Not to be a jerk, but I'm genuinely curious. Why did you feel the need to preface your comment with "I'm going to get downvoted to hell"? I can't see a reason why this comment would get downvoted.
Edit: I see you've been downvoted. I wonder if it's BECAUSE of your preface, rather than IN SPITE of it.
Yes, "I'm going to get downvoted to hell" belongs on reddit, where people actually downvote people out of spite. I've not seen the same behavior here on HN (might just be that I haven't posted too much here). A better and more constructive preface would be "You are welcome to disagree with me here" or something like that, something that would be used in ordinary conversation.
You're someone who immediately disregards the content of the post of a user who recognizes the possible controversy of a statement.
HN's downvoting system enables cowards to drown you out with impunity, without providing a rebuttal or alternative view. This is one area where Slashdot's system is so much better. (Note, one area. HN brings things to the table that Slashdot doesn't. So no, I'm not just "going to go to slashdot and leave HN" like some people just thought about saying).
I don't know. I've always gotten the feeling that Jobs is a perfectionist to the point of it almost being a pathology. I doubt his motivations are primarily focused on money, especially at this point.
It's probably safe to say titans of industry tend to have a diversity of motivations. In markets like finance, I don't doubt that it's often as simple as money, but the cultural currencies of other markets can be equally alluring pursuits. Industrial design, and in the last few decades, tech, have a currency of having a positive impact on users' lives. UX, basically, specifically with the opportunity cost of bad UX.
If there were any way to quantify this -- "quality-of-life improvement credits" -- Apple would likely be quite rich in these as well as simply in financial currencies.
Jobs may be a perfectionist, but he is ultimately just the CEO. As such, he's an agent to the true owners (shareholders). His laser sharp focus on design has been extremely profitable and thus his interests are aligned with those of shareholders. When these interests get out of sync, see ya Steve.
Its hard to imagine now but there will be Apple without their fearless leader one day. They are a profit seeking venture like any other--brilliant marketing has people convinced otherwise.
Thanks a lot, that looks like it's along the same lines as what I'm trying to do. How did you test this locally? Does Sqlite support this? Or did you set up PostgreSQL on your development machine?
I'm hoping to use PostgreSQL (because I'm using Heroku;) ), but I read up on how MS Sql Server implements spatial indexes. Basically, it recursively divides the coordinate system into quadrants. Then, when looking for a range of coordinates, it can figure out which quadrants are covered by that range and efficiently query them using b-trees. Very cool. I wonder if PostgreSQL spatial support works similarly...
Also, can anyone speak to the social scene of the different neighborhoods? Since we're not going to know anyone when we get out there it's important that we live somewhere where we can make friends either through good bar scenes, or startup meetups. Does anyone have experience moving to Sf without knowing anyone and making friends?
I moved to SanFran with my girlfriend without knowing anyone about 8 months ago. I live in between the Mission and Noe, on Guerrero St. I still don't really know anyone outside of my job but it's a great area full of friendly people. You can easily strike up casual conversation with most people in Doloros park. I joined a couple meetups and met some good people but then got to busy at work and haven't attended any in a while. There's noisebridge on Mission St where you could go hang out and meet some people.
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge
My view is that people in the bay area are very friendly and it's reasonably easy to make friends (accounting the geek factor ;-). A good start is to check meetup.com for groups with similar interest (startups, programming languages, food, etc). If you're into hiking, the Stanford Outing Group is pretty good:
The Height and nearby neighborhoods like Cole valley and inner sunset are fun, central and have plenty to do. That said there is no shortage of geek socialization opportunities (meetups, etc.) seemingly every night of the week.
I actually am considering picking up a scooter when infer there, as I've already got a motorcycle license. Does anyone have experience getting around on one in sf? Is it possible to make it out of the city to somewhere like mountain view / San Jose on a scooter, or does it require going on high speed highways?
It's theoretically possible (I think?) to get to San Jose on local roads but it would take so long it would be impractical. It wouldn't be much faster than bicycling there.
I had a motorcycle in SF and found the freeways to and from the South Bay terrifying on a motorcycle. You can lane split in California, though... so a motorcycle is probably the most practical vehicle for getting over the Bay Bridge in rush hour...
It's not too terrible to get all the way up/down the peninsula on local roads, but it does take a while (~2 hours). The directions are easy, though, because El Camino Real (CA-82) goes the whole way.
Yeah, CA-82 was what I was thinking of. But even driving a car on CA-82 from SF to MV(?) takes 2+ hours (I actually don't remember where I was coming from; just that it took forever). Riding a motorcycle would suck because of all the stops and starts. A scooter might actually be better for this as the step through design makes it a bit less painful to wait at intersections.
You can certainly make it all the way to San Jose without going on the freeway, but it's tough going. If you already know how to ride a motorcycle why not get a proper motorcycle for a few thousand more?
A scooter is great for SF, easy to park, but to get almost anywhere outside the city of interest -- east bay, silicon valley -- requires getting on the highway. Mountain View is 45+ minutes away by highway; San Jose 1hr+.
Thanks for the advice but we're really leanin towards living in SF. After living in NYC for 3 years I think I'd go crazy living 45 mins away, and needing to get around by car.
For $1000 you can find a small studio, but also consider the advice to look for places in the peninsula (Mountain View, Menlo Park, Palo Alto) and East bay (Oakland, etc)
As a rule of the thumb, the places north in the city (nob hill, south beach, marina, etc) tend to be upscale. Downtown is not so bad, but I'd stay away from tenderloin. I don't particularly like the Mission and SOMA, but it seems a good number of startups have offices there, so YMMV. Northwest (close to the Golden Gate Park) have nice places, but seems to be worse if you don't have a car.
You'll see that sometimes a neighborhood is perfectly fine and safe and you walk two blocks down and it feels sketchy and unsafe. That's why I recommend you walk around.
Ditto on "stay away from the Tenderloin." I can't stress this enough. Homeless people and drug addicts there think nothing of dumping a giant brown turd on the sidewalk wherever they happen to be walking at the time.
Pretty good summary. Seems like you guys are concerned about saving money and making good contacts - in that case, I'd probably recommend the mission. You'll have to pay like 1000-1500 for a studio, but the location is prime and it's eminently walkable.
Tenderloin/Mission/Sunset are places you might be able to find something for a grand.
Tenderloin - stabby stabby.
Mission - on the dirtier side, a little sketchy in parts, but trendy and experiencing lots of gentrification.
Sunset - lots of asian influence, very livable. You'll very rarely see the sunset from here though.
You might even be able to find something in Richmond for a grand if you're lucky. Just keep an eye out, set up alerts on padmapper.com. I found a $1400 one bedroom in a nice part of the city there.
I'll have to respectfully disagree. The TL is sketchy, but there are so many crackheads/witnesses/cops around since it's close to city center, overt violence is more rare than you'd think.
The mission is my favourite district in the city, and it's close to everything. If I had to live in the city, I'd live in the mission.
The sunset is crap. It's like a suburb that's attached to the city, especially outer sunset, where the rents are cheaper. It's blocks and blocks of houses, and very family oriented. There are a few good places in the sunset, but it's almost essential to have a car there, and you can't really go bar hopping, and it's about 20 minutes to drive to downtown.
Edit: I see you've been downvoted. I wonder if it's BECAUSE of your preface, rather than IN SPITE of it.