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That craving for the hills I get some times … 😍

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I am a country boy at heart. I might live in the city, work downtown and take the bus every day but that’s not where my heart is.

Seeing those mountains in the distance, the forested hills and the little farms and homesteads carved out of the mountains just touches something inside me. The rundown trailers, the old tractors, the pigs, goats and cattle. The rusting away junk cars, the burn barrels and the brush / debris pile some day soon to be burned.

A lot of people call them ignorant hicks and hillbillies. But I don’t know, I think anybody who can scrape together a living either partially or entirety off the land is pretty damn smart and educated, even if it’s not through traditional channels.

They call it rural poverty. A lack of material stuff. Although I don’t think one can really call homesteading cheap when you look at the cost of machinery and feed. And many of rural people live a life much richer than city folk.

Hills Outside Petersburgh

The Tax Bill Haunting Your 401(k) and I.R.A. – The New York Times

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The Tax Bill Haunting Your 401(k) and I.R.A. – The New York Times

Unlike traditional 401(k)s and I.R.A.s, Roth I.R.A.s and Roth savings options within workplace plans are funded with after-tax dollars — in other words, you pay the income tax bill upfront. Like a traditional 401(k) or I.R.A., your investments grow tax-free. Unlike tax-deferred accounts, Roth withdrawals are generally tax-free too, if used as intended in retirement or by your heirs.

Roths also offer a way to hedge your bets against possible higher tax rates in the future, said Ed Slott, a tax expert and Roth guru.

“Most older people are heavily overweighted in tax-deferred accounts — they have no tax risk diversification,” Mr. Slott said. “These are sophisticated investors who would never put all their eggs in one basket, because that’s a basic rule of investing — yet all their eggs are in one tax basket, so they’re at the mercy of a possible future higher tax bill.”

US Population Non Contiguous Cartogram

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I was wondering how difficult it would be to create a non contiguous cartogram in QGIS. Not too difficult although it would be neat if you could do it automatically with data based formatting but that option isn't yet available for the transform option. Still I'm happy with the results. 

US Population Non Contiguous Cartogram