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Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

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Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#21

Post by vel0city »

nrr wrote: post #19

I used to drive the Case to the Rural King every so often. While it was fun trolling the suburbanites heading to work during rush hour by going 25 mph in a large piece of farm machinery that they couldn't run off the road, I ultimately got a city job, so I gave the rural life up and haven't really looked back. Miss carding my own wool and spinning my own yarn though. That was nice and meditative. I think the major re…

> that's where the majority of industry happens to be.

The majority of certain kinds of industry. Finance, software, fashion, marketing, sure. I grew up surrounded by people working at chemical plants, rotating shifts at off-site drilling platforms, dock workers, etc. The other side of town, ranchers. Another side of town, sugar processing and sugar farms. Other than the dock workers and offside drillers (on their off-times) potentially being more urban-adjacent, neither of these two industries are really dense urban area kinds of industry.

Then, up the highway a bit, was Houston.

I don't see many car manufacturing plants deep in dense urban areas in the US. Loads of large manufacturing in the US happens well outside those dense urban areas. Living in most dense US cities is expensive. Real estate is way more expensive. Imagine trying to build commercial airliners in Manhattan or San Francisco.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#22

Post by ActorNightly »

This really depends on your tolerance for people.

If you are young, cities can be great for social life. I used to live right outside of DC after college and it was great when the important things in life were enjoying social gatherings and meeting girls.

Now that Im much older, I prefer seclusion because I don't really care that much for making new friends, and on the flipside I don't have to deal with idiots who inconvenience people around them because of careless, negligence, or stupidity.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#23

Post by rkagerer »

I do - there's a datapoint for ya.

Projects take a bit longer as there's no Fry's or Radio Shack around the corner. You tend to stock more things on hand, and Amazon Prime is a godsend. Cars are still a thing, and you have to drive them yourself! I wave to neighbours when I pass them. Look up at night and there's lots of twinkling lights in the sky which aren't Starlink trains.

Aside from that it's just like city life.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#24

Post by readthenotes1 »

rkagerer wrote: post #23

I do - there's a datapoint for ya. Projects take a bit longer as there's no Fry's or Radio Shack around the corner. You tend to stock more things on hand, and Amazon Prime is a godsend. Cars are still a thing, and you have to drive them yourself! I wave to neighbours when I pass them. Look up at night and there's lots of twinkling lights in the sky which aren't Starlink trains. Aside from that it's just like city lif…

You must be in the boonies! "Fry's or Radio Shack".

Hey, just a thought, have you ever tried Velcro, or zippers?

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#25

Post by b20000 »

smallstepforman wrote: post #8

I spent 53 years in a big city, and finally moved to a rural area. Tired of all the commotion, congestion, pollution and stress, and watch wild blackberries, strawberries, mushrooms grow, trees and flowers blossom, orchard bloom and give fruit, pheasants and deer entering the property and observing natures life cycle. My wife although hesitant is now peaceful with life. And I’m an embedded software developer, do Haik…

where are you located?

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#26

Post by EdwardDiego »

I live rurally in Canterbury, New Zealand, but I'm only 25 minutes away from Christchurch CBD.

I've lived far more rurally in the past, long commutes down metal roads with the occasional ford, septic tanks, private water schemes supplying algae-green water from rivers that rise in the front ranges, Internet via microwave or satellite or... ...dial-up giving 2KiB/s if you're lucky, electric fences often lowered the bit rate on copper.

I'm not sure why you think a rural lifestyle needs supportive comments. It's, after all, a choice we make, because we're privileged enough to be able to.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#27

Post by pcvarmint »

anonzzzies wrote: post #17
k310 wrote: post #11

We’re busy keeping the well pumps running, ordering propane when the generator kicks in after power lines fail, cleaning up tree limbs (and trees) that fell in the winter storms. Other than that, it’s a dilemma. I have a spectacular view, living on a ridge, but except for the gas station/quicky mart, everything “a.k.a. Downtown” is 12 miles away and all the stores not named hardware stores are 50 miles away. So are c…

There is Starlink now. Gamechanger for us; we had total crap radio (line of sight) internet before that; not even dsl.

CBRS is faster than Starlink here and doesn't have limits or throttling.

It's a 50ft tower powered by PoE Ethernet.

100-250 mbit/s down, 50-80 mbit/s up

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#28

Post by trevo »

defrost wrote: post #4

I was born and live in Western Australia, a state almost half the land area of Australia, three times larger than Texas, with a population of ~ 2 million most of whom live in and around the one big city in the south west corner. I grew up in the Kimberley on cattle stations, went to high school in the Pilbarra , and travelled 1,000 km to university (1980s). I did a lot of STEM courses, built robots, remote signal aqu…

R

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#30

Post by defrost »

trevo wrote: post #28
defrost wrote: post #4

I was born and live in Western Australia, a state almost half the land area of Australia, three times larger than Texas, with a population of ~ 2 million most of whom live in and around the one big city in the south west corner. I grew up in the Kimberley on cattle stations, went to high school in the Pilbarra , and travelled 1,000 km to university (1980s). I did a lot of STEM courses, built robots, remote signal aqu…

R

Jobs here, for myself at least, are very word of mouth and Weddings, Parties, Anything.

I have no LinkedIn, Facebook, Github profile .. just a backlog of people and companies I've worked with since the late 1970s.

There's a Radio Quiet Zone here for the SKA Square Kilometre Array which has ongoing odd jobs, there and on the super computer farm. Some kid I used to joke about with on the School of the Air when we were in short pants is now some kind of multi billionaire with agriculture, aquaculture, mining, green hydrogen, etc stuff going on.

We (circle of scaly mates) started a few companies when short of things to do, back whenever .. these are still about in various forms - one got picked up by the US Standard & Poor for their intelligence desk.

This week I'm making the cage over the peach tree parrot proof, pitchforking sawdust and shit underneath the fig tree, and waiting for a call to come and be a chase bin driver (pulling up behind and parallel to a moving combine harvester to take the offload back to the bins .. rinse, repeat).

Mining companies like data driven solutions, there's a lot of mapping | survey work, Rio Tinto is automating the Feck of everything, Trains, Trucks, and so on.

There's lab work, lawyers up the whazoo, accounting firms, parts and tradespeople warehousing yards - so a lot of that type of web | office support stuff happening.

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