What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#381

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

da02 wrote: post #351

w1ntermute wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the women really more attractive in Austin? One of the things mentioned in the article is that in SF, people are in shape. How are things in Austin?

Maybe date in California and move to Austin? I also heard Austin is like a Californian oasis in TX (when it comes to politics/race/etc.) There is also visiting a different country if you want to find a spouse. The foreigner mystique (esp. if you are pale and Caucasian) is still somewhat alive... based on the vlogs/blogs I've read about: South Korea, Japan, China, etc. Foreigners who blog/vlog eventually talk about fo…

Oh, there's no doubt that there's a sizable portion of East Asian women who have a Caucasian fetish. While this is good for dating and hooking up (even the most clueless and ugly white guy will get so much action in Tokyo, Shanghai, or Seoul), I disagree that it's a good basis for a marriage, particularly a cross-cultural one.

However, I'm not sure what this has to do with SF vs Austin, other than for the sizable Asian population in SF (in which regard Austin isn't "a Californian oasis in TX"). In that regard though, SF is a good place to be, as the Caucasian fetish is in full effect among Asian American women as well: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/29/us/20110130mix...

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#382

Post by jquery » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

georgeorwell wrote: post #221

JabavuAdams wrote: post #44

I'm living in Toronto, Canada, and the SF crack-head thing is always a shock. If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one block away from our expensive hotel, there are zombies shambling about -- and this is totally normal! For those who know Toronto: it's like you're in Yorkdale, you walk one block and you're in the worst part of Parkdale. The other odd thing is that I seem to pay a…

Calling people crack-heads and shambling zombies is pejorative. You don't casually use words like fag, dyke, tranny, bitch, ho, nigger, Indian (for native / aboriginal), and kyke, right? If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anythin…

This comment does not belong on HN. It's angry, self-righteous, and unproductive. Comparing people who defecate, urinate, shoot-up, stink, and leave needles on your front porch to other minorities is really offensive. Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation. Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#383

Post by simoneau » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:32 PM UTC

I like Paul Graham's comparison of cities, "you should be smarter" vs "you should live better" vs ...:

http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#384

Post by georgeorwell » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:35 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #280

noname123 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, in your opinion, what should be the net worth target for people making regular tech income in their 30's, 40's and 50's if they want to eek out comfortable living in retirement, inflation-adjusted?

Try http://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement for a fairly straightforward, income-independent answer to that question. Tell it your annual income and expenses, and it'll tell you when you can retire. Adjust the numbers and your retirement date changes. (The defaults for "return on investment" and "withdrawal rate" work pretty well.)

Just don't put in zero for annual savings or the savings rate, because what I'm guessing is a divide by zero somewhere can hang your browser.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#385

Post by squidsoup » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:35 PM UTC

meh01 wrote: post #339

squidsoup wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in New Zealand and interested in potentially moving to Portland one day. I'm aware that the city has a great reputation for arts and food (which is the appeal for me and my family) and personally prefer living in smaller cities. The regular folk music events, street markets and greenery all seem very appealing! Are there many job opportunities for software developers there however?

Move to Sydney instead. Seriously.

Sydney is 10 times larger than Portland. Having lived in lots of different cities, large and small, I think 300-500k is the sweet spot for me. Any larger and I feel like you start suffering from quality of life issues - pollution, traffic, overcrowding, traveling distances, crime etc.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#386

Post by graysnorf » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #347

dpatrick86 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful and actually, in some cases, substantially cheaper... depending on how north we're talking about. I'd prefer it to Oakland -- but I'm ok with suburbs.

What about transportation?

The curse of the north bay is the lack of trains. BART runs to the east bay, but not the north.

The ferry is basically worthless if you don't actually live in San Rafael. It's a nice ride, but very slow, and not cheap.

Personally, I quite like the bus system: if you don't mind taking the bus, Golden Gate Transit is great. The commute from somewhere like Novato is still long (1hr) but you can use the time to sleep or listen to audio books. Be sure to check the schedules of the express routes you care about: they end kind of early (~6, 7pm) and the non-express routes that run longer take easily twice as long.

Driving is a different story. There are three things to consider: 1) leave early, like 5ish, especially if you're north of marin 2) if you work in the financial district, the time to drive from the edge of SF to parking is substantial and 3) you can park in the financial district itself, but this will cost you around $25/day.

I suppose there's a fourth thing to consider re: driving which is that your drive home is almost guaranteed to be painful if you have to go beyond San Rafael and are not car pooling.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#387

Post by lowglow » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

I might be a little late to the party, but if you're in San Francisco or looking to move here, you should really attend a San Francisco Hacker News event. We throw movies, meetups, poker games, dinners, and soon to be hackathons.

Visit us at http://sfhackernews.com/

We'd love to meet you!

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#388

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

Roybatty wrote: post #363

enraged_camel wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: do you actually know what fascist means? If so, do you not understand that it is vastly different than "leftist" or "socialist"?

Yeah, I know that leftist groupthink doesn't comprehend that fascism is a leftist political ideology. Hint, you know what NAZI means?

Do you know what "Go back to /r/politics" means?

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#389

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:45 PM UTC

ubercore wrote: post #175

michaelhoffman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I just don't think these points are true for the other cities you mention. As a Seattle inhabitant, the descriptions of San Francisco-specific weather, rent, cost of living, costumes, events, transients, canine-friendliness, fog, commuting, and other things just do not apply here. Of the first few things mentioned, only the strong neighborhood identity is something we share.

The similarity, in my experience, is more visible when held in relation to the East Coast. For west coast cities, you're probably right, but I'd bet most people would consider Seattle closer to SF than to NYC or Boston. Someone from the east coast would never call NYC and Boston similar, but they're closer to each other than they are to SF or Seattle.

Having lived in and around both, I would say NYC and Boston are fairly similar. Boston's whole psyche is based around staunchly insisting on not being inferior to New York.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#390

Post by jquery » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:45 PM UTC

__--__ wrote: post #294

nugget wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives around and deals with these people every day, let's call a spade a spade and not cover it up. Have you seen a zombie movie lately? These people basically ARE zombies - they hobble around, mutter to themselves, smell like shit, randomly attack people, and will infect you with disease if you touch them. Whether they scream at/spit on/push around my sister or female employees because they are on cra…

The powers that be leave them alone because if they don't, they are met with complete civil unrest in SF. Any attempt to even address the homeless issue is met with outrage and organized protest. This goes along with the outcry against gentrification and the lament of the city losing its "character." Make no mistake, some of the people here actually want to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film. :)

So true. When I realized SF actually wanted these people living on the streets (despite empty talk to the contrary), I gave up petitioning the city to clean up my neighborhood and moved to a different neighborhood. No longer do I have to play hopscotch every morning along my commute. Or fear for the safety of my wife.