Jake

Idle Thumbs Progresscast #12: The Progresscast Within

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There are very few cities in the country with higher rent than SF. Possibly only one place.

And that's where I live.

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SF is one of my top "I would like to live there" cities, both because of the qualities Sean has expounded upon - qualities that I've heard tell of from many other people - and also because the top video game companies I would like to work at all exist there, except for Valve. (Not to say there aren't other great companies elsewhere... just that my preferences all lie there.) I already live near Valve, but... I don't expect they'll be willing to hire me for many a year, yet. Which is fine. grumblegrumble

Anyway, SF seemed cool the two times I visited it for GDC, but being GDC, I didn't have time for much else. I would like to visit it for real some day.

Also, yes, the high rent is a bit of a deterrent for me, since I'm without a job. I'd have to be hired there before I moved there. U:

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I've been fascinated by San Fran for a while, and this is so lame, but I think it's because of Sim City 3000. That golden gate bridge man, I think I put that in every city I made. And they all had big rivers and harbours, cos that way you could easily split up your industrial and residential zones, plus you got to build a ton of awesome bridges. Bridges are cool as shit.

I still don't like the whole grid system that US cities are based on, but guess SF has a bit less of that due to the geography.

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I've been fascinated by San Fran for a while, and this is so lame, but I think it's because of Sim City 3000. That golden gate bridge man, I think I put that in every city I made.

It's less exciting when you commute over it every day :)

I still don't like the whole grid system that US cities are based on, but guess SF has a bit less of that due to the geography.

SF is based on multiple grids at crazy relative angles. Also, fun fact: Duplicate street names exist, because of the presidio.

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It's less exciting when you commute over it every day :)

Disagree! I love driving over the Golden Gate every morning. It is part of what makes me fine with having a daily commute. Driving through the tunnel and seeing the bridge through it every night on the way home is something I tangibly appreciate almost every time I drive home (notable exceptions: when I can't see the bridge due to the fog, but even that is its own kind of cool thing). Maybe its not as awesome when you're commuting into the city along with all the other cars, instead of out of it, along with nobody. You seem to have managed avoiding that mess, though.

SF is based on multiple grids at crazy relative angles. Also, fun fact: Duplicate street names exist, because of the presidio.

Even when it's not a mishmash of grids, our grid looks like a weird 3D waveform graph, due to hills. Our grid has heavy Y-axis distortion!

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I've been fascinated by San Fran for a while, and this is so lame, but I think it's because of Sim City 3000. That golden gate bridge man, I think I put that in every city I made. And they all had big rivers and harbours, cos that way you could easily split up your industrial and residential zones, plus you got to build a ton of awesome bridges. Bridges are cool as shit.

I still don't like the whole grid system that US cities are based on, but guess SF has a bit less of that due to the geography.

I think the grid would bother you less if you lived in one for a while. I (think I) know what you mean, in that a grid feels less natural and organic than a city that was unplanned and slowly grew out from a central core. But what I think is truly great about urban landscapes is not their natural geography, per se, but more the neighborhoods and scenes that spring up entirely as a result of the vagaries of human nature and decisions that branch over many decades. It's why a New Yorker can hear "5th and 40th" or "7th and 144th" and instantly be flooded with emotional associations--sure, those actual descriptors are just impersonal labels for points on a grid that was arbitrarily laid out centuries ago, but what's really important is how humanity has layered on top of that grid to create a living, vibrant city.

Anyway, maybe that's not even what you meant! But I've thought about this a lot and that's my take on it. I love cities.

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Disagree! I love driving over the Golden Gate every morning. It is part of what makes me fine with having a daily commute. Driving through the tunnel and seeing the bridge through it every night on the way home is something I tangibly appreciate almost every time I drive home (notable exceptions: when I can't see the bridge due to the fog, but even that is its own kind of cool thing). Maybe its not as awesome when you're commuting into the city along with all the other cars, instead of out of it, along with nobody. You seem to have managed avoiding that mess, though.

Yeah I totally agree with this. I never had a Golden Gate Bridge commute, but when I was working as a journalist and still living in Berkeley, I had to drive to San Francisco all the time for work and I never got tired of crossing the Bay Bridge. I still have lots of positive associations with that and enjoy crossing that bridge.

Even when it's not a mishmash of grids, our grid looks like a weird 3D waveform graph, due to hills. Our grid has heavy X-axis distortion!

X-axis? Not Y-axis? (I'm probably thinking about this wrong in some way.)

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SF is based on multiple grids at crazy relative angles. Also, fun fact: Duplicate street names exist, because of the presidio.

similarly, there is a set of numbered streets and a set of numbered avenues, which are arrayed on opposite sides of a central street, and never/almost never meet.

as a result, living in the Mission, it confuses the hell out of me whenever I get an address for anything in the Sunset or the Richmond.

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X-axis? Not Y-axis? (I'm probably thinking about this wrong in some way.)

I edited it when you were replying, I think.

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similarly, there is a set of numbered streets and a set of numbered avenues, which are arrayed on opposite sides of a central street, and never/almost never meet.

as a result, living in the Mission, it confuses the hell out of me whenever I get an address for anything in the Sunset or the Richmond.

Friends have tried to get to our place by saying "Second and Fulton" which the cab driver mishears as "Second and Folsom," which is nowhere near the same location. Gotta specify!

This thread is on topic.

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Friends have tried to get to our place by saying "Second and Fulton" which the cab driver mishears as "Second and Folsom," which is nowhere near the same location. Gotta specify!

This thread is on topic.

Uhhh I think I know the place you're talking about... it was in Driver: San Francisco, right?

Man, what a fucking seg.

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Uhhh I think I know the place you're talking about... it was in Driver: San Francisco, right?

Man, what a fucking seg.

for comparison:

2nd and Folsom:

KWyHn.jpg

2nd and Fulton:

RVQjq.jpg

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Driving into SF from the tunnel and not seeing the bridge until you're *RIGHT THERE* due to the fog is fucking magical.

I lived in SF for 2 years after college and really enjoyed my time there. Despite having been born/spent 80% of my life in NYC, I feel like I'm more at home when in San Francisco. NYC for me feels like a great place to DO things while SF is more of a great place to do nothing. But the good connotation of doing nothing, not the bad.

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I would definitely draw a hard line between "the Bay Area" and San Francisco proper.

Oh crap, are we gonna do a SF Bay vs. East Bay thing? I was on the Oakland side. GO RAIDERS, BOO 49ers! etc etc :mock:

And Sean is right about the rent by the way - it's why I'm not trying to move back there.

I will say that I suspect if you're someone with conservative views, San Francisco probably seems a whole lot less inclusive and tolerant. I don't have much sympathy for someone who is ostracized due to being bigoted, as Sean suggests, but I imagine a lot of people with legitimate and thoughtful conservative viewpoints probably don't find this city a place where their opinions are generally received with commensurate thoughtfulness and tolerance.

This is exactly what I meant. I knew few - and I mean few -people back home in California that had their well-thought-out conservative views, but a lot of people would hassle them right away just based on their conservative identity. Being aggressive and intolerant expands beyond race and sexuality - politics has a lot of that kinda crap going on.

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...BART.

I got nothin' :getmecoat

No you've got something. The right idea. There was only one time my friends and I drove into San Francisco. Oh, and I went there one time when showing a long-distance girlfriend around the city, with my father, we drove in too. But finding temporary parking, forget about it. All negative memories.

The BART was great. I've been up and down it almost each and every way to the end of the lines. It was mostly my Pleasanton / San Francisco / Oakland Colosseum vehicle though.

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Friends have tried to get to our place by saying "Second and Fulton" which the cab driver mishears as "Second and Folsom," which is nowhere near the same location. Gotta specify!

This thread is on topic.

I appreciate you saying "friends," here and not "one time Sean was hammered and got taken to 2nd and Folsom and it cost him thirty dollars to get home."

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I appreciate you saying "friends," here and not "one time Sean was hammered and got taken to 2nd and Folsom and it cost him thirty dollars to get home."

Sean is some kind of sad-cab champ.

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Disagree! I love driving over the Golden Gate every morning. It is part of what makes me fine with having a daily commute.

Not the same thing, but riding into DC every morning and going past the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, Smithsonians, and the White House makes the morning commute more enjoyable. And the time you spend sitting in traffic gives you the chance to appreciate them some more than you would if you were just visiting.

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Shit! I really need to make time to play Walking Dead (and so many other Telltale games ;( ). This cast has got me all excited for them.

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Not the same thing, but riding into DC every morning and going past the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, Smithsonians, and the White House makes the morning commute more enjoyable. And the time you spend sitting in traffic gives you the chance to appreciate them some more than you would if you were just visiting.

Agreed. And they all look twice as cool at night.

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Zodiac has permanently fixed my idea of San Francisco in the '70s :(

Zodiac was crazy because it so vividly brought up imagery I only half remember from my early childhood (in the Bay Area in the early '80s, which looked pretty similar, pre-wine, pre-tech). It was surprisingly effective.

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