New York will always be a tech backwater, I don't care what the VCs say - <AUTHOR> http://adgrok.com/new-york-will-always-be-a-tech-backwater-i-dont-care-what-chris-dixon-or-ron-conway-or-paul-graham-say <comment><USER3> The point I consider most important is only alluded to.

In NY people try to maintain monopolies of information. One place that applies to is a very restrictive work for hire doctrine. If you have a job in NYC, by default everything you create belongs to your employer. Even if it was done at home on your equipment. In California that particular right is one that remains yours and cannot be lost (unless what you do relates to your employer's business).

The result is that in California it is common for people to have a day job and work on the side on a startup. You almost never see the side startup in NY. Furthermore if you do see it, those startups can be squashed in an instant when the employer finds out about it. I've seen it happen. Not pretty. (The same thing can happen, and does from time to time, with open source projects. However it happens less often because there are fewer cases where someone wants to leave their day job for their open source project than cases where they want to leave their day job for their startup.)

That nasty little dynamic is a constant hidden drag on NY. Nobody knows how many good ideas got squashed and never saw the light of day...

<comment><USER4> Don't forget non-compete agreements - valid in NY, invalid in CA. So not only can you NOT leave your day job for a startup, you typically have to wait 2 (or more) years before being able to freely work on any projects. (If your start up is in a completely different area than your day-job, you _may_ be able to get away with it sooner. But don't think that corporations are lax about enforcing the non-compete you signed.)

<comment><USER5> "So not only can you NOT leave your day job for a startup, you typically have to wait 2 (or more) years before being able to freely work on any projects."

If this is true then how does moving job generally work in NYC? Presumably people there aren't expected to work for one employer all their life or take years off in between jobs?

<comment><USER6> These clauses are only enforced when it's an easy win for the litigator - <USER2> example, key employees going to a direct rival or a startup with no legal budget.

<comment><USER5> That makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Three years in New York, and I went north of 14th St maybe three times. Trips to the Met excepted, of course"

I'm supposed to believe this guy knows anything about New York when his definition of New York is "Manhattan south of 14th st."? Believe it or not there are people who manage to live in NYC without hemorrhaging money, who know where and how to eat and don't hang out in the financial industry social scene.

I don't doubt that NY's tech scene is no where near Silicon Valley but he has a pretty skewed view of this city.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be totally honest, given the crappy Wall Street life, I spent 80% of my time south of Maiden Lane, in fact.

I don't think my experience is terribly different than many New Yorkers though. The trendy neighborhoods of the moment....Soho, the Villages, LES, Tribeca, are all down south. I felt almost like a tourist on the UWS.

<comment><USER8> As someone who works in finance, even a lower grunt than the quants, I basically do programming to build/maintain a high frequency trading platform, I was more interested in your other post on why you didn't like the Wall Street culture and decided to quit.

[http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup- with-z...](http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-with-zero- revenue-is-better-than-working-for-goldman-sachs#identifier_3_195)

Is it the perceived lower status accorded to the geeks as opposed to the traders/sales-guys? Also likewise for compensation? Or is it the monotonous and/or political nature of the work?

What do you hope to gain by moving to the startup scene? To hopefully make it big and make more money than your former position at GS? Or is it simply to move to an environment where geeks are respected by peers and women?

Plenty of guys in bulge-bracket firms decide to quit their hectic lifestyle but choose the "middle-way." That is, take a job at a 2nd-tier prop shop for less (relative) pay but more reasonable hours and stress. Or some software- dev's go work for a startup for awhile and then transition back and forth to consulting/finance when things don't work out. What made you decide on a "all- or-nothing" kind of move?

These questions aren't meant to be personal interrogations, but rather reflects my feelings about working in finance; and I'm just curious to hear your takes on these issues as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha!

I was hoping to unveil that post in a separate thread, but since you've discovered it, I'll reply.

Yeah, we got paid less than they did. A lot less. At least at the high levels. At the low levels, we made more than they did, but that's only because the trader analysts were errand boys.

As for the switch to startup-ness, I'll just say it's a certain messianic desire to create something totally new (as well as at least claim that I own it...however small it might be).

You're totally right about the 2nd tier firm thing. I know lots of guys who did that, and they're happy with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a Brooklynite, I am obviously biased here but a lot of these points are downright silly and the author seems astonishingly uninformed.

The first thing that struck me was how much this guy was paying in rent. I do agree that certain things about NYC get expensive but paying ~$2500 for a one bedroom is downright dumb if you're concerned about money. I have two roommates and pay $700 for a great place. Part of being a New Yorker is being savvy. Many people leave because they are not. They can't make rent, they can't save money, etc. Maybe they all move to California?

The sweeping generalizations here also make it very difficult to take this article seriously:

"New York has no comparable sources of intellectual firepower" - ITP, Courant, Columbia

"...most New Yorkers couldn't fry an egg if their lives depended on it..." - <http://brooklyngrangefarm.com/>

"Manhattan didn't get a Home Depot, or any sort of proper hardware store, until 2004" - ACE hardware

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, ACE hardware isn't a proper hardware store, dude.

$2500 was about par for the course for a doorman building in the Financial District in 2005. Was the lowest price among the ones I looked at. The whole point is that you have to savvy (i.e. have some inside connection) to the local real estate scene to not get fleeced. A tool like Craigslist democratizes the market, and makes inside information less valuable (which is why I suspect it's never caught on in New York....cause New Yorkers like feeling like they got the 'deal').

As for the foodie scene: I'm aware there is a thriving one in New York. The point is that it's totally orthogonal from the sort of ambitious creative class that would create a startup. The guys I knew from Wall Street most certainly did not know how to fry an egg...they knew how to order stuff on SeamlessWeb, and that's about it.

In the Bay Area, those worlds intersect, if not directly overlap. Paul Graham of Y Combinator used to cook for his startups at the weekly dinners. I can't even begin to imagine a Goldman partner cooking for his desk.

<comment><USER10> Everyone in NYC besides bankers have been getting their apartments from craigslist since 1998. And, you can get a 500sq foot 1bdrm in battery park city for $1800.

<comment><USER11> Or Jersey City (the non-yuppie parts) for $1000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a very entertaining and well-written rant. But if you're considering starting a company or joining a startup in NYC, don't take this too seriously.

I came from a similar background -- did finance in NYC, hung out with an ivy league crowd etc.. then I started a company in Silicon Valley, and am now continuing it here in NYC. I don't have time to respond to every point, but I think my background means something when I say this post is ridiculously far off base. It makes NYC sound like a scene from Gossip Girl meets American Psycho.

In 2010, working at a startup in NYC is awesome. There is an amazing community here and I've found that people are always very excited to find out that you are doing a startup. In 2010, NYC knows that startups are the future. The culture here has changed significantly in the last couple of years. And that is the most exciting thing about NYC.

Don't let the OP's bad experiences from 2008 convince you otherwise.

<comment><USER10> _It makes NYC sound like a scene from Gossip Girl meets American Psycho._

Wow, that comment really nailed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Speaking as a New Yorker contemplating a move to California, I'd say the article is somewhat accurate about the prestige of working in finance, but staggeringly wrong on a few other points.

First of all, cafes are plentiful. All he could come up with is the Tea Lounge in Park Slope? There are dozens of small, non-corporate coffee shops in the Village, dozens more in Williamsburg. And that's just the two neighborhoods where I usually spend time.

Second, New Yorkers don't cook? I think the author spent too much time with the wrong crowd. Plenty of people shop at green markets, including the huge one at Union Square precisely because they like local produce and like to use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm. I should note, my information was as of 2008. If there are more cafes now, than I'm pleased.

Have you seen a California cafe'? I can't really recall seeing anything comparable in Manhattan. Sure, there are cafes....but one where a guy is writing a Rails app on his laptop right there by the barista? Have trouble believing it...be glad to be proven wrong though.

I'm actually not so down on NYC. Just the tech part of it. Part of me is scheming about how to get back there...

<comment><USER14> NYC cafes where I've personally witnessed coders at work include: Housing Works & McNally's at SoHo, Amrita in Harlem, Gorilla Cafe in Park Slope, Esperanto on McDougal..

I definitely agree the NYC startup scene is overhyped - this is the city of hype and startups are now cool by New York Magazine standards. But man, your view of NYC in general seems much shaped by a very specific social circle and long hours at GS ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm. New York has a population of 8,000,000 people, and you cite five cafes.

(Btw, Esperanto is cited in the footnotes of the post. It's since closed, at least according to Yelp.)

Berkeley (pop. 169,000) has you beat for sheer number of cafes (Berkeley Espresso, Brewed Awakenings, Yali's, Au Coquelet, Caffe Roma, etc.).

A complete list for SF would go on for quite a while....

I stand by my point (excusing a bit of blog-y hyperbole, of course).

<comment><USER15> Go here, center anywhere on Manhattan and type in "cafe": <http://maps.google.com>

Surprise!! Cafes!! Everywhere!!

Surely more than 5 of those have coders at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was entertained. If we measure success by getting a round, I guess the case is closed. But just because NYC startups don't solicit as much capital doesn't mean that they don't exist; they just develop viable business models a generate revenue. I know that unfashionable, but it's the way it goes...

There are a ton of tech startups, and, not surprisingly, a lot of them are in the finance space. You know what's hot, too? Mobile. And it's going to continue to be, because New York is _the_ walking city.

The other thing about it is that New York startups tend to keep things a bit closer to the chest. You don't tend to see a writeup in TechCrunch about an embryonic startup in NYC. Better or worse, most NYC startups start making money before the press hits and the rounds start coming in. It's a very different philosophy.

New York's not for everyone. You're among the wealthiest and most powerful, so yes, you might get a little squeamish if you're sensitive. You won't be mollycoddled.

And what's the food got to do with startup culture? I don't think the food scene is the right platform to attack New York. SF is only a food town if you want a burrito. I like Argentinian beef, other people like some hippie's broccoli. I'll give up the wine: California has some good stuff, if you're in to alcohol levels. 15%? Damn, Napa.

As others have pointed out, there are welcoming cafes literally river-to-river through the villages, and on the LES you can set up shop practically anywhere.

Now is a terrific time to be involved in NYC startups. It might not be quite as prestigious as being in the the valley, but it comes with a salary, and options aren't coastal.

<comment><USER17> I am new to the whole NYC startup scene. Which, according to you, are some of the cool startups in NYC ? Also, are there any NYC-startup specific news sources ?

<comment><USER18> Cool startup: <http://makerbot.com>

News source: <http://www.nycresistor.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You're kidding me, right? If your goal is to perceive a tech hub as trying to beat Silicon Valley you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. No other city will beat Silicon Valley. We know this. The point is this: to build a good ecosystem of education, talent, and investment that lets a city flourish on its own without having to flock to somewhere better. Take the foundations of what makes Silicon Valley what it is and have it provide a sustainable community.

Some posts are legitimate link bait with a well baked argument, this is just downright rotten.

Disclosure: I've lived in Silicon Valley, so I'm not taking sides of NYC or city x here.

<comment><USER20> Thank you for saying this. I wanted to post the exact same thing but you said it all. Let's be honest, the Valley has been important in one aspect (tech) for about the last 30 years. New York has been a global focal point in all aspects for 200 years. Let's all just get along and use our collective diversity to make something better, not trash each other's cities to get readers.

<comment><USER21> That's exactly the appeal of NYC to me. I've been working in tech in the S.F. area for over ten years now and it's starting to feel very one-dimensional. Living somewhere where art and literature and culture matter as much as technology sounds extremely refreshing at this point.

<comment><USER10> I felt the same way and I moved (back) to NYC after 10 years in SF. The city has changed a bit. There are a lot of things to do outside the tech sector. However, I'm not sure I would say "art and literature and culture matter" as much as they seemed to in the past. Manhattan is nearly 100% yuppified now. this is good and bad. It's good in that the whole left coast of Manhattan is now a giant urban park. There are bike lanes everywhere. There are parks everywhere. There's a farmer's market in Union Square every (other?) day. There are free things like movies on the pier, concerts in the park, etc. I saw Dinosaur Jr. for free in central park last summer (?!). It's probably easier to eat healthy food in NYC than anywhere else in the world.

The bad things (IMHO) is that there aren't as many interestingly weird music or arts things as there were even 10, 15 years ago. There are no nightclubs. There are no weird music venues in Manhattan. The most avante-garde you are going to get is a band like Grizzly Bear... which is kind of avante-garde but is also a huge national act at the same time. Artists have to live way out in Bushwick, or even further away. I don't really know where interesting art shows go up. I honestly think the number of actual practicing artists and musicians is probably the smallest it has ever been. The indie gallery scene isn't a lot better than SF. There are probably more bookstores in either Seattle or Portland than there are in all of the NYC area, which says something... I'm not sure what.

So I won't lie... I was disappointed in the state of artsy-fartsy music and culture when I returned to NYC. But I do like all this other urban parkland paradise stuff. So it's a tradeoff. I don't really know where people are doing interesting art and music stuff... maybe berlin or beijing? I know a lot of artists who moved to LA simply because it's easier to get a lot of space. Even Jeff Dietch moved there.

If you're looking for something like Andy Warhol's factory scene, I don't think it's happening here. If you're looking for a girlfriend who is a graphic designer for Kate Spade's website - it's your best bet.

<comment><USER21> Interesting, if disappointing. My conception of NYC is probably stuck in a 1970's vision of the place. I'm sure art cultures seem more concentrated and vital in hindsight when the winners have been canonized but I've heard a lot of people complain that downtown NYC has been Disneyfied.

I personally know several electronic musicians that left S.F. for Berlin so maybe that's a better destination. It doesn't seem nearly as energetic in tech though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another thing that came to mind that this article alludes to: on the East Coast (and most other places) salesmen and MBA types _always_ outrank geeks. It's deeply ingrained in the culture. Those who can do. Those who can't lead. Being a doer makes your social rank _lower_.

Ok, I'm way exaggerating. It's not _that bad_. But that mentality is present, and the best way for me to explain it was to describe it in its purest form. You rarely actually encounter it that bad, but I have at least once.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Every yuppie I knew in New York worked as either a Wall Street guy, a lawyer, or an agent of some sort. Basically, there were all subtly screwing someone else for a living."

This is exactly how I feel about London. It feels like the city takes much more from the world than it produces.

<comment><USER22> I have a little bit of experience with London, and I can second this. London actually gives me the willies after meeting the business culture there. If you ever want to make an argument for the actual existence of shape shifting reptiles (ala nutjob David Icke) then just hang around London's business scene for a while.

America is superficially conservative and deeply liberal. Europe is superficially liberal and deeply conservative.

<comment><USER24> "America is superficially conservative and deeply liberal. Europe is superficially liberal and deeply conservative."

This explains much of my confusion trying to understand Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I come to Hacker News looking for intelligent discourse. There wasn't a _shred_ of nuance in this article. Nuanced thought is why this is a great place to be. Please don't post articles where the author is openly admitting that they are sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "lalala I can't hear you."

Is New York's tech scene as big as San Francisco's? No. However, this is akin to writing an article titled that "Africa will always be an industrial backwater, I don't care what the economists say."

<comment><USER26> _I come to Hacker News looking for intelligent discourse. There wasn't a _shred_ of nuance in this article._

That, I presume, is why it is hosted elsewhere. The comments here are illuminating, as always.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm confused. If your city doesn't "equal Silicon Valley" then it is a "tech backwater"?

As far as I know, nobody has claimed that NYC will eclipse the Bay Area - they're just saying that the tech scene in NYC is growing and maybe that NYC is poaching the "#2" spot from Boston.

Or am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER22> Boston is probably the closest runner up to the Valley, and it's not even close.

Boston has the brains, but not the culture. It's like a Ferrari motor in a stuffy Mercedes driven by an old blue haired lawyer.

Really the whole East Coast has this problem. If the East Coast had a motto, it would be "it's not what you know, it's who you know." It's anti- meritocratic and very different from the cowboy innovator mentality in the valley.

Make Burning Man attendance compulsory for everyone at Harvard and MIT and maybe you'd get somewhere.

Edit: Boston does have some plusses though. You do not have to own a car for one...

<comment><USER28> But then again, even here in SF, angels and VCs won't take a meeting w/ you unless you get an intro. In that sense, it is who you know. (Though I've found people more than willing to help each other here in Bay Area).

Is there a different sense of "who you know" that you're talking about in Boston? The only thing I can imagine is something like when people use to talk about your breeding.

<comment><USER22> The VC culture is probably closer to banker culture, so you're right about that. I've never gotten to meet with a VC without an intro. But I was talking more about the culture at large. You've kind of got it with your last sentence.

The larger culture in Boston is a lot more "who you know" / "where did you go to school" than in California. Basically if you didn't go to an Ivy League school then you're kind of in a lower social caste. You get looked down on (in a very subtile and "polite" way) if you are not Ivy League or if you are from the "flyover country."

The other (related) problem with Boston is that it's not extroverted. Boston is bookish and introverted and quiet. It's sort of impolite in Boston to have a fun personality, and it's very hard to make friends. Bostonians don't have friends, they have colleagues. (A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.) Laughing, making jokes, and having any kind of personality sort of marks you as lower class.

It reminds me of a more classist version of the famed "Seattle chill":

[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.h...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html)

Basically Boston is very classist, bookish, and introverted. Boston has tons and tons of brains, but they're <sniff sniff> _intellectuals_ , not revolutionaries or innovators.

Boston may actually have more raw IQ-power than the valley though. Put LSD in the drinking water here and you might rival the valley in a few years.

But like I said there's a bright side too. The Bostonian politeness thing is a double edged sword. On one hand it's stuffy, but on the other hand it can be quite _noble_. Bostonians will help you out. They will quietly come to your aid. They will close ranks to defend you if you're wronged (provided you're "in" with them), and they will quietly and gradually mentor you. You can drop your wallet in downtown Boston (population almost 1 million) and someone will _drive to your house_ to bring you your wallet _with everything still in it_. (This has happened to me, and to two people I know.)

So the upside is that Boston is very civilized in a positive way, but the downside is that it's very "civilized" in a negative way. Oh, and you don't have to own a car. Having to sit in a dinosaur burner huffing fumes for three hours every day is one of my least favorite things about California.

<comment><USER8> Ironically in Boston, you only need a car if you work in the tech industry as most of the startup's are located on 128 which is in the outskirts of the Boston suburban sprawl. But if you work in finance or allied health, everything is conveniently located downtown.

Also, I don't agree that Boston is a civilized city. IMO, Boston is a lot like Providence or Bridgeport, plus a few more ivory tower enclaves and lots more inebriated college kids.

<comment><USER29> In my wildest dreams I've never thought I'd hear Boston compared to Bridgeport (I assume you mean CT?). Never been to Boston, but B'port must have changed an awful lot since I lived there :-)

<comment><USER8> Nah. Bridgeport hasn't change one bit since you left (I assume the Bridgeport you know is one whose mayor is caught with a cocaine habit and restaurants in downtown are robbed in daylight). It's just your over-estimating perception of Boston; imagine a bigger New Haven with a couple of more Yale campuses and equal number of run-down neighborhoods next to them.

<comment><USER30> Could you name some of the run-down neighborhoods next to campuses? I don't see it, unless there are some Yale campuses in Fields Corner that I don't know about.

<comment><USER8> All of Boston's Universities are located downtown or in Cambridge; no slums at Kenmore/Brookline/Downtown, but go out to the outskirts of the city, like Mission Hills, Roxbury or Dorchester (away from Huntington Ave. Medical Campus). Or the part of Brighton and lower Allston that's further away from Harvard and BU. Or the true Slumerville of Somerville away from Tufts. Even East Cambridge away from MIT and Kendall Sq., although that part of town is fast gentrifying a la Davis Sq.

The misconception is that Boston is this global city of about 4.5 million people living in academic utopia when it's a really smaller city of 600,000 people, where even a smaller percentage are actually living in ivory towers. The rest of the 4.5 million people live in typical post-industrial New England towns surrounding Boston such as Lynn, Revere and Quincy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He's right about a lot of things. The cafe scene in NYC isn't as good as the west coast. Apartments are very expensive. Debutantes from Bryn Mawr want to date successful traders. And the startup scene in SF/SV is slowly but surely turning into a bunch of ex-banker foodie cocks from NYC.

<comment> brown9-2 _Debutantes from Bryn Mawr want to date successful traders._

So what?

Do the desires of a certain tiny demographic skew how you feel about a city of 10 million people?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I spoke recently to a friend of mine who had moved back from NYC to SF, and he told me that when you tell people in a bar you're a software engineer, they get this condescending look and say, "oh, IT..." (as in, the people who fix the computers). This article basically confirms what he was telling me.

<comment><USER32> It depends on the bar and the crowd; hanging out around NYU or Columbia is much different than hanging out around Wall Street or the Upper East Side.

NYC doesn't have the same kind of start up culture that the Valley has, but there are plenty of start ups here. I've consulted with two start ups that are pretty successful in their respective niches.

I've never lived in Silicon Valley, but I lived in SoCal and I've been to SF a number of times. There is certainly a different vibe on the West Coast. NYC will never be the next Silicon Valley. We have our own culture here and the diversity it provides is a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There's more to New York than old money on the Upper West Side. I just moved to Brooklyn from the Mission (in SF) and I must say they are very similar. The art isn't as burning man oriented but the hipsters still carry iPhones and I get dragged into just as many conversations about making 'apps'.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've never lived in NYC, but I go there once or twice a year since the mid-90s and I have to say, the city he's describing, and the city I visit are apparently in different, alternate realities. I don't go there for the startup scene, so I can't comment on that but I can comment on lots of the other absurd nonsense:

1) _$2495 for a 500 sq. ft. one bedroom apartment._

He's obviously in the wrong part of town and can't figure out how to use the real estate section of the NYT. Extend your commute on the subway by 15-20 minutes a day, or live in Queens or something and you'll shave 70% off of that for a place twice as large. In 10 minutes I found a dozen 2 bedroom apartments for $1600 in Queens. You want to live in an expensive area, then that's what you get. When you model a place like NYC, it's better to think of it as a much larger area. A few blocks is like a few miles of price differentiation elsewhere. Don't like what's _right here_? Go walk 10 minutes in any direction and you'll be someplace completely different.

2) _'Ramen' money in New York is enough to support three families, and then some, elsewhere._

I have no idea what he's spending money on. Even if he was pulling down only $60k a year (unlikely as a quant), your apartment is only 1/2 of your gross income. Even after taxes you have like a thousand a month to live on at that rate and no car expenses. Being a quant @ GS, I'd figure you're pulling down another 30-40k/yr gross anyways so you can still have a nice night out once a month. NYC is really not an expensive place to eat. I don't think I've ever paid more than $7 for a stuff me to the gills breakfast. And a decent date- meal for two ran <$120 with drinks. Apparently the author never figured out how to operate a Deli or a Diner.

3) _can't fit in socially with the wrong social group that I'm just dying to be part of blah blah_

Cry me a river, go to different bars and stop hanging around with people who won't let you into their clique/you already have a girlfriend (at the time) what are you doing picking up chicks? Color me confused.

4) _In San Francisco, people don't pay two months' rent to a real estate pimp: they create Craigslist and make the pimp obsolete._

I wasn't aware that San Francisco had managed to abolish Real Estate agents. It's funny because craigslist serves other parts of the country and we still have Real Estate agents....

5) _The intellectual candle-power isn't there_

And the elsewhere goes on to pine that everybody he wants to hang with is ivy- league. The only thing that he said that makes any kind of sense is that the educational makeup of the in-city schools is all wrong for tech startups. I mean there's NYU-Poly I guess, but that's small fry, Princeton is not really that far away (an hour more than Stanford is from downtown SF by car). But there's a ton of schools with great engineering programs within a day's drive from the city (MIT for example). Am I supposed to understand that the entire educational system of the North East and mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. can't out-compete Stanford? Again, color me confused?

6) _One of the biggest shocks upon moving to New York was realizing it had no cafés_

What? At this point I'm not even sure the author has even been to NYC. Which is besides the point, the point he's making is, "you can't have startups or revolutionary political movements without cozy cafés to dawdle, work, and plot in." Because as I noticed before, the author failed to figure out how to operate a Deli or a Diner. He also failed to figure out how to operate a public park, a bookstore, a coffee shop, a donut shop, a bench, a stoop and numerous other public places other than an office where you can sit and meet for long hours in the city. Protip, there's this fantastic huge public place you can use in NYC called "Central Park" absolutely free. If that's not "cozy" enough, there's a bunch of smaller parks like Madison Square all dotted throughout the city. If you want to eat while you forment revolution, there's like a Starbuck's on every single block in the city. <http://kottke.org/05/01/maximum-starbucks-density> Even in 2005.

7) _The reality is, the food culture in New York mostly sucks._

I know food can be subjective, but seriously? I'm definitely sure that tales of living in the city are grossly exaggerated and/or he was confused with living in Tampa, FL or something. No wait, I'm sure I've seen a cafe there.

7b) _blah blah blah, people in SF really all want to be farmers_

Wonderful, if you live in a place with some dirt you can till without getting a fine, you can farm it. NYC is not such a place. Deal with it.

7c) _Even the skeeziest convenience store in Daly City or Oakland has a drinkable collection of California wines on offer._

Like I said, I don't live in NYC, but last I remember was being able to pick up some Sonoma Valley vino at every 7-11 along the East Coast for <$10.

7d) _In three years of living in New York, I never ate someone else's home- cooked food even once._

See #3. You.hang.out.with.the.wrong.people. I'm not sure I can put it more plainly than that. No wonder you couldn't afford anything.

One thing NYC is famous for is locally grown produced trucked in in the wee hours of the morning to sell in small stalls. The NYC butcher was the model of meat procurement until the grocery store and strip malls ended that across the country. For goodness sakes, the whole city is basically a farmer's market. You know what's doing gangbusters business? Whole Foods. I barely know people in the city, and I've never lived there, and _I've_ had more home-cooked meals than this poor sap.

8) _blah blah home depot in NYC only sells nail clippers and 10 cent nails._

This is really just a jab and the relative masculinity of New Yorkers compared to San Franciscoers. Whatever, the author got eaten up and spit out by the city and simply couldn't handle it, now he wants to spend the rest of his days cultivating asparagus in a plot behind his house. It's really amazing how so many of the tallest buildings in the U.S. can be in one city with no hardware stores in site.

He's then absolutely enamored by a real Home Depot, no doubt anchoring a strip mall someplace, and a big box electronics store as _proof_ that SF is a hacker's paradise. _yawn_ , I live in the suburbs and have half a dozen of each within 20 minutes of my house. By this standard, Anytown, US is twice the hacker's paradise than SF since most places have a Home Depot, a Lowes, a local lumber yard, a garden nursery, a stone quarry, a Fry's, a Best Buy and two Radio Shacks.

9) _Three years in New York, and I went north of 14th St maybe three times. Trips to the Met excepted, of course_

Facepalm. No wonder nobody would talk to you in a bar, it's not because you were a quant.

<comment><AUTHOR> You gave me a point-by-point rebuttal, so I'll give a similar counter- rebuttal.

1) Queens is way too far away from lower Manhattan. Believe me, I tried looking elsewhere. It wasn't much cheaper. The solution I ended up with was moving into a tenement in LES with the girlfriend, who had a lease dating back five years. That was the 'cheap' way to go.

2) I'll quote the managing director on my desk: you need about 500K a year to live normally in Manhattan with a family. That's like 10 families in the flyover states.

4) At least in 2005, if you tried using CL to find an apartment in NY, you'd find it completely taken over by broker spam. As Craig Newmark himself mentioned in a recent interview, de-spamifying the New York CL rentals listings was one of his biggest challenges. I can't imagine it's much different now, although I'd love to see otherwise.

6) Dude, Starbucks isn't a cafe'. The fact you're even counting them proves my point about New Yorkers.

7c) Actually, New York delis can't sell wine by law, probably as a kickback to the liquor store owners. So good luck finding that bottle of Sonoma at 2am on Friday. I never did.

8) Yeah, and try getting to those big box stores from Manhattan. It starts with a subway ride to midtown to rent a car from one of the agencies next to the Queen's Midtown tunnel....

9) Eh, actually they did talk to me, once I dropped the G-bomb, which is kind of the point of the post. I wasn't a startup geek when I was in NYC.

That might be enough for one reply....

<comment><USER34> As I've said elsewhere, I'm not disputing your central claim that NYC tech scene is a pale shadow of the Bay Area scene. But your arguments for why that is are bizarre and nonsensical.

1) I was just picking someplace random. It's not a two hour commute from anyplace in the city to any other place (unless you count coming in from as far out as Jamaica or Mt. Vernon during rush hour I guess). But there's plenty of places 10-20 minutes outside of the Financial District that are _way_ less. BTW CL is not the only place that lists apartments. There's a 2 BR in the NYT real estate section for $2k/mo in Ft. Greene right now. That's <25 minutes, bring a book and there's a ton of >500 sq ft. places on the Island for <$2500/mo.

2) I guess that's true if you want to live in a building with a doorman in a 3 bedroom apartment and an au pair. I wouldn't call that living "normally" in Manhattan though. I'm also mystified with the requirement to live directly on the island. There's other boroughs that are much cheaper. At that type of income, you're looking at around $10-$13k/mo in housing costs. There's not a lot of places you _can't_ live in the city for that.

4) I don't disagree, that's why there's a half dozen other cheap/free ways to find apartments in cities.

6) I will agree that the cafe culture in NYC is not nearly as prevalent as places that are ~70deg year round. Heck, there's more cafes in the D.C. area. But they are there. I've actually had some very nice evenings sitting outside sipping a latte and chatting about the weather. But restricting yourself to cafes and only cafes is like going to Paris and talking about how the Tex-Mex food culture sucks. You know the old saying "When in Rome..." In NYC you do delis, coffeeshops and diners, not cafes. The last time I was in the city a month ago I spent half a day in a deli responding to email next to a guy hacking out some code. It's not like they kick you out so long as you buy something.

7c) All I can say is, I've never had a problem finding cheap CA wine in the city. I usually go out and pick some up and bring it back to my hotel instead of paying $30-60/btl at a restaurant. Much more satisfying and not terribly hard to find - did nobody in your social group in 3 years ever figure out where to buy a bottle of wine?

8) I think my point was that it's not necessary, nor does it make sense to equate big box hardware stores with a hacker's paradise. I mean, I guess if "hacking" has changed meaning to mean "I need some lumber and an industrial dehumidifier" then you make sense. Calling SF such a place because you can get all your gardening and plumbing needs taken care of at one store just simply is nonsensical.

9) Hang around superficial people and they'll expect superficial things.

<comment><USER35> Choose a random cafe in SF, and I bet it will not be filled with hacker-types. Choose a random person in SF to talk to, and I bet they will not care about startups either. It's all about who your friends are and where you hang out.

Did the OP actually try going to any NYC hacker meetups? Did he go to any NYC hacker spaces? When he was at parties, did he even mention his interest in startups, or did he himself perpetuate the myths he describes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sounds like the author never explored the outer boroughs.

Come to Brooklyn, it's nicer here.

<comment><USER37> You have to be more specific of your definition of Brooklyn. It sounds like you're implying Williamsburg, and Carroll Gardens, which frankly isn't representative of Brooklyn. Williamsburg in particular is essentially an extension of Manhattan, due to the transportation options and cost of living.

<comment><USER38> They are plenty representative of the Brooklyn of the last 10 years - that of steady gentrification and rise of cost of living, but still cheaper than Manahattan. Though not much. Much more housing stock, though.

Can we just assume that anyone commenting about Brooklyn on this post is implying South Brooklyn[1] or Williamsburg? If you aren't, please note. Something like "Come to East New York, Brooklyn" would work, so asnyder doesn't get confused.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Brooklyn>

<comment><USER10> The greater "tech scene" (if you can call it that) in Brooklyn is in and around Dumbo and Downtown.

<comment><USER38> You're right. Mentally I (incorrectly) lump them in with South Brooklyn. Or, more to the point, "yipster" Brooklyn.

Honest question: How many people actually live near their work in DUMBO or Downtown?

<comment><USER10> No idea. Personally, I hate DUMBO and find it very inconvenient (from elsewhere in Brooklyn), but I know maybe a dozen hacker types who live over there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> When I lived in NYC, I built recording studios and did noise abatement in a number of bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan. There are plenty of places to pick up supplies

Also, there are TONS of specialty shops. Canal Rubber is my favorite, as I used a lot of mass-loaded vinyl. In fact, in most places in the US, you would have to order in specialty construction materials.

As for general purpose, I got a good discount at Dyke's Lumber. They have locations all over the city.

Metropolitan Lumber is nice also. They've got lots of cheap "used tools", if you know what I mean. I used them when I was working in Hell's Kitchen.

You can haggle prices down quite a bit at all these places. Normally you just say "well, Dyke's gives me %10 off orders of this size" or whatever.

However, when the Home Depot opened up in Bed-Stuy, their prices were so low that pretty much every handyman in Brooklyn shopped there.

Oh, and all of these places deliver. I rarely went in to the location. You just call them up, say you need 20 2x4x8' studs, 10 1/2" pieces of sheetrock, and they'll roll up with a big truck with your stuff. Don't forget to tip!

For the random little things there are hardware stores all over the city. I can't think of a time I had to walk more than 5 minutes to pick up a box of screws or buy some new work gloves.

</comment><comment><USER40> Relatively cheap living in the Bay Area? Only compared to New York (unless you live in East Palo Alto)

<comment><USER41> Seriously. What a laugh. The author parks himself in a doorman building in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and then declares that you can't get by without paying $2500 a month in rent.

<comment><USER40> Sounds like someone who got dumped hard by a girlfriend, got mugged in the street, or came down with a terrible disease in New York and has formed a bad association with the city.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Thinking about this a bit more, I realize that in the decade I've been in NYC, the majority of the time I've been working with or for startups. On the tech side there are companies like Morningside Analytics, who do incredible data visualizations of the blogosphere. MA was bootstrapped by three guys from Columbia University. Perceptive Pixel was founded by Jeff Han, based on his work at NYU (you might have seen his TED talk). Fog Creek was founded here. Peter Shankman founded AirTroductions and HARO. UrbanDaddy is a block away from where I'm sitting. Foursquare is here and so is Boxee.

On the creative/advertising side of things, where do I start? The company I'm currently at was bootstrapped by three guys back in 2006. Now we have 25 employees in our NYC office and satellite offices in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Sao Paolo. There are a ton of creative start ups in NYC. WDDG (MochiMedia, while based out of San Fran, was founded by Jameson Hsu and Bob Ippolito, both former DDGers (hi Jameson and Bob)), Big Spaceship, Barbarian Group, Enjoy User Experience (whose founder was co-founder of Kioken)...

This stuff is off of the top of my head; I don't even hang out in the NYC startup scene. There's plenty of stuff going once you get away from Wall Street.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 For those readers that are actually familiar with NYC and/or Manhattan, this one quote pretty accurately sums up the weight of the author's arguments and experiences:

 _Columbia is not a top-notch engineering school, and anyhow, it's way the hell up and gone in Harlem, and no one who isn't a student or faculty ever goes up there._

</comment><comment><USER15> As someone who is currently doing a startup in the Bay Area, lived in NYC for 6 years (and loved it) and went to Columbia, I don't even know where to start ripping apart this article. I'm hoping someone else already did it.

And for the record, Columbia is in Morningside Heights, not Harlem.

</comment><comment><USER42> >'Ramen' money in New York is enough to support three families, and then some, elsewhere.

Low cost of living fallacy. "Ramen money" in new york might be a higher number then "Ramen money" somewhere else, but the pay will (obviously) be higher as well which is what you want.

If you double your pay _and_ double your expenses you're still better off unless you were spending every penny. There are a lot of things you want/need to have that aren't going to be cheaper when you live in a low cost of living area (e.g. computer, luxury car, smart phone), so living in a higher pay/cost area makes _these_ items relatively cheaper (e.g. $1k seems like a lot when you make that in a month, but not when you make $20k a month).

</comment><comment><USER43> I disagree about the cost of living tidbits, since it's not too hard to be able to live and eat cheaply; you just may not be living in the greatest or safest areas. However the way he describes the social scene is pretty accurate.

</comment><comment><USER41> This article makes the common mistake of confusing Manhattan for New York. It's true: the Upper East Side is a bad place to start a startup. Fort Greene isn't.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is a very narrow perspective about NYC, but he's certainly right the tech scene is smaller and always will be.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hey, that's my apt building on the pic! These guys are actually my neighbors.

I saw them few months ago, move in on an empty apt and coding their way the last two-three months. I hope they make it.

<comment><USER46> So do we!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Ouch, that hurts for those of us who're in NYC and have real reasons why we can't/won't leave.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We're back!

Sorry for the interruption in service. We got hosed when TechMeme carried the piece.

</comment><comment><USER48> Any NYMPHS or Port0 people here?

</comment><comment><USER49> Expected to be offended and confrontational, but ended up really enjoying it. Spot on.

</comment><comment><USER50> PART I

The responses in this thread are off on 'style', 'scene', 'culture', parties, hook ups, buying wine at 2 AM, housing, commuting, employment contracts, etc. and, thus, avoiding the main issue of the actual post and much more:

Look, guys, the main issue is information technology (IT) startups in NYC. Just what is it about that focus that is difficult to keep in mind?

Keeping this focus in mind, I continue:

A big deal in the article was the difficulty of hiring programmers. Total BS. If you are doing an IT startup, an early prerequisite is that you BE a programmer. What you don't already know about programming, LEARN. Got some problem with learning how to program? Go back to CA and pick lettuce.

I taught myself to program and taught computer science in college and graduate school. Teach YOURSELF to program. If you don't, IT entrepreneurship is not one of your more promising career directions.

Uh, the current programming tools are so powerful they are quite complicated and fairly new, and a consequence is that you will spend more time learning the tools than using them the first time. Indeed, the big pattern is that the tools change so fast over the decades you may spend more time learning tools than using them.

In particular, as a programmer, most of your work is JUST learning tools. Right: In the research universities, the professors don't know these tools. So, as has been the case for decades in the US computer industry, to program, you have to teach yourself, over and over, continually. Uh, PL/I is actually a terrific language, and for some years OS/2 was actually by a wide margin the best PC operating system; so, I've got a nice OS/2 PL/I compiler if you want!

The idea of hiring a Wall Street programmer? They have to learn the new stuff, too. Likely they concentrated on one of user interface and graphics, relational data base, computational algorithms, or Web site development. Well, in that case, for an IT startup, they still have more to learn and spend more time learning than doing.

Okay, if you are the CEO of an IT startup, then it is your solemn obligation to understand ALL the software. For this you MUST have learned the software tools. Then, once you have learned those tools, for you, by yourself, to use these tools to write the software you need for your startup should be doable, e.g., less work than just the learning and, generally, less work than just communicating with a 'programmer'. So, then you won't need a programmer. So, the supply of 'programmers' in NYC or Silicon Valley is irrelevant. Sorry 'bout that. Or the solution to the 'shortage' is just one more programmer, YOU, so start learning.

So, venture partners with minimal current software knowledge (is there any other kind?), this is the day of the IT startup with just one person, the founding CEO who wrote all the software. We know you couldn't do it, but they did, and there are some big advantages. Get used to it.

Uh, just because you cook your own breakfast does not make you a Denny's short order cook; just because you drive your own car does not make you a chauffeur; just because you wrote your own software does not make you 'just a programmer'.

Uh, now, Visual Basic .NET is an excellent programming language and no longer very 'basic'; .NET already has essentially every subroutine or function of any general usefulness you can think of; ASP.NET is cute and more fun than throwing peanuts in the zoo.

<comment><USER50> PART II

Uh, my padawan learner, you need a little more, and I will outline some 'principles' that actually have some lasting value:

Some major events in programming language design were in the 1950s -- Fortran (arrays, IF statements, and loops), Cobol (hierarchical data structures, IF statements, and loops), Algol (nice source code nesting, name scoping, and call by reference, value, and name, that last one a bit amazing), APL (clever things with arrays and a very sparse syntax -- interpretive), and LISP (a programming language that can examine and change its source code as it runs, with too many parentheses, interpretive).

Then, for icing on that cake, the 1960s were the 'golden age' of programming language design. So, there was PL/I (borrowed from Fortran, Cobol, Algol, and a little from assembler; had some exceptional condition handling NICELY connected with storage management and task management) and Algol 68 (oops, I never learned it!). Somewhere in or near there was C, Pascal, Ada, and Simula.

'Object-oriented' programming (OOP)? Given a language with aggregates, e.g., Fortran arrays and/or Cobol data structures, memory pointers, and dynamic memory allocation, the basics of OOP were immediately obvious and commonly reinvented by any programmer who ever hit a keyboard. IBM had it in microcode in the early 1970s.

Fortran? It didn't have pointers, but after a few lines of assembler it did! Another way was just to have a COMMON block (that is, an 'external' name, that is, 'resolved' by the linkage editor) with one array and use array addresses as memory pointers. If need a little more for manipulating addresses, then write a few, very short assembler routines.

Dynamic memory allocation? Not a lot new there. Actually, for each power of 2, have a root of a chain of pointers for free space of size that power of 2. So, an array of 64 pointers each 64 bits long should be sufficient for a while!

Then, roughly, if want some memory of size m where 2^(n - 1) < m <= 2^n, then go to the root for size 2^n and allocate the first block on the chain and correct the chain. If there is no free block of memory on that chain, then for some k > n allocate a block of size 2^k, use that memory to put its blocks of size 2^n on the chain, and allocate one of those. Can also slightly modify this scheme to free the block of size 2^k when it is empty of blocks of size 2^n. The scheme is fast and easy to implement and especially effective on a virtual memory computer where can get a lot of page alignment and where the 'wasted' free space is mostly just disk space.

Garbage collection (that is, compress out holes)? Not a lot new: Keep references and then move the memory and update the references. Can have some advantages for long running, complicated, production software but has a well deserved reputation for being slow. So far Microsoft's implementation seems to be at least reasonably fast.

'Collections'? Use AVL trees as in the first edition of Knuth's 'The Art of Computer Programming'.

Hashing? Don't miss extensible hashing!

C? A toy language written at Bell Labs for word whacking and so small the compiler could run in 8 KB or 5 KB or some such of main memory. It was so lacking in features that the usual fix-ups people did for OOP were eventually provided in a pre-processor called C++.

<comment><USER50> PART IV

Assuming you can learn to program, we move right along here: Somewhere in your IT startup you will have to have your Web site go live and then get users and ad revenue. The example you want to follow early on is just Plenty of Fish (look it up -- you know how to do that, right?).

For 'venture funding' of such startups, apparently the LPs (uh, 'limited partners', the guys at pension funds, university endowments, life insurance companies, and wealthy families who provide the money the venture people invest) got together and wrote a memo:

"Thou shall fund no 'consumer facing' IT startup before the Web site is up and running with at least 100,000 unique users a month and this quantity growing rapidly."

Yup, at $0.50 per thousand add impressions, that 100,000 might amount to a grand total of, let's see, may I have the calculator, please, right, $50 a month. So, 100,000 'uniques' is not a lot to take to the bank.

But whether you take equity funding or not, that 100 K uniques is an early milestone.

So, how to reach this milestone? Study and think a lot, have a few thousand ideas, evaluate them, pick one, learn to program, write software, bring up your Web site, get some publicity, and hopefully see your uniques scream above 1 million a month quickly.

Uh, some venture partner idiot, some guy, once said something totally stupid, as idiots are wont to do, "Ideas are easy; execution is hard.". Yup, mark of a total idiot. No wonder he thinks execution is hard -- it is if start with only easy ideas! In fact, GOOD ideas are hard and then, if only by definition, execution is routine. Sorry guy.

You need a GOOD idea, and for that you need, first, a wild, off the wall, unconstrained, violate all the common wisdom, high frequency, free running idea generator that has run out a few million ideas. It helps to have the ideas exploiting some powerful fundamentals (I can't go into those here). Then need to evaluate the ideas, ruthlessly, up, down, sideways, inside, outside, etc., today, tomorrow, and next week, and be ferociously critical. Also need to know some good ways to evaluate ideas (I can't go into that here). Only THEN do you have much chance of a GOOD idea. Those few weeks will be time VERY well spent. "Measure twice; saw once." "Look before you leap."

At 6 million ad impressions a month at $0.50 per thousand, that's $3000 a month. Maybe with that you are 'profitable'.

If you are just running your own Web servers and not paying a 'hosting' service, then actually the $3000 is enough for you to buy another Web server to handle the increased load! If you plug it together yourself from parts, $3000 will buy one very powerful computer. Software? Versions of Unix, MySQL, etc, are free or nearly so. Microsoft has their BizSpark program where they will provide their software for free for a while to startups.

More generally, think 'exponentially': If your usage keeps growing, then ballpark you will have enough revenue in month n to double your server farm capacity in month n + 1. Right, Virginia, that's exponential growth, that is, the good kind, actually, very rapid exponential growth.

Maybe in a few months of exponential growth you will be like Plenty of Fish: One guy, two old Dell computers, ads just via Google, and $10 million a year in revenue.

So, at that point, do you want raise equity funding, say, spend some months getting insulted by venture partners, finally get one or a few 'term sheets', get some 'founder vesting' (where suddenly you go from owning 100% of your company to owning 0% and have some chance of getting back to maybe 50% in four years), an 'option pool', 'liquidity preferences' (where the company can be sold for a lot of money but where you get $0.00), and a Board that understands the term sheet much better than you do and otherwise hasn't written much code in the last 10 years, doesn't understand your business, may never have started a business, is arrogant and nasty, and can fire you and put in one of their buddies who will do a 'pay to play down round' that leaves you with nearly 0% of your company and the venture partners and their buddy with all the rest.

However, maybe you do want some venture funding. Actually, the uniques at 100,000 and growing quickly will get you some serious attention at a major fraction of 'early stage IT' firms anywhere in the country. Right: As in a Bogie movie, "We didn't pay attention to your story. We paid attention to your $100." So the venture firms will pay attention to your uniques. Remember 'The Little Red Hen' in Mother Goose? You should. We're talking, what, no more than second grade here, right?

So, in NYC there are only Union Square, RRE, and a few more? Okay, but there's no law that says that the venture firms on Winter Street, elsewhere in MA, in Philadelphia, Maryland, or Virginia can't invest. And some Silicon Valley firms can also invest, even if you are in NYC.

Net, the NYC 'startup scene', "backwater" or not, is nearly irrelevant. Instead, for an entrepreneur, what matters is YOUR business. Can you write your best code in NYC? Of COURSE you can: You can write good code nearly anywhere with a good Internet connection and room for coffee, pizza, and a good table, chair, and desktop.

What matters for YOU is the work YOU do. A necessary and sufficient condition to correct the 'backwater' is for you and other entrepreneurs just to GET YOUR DARNED WORK DONE.

There are lots of excuses not to do work, e.g., the dog ate my homework, my landlord wouldn't fix the faucet, I couldn't buy wine at 2 AM, I can't find a fantasy Samuel Johnson style 'coffee shop', NYC is a "backwater", and due to Wall Street I can't hire a programmer.

Uh, we are learning one of the larger lessons in business: One reason there are so few rich people is that there are so many ways for people to get off the track.

Another excuse is explaining kindergarten level stuff to idiots on Hacker News, an excuse I will now discard and get back to writing the rest of my software.</comment></comment></comment>


All PyCon 2011 talks and tutorials announced - <AUTHOR> http://us.pycon.org/2011/blog/2011/01/07/pycon-2011-full-talk-and-tutorial-list-now-availab/

<comment><USER2> I mentioned this on Twitter but I'll repeat it here: everyone who submitted a talk and didn't get in (about half of the 200 people) is getting personalized feedback, not a form letter.

I imagine this encourages them to submit next year, but is also one of the reasons PyCon is a classy conference and Jesse an awesome dude.

<comment><USER3> As an author of papers that have been rejected, I can say that such feedback is unheard of, and would have been greatly appreciated.

And yes, Jesse is an awesome dude. I worked with him for a few years, and highly recommend the experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like a great lineup. The idea of the extreme talks is a great one. I really like the idea of intense, no bullshit knowledge transfer.

I hope that Djangocon has a similar track this year, assuming it goes as well as I think it will at Pycon.

<comment><USER5> This is definitely a concept we'll explore for DjangoCon (assuming it's as successful as I expect it to be), the one issue is DjangoCon only had 2 tracks last year, it's a lot harder to have 50% of your talks at any given time dedicated to "very advanced stuff" then it is to do 20%.

<comment><USER6> I also suspect — can't prove, but suspect — that there's a higher percentage of "experienced" PyCon attendees than DjangoCon attendees. Most Django developers are fairly new to the platform — heck, the platform's fairly new, relative to Python. So I think there's greater interest in beginner/intermediate material at DjangoCon than at PyCon.

Just a guess, though.</comment></comment></comment>


In 1967, the Muppets starred in a series of in-house films for IBM. - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2010/05/31/ibm-muppets/

<comment><USER2> Wonderful, hilarious and I can't get back to work.

I bet those videos caused the loss of productivity in the IBM mainframe division that allowed personal computers to take over the desktop...

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a traveling exhibit about Jim Henson that has plenty of content like this. Recently there was a movie showing of his commercial work and other experimental films that were fascinating.

Check out the Smithsonian exhibit here: <http://www.sites.si.edu/henson/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Watch from 3:00-4:30 of the 4th video ( _IBM Puts on the Dog_ ). That IBM was willing to poke fun at itself in that way must have made it a great place to be.

<comment><USER5> Also see the IBM song page ([http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_clips...](http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_clips.html))</comment></comment>


Apollo software engineer Margaret H. receives Presidential Medal of Freedom - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13734214/apollo-software-engineer-margaret-hamilton-presidential-medal-of-freedom?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> That is a good and necessary recognition, not only because she deserves it. I hope it will not change with the current changes in the White House.

This will help girls to have a heroine, to feel good about wanting to be a software developer or an engineer. And I hope it will open people eyes about software wasn't only for men.</comment>


Dickbars and Other Readability Excrement (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://shindoisshin.net/blog/dickbars-and-other-readability-excrement <comment><USER2> By the title, I though this would be a discussion about the MacOS System 7 Penis Bar: that weird resizable control strip that stuck out from the edge of the the screen with control panel pop-up menus and a grinning spotted dick head at the end.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_7#/media/File:Mac_OS_7....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_7#/media/File:Mac_OS_7.6.1_emulated_inside_of_SheepShaver.png)

You could drag the dick head left and right to make it shorter or longer, or drag it around to different parts of the screen, but it was always horizontal and stuck out from the left or right edge of the screen, never vertical sticking out from the top or bottom.

You could click the head and it would retract so only the head stuck out, and then click again and it would sproing back out to reveal the shaft at its original length that you'd set.

I would have loved to see the focus groups they ran on that. I wonder if there are any video tapes of Steve Jobs demonstrating it at MacWorld?

Eventually somebody at Apple must have realized that it looked like a penis, and then it quietly disappeared from a later version of MacOS. The spots on the head did not look healthy.

<comment><USER3> Jobs wasn't there when they added this in 1991. And it was pretty convenient to use, by the way. I admire your adolescent spirit that manages to see penises in such things. The "spotted" pattern is called "affordance" and it's meant to indicate this thing is to be dragged. The similar pattern was used on windows title bar where it looked like stripes in larger areas and dots in smaller. Later generations forgot what it was for and lost the subtle art of good user interface.

<comment><USER4> The dots are a "signifier" that the end of the bar "affords" being dragged by the cursor. Signifiers are the part of an interface that show the user an affordance exists, whereas affordances are the things that can be done. A button affords being pressed, its shape and colour signify that it is a button.

<comment><USER3> Yes, "signifier" is the right term, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't often go to bad sites, but when I do… it's usually SourceForge. It's not as bad as it used to be, and it's not nearly as bad as Mainstream News Type Stuff, but still.

Literally no one wants to "Get latest updates about Open Source Projects, Conferences and News", thank you very much. Why is there a giant banner dickbar (that got blocked by my DNS resolver so it's a USELESS STICKY GIANT WHITE STRIPE with a tiny gray "Advertisement" label) below the navigation bar? Why does the navigation lead to nested categories of "Business Software"? Why is the sidebar (which is 100% junk anyway) impossible to scroll fully as it sticks to the top all the way and then gets obscured by the footer? Who decided to make the breadcrumbs in 12px font next to a gigantic 3.42857rem (comes out to 48px!!) current thing title?

</comment><comment><USER6> It feels like the Internet is back to where it was in the 90s where you had malicious popup windows all over the place. I remember when browsers started adding popup blocking as a core feature, and also adblockers became a thing thanks to Firefox's extensions.

Now the difference is that the popups are within the page, rather than opening a new browser window. Since the browser has slowly become the window through which we do everything on computers, moving the popups inside the window pane makes sense.

The adblockers will catch up (I hope), but in the meantime I just avoid websites that are known to suck (which is nearly all mainstream sites these days).

</comment><comment><USER7> It finally hit me that the whole point of that crap is to cause you to accidentally click on ads that you're completely uninterested in.

On mobile in particular there are sites that move the content around in such a way that when you click on a link in the content it will move an ad to the place you want to click -- KA-CHING!

They must use machine learning or A.I. to make it work just "right".

<comment><USER8> I wonder what percentage of Google's ad clicks come from people clicking an ad for something they would have ended up at anyway, because it's exactly what they were searching for. Especially with their deceptive bullshit ad placement on mobile results.

<comment><USER9> See: [https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble- is-h...](https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its- called-online-advertising/13228924500-22d5fd24)

Its conclusions are overdrawn (for example ignoring businesses that don't already have a brand presence). But it makes intuitive sense for the scenario you mention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just avoid those sites - if your site is unusable or the blocking I use makes your site unusable then I'm just gonna move on. Create a bad user experience at your own peril.

<comment><USER11> Is it common for site developers to test with ad blocking and other usability tools?

<comment><USER10> I find this most with sites that use a 3rd party for something. Sometimes the 3rd party analytics won't load and that breaks the entire site.

There are plenty of sites that detect ad blockers and block content until you allow ads or pay.

Publishers like to make it all about ads and revenue while ignoring the train- wreck that is tracking for personalized ads. I'll look at first-party ads that don't track. Don't share my use and browsing history with others. Respect is a two way street, to get respect you have to give respect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was reading an article from FastCompany the other day on my iPhone, until a circle requesting my email address covered half the screen.

The target size on the 'close' icon was unbearably small, to the point where I tried tapping it three times only to have this giant circle covering the content jump around the screen like it was having a seizure, only to end up larger than it was before - it had somehow zoomed in while the rest of the content didn't zoom.

Worse are the sites that include a large header bar along with an ad bar at the bottom, _along_ with interstitial ads in the article. I've had several of these pages where I would close the ad at the bottom only for it to re-appear several seconds later as I scrolled down the screen.

I resort to manually removing <div>'s that contain ad-related content from the page if I really need the content - in the cases that Reader Mode doesn't exist.

I have enable Reader Mode by default set up on my iPhone. It's immensely useful.

UBlock origin is really the only effective ad blocking platform these days, it seems - I consistently get requests to disable AdBlock Plus when I'm using it.

<comment><USER13> How do you get the iPhone to go into reader mode by default?

<comment><USER14> It's under Settings > Safari > Reader.

<comment><USER15> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A lot of sites become free of all this crap when you have JS disabled; especially news ones, which often still have good static content you can read. I recommend giving it a try --- and whitelisting those sites you use regularly which really do require it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I always think of sites like these when someone on HN claims that the web will disappear unless I turn off my ad blocker.

If CNET, Forbes, and these other sites disappeared absolutely nothing of value would be lost.

<comment><USER18> If they provide absolutely nothing of value why do you read them?

<comment><USER19> SEO. Try to search for _anything_ anymore without being trapped in an endless sea of infuriatingly-designed ad-encrusted bullshit. I often end up going through multiple results only to find they were a trap to generate page views or ad clicks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've recently started experimenting with adding "-site:.com" to web searches.

This ... is frequently an improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (Re)posted as I'd just run across an issue with Yet Another Online Book Reader that wastes 25-50% _or more_ of screen space with unnecessary screen elements.

I'd reported the issue to the institution in question. In this case, the default viewer is embedded in a web page with no "maximise" functionality. There's a partial workaround of going directly to the viewer page, but _that_ has a persistent header which, when added to the browser and Android elements that are then persisted (status bar, tabs, nav bar) chew up fully 25% of the vertical real estate of the screen.

Which is only _just_ usable (9" Android tablet) for viewing scanned-in books when those are fully maximised, though in portrait mode that works pretty well.

The point being that even a _very small_ persistent element can result in a _large_ reduction in useful screen space, and in many cases makes the difference between a useful/usable and entirely useless interface.

The crap being rendered on most websites is ... just plain bad.

Reader mode, where that's available, is great. I'm a frequent user of [https://outline.com/](https://outline.com/) There are others (one recently linked heavily in HN comments).

</comment><comment><USER20> I've found the following list to help with "dickbars" and other modern nonsense.

[https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances](https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances)

</comment><comment><USER21> I sometimes browse with Dillo and there's what you might call the "Dillo- compatible" web, which is often IMO nicer than the "full" fancy web. I think they're working on adding JS, so it will probably all end in tears.

[https://www.dillo.org/](https://www.dillo.org/)

FWIW, I think a web reboot with some sort of deliberately-constrained client and protocol(s) would be fun. (In the spirit of e.g. [https://tildeverse.org/](https://tildeverse.org/) )

<comment><USER22> Just bring back Gopher. I think there are a hundred or two sites operational even today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was just on Smithsonian Magazine and it's a disgrace. See [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/20-best-small-towns- vi...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/20-best-small-towns- visit-2018-180969125/)

Is this not the magazine for the US's main national museums?

</comment><comment><USER24> Here is the bookmarklet I use for dickbar removal, it works a lot of the time. Use at your own risk; urldecode and read thoroughly before use:

[https://pastebin.com/raw/41WxsFY3](https://pastebin.com/raw/41WxsFY3)

</comment><comment><USER25> Google News on mobile has reached a new low with their un-dismissable "There is a new version of Google News available" dickbar when reading. Even worse, it pops up even when you're reading a story.

</comment><comment><USER26> blocking Google "YOLO" sign-in prompts: [https://superuser.com/q/1414410/122042](https://superuser.com/q/1414410/122042)

<comment><USER14> Oh, those ones are horrible on Medium. They pop up exactly where the close button for a different banner shows up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> OP's website isn't much more readable either, in my opinion. The color scheme is horrible, and the main text isn't much wider than that in the Fortune screenshot.

<comment><USER28> I'm getting 12-15 words per line vs 3-4 on fortune.

the color scheme is debatable but anything other than black on white has people who don't like it. I find it rather nice, myself, but it may fail basic contrast checking for accessibility purposes.</comment></comment>


How Did the Casio F91W Become a Terrorist Icon? - <AUTHOR> https://reaperfeed.com/how-did-the-casio-f91w-become-a-terrorist-icon/ <comment><USER2> I wrote about the F-91W last year in a post[1] that went viral-ish. Interestingly, it's probably the only article of clothing worn by both Obama[2], and Osama[3]. I wouldn't go as far as calling it a "terrorist icon" \-- it just happens to be _literally_ the cheapest mass-produced digital watch ever made. It's very sturdy, relatively waterproof, the battery should last around a decade, and it even has a (terrible) LED for low light conditions!

I started getting into watches last year, and the F-91W is a sort of rite of passage in watch circles. I've since bought a few expensive† ($1000+) watches for my collection, but I often find myself wearing the Casio. Yeah, I modded it and it has a bit of personal attachment, but it's not just that. There's something really strange about it: it fits so snugly on my wrist, so warm, yet spartan; it simply just _feels_ good.

[1] [https://dvt.name/2019/06/03/hacking-the-casio-f-91w-to- handl...](https://dvt.name/2019/06/03/hacking-the-casio-f-91w-to- handle-1000-psi/)

[2] [https://static.highsnobiety.com/thumbor/hC8faiWSsiFpNpszRf0l...](https://static.highsnobiety.com/thumbor/hC8faiWSsiFpNpszRf0lb7yAkIA=/fit- in/960x550/smart/static.highsnobiety.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/Casio_F-91W_terrorist-002.jpg)

[3] [http://ethiopiaforums.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/05/osama-b...](http://ethiopiaforums.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/05/osama-bin-laden-seated.jpg)

† This is of course relative. Watches can cost up to millions, and serious watch collectors have watches that can easily go up to $50,000++.

<comment><USER3> Claude Shannon defined information in part by its ability to distinguish from noise.

Certain objects are _so_ ubiquitous and their signaling so minimal, it's to the point of background noise and contextlessness.

The Casio F-91W is one such object.

The monobloc chair is another[1].

The community jokes a CIA analyst looking at a gritty Polaroid of a monobloc will have no ability to discern if the picture was taken in Djibouti or Denmark.

In a certain, Cayce Pollard / William Gibson "CPU" aesthetic, there is cachet and delight in signalling contextlessness - and a small cult has grown around these objects. They collectively call objects that share this anonymous property "monoblocs" for short and their is a bit of fun in acquiring the most base form (counter to our every instinct!)

I liked your article's tangent on incompressibility. As, like fluid, noise is incompressible and by reinforcing your F-91W, you have made it doubly so.

[1] [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/04/06/those-white- pl...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/04/06/those-white-plastic- chairs-the-monobloc-and-the-context-free-object/)

<comment><USER4> There is a YouTube channel called Bryan Ropar's Plastic Chair World[0]. Bryan is an expert when it comes to these monobloc chairs, and can name every model by sight and tell you where it was produced.

I think we often underestimate how much depth there is to subjects we are only casually familiar with, and I'm sure a CIA analyst could glean a great deal of information from a still of a plastic chair.

[0]: [https://youtu.be/yCotpBAqJho](https://youtu.be/yCotpBAqJho)

<comment><USER5> I LOVE Bryan Ropar's Plastic Chair World. I never thought I'd see it called out on hackernews!

<comment><USER6> New fan here. I'm always really happy to see real people with real niche interests publishing online, in a totally non-commercial context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > One of the detainees at Guantanamo was grilled over the prevalence of the > watch amongst suspected terrorists. He claimed that the water-resistant > feature of the F91W watch was handy due to the Islamic requirement for > followers to wash up to their elbows before prayers. Innocent enough > explanation, right? Well not really. Interrogators smelled a rat when > another prisoner claimed the prevalence of the watch amongst Jihadi inmates > was simply due to the built-in compass that helped them pray towards Mecca. > However, there is no compass in the F91W.

It's important to point out here that what you're reading about is people being tortured to confess on the purpose of a watch.

The logic of "Interrogators smelled a rat" is terrifying. Imagine you get captured by a state enemy and they ask you why so many Americans have iPhones. They beat you until you tell them and clearly "uh, they're useful? everyone has one? you can pay for them in installments so the cost is hidden?" aren't going to be acceptable answers. The interrogator smells a "rat" and wants to get the "real" answers from you.

Clearly the answers of "so we can do Muslim things" are to appease the interrogator. The prisoner knows that "I don't know, cause everyone else has one and they're cheap" is not going to fly.

<comment><USER8> > It's important to point out here that what you're reading about is people > being tortured to confess on the purpose of a watch.

It's important to point out that you have absolutely no evidence of anyone being tortured to confess to the purpose of a watch. The interrogators could have _just asked_.

<comment><USER9> Given the pattern of behavior of notorious torturers? By that standard the IRA could have just gotten all of the diesel and fertilier for farming and the car bombs were British false flags to harm the Irish cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Looks at my wrist_

Uh oh...

Or maybe because it's a $6 watch...

Kinda like how 90% of murderers have been shown to eat bread within 12 hours of their killing.

<comment><USER11> Heh, next up could be a story about the AK-47 rifle using the same premise.

<comment><USER12> The article talks at length about the fact that both the F91W and the AK-47 are excellent, sturdy low cost devices, that are therefore widespread both among terrorists and non terrorists.

<comment><USER13> The increased prevalence of F91W, ak47, Toyota N-Series trucks in a region vs normal levels are a good indicator serious shit is going on.

<comment><USER14> One of these is not like the others.

<comment><USER13> No, they definitely all go hand in hand

[https://9b16f79ca967fd0708d1-2713572fef44aa49ec323e813b06d2d...](https://9b16f79ca967fd0708d1-2713572fef44aa49ec323e813b06d2d9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/1140x_a10-7_cTC/ATTACKS- STINGERS-1567912922.jpg)

[https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/the-toyota- pick...](https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/the-toyota-pickup-truck- is-so-dependable-a-war-was-named-after-it-104487_1.jpg)

[https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/0be/8d1/e46c0791449288f88ea4...](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/0be/8d1/e46c0791449288f88ea4698a4a02f97bbe-07-isis- toyota-hilux.2x.rsocial.w600.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not clear from the article but the Zapatistas is not a terrorist organisation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Lib...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation)

The article describes them as "insurgents" initially, but in the immediately next sentence goes on about "the terrorists of the world". The photo of their leader follows immediately from photos of Osama Bin Laden and er, an unidentified ISIS militant, apparentlY? It's extremely dodgy to lump such clearly terrorist organisations with the Zapatistas. The latter are an indigenous liberation army who have fought in opern warfare with the national army of Mexico and are not known for attacking civilian targets, carrying out suicide bombings or anything like that. Not to condone armed struggle but one could call George Washington a terrorist, under such a loose apparent definition of terrorism.

</comment><comment><USER16> Uh oh...

I had one of these when I was young (though it may have been the pretty similar F-105W actually). I loved that cool blue glow. In fact I think the only difference between the F-91W and F-105W was the print on the front.

Edit: Nope, the F-91W had a poor green LED, the F-105W had super cool blue electroluminescent backlight, so that was the difference, thanks to dvt for pointing this out.

Also, I have a satellite phone, and many radio transceivers (mentioned in the article). Just the "Large quantities of cash" I don't have (I buy too many radios and other toys lol).. I suppose I'm on a list now :D

<comment><USER17> When my F-91W breaks I will upgrade to a F-105W.

<comment><USER18> don't hold your breath

<comment><USER19> The watch never breaks, but the strap will break after 1-2 years of continuous wear, and its cheaper to get a whole new watch than a new strap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wear a similar Casio and this article reads like "How did breathing oxygen become a terrorist icon". I mean come on, it's one of the most common watches on the planet. The best correlation the article could come up with is that 1/3rd of people caught with it also had bombs. That's worse than random chance.

<comment><USER21> That's only worse than random chance if the base rate of having bombs (among people ending up in Guantanamo Bay, anyway) is more than 1/3\. Were you assuming it would be 1/2 or something? I don't see any reason to conclude that. I can easily believe that the base rate would be under 1/3, and so 1/3 would in fact be better than random chance.

<comment><USER20> Fair point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> this seems like one of those things where it's just ubiquitous, so of course Terrorists would use it. like Toyota trucks [1]

[1] [https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-toyota-pickup-truck- is-...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-toyota-pickup-truck-is-the-war- chariot-of-the-third-world-ea4a121e948b)

<comment><USER23> Does owning one of those trucks get you in trouble?

I still miss the Wikipedia article "List of Guantanamo Bay captives accused of possessing Casio watches" (I think republished at [http://wikialpha.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_captives_ac...](http://wikialpha.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_captives_accused_of_possessing_Casio_watches) ) which seemed to give evidence that watch ownership was used to classify people in detention camps.

<comment><USER16> I think owning a toyota 'technical' mentioned in the article, will get you in trouble, yes :P

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_\(vehicle\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you like the F91w but want something beefier, the DW5600 has the cachet of being rated space-worthy by NASA and looks similar but bigger. Costs about $50, not $12 though.

<comment><USER25> I have had GW-M5600 for years. It has all you need from a watch and nothing more. It's almost perfect watch.

1\. It's small and looks like G-shock classic and has typical C-shock features.

2\. Solar powered.

3\. Multi-band 5 timekeeping from atomic clocks in the US, EU or Japan. I set the time once after I bought it and just switch daylight savings time twice a year.

The only issue is that it needs integrated strap specific to the model, not generic one. Casio straps for G-shocks break in everyday use in every 5-6 years. Durable stainless steel strap costs $100, roughly the same as the watch itself.

<comment><USER26> This is my go-to everyday watch. Have had it for over 10 years and it never skipped a beat. I've had dozens of watches cycling through my collection throughout the years, GW-M5600 has been the only one that I'd never considered letting go of. When the straps break, I'll just go with a good black Nato strap. If I had somehow lost this watch, I'd buy another one without hesitation.

My only real complaint is the countdown timer is only 1 hour. There are times I could use a 24-hour countdown timer.

A minor nitpick is the watch's thickness is just a tad too think to be worn under shirt cuffs. If Casio would ever release a 25-30% thinner version with the same features, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER27> I'd love to get more G-Shocks in this [style]([https://g-shock.jp/products/origin/gmw-b5000/](https://g-shock.jp/products/origin/gmw-b5000/)) but they are too damn expensive. $100 is my range for a watch but some of these are $500+!

I don't know why Casio charges so much. I'd think that if they reduced the price then people would buy more.

The other annoying thing about G-Shocks is the band. I have a all-black model with a clasp link band. I love it. It's super easy to remove and put back on when I'm using they keyboard.

<comment><USER28> There are kits on Aliexpress/Taobao (I'm guessing Amazon as well) where you can convert any 5600/5610 to a metal bracelet. It has the casio and g-shock branding, so you have to be OK with a bit of light piracy. =) I did it last year and the version I got was really high quality. The buttons are a bit small on 5600/5610 though, so they are a bit harder to press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Word of warning. This doesn't always go down well as a conversation starter if you meet someone wearing one of these...

<comment><USER11> I would think not :)

Much better if it was the Arnie watch: [https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/seiko-prospex- snj025-aka-t...](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/seiko-prospex-snj025-aka- the-2019-arnie-hands-on)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The F105-W is what you graduate to after you realize the F-91W is essentially useless is the dark. I've worn both since the early 90s. The band always breaks before the battery or watch itself dies. But i still get years out of them.

</comment><comment><USER31> While certainly not as cheap, the Casio Wave Ceptor watches have great utility. My favorite travel watch is the WVA-M640-1AJF. It is always accurate, always charged, and allows me to quickly see what time it is in another time zone. Before I bought it, I forgot that there were watches focused on function over form. Don't get me wrong, I love a good looking watch, but sometimes you want a tool over an art piece.

</comment><comment><USER32> They are also pretty popular in the British army because they are, in many ways, the best watch available.

That said, they have a few limitations:

* The backlight is pretty weak

* The stopwatch tops out at 1 hour

* It needs batteries, as opposed to solar or kinetic charging (this is probably why the backlight is underpowered)

* It would be great if it had a compass.

<comment><USER33> > The backlight is pretty weak

The reason for this is because the LED is mounted facing directly up, not facing the display. I've seen some mods where they replace the LED with a side-facing and it's far better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I had one of those in the 90's.

It was nearly indestructible. Never left my wrist during daily jogs, showers, swims, saunas ... you name it.

After a few years finally some water had gotten into the housing. The watch was still working, but the screen had become less readable. Still, best watch ever owned.

<comment><USER35> For me the straps were tearing after about 6-7 years (bought it 2009, might be less plastizer used). Became shower watch for some more years. Sometimes you even forget the stopwatch running for month, but the battery still lasts longer then anything else.

<comment><USER36> Now I'm wondering if you turn the stopwatch on, if it stores the time it turned on, or if it maintains the 'elapsed seconds'.

<comment><USER35> That's a smart thought, I haven't had!

Could be testable by turning the stopwatch on and then change the time. I have no idea how these clocks work; if they have a Unix time style counter as internal reference, then this test won't work. Would need a 36 bit memory to run for 20 years continuous counting; 30 billion times bit flipping on the lowest bit. Probably done differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is it just me or is this short on details? I don't see any reason this timer is actually easy to wire up, and I remember my similar watch decades ago also as being water resistant, so it seems like it's less than ideal?

<comment><USER38> The back case is actually the piezo speaker, and it connects with springy contacts not a soldered or wired connection. I would imagine this opens up a variety of easy ways to connect this to a relay for a "louder" alarm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> About Goldstar shoes which are made in Nepal - expressed in a similar vein.

[https://www.arabnews.com/node/1247476/offbeat](https://www.arabnews.com/node/1247476/offbeat)

</comment><comment><USER40> I used to be a big fan of these watches; cheap, durable, has an alarm and a chronometer, doesn't look completely dorky, and they even acquired a certain coolness factor at some point. When I bought one at a watch store in Turkey, the owner asked me whether I was going to the military; apparently it's pretty much a must have for new conscripts, thanks especially to the alarm that wakes you up for guard duty. I stopped buying new ones, though, because the strap is pretty much guaranteed to rip after a year or so, and a replacement strap costs as much as the watch.

<comment><USER41> You can replace it with an 18mm nato strap that's never going to break on you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> the watch pictured in head of article is not F91w.

<comment><USER43> It definitely is in the family. I say this while staring at my stack of F91W-1 Classics. The only difference between mine and the one in their header is the top right says "ALARM" instead of "F-91W", and a few other minor face label differences. Unless it's a counterfeit, but either way every other detail looks spot on.

<comment><USER42> it looks like casio w217h

<comment><USER43> I think you are correct. I didn't realize they would look so similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I would have thought my GW-M5610-1ER would be the better watch, with GShock and solar (Love the watch). But perhaps too expensive.

<comment><USER45> I have a GW-500A myself (G-Shock, solar, radio clock). It is my favourite watch but I wish it weren't as bulky/a bit heavy as it is.

<comment><USER44> I feel like the GW-M5610-1ER is smaller, try out one once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Any ultra cheap (sub €1) MCU can be programmed to wait for long times and activate a load, and several dedicated even more cheap chips can be used as well for the purpose. If any 3 letter agency visited my home lab they would find enough parts to build at least one hundred different timers and remote controls to activate bombs. One thing is a tool whose primary purpose is to harm people (guns, bombs, etc.) and a different thing is something that can be misused as such (kitchen knives, screwdrivers, electronic parts etc.). Criminalizing or even restricting the possession of the latter would be a very dangerous practice that could backfire by creating a world a lot worse than the one they want to protect people from.

</comment><comment><USER47> Actually digital watches have been on the downswing lately, with hardly any new designs/models coming into the market. The only standout one I remember from the recent years is the Casio Waveceptors WV 59 with their distinctive large screens.

</comment><comment><USER48> I've bought a bunch of these to give away to newly elected patrol leaders in our boy scout troop because they are cheap and get the job done... the job being to tell time. I wonder if that means I'm on a list now.

</comment><comment><USER49> Brian Kernighan is using one. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9upVbGSBFo?t=01h07m01s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9upVbGSBFo?t=01h07m01s)

</comment><comment><USER50> When I was doing my conscription military service (I am Swedish) I noticed how hard it was to tell time in the darkness of the night with my existing analog watch.

So I asked my parents for a cheap digital watch with inbuilt light. I got something similar to this Casio but am not sure if it was exactly this. But the darkness readability aspect of a watch had never been a concern for me prior, or after, but during that year the most important feature. Perhaps terrorists operating in the dark as well have come to a similar conclusion.

<comment><USER51> _I noticed how hard it was to tell time in the darkness of the night with my existing analog watch._

An analogue watch with SuperLumiNova(tm) will be usable all night from a 10 second blast with a good torch. Source: regularly do this.

<comment><USER52> Torch as in flashlight, for us north americans.

<comment><USER53> 10 second blast with an oxy-acetylene torch and it'll be illuminated for the rest of its useful life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> It's like the Taliban and the Toyota Hilux

Quick google search gives lots of results on this, here's one: [https://www.wearethemighty.com/tech/how-the-white-toyota- hil...](https://www.wearethemighty.com/tech/how-the-white-toyota-hilux-became- the-favorite-vehicle-of-terrorists)

<comment><USER55> I had a Hilux (although not called that as it was in the US) until a few years ago. Amazing vehicle, thing was damn near 30, and just a dream to work on. I can definitely understand the utility of them in a conflict scenario.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'm wondering why Subcomandante Marcos is wearing two clocks? At first it seems like he put it on his left arm in one picture, and on his right on the other - but on the b/w picture casually "hides" the second clock with his hand.

</comment><comment><USER57> The horologist community holds the F-91W as a classic for Casio. It's a good starting point in the affordables category. It has a lot of features for less than $15 USD. I guess that's why terrorists use them.

</comment><comment><USER58> I loved my F91W when I was in school. I recently bought one again just because it was so dirt cheap! It's an excellent watch. Does everything you expect a watch to do, and does it well.

</comment><comment><USER59> I've replaced my F91W with a miband4 and it feels like the next logical evolution of cheap ubiquitous wearables if a generic version ever comes out without ecosystem lock. They already RSVP around same price points, and there's Casio watch faces for nostalgia. The only thing that's missing is NFC and a few physical buttons for media controls.

</comment><comment><USER60> > Inventor of the Casio F91W, Ryusuke Moriai, polishes a Samurai sword in > Tokyo.

The photo caption is wrong, I think. Ryusuke is not "polishing" a Samurai sword, or Katana. Rather, most likely, he is simply analyzing it and looking at the curvature, etc, and using a cloth to not leave any fingerprint on the blade.

</comment><comment><USER61> I used to think these watches would be cool to have, but I just can't justify having a device on my body at all times that only offers a couple features.

</comment><comment><USER62> I generally try and buy counterfeit stuff, that's my thing.

But I have never checked my Casio F91W is counterfeit, so I figured it's a good time, I used this -

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGuJAJ0I1Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGuJAJ0I1Cg)

My watch says made in Japan, so I guess it's a genuine fake. But it is full of water, so that bit sucks.

<comment><USER30> I can understand countefeit Rolexes, Breitling, etc...but why would you bother to buy a counterfeit of a $15 watch?

EDIT: that video is fascinating. The different in beep frequency is a dead give-away, though.

<comment><USER63> I needed a watch while travelling in Vietnam and bought an F91W from a market stall for a few bucks. It's such a cheap watch I didn't even consider that people sold fakes.

A few weeks later I noticed it was slowly losing time and had some other issues, clearly a fake or reject watch. So that's how, I guess.</comment></comment></comment>


A new generation of Denver bars is targeting people who don't drink - <AUTHOR> https://theknow.denverpost.com/2020/01/09/best-non-alcoholic-bars-drinks-denver/231547/ <comment><USER2> Transparent wish fulfillment for prudes and the overly religious.

Sure, bars are targeting people who don't drink, millenials are postponing sex until after marriage, recreational pot is only smoked by non-whites, or at least non-evangelicals, and Santa Claus is real!

<comment><AUTHOR> People are drinking less and less every year, this is a real thing with lots of data and has no correlation with religion. This is Denver, one of the first cities in the world to decriminalize marijuana and the first state to legalize it completely, you think the prudes did that?

<comment><USER2> No, I think a lazy reporter is pandering to what they believe is a safe audience to pander to.</comment></comment></comment>