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A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

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Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#51

Post by dasil003 »

prpon wrote: post #17

May be I've become cynical but 90% of the email I get in my personal account is from people/startups/companies selling me stuff. 90% of the twitter stream is people pimping their wares (either blog posts or products they endorse). 90% of my facebook wall is filled with inane things. May be the only way to be successful is to constantly sell yourself and your products. I haven't viewed the world this way until I start…

> May be the only way to be successful is to constantly sell yourself and your products.

Don't worry it's not. This is just the echo-chamber path to success, and it's a crowded one. It might be easier to get hipsters to try something new, but it's just that much harder to get them to actually stick with anything. Another path to success is to be in touch with the 99.99% of people that aren't "early adopters" and figure out a way to make a product that they like.

Twitter did the former, Facebook did the latter.

Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#52

Post by sciurus »

ascott wrote: post #35
rdouble wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in San Francisco without a car for about 4 years. San Francisco is very small. It's possible to walk from the ballpark to Ocean Beach in about 2.5 hours. I often walked from my home in Cole Valley to my office in SoMa, even though I could just take the Muni. The public transportation is pretty good for a city in the USA but pretty bad compared to Europe and really bad compared to Japan. People who like the pu…

I have had a car here in SF for the last few years, and only use it to go shopping, or get out of town. Last month I picked up a little motorbike - it is super convenient in the city. Parking everywhere, and for the most part, motorists are fairly contentious.

I think you meant conscientious. Contentious means confrontational.

Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#53

Post by kristofferR »

This post was good, but I actually think the responses here and in the comments on the site are way more fascinating!

I read the post as a genuine description of a normal day for Drew. Not as a bitter or sarcastic post making fun of hipsters, just a description of events in a normal day for Drew. Judging by the rest of the blog I'd call Drew a genuine hipster (unless the whole blog is satire) and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I simply don't understand what people have against them.

This post, accidentially, made my think about the pointlessness of living, but not in a negative way at all. We are born, live our lives and then we die. After we die, nothing, except for some memories in the brains of people you knew, is left. After the people who have the memories die, nothing is left of you and your life except from history.

Granted, a few people change the world in a measurable way, but they're the 0.00001% group of people who do. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being in the group of the 99.99999%.

Life is pointless except from the meaning we get from it. Since the meaning of life is to enjoy it, who's to say that this guy isn't living life correctly?

Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#54

Post by pnathan »

I am disappointed. I had hoped for a realistic description of a day in a life of a modern urbanized city. Living in a semi-rural area, I don't always get a sense of the good things of such a place.

Instead I got a nasty diatribe against social media addicts who have a fashion sense and like Macs.

Sadface

Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#56

Post by llambda »

potatolicious wrote: post #14
llambda wrote: post #6

I definitely laughed. But I'm curious, how is public transportation in SF? Is it possible to get by without a car or is that a silly pipe dream? Edit: for context, I'm a Seattleite who has been transplanted to NYC and is now looking to make it back to the West Coast (ideally, Cali!)

I've lived in both places - public transit in SF beats the pathetic pants off of Seattle for sure. It won't hold a candle to NYC though, so you may be disappointed. It's entirely possible to live without a car - very, very much so, but be prepared to pay if that's the case (i.e. neighborhoods well served by transit are expensive , think Manhattan rents... up to $2K for a studio? You bet!).

Seattle definitely has horrible public transportation. There cars really aren't optional.

I'm really not much better off here in NYC though because I live way out on a point in Queens. The nearest public transportation is a bus that's over two miles from where I'm living. The long and short of it is I commute two hours each way every single day.

It's a certain kind of hell I'm not long to suffer.

But I guess my biggest challenge at this point is not only do I not have a car I don't have a license; never bothered and now I regret it. I'm not alone in NYC in this regard. My coworker has lived in NYC all his life and never had a license. He's in his mid-thirties. So I'm trying to figure out if it's practical to attempt the move to SF. Of course there's many things to figure out besides the logistics... but certainly this thread is very helpful in regards to getting around the city.

Re: A Day in the Life of the Modern San Franciscan

#57

Post by qq66 »

diolpah wrote: post #33
athst wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I have never quite understood this meme of mocking hipster stereotypes. It's mean-spirited and in most cases very hypocritical.

I will make an attempt at enlightening you. There are a great number of greying or almost-greying engineers and other tech types who are part of a generation preceding the current "cool" generation. This older generation of hackers and engineers got into the industry because the allure of building systems that made society a better place and benefited humanity broadly was a very powerful driver. For years and decades…

I don't think the companies today are any less impactful than the companies of yesteryear.

What's different is that now, because of consumer Internet, "cool people" are getting into computer programming. The old guard of Silicon Valley was very awkward and nerdy -- Bill Gates is the archetype. Today's software entrepreneurs are more like Jack Dorsey -- they dress well, have no trouble getting dates, and people on the street know their companies.

The nerds look at these people and say "This is OUR thing. Get out of here." And resent these new unwanted arrivals.

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