351–360 of 533 posts
You can't really do that in the coastal areas but maybe inland or in states like Arizona or New Mexico. Put it all under a solar dome so you can control the heat. Okay, maybe that's too much :-)
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It would be nice if politicians had to disclose conflicts of interest when proposing legislation. I'm sure this shot to the top of the priority list not out of some moral imperative, but because someone somewhere was losing a buck, or could make a buck if this passed.
... Peskin is many things, but he's not someone who proposed legislation because someone bought him off.
I don't know Peskin and there are many honest hard working politicians, but safeguards like disclosing conflicts of interest aren't terribly burdensome for good politicians but can help generate legal consequences for the bad ones.
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This is true but the Bay Area local democrats will be the majority. Hell, you're pretty much a republican in their eyes as a tech worker. This will continue to be a thing as long as the upper-middle class isolates themselves through Uber / Lyft, fancy restaurants, and private shuttles. What's ironic is there are lot of upper-middle class people who live this lifestyle who aren't in tech but still shit on tech. Tech g…
Part of the problem with tech's rep is the free dinners...the tech community is notoriously insular in the Bay Area in ways it is not in other tech hubs like LA, Boston, NYC, or Austin. It doesn't help that the most visible techies, like Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla, abuse their tech-derived riches in blatant attempts to remake California into their own fantasy playlands. (This is a problem unique to tech--non-tech b…
That might be because
1. Not as many people move there right out of college to work in the tech industry. This is true in the Bay Area, which means you'll find most of your friends at work
2. The tech industry population just isn't as large in those places (bar maybe NYC). You kind of have to consider a wider friend pool.
Having said that, I'd love to make friends in the Bay Area outside tech - I just don't know how. I'm not sure many people make new friends at restaurants or coffee shops though, so I don't see how this new legislation makes tech workers "engage" with the community or whatever. The only engagement happening is between the tech worker's wallet and the restaurant's till.
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> They're just pandering to special interest groups --groups they believe will like this move, and since there is no alternative party in the Bay Area, they know most tech workers will not break Repub, so they can do what they want. It's true that basically all elected officials in SF are Democrats, but in practice there are two semi-official parties: "progressives" and "moderates." The supervisors pushing this, Aaro…
> "progressives" and "moderates." How did the people who oppose pretty much all progress, came to be named "progressives"?
Lotta hate for Mountain View in the comments here, which is ironic because with this ordnance Mountain View is trying to fix a problem that tech companies get a lot of hate on HN for. I've got mixed feelings about this, so I'll try and explain both sides: The problem MV's fixing is the perception that highly-paid tech workers have become a class of their own, isolated from the larger communities in which they live an…
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No, maybe they would come to the Googleplex. A huge boon in food trucks.
The Googleplex has over 20,000 employees, and food trucks are among the least efficient ways to feed them. You'd have huge convoys of food trucks entering and leaving the Googleplex for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Access control is vital in a location like a tech company's headquarters. With hundreds of random food trucks coming and going every day, such control will become impossible. Finally, food trucks are noto…
Lotta hate for Mountain View in the comments here, which is ironic because with this ordnance Mountain View is trying to fix a problem that tech companies get a lot of hate on HN for. I've got mixed feelings about this, so I'll try and explain both sides: The problem MV's fixing is the perception that highly-paid tech workers have become a class of their own, isolated from the larger communities in which they live an…
I feel what you're saying, and that definitely is something that happens. Especially for people who move for the job, it's very easy to keep oneself separate from the community. But making it illegal to feed your employees is a very stupid, very authoritarian way of dealing with it that feels like a terrible idea. I don't want to be told where to shop, ever, for any reason, and I dislike that these local governments…
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And that’s great if that’s what you want. OP was just saying that free, internal lunch promotes team bonding for those who do desire it.
I work at a company that doesn’t provide lunch, and we still manage to go out together and “bond”. Miracles do happen.
The upstream comment even said free lunch "promoted" camaraderie, not "is the only way it can happen."
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I see these types of comments, and I have a really hard time viewing them as anything but pretty entitled. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate for those who won't get free lunches anymore (I'm currently part of the group that does, although I'm not in the bay area) but it's not like you deserve free food as a perk any more than any other random worker. If it were my company inflicting the decision on me after a record ear…
Private corporations on private property should be able to make private contracts with employee as they see fit, without government interference.
Lotta hate for Mountain View in the comments here, which is ironic because with this ordnance Mountain View is trying to fix a problem that tech companies get a lot of hate on HN for. I've got mixed feelings about this, so I'll try and explain both sides: The problem MV's fixing is the perception that highly-paid tech workers have become a class of their own, isolated from the larger communities in which they live an…
It's not at all clear how forcing some software engineers to eat out for lunch will magically fix insularity or wealth polarization. Saying "hello" and "thank you" to a server at a restaurant is supposed to somehow make tech workers feel more in touch with their community (and I don't even know who decided tech workers, and they alone, are out of touch). Also have you been to Castro Street at weekday lunchtime? Free food or not, those restaurants are jam-packed.
> OTOH, the cynic in me says that it won't actually do a damn thing about this, and that tech workers will stand around talking to each other and ignoring the locals in line for Veggie Grill
You seem to be making a distinction between "tech workers" and "locals". If they live and work here, aren't tech workers locals too?
> while the service workers around them eat at the Walmart cafeteria.
I wasn't aware Walmart had a cafeteria. That aside, because cities around the Bay Area have decide not to allow any new housing ever, these service workers are ironically not "locals". They have back-breaking commutes from far-off places. They should be locals but they mostly cannot afford it. Maybe if a more diverse population could afford to live in the Bay Area, restaurants would have a wider customer base and wouldn't have to resort to such coercion.
> the flip side of intangibles like community engagement are reduced efficiency and heavy-handed regulation.
Except that there's very little proof that people who eat out in a city have more "community engagement" (whatever that means). If the city is going for increased engagement from tech workers there's a million other ideas that are better. Here's some:
1. Build more housing so that tech workers can afford to buy in MV instead of renting or commuting from somewhere else (like South San Jose). Living in a place, buying property and raising a family there will deeply connect you to it - you'll care about the schools, parks, libraries, and swimming pools
2. Allow more mixed-use development instead of restricting it to places like the Village
3. Reduce parking minimums so that stores are closer together and more walkalble. Why is only Castro Street like that?