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New York, 4:12 PM
Thu Nov 26
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/19/09
11/19/09
Also, Mediate needs a Tumblr so it has no excuse for missing what the Tumblerati say. Which is still mostly in lolspeak.
10/26/09
10/26/09
10/26/09
Those who brag about it incessantly aren't even doing it. #wereadtwittersoyoudonthaveto
10/11/09
Like him.
10/11/09
10/11/09
Guess who Oregon's largest private employer is... Intel (with roughly 10,000 outside of Portland). Intel seems to be doing OK. The moment Payne say he's moving to Portland, he'd have an avalanche of top flight engineers ready to hitch their wagon to him.
Truth is SF, Portland, Palo Alto, etc. all have their pros & cons and aren't for everyone. Smart companies will set up multiple outposts. Intel has done it. Microsoft has done it. Google has done it. Why not Twitter?
10/10/09
That said, Portland IS a great town (I've got family there) with plenty of tech talent and its own culture. I don't know why you call it "uber-trendy", certainly the people who live there don't consider themselves trendy. It's much more racially diverse than it was in the 1980s or even the 1990s so check your stereotypes at the door.
To some commenters: One visit to a city to visit your friends or go to a conference doesn't qualify you to make a judgment on a place. Stay a few months or a year and then your opinion might be worth listening to.
10/10/09
(New York readers, please note the "and" in that statement. You own the trophy for culture and society, and I'm the first to admit it.)
My only regret after 22 years in SF is that I won't be living here in five years; the only reason for my (eventual) departure is to enjoy a less lucrative but more stable life with my sweetie, in a neighborhood that we call "Noe-on-the-Beargrass."
10/10/09
10/10/09
10/10/09
The last time I visited San Francisco I was appalled at all the homeless on the streets. But I think it's a California thing.
In Chicago we have homeless, to be sure, but the weather is such that the homeless can't just stay on the street constantly. I think that's the issue with San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, and LA, and San Diego, and any other city with a warm climate.
If you're homeless, and you have any wits whatsoever, you don't stay in place where there are extremes of weather that will kill you. You hitchhike, ride the rails (yeah, they still do that), or whatever, but you get yourself to a warmer place.
My one interaction with homeless in San Francisco was a couple of stoned late-teens early twenty somethings with hundreds of dollars worth of tattoos and piercings asking me for money. I was like, "pffft!, why dontcha go back home to the suburbs and ask yo mama for some money?" But I'm from the Midwest.
10/10/09
-Alex, you are a snob who cannot keep it real.
- SF is Number 1 !!!
-Homeless people rock! So they shit out in the open streets. It's not like they're killing anyone. What's a little shit? It's all natural.
- If you have the temerity to dislike people shitting in the streets, you better single-handedly alter civic and urban planning policy first.
The basic undertone to all of this is: If you criticize the awesome bastion of awesomeness that is SF, you're one of those hard-hearted, closed-minded, repressed, Republipigcan snobs!!!!111!!
Bullshit.
The way the city handles its enormous homeless problem is absolutely abysmal. No one wants to criticize golden boy Gavin Newsom on it because hey, he let gay people marry!!! That's what liberalism has come down to, today. So-called Progressive! attitudes with zero accountability because liberals have piss-poor standards for any leader who happens to not be a conservative.
It's not anyone's goddamn duty to put up with humans shitting in the open streets. It's the city's goddamn duty to provide such people with better facilities. And the city is fantastic at shirking this duty. In large part because the citizens of SF, like the ones on Gawker, are quite happy with it at all because hey, it's not like there's a conservative mayor. Now that would be truly awful.
10/10/09
Local governments, even home rule municipalities like San Francisco, are largely dependent on the state government for the vast majority of their funding. and California's state government, due in large part to a ballot initiative system (not discussed in the article) that makes it easy to change the state constitution and difficult to raise money in taxes, does not have the funding to do anything, and thus local governments have very little money to do anything. You want good public transport? You want money for women's shelters? Homeless shelters? Pay some fucking taxes. Get your representatives to cut superfluous spending. But no, you live in California and all that shit is out of your control. Fuck.
Isn't this the future you wanted, libertarians - ineffectual government, people responsible only for themselves.? I suppose in actuality, a libertarian setup would allow more folks than just the tech-savvy to uproot and relocate away from the dregs.
10/12/09
[www.sfhsa.org]
It was a first attempt at trying to take away some of the cash handouts these homeless people have been using overwhelmingly for drugs. It was passed by a strong majority of voters and did succeed in reducing some of the payouts. The problem is it's a drop in the bucket compared to what actually needs to be done and due to the way our city officials are elected, it's not likely you will ever see anything more happen on this front.
I'd also say it's not the cities responsibility to take care of people who refuse to take care of themselves. If all homeless payments and programs disappeared tomorrow from SF, so would all the homeless.
10/10/09
In San Francisco, your man-boobs go BIG, or you go home.
San Francisco: where man-boobs roar, not whimper.
10/10/09
[twitter.com]
10/10/09
And their new homeland, Portland, deserves all our sympathy.
10/10/09
Baltimore is the worst of the lot. Even in the downtown area there is considerable trash, crime and poverty. Go anywhere outside of downtown and you are greeted by decaying row homes and even higher crime rates.
Now if you want an example of a beautiful city look at Toronto.
10/10/09
Silly brat probably has never been to any other city but San Francisco.
10/10/09