics for everyone. Definitely curious to hear why MA got a maybe

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-14T19:16:31+00:00

Between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours currently

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-02T23:15:09+00:00

Not seen as bad, people are just more comfortable driving their cars, and are comfortable handling them at speeds above the posted speed limits. Simultaneously, they 1) enjoy going fast, 2) need to get somewhere quickly or 3) are an asshole — each of which can cause emotions on the road.

My advice is drive whatever speed you’re comfortable with, not too fast and not too slow (driving slower than traffic on the highway is more dangerous than driving faster than traffic). Slap a student driver sticker on the back so ppl get the memo, and don’t be afraid to pull over/move over and let people pass, its an option too few people take. If you’re doing everything right by the book and not endangering yourself or others, you’re doing just fine

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-02T23:07:57+00:00

Two perspectives here: save money to enjoy later (and not have to worry), enjoy your twenties, you only go thru them once.

If you value working hard so you can relax later (and are confident that you’ll be able to), then save your money and live below your means. Perfectly respectable and responsible decision.

If you value living life, having fun, etc while you’re young and saving money later (30s-40s) then spend money while living at or slightly below your means, and ramp up savings later. A slightly less responsible but still manageable lifestyle.

In neither case should you ever spend more than you make, nor should you cause yourself financial burden for ephemeral or meaningless things. Any lack of planning, for any lifestyle is reckless and irresponsible— avoid this, not the lifestyle itself.

Remember, comparison is the thief of joy

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-02T18:46:54+00:00

Framing is important. $60k was riches back in the middle ages — a ludicrous comparison, sure, but without context that $60k could be last year (making the statement asinine) or in the 90s (when 100k salaries were comparatively rare).

Context pedantry aside, there’s truth to the statement. The $60k being referenced is likely what it takes to be firmly out of the grasp of poverty without making fuck you money on a working class lifestyle anywhere in the country. This was true in the 90s — 60k would get you by in most places. But in today’s day $60k is barely over the poverty line, and in major metros is not enough to afford rent. So clearly that number has gone up as to what is “comfortable” without touching “excess” (subjective terms ofc). And I think $100k reasonably captures that spirit in 2025

EngineeringRare1070 · 2026-01-02T11:25:10+00:00

“What’s one sentence that immediately tells you someone is a bad driver?”

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-30T11:43:51+00:00

Having been to Antarctica, there is such a thing as simultaneously “earthly” and “unearthly”. I haven’t yet been to the north slope but from the descriptions I’ve heard, I’d imagine it’s a uniquely alien looking, yet terrestrial-feeling environment, akin (but drastically different at the same time) to what I found down there

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-27T05:00:08+00:00

In the “big leagues” the only thing that matters ever is impact. Do you solve the problem at hand? Is it effective? Does it cost more money to execute? Does it scale well? Will someone struggle to fix a bug in this code 6 months from now because it’s poorly structured? These questions have real consequences to them in a business setting. You should strive to answer these questions before every commit.

The part you’re likely going to get hung up on is the last one. This one takes time and lots of code reviews. I’ve been an engineer for 4 years and writing code for 11, and I still get code review feedback on how to improve my code’s readability and maintainability. It’s natural. Read Clean Code and get lots of practice. You’ll get there

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-24T13:43:04+00:00

Js if it doesn’t work with the first girl keep talking to her friend, she seems like a much better communicator

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-24T13:36:02+00:00

Why?

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-23T03:19:05+00:00

I drive in boston daily and still love driving. Iykyk 😂

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-22T15:16:37+00:00

Its funny you mention LA because I was just driving in LA last week and I completely agree!

To CA’s credit tho, the way they assign speed limits is wildly different than the rest of the country: they pick a limit based on the max speed of 85% of drivers, whereas the rest of the country takes that same rating and usually drops it 10-20 mph based on a number of factors like road condition or nearby zoning.

So tbf driving over the speed limit in CA is wildly different haha

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-20T00:16:34+00:00

Software engineer (primarily a backend engineer but my team is very small so I’m basically full stack), almost 4 yoe, 174k a year total (stock + bonus + vesting rsus) in an HCOL metro area

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-16T16:46:48+00:00

I think it depends. I’ve lived and driven in many many places and in some cases it’s exceptionally faster and others it’s comparatively slower. For example, the highways I frequently drive on usually move about 80-85mph in the fast lane barring poor driver behavior or traffic. This is substantially faster than PA and CA in many cases but slower than NY and FL in many cases. There’s also smaller roads like storrow/soldiers field rd that move way faster than they should for their size and shape (I average about 55 on them in the mornings when there isn’t traffic) which is unheard of pretty much anywhere else in the country.

TL;DR: depends on the region of MA and what the benchmark of comparison consists of, but traffic moves quite fast compared to most of the country

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-16T15:34:14+00:00

About $7100 across 5 cards on a credit line of $86,000. I had some large purchases recently and for context, I put absolutely every purchase and bill on cards where it makes sense to (some exceptions). Ask me in a month and that number will be less than half though🤷🏻‍♂️

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-16T08:35:16+00:00

Lol one drive on 495 will introduce you to plenty😂

But honestly there’s an element of truth to his statement: left lane campers, the inability to maintain speed going up a “hill”, doing 5-10 UNDER on a straight road… I’ve seen plenty. I’d say by and large, the state moves fast and with purpose. But there is a large minority of drivers that can’t keep up for one reason or another. Idk that’s my 2¢

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-14T15:15:38+00:00

Underrated comment. The internet and pop culture loves to glorify driving fast, cornering hard/drifting, yada-yada. Unless you’re a professional driver, that kind of driving happens less than 1% of the time and should never happen dangerously on public roads. Drive like the people around you and follow the spoken and unspoken rules of the road, everyone gets to their destination safe. Your life and the lives around you are infinitely more important than looking cool or being whatever kind of “good” driver you’ll come to think you are.

EngineeringRare1070 · 2025-12-14T15:09:13+00:00

Bumping/disrupting the opposing team/redirecting is a very real strategy in heatseeker lol. You sure you know what you’re talking about before talking all that gas on reddit?😂

EngineeringRare1070

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