ben_pr

Puerto Rico is different in that it is a U.S. territory so a lot of concerns in the financial services world where I work are not relevant. My clients would never hire someone from a non U.S. state/territory to work on their critical IT systems.

The Timezone thing is also a really big deal too. PR is the same most of the year and just one hour off Nov-Mar. I do not ever see myself waking up at 5:00am for meetings.

That is how it works.

Public schools are a no go. There are some good private schools and a large number of homeschoolers. Don't know much about the colleges here but probably not good.

Puerto Rico is part of the united states, just not a state, which means no visa required, same currency, and etc.

Additional info on tax benefits: http://puertoricotaxincentives.com/act-20-export-services-ac...

It's not too different than Atlanta, there are places to avoid and places that are OK. The west side of the island from Yauco around to the top center are going to be on par with most suburbs in Atlanta, San Juan and east are a more dicey. On the east side Palmas del Mar is very safe.

I've never had a problem here or felt in danger.

Best to find a job in the states that lets you work remotely. I have not had any problems with the internet here either DSL or cable.

For the most part of the year it is the same time as ET zone so it works out nicely for east coast jobs.

My favorite part of the Island is the southwest side. I just moved to Yauco last week after living in Palmas del Mar for 2+ years.

I can't say a lot about Rincon because I don't know but Mayaguez is the most American like city here with the highest rate of english speaking people I have seen.

Living costs on most everything is a little expensive here except for service related items (car repairs, appliance repairs, etc). Expect a 5 - 10% increase in living expenses.

You will need a car to get around unless you live in Palmas del Mar and then you will need a golf cart, there is a car rental on site if you need to go further than the onsite.

Things to like. 1. The weather 2. Simpler Life 3. Tropical Fruits/Nuts everywhere 4. Less regulations on things I care about (homeschooling) 5. Tax system that is not the IRS 6. More community minded people, probably more like the states in the 70/80s. 7. I have a personal swimming pool, tennis court, basketball court and decent sized house for less than the one I left in Atlanta.

No it wasn't me. I do consultant work for financial services industry in the states, online banking, IVR/VRU, 3rd party service integration, etc.

I'm in Puerto Rico, moved here from the states two years ago.

There are a number of tax incentives for people wanting to start tech companies here. Google Puerto Rico Act 20.

Short version: "Act 20 offers a four (4)% corporate tax rate for Puerto Rican businesses providing services for exportation, 100% tax-exempt dividends from earnings and profits derived from the export services income of eligible businesses, and a 60% exemption on municipal taxes."

Eligible businesses include IT software development.

Besides the tax benefits there are a lot of other things to like here.

Looks cool!

Do all the chat messages pipe through your servers? How is privacy protected?

Wow, If I had three months to just do something, my problem is what not to do.

Let's see. 1. Have fun. Try some new adventure type of sport. Boating, four-wheeling, something.

2. Learn a new programming language. Tons of new stuff to play with here. I do best with self taught but some like classes better, whatever you works for you.

3. Make a new website or mobile app.

4. Volunteer to help out at a non-profit. Pets, orphans, something.

I really doubt you will find anything at your age but there are lots of opportunities to do cool stuff.

You can always look for really popular websites that need a total redo. Try buying a horse trailer or a horse and the horrific sites that await you are a world of opportunity to replace. Examples: http://www.horsetrailerworld.com/ http://www.dreamhorse.com/

Hard to believe after 15 years those sites haven't changed and are still some of the most popular equine sites around.

Not any real money to be made in this but someone needs to fix this mess.

I'm sure there are dozens of other types of sites like this but these are two I'm familiar with.

Can't see it unless I login. Anyone care to post some details here?

The way they advertise this makes me think the old version is a horrible, slow, piece of junk.

After having spent the better part of two decades working with RDBMS I tried mongoDB on a couple projects and found it has a place in the world, but a fairly narrow use case where it actually simplifies things rather than making them more difficult.

As always I'll wait for an update or two and let someone else try the shiny new features before I try it out.

What is "fact" is actually highly subjective and puts Google in the place of picking the "winners" for arguments or perhaps pushing their own political and religious agenda.

Fact: Vaccines are Dangerous Fact: Vaccines are Safe and prevent spread of deadly diseases. Fact: I nearly died from a vaccine. Fact: Vaccines contained mercury[1] for decades and poisoned untold millions of people. Fact: Google now decides which facts you get to see.

I understand Google is trying to get rid of lots of useless add pages but determining "truth" is potentially just pushing an agenda and burying those facts they disagree with.

[1]http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability...

It sounds like you are a right brain dominant person[1] with a Myers-Briggs personality of INTJ [2], same as me. Once I understood this about myself I was able to start bringing my life into balance. Part of it was by doing left-brained exercises that Dianne Craft teaches in her videos, also a large part was using essential oils to wake up my left brain which was pretty much in the deep freeze, and finally a few essential oils to help with the focus and calming issues. If you want some help try Mindwise[3] and the Reconnect oils[4]. If you had any sort of issues with sleeping or emotional trauma you should try the PTSD freedom kit[5]. Try it for at least two months and should be doing a lot better. Dianne Craft also has some videos on how to teach the right brain child which will help you understand yourself and learn exercises to help develop left brain skills.

[1] http://www.diannecraft.org/teaching-your-right-brain-child/ [2] http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html [3] http://www.youngliving.com/en_US/products/wellness/targeted-... [4] http://www.youngliving.com/en_US/products/essential-oils/col... [5] http://www.youngliving.com/en_US/products/essential-oils/col...

I have used essential oils for nearly everything including internal consumption, external issues, cleaning everything(alternative to bleach, etc), veterinary and can say they work. However, there are a lot of claims out there regarding essential oils that aren't true, so make sure you check a reliable source before you proceed.

Quality is very important, all essential oils are not the same.

It takes a lot of self education to take care of your own health but well worth it in the end.

Umm yeah, this would be kewl if it worked, but it doesn't work in FF for me and it does in Chrome.

EDIT: {"arguments":{"0":"ReferenceError: mboxDefine is not defined","1":"https://kuler.adobe.com/build01/resource/js/external/jquery/...},"page":"https://kuler.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/","browser":"Mozi... (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0","build":"build8"} https://kuler.adobe.com/build8/resource/js/util.js Line 1

Well, think again. You really think the NSA can't make the SSL cert vendors turn over the keys? I wouldn't count on it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933784

No. The EC2 micro instances are not stable or reliable. I had to move to a small instance just because the micro instances kept going offline.

Take a look at this one: http://www.nine.ch/. It might be worth looking first at countries that don't honor U.S. extradition, which Switzerland up until a few years ago was strongly in that corner but lately they have been giving finance info etc to the U.S.

Some other sites have already done the work so look for sites that you are sure would not be hosted in the U.S. and then try this: http://whatmyip.co

The issue here is that Google doesn't know how much data the NSA collects. The NSA has access to the internet backbone that Google uses and can read whatever traffic it wishes that leaves the Google network. Obviously this is not everything but most everything. It is a low view of the NSA to think that they do not have the ability to real-time decrypt SSL certs from every major SSL cert authority. So while Google can claim they do not allow the NSA direct access to it's servers that is only a small comfort in the big scheme of things.

This sort of response from Tech companies is just a distraction from the real issue.

This is a hard one. I'm a geek that loves to try new gadgets/websites and when I find one I like I use it a lot, like Google Reader for example. The problem with Google is I may get attached to one of their products and then a year or two down the road they pull the plug on it. It's happened enough times now that I don't even care to try Google products until it becomes as big as gmail and I'm sure it wont just vanish. Anyways plenty of other good services for taking notes that I can pay for and I'm sure they will be around for a long time.