Category: Q & A

Questions, and Answers, from the man himself

Deano’s answer to: “Are Sunnyvale and San Jose geek/nerd places?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Both are “geek/nerd places” in terms of residential density of Ruby/Python/Java/PHP developers, but neither is a “geek/nerd place” in terms of atmosphere…

San Jose has a bit of a “true town”, but is still a lot of highways and strip malls – shops/restaurants/bars that close down comparatively early, and the exceptions tend to have a more “townie”, or even worse “hipster” vibe.

(Liar! The Winchester Mystery House is open til midnight around Halloween!)

Sunnyvale, CA is a great place to live if you like biking to work for a valley startup in the neighborhood, and not much else. Much moreso than ‘San Jo’, Sunnyvale basically lives and breathes the corporate daily schedule, and while it may have its share of decent lunch/dinner spots, and some fairly nerd-friendly coffee shops, there just isn’t enough of that “late night, burning the Mt. Dew” coder-feel to the place.

(Sunnyvale makes Redwood City look positively thrilling)

As Robert Scoble says, Palo Alto has a lot more of the “hacker vibe”, though it’s seriously hamstrung in that it does double-duty as a college town, so it’s a bit of a mixed bag for community nerd-support, especially in the coffee shops (which are just as full with PoliSci majors and Soccer Jocks as engineers)… Still, make a few Stanfordian friends, and you’ll have your “in” for those passionate coding discussions at venues and events on/just off campus.

(BTW, Google “Palo Alto excitement”, this is the result…)

All is not lost, however – there are several co-working spaces in the area, and for as little as $100/month membership (or $10 a visit), you can get all the “coder-nerd” lifestyle, conversation, and energy you could possibly want from places like the Hacker Dojo[*] and SemanticSeed[†].

(That looks a little more like it, non? Hacker Dojo FTW!)

[* In Mountain View – hackerdojo.com ]
[† In San Jose – semanticseed.com ]

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Are Sunnyvale and San Jose geek/nerd places?

Deano’s answer to: “Why do kids not like to wear warm clothes?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Based on my own childhood in Minnesota with “old school parents”, versus what I see in the Bay Area with my current parental peers:

Because, by and large, we massively over-dress our children.

Children may not be fully aware of their bodies, core temperatures, or potential for catching colds, etc… But in my experience, you put five or six of them together on a playground, there’s no amount of clothing that will prevent transmittal of all kinds of bugs.

Further, when kids say that a jacket is “too hot”, they may actually be on to something – as the querent said, their higher metabolisms do quite nicely in temps that most Californian adults would consider unlivable outside of Tahoe… And that most midwesterners would call “shorts weather” in springtime, with snow still on the ground.

Finally, based solely on my own experience: kids want to have more personal control – and when my 3 year old daughter insists that it’s not cold out (having stepped outside into the sun to test, but between strong gusts of wind), I have learned to respect her opinion, so that when her teeth are chattering a bit on the swings at the park, she’ll remember to at least put her windbreaker in the snack/water bag she carries when she doesn’t want to wear it all the way there and back. When I have the patience myself for such lessons, they are by and large learned after only one or two instances… But when we “baby her” as far as the weather goes, or always seem to have those rain boots or socks or knit beanie at the ready while out and about, she takes advantage and revels in the personal butler service entirely knowingly.

When your kid can verbalize their own intentions, expectations, and desires, try listening more to them, and accommodating or negotiating where possible. Amazing things can happen – I have a 3 year old who takes her own showers, fully dresses/undresses herself, and can produce her own non-cooked meals safely and with small enough mess it’s totally worth the free time I get back. Compared to her peers, she seems lightyears ahead, but it really all comes back to listening to her, and treating her reasonable suggestions and plans as reasonable.

In summary, I’d say it’s a combination: higher metabolism and core temperature, an accompanying misperception of such on the part of parents/adult caregivers, and resistance against imposed rules/yearning for greater independence.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Why do kids not like to wear warm clothes?

Deano’s answer to: “What would it take to give the human race “purpose” again?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

An external threat that required immediate tabling or resolution of pending disputes of philosophy and real property on a global scale.

This is why alien invasion, crazed robosentience and viral zombie plague movies, video games, and novelty underwear are so consistently popular – they are the only readily understandable threats that everyone can agree might bring us together as a species or unify us without regard to race, creed, or culture.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: What would it take to give the human race “purpose” again?

Deano’s answer to: “What is the best option for access to the Bay Area carpool lane after hybrid access expires June 1, 2011?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

The best solution is often the simplest: start picking up additional people to, you know, actually carpool.

Sources to find additional riders:

This answer originally appeared on Quora: What is the best option for access to the Bay Area carpool lane after hybrid access expires June 1, 2011?

Deano’s answer to: “Why would someone read the end of a story before reading the book?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

I have an off the wall theory that seems fairly well supported in terms of the people I know who do this:

They all seem to lack a strong intuitive/ideative ability. It’s there, but it’s not something they’re constantly doing like the rest of us.

For example, I could take a few pages from the beginning of a book, the setup, and a lot of the time people will be happy to start to create “milestones” – filling in “what happens next”, or even “how it will end”. They may be 100% wrong about either, but it’s irrelevant – they’ve set an expectation that can then be met, exceeded, or subverted.

The people who read the endings of books, on the other hand, tend to see the whole world a bit differently – they are either more present in the moment, or perhaps emotionally tied to what already exists somehow, that they can struggle a bit “spooling things out” into an unknown future, or to find such mental play to be more fun than distracting. They like, in short what is… And because of that, finding out how things end has no or very little diminutive effect on their enjoyment of the whole book – because, at any moment in a story, they can draw out the pleasure of that page, and the “how will we get to the end” can often be just as entertaining. And, getting back to my milestones analogy – all they’re really doing is setting these markers based on facts, rather than imagination.

Take a further step out onto my thought ledge, and you could guess that these people are ultimately better prepared to handle death – I mean, seriously, we all know how our own stories end, just not how and when we’ll get there. And really, shouldn’t discovering those twists and turns and relishing them be the focus, rather than adding as many additional pages as possible?

I would submit that, whether one is the type to read endings first or not, that the true enjoyment achieved in both cases is in appreciating the journey. Some people like road trips for not knowing what goofy misogyny will be available for sale at the next truck stop, and some like the smell of exhaust fumes and freshly laid asphalt. Neither is more right, and we have a lot to learn from each other if we stop thinking about it in such oppositional terms.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Why would someone read the end of a story before reading the book?