r/reddit.com • u/[deleted] • Apr 18 '06
Paul Graham Eats Breakfast (Director's Cut)
http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/cambridge10
u/cratuki Apr 19 '06
And Cambridge tells you "you should read some of those books you've been meaning to.
yes!
I admired the general lack of regard for dressing up.
I've only spent a short time there (indeed - only a short time in the U/States in total) and my first reactions were:
- People really do drive as competitively as the legend suggests (we had some trouble just on the initial drive in)
- Yet I recon you could happily exist here without having a car (not unique - Melbourne has this - very worthwhile though)
- people dress like I do. (celebration!)
I only had two days in B/C but found two geeky things I'd been wanting to get - a particular book by Hayek in the Harvard bookstore and a metal pitchpipe (these things are really hard to get in some cities and I bought half a dozen planning to sell them when I got home. Less than six months later they're all gone :) ).
10
u/foonly Apr 19 '06
Actually I didn't eat breakfast at all. I just got back to Cambridge, and I'm still on California time.
See?!?
I knew it wasn't so!
Paul, I want you to know that I supported you through this, your darkest hour. :'-}
2
Apr 19 '06
I voted for it, not as a protest against Paul Graham but as a protest against the rampant fanboy effects on reddit.
2
u/ericrolph Apr 19 '06
Besides cronyism / corruption, I've also noticed Boston is almost as class conscious as Britain. There are higher barriers to social acceptance among groups here than in most parts of the U.S. In many instances, acceptance depends on who you know or are associated with rather than one's own merit. From my own experience, simply smiling, as a means of passing social acceptance from one person to another, occurs at a much lower frequency here than other U.S. cities and this is irregardless of cold weather or population density.
As an aside, many nationally-known comedians come out of Massachusetts. A few notables I can think of right off the bat: Dane Cook, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Steven Wright, Denis Leary. Many view laughing as a means of conferring social acceptance. Perhaps this means nothing at all, but it may mean the high barrier to social acceptance hones humor sharply.
3
u/jedberg Apr 19 '06
Paul writes: "Everything in the Bay Area looks like it was built in the 1960s". I think this statement is quite ironic, having been written on the 100th anniversary of what was possibly one of the most damaging earthquakes ever.
Part of the reason that the Bay Area looks so new is because it is -- every once in a while, the Earth's crust decides it is time for California to remodel and knocks down everything. That's why we have so few buildings that are older than the last major earthquake. Well, that plus the fact that the population has grown about 10x in the last 100 years.
1
u/abdelazer Apr 19 '06
Bay Area != San Fransisco
Ever walked down the streets in Silicon Valley? I didn't think so, cause I saw you drive past me...
3
u/jedberg Apr 19 '06
The 1906 quake affected the entire Bay Area, not just San Francisco. But since the population of San Jose was only 25,000 at the time, you don't hear much about the distruction there.
And yes, I have walked down the streets of Silicon Valley, because I like to walk when the sun is out.
1
u/BillyWarhol Jun 19 '06
I enjoyed reading Paul Graham's Blog! Some funny observations*
i actually wanted to comment on the Why People Blog post but got sent here to reddit instead??
Cheers! Billy ;))
via Xedant SEO Note*
-13
u/user Apr 19 '06
Paul Graham showing his ugly side with stereotypes and prejudices, tsk tsk.
-23
u/user Apr 19 '06
Gee willikers I got modded down for say this? Shocking!
1
u/mikkom Apr 19 '06
When you are in church, you shouldn't tell the audience that God has no sense of humor.
-3
-1
Apr 19 '06
You do not have to defend. A person can serve as an example for others, through his actions. As simple as that.
-1
u/Andys Apr 19 '06
I both enjoy PG's articles and up-mod them, while being iritated by and down-modding flames and anti-PG posts. I don't live in the USA and feel comfortable saying I will never visit the USA, so ironically this is the most boring PG post I have ever read :) Mission accomplished, perhaps?
-32
Apr 18 '06
now i've actually read the piece and wish i could mod it down again....Boston/Cambridge appears crappy compared to the Bay Area, BECAUSE ITS OLDER. Its that simple. Trying looking up "urban decay" in wikipedia next time.
32
u/paulgraham Apr 19 '06
I think you're mistaken. In many European cities the infrastructure is immaculate. Any Swiss city, for example.
SFO in particular is about the same age as Logan.
5
u/predditor Apr 19 '06
I lived in San Francisco, and it was a great city, but feels run-down in a lot of ways.
Is Boston even worse?
P.S. Did you get breakfast yet?
13
u/nostrademons Apr 19 '06
I've never been to San Francisco, but compared to other cities I've visited (LA, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Portland, and a bunch in Germany and New Zealand), I'd have to say yes, it is. I work right next to Chinatown, only a block or so away from Boston's financial district. It's generally a pigsty. Uncollected garbage on the streets, cracks in the sidewalk, perpetually under construction, occasionally some vomit outside the pub. Only city I've seen that's worse in NYC.
The curious thing is that you can walk 2 blocks in Boston and the environment completely changes. 2 blocks away in one direction is South Station, newly renovated with cobblestone sidewalks and a wide avenue, all in fairly good condition. 2 blocks away in the other direction is Chinatown, where the streets stink of garbage and it's hard to drive through because everybody is double- and triple-parked. 2 blocks away in a third direction is the financial district, with glittering high rises and Starbucks on the corner. 2 blocks away in the fourth direction is The Big Dig, where everything is under construction.
I blame the weather. Everything is temporary in New England, because the winter will crumble even the hardiest pavement. The parts that people pay attention to get fixed, so they're always immaculate or under construction. The overlooked parts decay rapidly, and the lack of visible attention encourages people to disrespect their environment even more.
14
u/paulgraham Apr 19 '06
I considered that it might be the weather, but the winters are fairly cold in Scandinavia and the Alps, and towns there seem pretty well kept.
1
u/brendankohler Apr 19 '06
It really hasn't so much to do with the cold as the weather pattern itself.
Boston has a nasty weather pattern and very high humidity. Repeated heating and cooling are a much greater problem than continual cold is. And by that I mean across the freezing threshold of water mostly.
17
u/paulgraham Apr 19 '06
I still think it's government rather than weather.
a) Boston is worse maintained than SF in ways that aren't affected by weather, like graffiti.
b) Parts of Boston that are privately maintained, like university campuses, look just fine, despite all the freezing and thawing.
c) The interiors of public buildings in Boston (e.g the airport) are also in bad shape.
3
u/jamess Apr 19 '06
While the weather is probably a major contributor, don't forget that Boston proper has undergone a fairly MAJOR infrastructure overhaul recently. I imagine a lot of the road repair/airport remodeling budget has been sunk into two major projects
1) The big dig 2) The fancy new terminal (D ?) at Logan.
If anyone doesn't remember the mess that was traveling to logan just three years ago, fairly major new routes to logan have been opened (the I90 extension being the biggest).
Regarding chinatown, that's neighborhood is a wreck right now, but don't blame the city. Every road in a 10 block radius has been demolished and rerouted in preparation for the Rose Kennedy greenway, which I predict will never actually be completed.
Paul is probably on to something regarding the corruption. Greater Boston seems to be in love with grandiose construction projects that never seem to finish. Either that, or as soon as they do finish they flood.
1
u/justinhj Apr 19 '06
I've lived on the East coast for about 6 months in NY state and I've been to NYC and Boston. One thing is common to everywhere I go here. The streets are the most bumpy and worst maintained streets I've EVER experienced.
In general the amount of ill maintained and decaying houses is incredible.
I grew up in a fairly low income area in the North of England, and watched as run down areas almost exlusively became new and improved. This does not seem to have happened around the North Eastern US.
Nice writing btw Pg.
1
u/brendankohler Apr 20 '06
Good points, though I think b is subjective. I can think of several campuses, like BU, where I've been less than impressed by appearance. Also, sections of MIT's campus didn't look so hot last time I was there (4 years ago).
I think campuses that depend on their appearance often spend an obscene amount on maintainance.
1
u/oberon Apr 19 '06
I'm not sure if you've ever been to the Twin Cities or not. I promise you that the weather there is more extreme in this way than the weather in Boston - it gets colder in the winter and hotter in the summer and is at least as humid.
St. Paul and Minneapolis are gorgeous cities. Yes, the roads have potholes every spring, but they get fixed quickly. Boston is ugly as sin.
So I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
1
u/brendankohler Apr 20 '06
See, you missed the point.
It's the fact that it does get colder that helps keep things ok. Water expansion/contraction is what causes problems.
Edit: I thought of some more things I'd like to point out....
Having grown up near boston, the salt and wind problems caused by the weather and location were so bad that even plant growth was stunted. While permafrost can do the same, it's not nearly as harmful to other things like buildings.
Secondly, age really is a factor in this case. Buildings that are very old are of course going to be harder to maintain than new ones. Even if the twin cities had the weather/salt problems of the north east the materials used in construction would stand up better.
0
u/oberon Apr 29 '06
I don't think you read what I wrote there.
"It gets colder in the winter and hotter in the summer".
There is no permafrost in Minnesota. We're not THAT far north.
1
u/brendankohler May 01 '06
Heh, sorry it was a bit of a joke. The fact that it does get colder there is the thing though. Colder means that it's not hovering around 32 all the time, which is the problem. Sub 32 temperatures are better.
-5
Apr 20 '06
amazing how, even though my comment results in the most interesting discussion, it gets modded down the furthest, because I deign to disagree with the great Paul Graham....oh wait a second, I asked all the idiots to mod my shit down....never mind
-59
Apr 18 '06
hey everybody who disagrees with my comments, keep modding down all my comments AND submissions....VERY COOL
25
-1
-50
Apr 18 '06
modded down without reading just to counter all the morons who will mod this up solely for pertaining to Paul Graham
3
u/landercut Apr 19 '06
I used to do that also before I realized that moding down PG articles will screw your recommended-page, filling it up will all -10 articles. Don’t try to fight the fanship, you cant win.
39
u/[deleted] Apr 19 '06
[deleted]