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Diary: Google Invades

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Re: Diary: Google Invades

#91

Post by johnny99 »

taligent wrote: post #76
johnny99 wrote: post #34

Forced myself to read to the end so that I would be justified in saying what I had the impulse to howl from the third sentence: Rebecca Solnit, FUCK YOU. It's actually quite well-written, but christ, what a pretentious, clueless, holier-than-thou, pseudo-pious pile of crap. Blamey dirges like this are why people hate liberals. It makes me hate them, and I am one. It's hard to know where to start, so I'll just dig in:…

Wow. Nice working reinforcing the stereotype there of IT workers being callous, selfish assholes indifferent to everyone else.

I may be an asshole, but I'm not callous or indifferent. Like I said, I think rising rents and other boom dislocations hurt people and are problems to be addressed. But attacking the Asian kid who worked hard, got a job at Google, and takes the bus to work doesn't really do that.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#92

Post by dsl »

asveikau wrote: post #64
rayiner wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An hour between trains is ridiculous. On Metro North I've got 8 trains between 7 am and 9 am from my town into NYC. Weekends are on the half hour.

To be fair there are (just looked it up) 8 southbound trains between 7 and 9. After 9:07 it gets spotty. It's harder for me to make those early trains because in addition to not being much of a morning person (yes, for that I'm just whining), I also take Muni to get to the station which takes a while.

I usually catch the 9:37, which end up being pretty empty (compared to the earlier trains I ride once in a while). I get why service drops off.

Pro tip: Get off at 4th and King and walk to Caltrain if you are cutting it close. You'll beat MUNI most of the time.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#93

Post by SageRaven »

DannyBee wrote: post #78
scarmig wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are getting mighty touchy from this piece. How is it bullshit? For one, cites on any of Google, Apple, Ebay, Facebook, etc. either offering to help or helping and getting rebuffed? A quick Google doesn't bring anything up, though I suspect I'm missing out on a key word. But even granting that, the saying "the proof's in the pudding" is pretty relevant here. If it were a priority for them in the same way it was…

Look at public meeting minutes for various towns and you'll see it. Past that, most of the companies do it smart, and let the towns take the credit, and keep the rest quiet. It is a priority for them, but unlike in the past, if you tell san francisco you want to spend 50 million providing public bus service, their answer isn't "sign us the hell up", it's "sorry, no".

For the first time in my 40-something years on this planet, I utilized passenger rail in the US. I recently took a vacation on a leg of the California Zephyr Amtrak route (which goes from Chicago to San Francisco). During a wait one of the stations, I picked up copies of the industry rags. Though I never would have guessed, it seems that there are strong political and financial forces that are very much against a prolific public transit system in the US, with California being quite a battleground of the pro and anti crowds.

Whether or not the tech giants in Silicon Valley are in fact trying to improve the public transit situation, they have a steep hill to climb in order to make any progress.

Though I am constantly surprised by public transit initiatives in smaller inland cities. Salt Lake City has made substantial public transit improvements in the past decade. Tuscon, already having a decent bus system, has a modest 3.9-mile light rail project slated to be completed late this year.

So I have some hope for public transit in the US as a whole.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#94

Post by worace »

specialist wrote: post #80
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tiny piece of the puzzle. To have a really usable public transit network ala Chicago or New York, you have to coordinate zoning with transit. 1) The terminal transit station should be built so as to exit right into the central business district. The Caltrain station is too far from SOMA and lacks decent public transit. Meanwhile, Chicago's three transit stations exit right at the perimeter of the Loop (within…

> To have a really usable public transit ... you have to coordinate zoning with transit. +1 My position is a bit stronger: It all starts with zoning. There was a geek news item recently that note the difference in USA and Canadian sprawl, which the authors believed started with how parcels of farm land were measured out. In the USA, parcels were squarish, requiring roads everywhere, requiring everyone to have automob…

That comment about parcelling land reminded me of something I read about the parcelling system used in the French colonies along the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigneurial_system_of_New_Franc...

Basically the same principle except in this case the transport system was the river and the land usage is optimized to give as many people access to it as possible. Interesting to see the idea cropping up again in reference to modern public transit.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#95

Post by jimray »

johnny99 wrote: post #34

Forced myself to read to the end so that I would be justified in saying what I had the impulse to howl from the third sentence: Rebecca Solnit, FUCK YOU. It's actually quite well-written, but christ, what a pretentious, clueless, holier-than-thou, pseudo-pious pile of crap. Blamey dirges like this are why people hate liberals. It makes me hate them, and I am one. It's hard to know where to start, so I'll just dig in:…

I get what you're saying. I think your response captures one part -- the id, if you will -- of a pretty common refrain I've heard about this article amongst my other nerdy, SF dwelling friends.

And in that respect, you're right and certainly entitled to that opinion and entitled to express it however you'd like.

While her piece has a lot of problems, not the least of them being a tortured metaphor about gold miners, there is still certainly a kernel of truth to what she's saying. The city is growing at a boom-town pace and infrastructure is not keeping up with that growth, which affects everyone, longtime residents who make less money than young tech workers with higher salaries especially.

Where I'll emphatically disagree with you is your "solution" -- it isn't to turn every resident of San Francisco into an engineer. Much of the attraction of cities is the diversity of people who live in them, which mean ideally they are places that can support poets and programmers. San Francisco, even with its recent influx of tech workers, is not nearly the industry town that the valley proper of San Jose, Mountain View, Cupertino, and Palo Alto are. This is a good thing. This is why people choose to live here and commute there. This is why we have those buses.

This was a frustrating article to read because dealing with the massive, largely tech-fueld growth really is an issue worth exploring. But for all the problems this city has, Google buses ain't even close to the top of the list. Here are some that I think about on my walks home through the city:

* Why are there parking lots adjacent to public housing? Furthermore, why are blocks of public housing (walk up Turk from Market to Divis some time, just not at night) amongst the least dense in the city?

* How do we allow things like AirBnB to exist but not create loopholes in the housing code, which has the effect of further constricting the already tight supply of housing?

* What can the city do to encourage development in the Tenderloin to replace the far-too-many SRO's?

* The high-rises going up in SOMA are great and will hopefully provide housing for the influx of young, mostly single, tech workers. What's the city going to do about encouraging more single-family residences, say, between Van Ness/Masonic and Geary/Market?

* How does Western Addition avoid becoming the next Hayes Valley?

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#96

Post by jmspring »

inafield wrote: post #86
jmspring wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism? I read it more as a blog rather than any sort of investigative journalism piece. People have their perspectives on how places have changed with the boom and bust cycles that have come to the Bay Area. The bus analogy is really just an example of the larger observation that the author is making -- with the technological boom currently going on, there is an impact on the city, it's culture, and those living…

All I read from the author is a bunch of whining. My employer hires a masseuse once every two weeks and all employees who want to will receives a 15-minute chair massage. Should the "person on the street" whine because this isn't provided to non-employees? My employer also buys us fresh fruit once a week. It's a perk for a healthier snack rather than a vending machine. Should the "person on the street" whine because…

I'm not speaking in specifics, I am speaking to the general affect upon the make up of the city as a whole. The "bus" is just one small part of the overall "diary".

There have been similar such things written many times over about San Francisco over the years -- not just based on the influence of tech.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#97

Post by icebraining »

Taylorious wrote: post #26

What a truly terrible article, how on earth did it get published? This is the type of small minded, stereotyping, garbage that should never make it past some hack's crappy blog. I looked up the author on Wikipedia and I find it rather ironic that there are quotes of her priding herself on her critical thinking abilities. Reading the article, I saw very little evidence of critical thinking or thinking of any kind for…

As a side note, I see that she has a Masters of Journalism. Why on earth would you need a masters degree in Journalism? Find a story, research it/fact check, write about it. Do you really need to go to a university for 6~ years for that?

https://xkcd.com/793/

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#98

Post by thedufer »

csharpminor wrote: post #81
rdouble wrote: post #21

The whole of the US sometimes seems to be a checkerboard of these low-pressure zones with lots of time and space but no money, and the boomtowns with lots of money, a frenzied pace and chronic housing scarcity. Neither version is very liveable. After taking a few extended cross country road trips over the past couple of years, this sentence from the article rang the most true.

I was about to just make the same comment. I think the "tech boom" has done a lot for SF, but it's a great example of how wealth and investment is highly concentrated in just a few areas of the country. Ideally, startups would look at those costs, do the analysis, and make the decision to locate elsewhere in order to minimize risk. But SF (and NYC) have a kind of legendary status as being where successful tech compan…

> the sector that has the knowledge and employee base to be geographically independent are also the ones that pay the most for their location

I agree that more tech companies should be okay with remote workers. But its not the trivial thing you make it out to be - it takes work, especially in larger teams. And unless you're going to put that work in and make it a part of your team's identity, you have to be where the talent is. I don't think this concentration of tech companies is nearly as surprising as you make it out to be.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#99

Post by 3pt14159 »

Anechoic wrote: post #37
3pt14159 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why do we need the public to run mass transit in the first place?

You are perfectly welcome to start your own mass transit system (rail, bus, boat, helicopter, etc). Chances are that you'll quickly find that between he high capital investment, highly variable fuel prices, environmental requirements, and demand challenges that it will be really hard to turn a profit. Hence, not very many private entities want anything to do with the market.

Well most cities have subsidised public transit, so it is pretty hard to compete, even if it were legal (in cities like my own it is 100% illegal).

Variable fuel prices doesn't really change any of the other private mass transit systems, like air, ship, and train (or even taxi?).

Environmental requirements are essentially irrelevant, especially compared the the fuel that will be saved.

High capital investment? I could start with a single van and one frequently travelled road. Or provide the service exclusively to one employer (ala Google style).

Demand challenges meet multi linear optimization. Our fire stations, electrical grids, gasoline stations, highways, office buildings, and eateries all have demand challenges.

Why would the profit be especially lower? If it were too low, entities would leave the market, if it were too high entities would enter the market.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#100

Post by tomkarlo »

mc32 wrote: post #58
tomkarlo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that they're in the process of extending BART to the Caltrain (which is relatively recent itself.) There's a ton of cut-and-cover work going on down 4th street to do this. Why would you see big residential buildings in Menlo Park or Palo Alto? SF, unlike most cities, has a lot of people commuting outwards towards the suburbs from the city each day. It's SF where you need the extra housing, not SV.

That's MUNI to Caltrain, IIRC (central subway project). But that's probably better anyhow, since BaRT only serves a single corridor thru SF.

Whoops. You're right, my bad.
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