Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover • Hacker News Board

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#121

Post by thesmallestcat » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 9:55 PM UTC

nickstefan12 wrote: post #109

thesmallestcat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is why so many young tech dude(tte)s seem incapable of integrating. Any place that experiences a tech boom will also experience a boom in luxury apartments, $10+ cocktails, tapas bars, on demand laundry and so on. This can't help but to displace the old way of living in an area, even if it does bring jobs. Is it so terrible to find, vet, and rent a normal apartment, do your own chores, and eat…

Your comment just made me think: these are all kind of conveniences of lifestyle that might relate to millenials growing up in McMansion-ville? When they move to the city, they don't really want to live in the city. They want McMansion suburbanized city with a bar scene...

I think you're right, and to be more precise, that they are trying to create their ideal college town, a place that typically combines quaint shops with familiar big box chain stores.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#122

Post by thesmallestcat » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:14 PM UTC

lod723 wrote: post #114

tomjakubowski wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is off-topic, but I'm somewhat surprised by the consistent use of the Austin metro as an example of a "tech hub" in comments here, when a metro area in its own state (Dallas) had raised more in venture capital as recently as 2016. [1] Austin is certainly shifting their economy to be tech-dominant, but it's still a small economy relative to other US cities. What makes Austin a more important tech hub th…

Just speculating, but maybe it's because Google, Facebook, and Amazon have a tech presence in Austin and not in the other 3 metros you mentioned?

Google has sales and engineering in Chicago, engineering in Chapel Hill, and sales in Dallas. I think there may be some engineering in Dallas too. There are enough good people out there unwilling to relocate that you can find a Google presence in most tech corridors.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#123

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:20 PM UTC

z1mm32m4n wrote: post #59

bane wrote: post #48

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it: - Two big, well funded, well respected schools cranking out talent. CMU is one of the top schools in the world for CS. - Cheap rent - If you want to buy a house, some really beautiful neighborhoods - SEI - lots of cyber security talent - Great food and activities, it's not hard to find plen…

> Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of great parks and so on It's hard to understate this point. Compared with San Francisco, Pittsburgh is much more visibly green. There are trees everywhere, grassy areas abound, and the city itself is nestled in green hills. San Francisco is full of concrete. The Bay Area is still really brown from the recent droughts. There are certainly peopl…

I was visiting a friend in SF, we had a dog with us. Was pretty shocking how far I had to walk to find a square foot of grass.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#124

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:23 PM UTC

rytill wrote: post #88

getemback wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding a sunny day because Pittsburgh enjoys the fewest hours of annual sunlight of any major city, and continues to have air quality as bad as any other US city, being in the top ten worst according to the Lung Association.

I don't feel like there's any major lack of sunlight and I've lived in Pittsburgh for years. Source?

Winter often has very long periods of ZERO sun, literally not being able to point at where the sun is. My GF called it "gloomy doomy". During the winter I would actually forget what a sunny day looked like.

Often remarked that we had less rain than Portland, but also less sunny days.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#125

Post by thesmallestcat » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:25 PM UTC

whopa wrote: post #52

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

looks like someone has never been to Pennsylvania. Tejon Pass' major difficulty is the grade, and that's about it. PA may not have a highway that matches that grade, but many come close, and there are far more tight curves, typically far worse road conditions, and bad weather season is far more common than in N LA.

My point about Tejon Pass is that it's a steep grade mountain pass with heavy traffic including lots of trucks. There's no equivalent in PA. Highway trucking will be the first significant deployment of autonomous vehicles. One of the big challenges is Mountain West interstates. I do agree that the NE US is a proper testbed for bad weather city driving, since no West Coast cities have really that bad winter weather, I…

Have you ever driven on 70 or 80 through PA? Because "steep grade mountain pass with heavy traffic, including lots of trucks" is an apt description of either route.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#126

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:32 PM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #29

theYipster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots. There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO…

I totally agree. I wrote to the mayor about this, and we could definitely use more help raising awareness to the city about this very pressing issue (@billpeduto on Twitter if you're also affected)... I've never had an SFO PIT flight without layovers. Also, we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" to describe our beloved hometown and emerging tech center. It is a very u…

You must not look very hard. I fly annually SFO PIT direct, including another one in a week.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#127

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:49 PM UTC

whopa wrote: post #25

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is more of an issue with those VCs than the founders; there are a number of self-driving car startups here and they have a unique advantage: they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles (indeed, CMU won 1st place i…

> they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles Careful, don't compare Pittsburgh to an entire state. Pennsylvania doesn't have any real mountains, whereas California does. Google tests their self driving vehicles in the…

This sounds like someone who has never driven in Tahoe and Pittsburgh. I've done quite a bit in both.

I can tell you that 80 and 50 that head over the sierras are often closed for what would be consider relatively minor snow in Pittsburgh. Sometimes it's not even the road conditions, just lack of visibility (fog or snow). Significant ice is also fairly rare just because of level of maintenance, I suspect somewhat fueled by poor California drivers and ski resorts that push for excessive road maintenance.

On the other hand Pittsburgh gets plenty of snow, plenty of storms, and I can assure you they don't close the highways unless it's a storm of the century so bad that you'll not even be able to find cars let alone drive them. Additionally the Pittsburgh area roads have significant elevation changes, often narrow, and poorly maintained. Take for instance the top 10 steeps roads in the USA. Pittsburgh has #2 and it snows there. SF has #9 and #10, but it rarely snows there. Another puzzling factor is Pittsburgh uses a ton of salt, yet has temperature variations that often lead to snow melting from salt, then refreezing in sheets of ice or "black" ice. I've definitely skidded WAY further in the Pittsburgh on ice than I have have around Tahoe. For a year or so I was crossing 3 7200 foot passes each weekend around Tahoe and in the last 20 years I'm often up around there for various reasons.

Even the average Pittsburgh driver seems to deal with snow MUCH better than the ones I find up around Tahoe area when it snows. Even though the Pittsburgh driver is likely in a 10 year old front wheel drive econobox instead of a newish AWD SUV.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#128

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

whopa wrote: post #30

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an SF transplant, my only thoughts after seeing California drivers struggling with the artificial snow and hills at Tahoe were "these people have never been to Pittsburgh." Also, eastern Pennsylvania has the Appalachian mountains, and last time I checked, they were "real."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Davis_(Pennsylvania) - 3,213 ft - highest point in PA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejon_Pass - 4,160 ft Tejon Pass is on I-5 in northern LA County, and it is a huge trucking route. The grade is very steep between the Central Valley and the top of the pass, and is fairly challenging for trucks. There is no equivalent to those conditions in PA. Also, if your impression of Tahoe is…

Definitely easy for a non-Pittsburgh to equate difficulty with elevation. Which ignores elevation changes, weather, sharp turns, tunnels, and bridges. Also a strange fondness for salt which generally makes things worse. Find a Pittsburgher who thinks driving in Tahoe is hard, even off the beaten path.

Personally I try my best to get as far off the beaten path as I can. Tahoe and surrounding areas is a cake walk compared to Pittsburgh.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#129

Post by sliken » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 11:26 PM UTC

carrendi wrote: post #116

smaili wrote: post #3

The author seems to place most of the credit for the recent 'boom' on CMU for its rich history in the Machine Learning and Robotics fields. So my question is, what happens when other top universities begin to catch up or even possibly dethrone CMU? Would Pittsburg still continue to attract talent and businesses?

I graduated from CMU (SCS) 15 years ago. The school is so far ahead of nearly every other CS school in the world in regard to machine learning/AI, it's laughable to think it will ever be dethroned. They have ties with DARPA and other government agencies that have deep pockets. They've also successfully courted every major tech corporation in the country. I have to applaud their board of trustees/president/provost. Th…

I keep hearing OHMIGOD some car/bus is driving autonomously somewhere on the planet. CMU has been doing that since the 80s.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#130

Post by iak8god » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 11:32 PM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #90

iak8god wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" Who is "we"? I spent the first few decades of my life in a great lakes rust belt city and this is the first time I've heard of anyone considering it a pejorative.

People actually from Pittsburgh do (I'm a fourth generation native, my great grandfather farmed tomatoes for H.J. Heinz -- look on a ketchup bottle): "Shame. It’s pretty thick in these parts, and it’s linked to the region’s nickname, 'The Rust Belt.' After all, rust connotes disuse, or of being left behind." [1] Hope that helps you see our point of view a bit more. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/…

An addendum to my sibling comment here:

A cusory web search turns up indie bookstores, restaurants, literary publishers, community groups of various sorts, etc in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit that embrace the term "rust belt". I didn't easily find similar results for Pittsburgh, so maybe yinz do have a different take on it. But please don't assume others intend "rust belt" as a pejorative, and please consider recognizing that as it's not widely used pejoratively, you may have limited success convincing others to stop using it.