Dreaming of Digital Glory At Hacker Hostels

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times has a story about a small chain of managed residences that has sprung up in the Bay Area to provide a cheap place where programmers, designers, and scientists can live and work. These 'hacker hostels' are a place for aspiring entrepreneurs to gather, share, and refine ideas. 'Hackers ... have long crammed into odd or tiny spaces and worked together to solve problems. In the 1960s, researchers at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory slept in the attic and, while waiting for their turn on the shared mainframe computer, sweated in the basement sauna. When told about the hacker hostels, Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who studies entrepreneurship, said they reminded him of his days in the last decade studying at M.I.T., where graduate students would have bunk beds inside their small offices.'"

Comments

Re:"provide a cheap place where..."

[drinkypoo]

I rented a room from a tweaker (didn't know at the beginning of course) at 385 Nevada St. in Bernal Heights, SF... for $800/mo. His name is Paul Prince, and he managed a Toys R' Us. I give all this information because he didn't return my rental deposit though the room was cleaner when I left than when I moved in. He kicked me out right after my car got stolen for not squeegeeing the shower door well enough after every shower. Goddamn tweakers. Now that I think of it, I wonder if he was complicit in the theft of my car. It was parked right under my open window with the alarm on. But if you just walked in and "borrowed" my keys you could drive it right off. I know he's a tweaker because he tried to get me to smoke with him through his little bic pen.

Anyway, $1200 is a steal if you don't have to worry about whether you'll end up renting from a shitbag like Paul Prince. And I'm not talking about the photographer in NYC.