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Protesters Show Up At the Doorstep of Google Self-driving Car Engineer
mpicpp sends this report from Ars Technica:
"Protests against tech giants and their impact on the San Francisco Bay Area economy just got personal. According to an anonymous submission on local news site Indybay, an unknown group of protesters targeted a Google engineer best known for helping to develop the company's self-driving car. ... The protest against Levandowski came the same day that the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority (SFMTA) voted for the first time to take action regulating Google, Facebook, Apple, and a number of other large tech companies that shuttle workers in private, Wi-Fi-enabled buses from the Bay Area to points south in Silicon Valley."
Being a Luddite is fashionable?
This fanatical "activism" needs to be stopped.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
So they're being too eco-friendly with the bus rides? Or everyone's jealous about the benefits? Or public transportation isn't crowded enough? I don't get it but I have the sneaking suspicion that these people are morons.
Yes, these Indymedia commie's will go in the history book as modern day flat-earthers. What an idiots, targeting one of the brightest engineers working on cutting-edge technology.
If they were born in the 1900s, they would have targeted Nikola Tesla.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Levandowski should claim that the protesters are motivated by anti-semitism. Checkmate!
I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I only live a mile from where they pick folks up, and they drop me off about a mile from work" Maybe SF should take into consideration that non-goog-app-fac employees might want to ride on the same line. These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.
and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Engineer.
Then they came for the Software Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because there was no Software Union.
Then they came for the Network Admins, and I did not speak out-- Because those guys are mostly assholes.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
I didn't see anything in the article about unions. Stop being an asshole.
This is a very good example of people who like to call them selves "Liberal" not being very liberal. Technology will advance and apparently some people don't like it in the same way some other people don't like gay marriage or pot smoking.
It all starts at 0
Part of their flyer says:
There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft
Unless they all walked there and are wearing homemade clothes from home grown cotton weaved by hand into fabric, and "printed" their flyers by hand by writing them using sustainably harvested carbon pencils on home made papyrus, and organized the protest through word of mouth (which was probably aided by the fact that they all live in the same cave) rather than using email and iPhones, they are being disingenuous by protesting against resources used for technology that they themselves use and enjoy.
It's the only way to not let the killer robots rule humanity after the Goopocolypse!
You're right. The article does not mention unions. But now that he, and you, brought it up, and now that I think about it -- who else would be opposed to self driving cars? It all makes sense.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Ah, but then they become a common carrier, just like city buses, and competing with city buses.
We can't have any private industry competing with City mass transit in the race to the bottom.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You are morons.
Who is the bigger moron -- those that protest against a Google Developer for his work on technology, or someone that reads about a protest in Berkeley and tells the people of San Francisco to stop protesting?
That said, Google could pack up and leave SF without making difference in the economy -- there aren't *that* many Google employees in SF. But if all of the tech companies (iuncluding those with significant presence in SF) disappeared overnight (like they did during the original dot-com Bust), then it would have an effect on the city -- both good and bad. Not everyone saw the dot-com bust as a bad thing, and are hoping for another bust.
There is a mention of the local government regulating the use of public transit stops for shuttle busses. Still, pretty tenuous.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine nor will his children...
And maybe if you would let him finish working on his robots, then no one's children will! Alas, it seems that no mind can be flexible enough to wrap itself around the reasoning of narrow-minded. I mean, these protesters' points are not so wrong, the problem is merely that their reasoning is so not complete - and yet they take complete action!
I wonder if ignorance must remain unaware of itself in order to survive...
The protesters are part of a group that are upset about gentrification. In the event that you don't know what that is, I'll explain since all the posters so far clearly didn't read the actual article (another day on /.). Quite simply -- it's when people with significant wealth and/or income move into an area of people with less wealth/income and thereby drive up real estate prices beyond what the established population can potentially afford. Hint: property taxes start going up and the established population can't afford to buy/rent a new place in their current neighborhood and possibly can't afford their current residence anymore and will be forced to move potentially far from where they currently live. For families, this is a non-trivial challenge.
They've been protesting Google buses because this has put gentrification onto the fast track by making areas more attractive to Google employees that otherwise wouldn't have been due to transportation headaches. Getting a company funded ride straight to work is not a small deal.
Note I'm not taking a side on the issue, just pointing out what's going on. Essentially you have people that can see the time coming when they will have to move and it's directly the result of Google and its employees. I won't use the word "fault" because that implies wrongdoing.
The tactics of the protesters are clearly questionable, but I'll leave that up for the ensuing discussion.
Wow. I think you would fit into Putin's (or Stalin's) Russia just fine.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Google probably does not want to run a public bus service. That is not their business. There would be many other legal, insurance and bureaucratic hurdles.
Google does this for their employees. I can understand why everyone would want to ride on Google's luxury buses. Heck, I would like to. It must be frustrating that they pick up and drop off so close to your own endpoints. I can sympathize.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Well, "Anonymous Coward", you should follow the money. Who does it hurt, really, for tech companies to bus their own people to work rather than have them drive their cars? Its much better on the environment, less traffic on the freeways, and better for the workers.
Its not that they are busing their people to work, is it?
Its the fact that they are not using MUNICIPAL i.e. government owned buses that exclusively use unionized workers, specifically SEIU, which has a habit of using this very tactic.
I'd like to live there but it's too expensive. Maybe I need a bigger sign?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Sounds like the Tech companies need to get the hell out of Commie-Fornia.
They are no longer welcome, and that state HATES businesses with a passion.
If California hates tech companies so badly, then one must wonder why there are so many out there. I'm thinking that it takes more than cheap rent to attract a vibrant start-up culture. Perhaps it takes investment capital and qualified employees too. And good weather doesn't hurt either.
I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I only live a mile from where they pick folks up, and they drop me off about a mile from work" Maybe SF should take into consideration that non-goog-app-fac employees might want to ride on the same line. These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.
Better yet, have these tech titans fund some Bay Area high speed commuter rail.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Given those services are usually a money pit for the city in question (albeit a necessary one), they'd probably love to have that taken off their hands.
I read through that entire sentence-fragment of an article, and I still don't see what people are protesting. Are they just OWS hippsters and neo-anarchists who will protest anything that isn't run directly by the state? Perhaps they just don't like the fact that some people have money? Surely it's not because some people choose to carpool. I don't get it.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
>So the 55-year old candlestick makers were supposed to upgrade their skills or do what? Starve?
They were supposed to have learned more than one skill in their entire lifetime. I have no understanding of why so many people feel they should go through life only knowing how to do one thing well. It's not a good idea. Personally, I can program, sysadmin, fix cars, and perform electrician work to code. If any one of those goes away, I'll survive just fine. In fact, if computers go away (fat chance) I will do fine. Even if electricity went away, I'd do fine.
So the 55-year old candlestick makers were supposed to upgrade their skills or do what? Starve?
I think that tech advances are generally good, but this "Creative Destruction" comes at a cost to certain individuals in society who were unlucky/unconnected enough to choose the wrong profession.
You can't simply let all those people fend for themselves without any support.
Wow. I think you would fit into Putin's (or Stalin's) Russia just fine.
I presume OP is the type who will dump their parents in the cheapest, shittiest nursing home they can, just as soon as mom and pop outlive their usefulness.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think thats a great idea.
They should expand this to other heavily traveled businesses and venues and high traffic areas throughout the city so even more people can have the chance to ride at a convenient time. Why hasnt anyone thought about this before???
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
in the 1920s in rural USA when it was being connected to the power grid. "He took r jobs!!!!".
When society no longer values your skillset, its time to upskill of GTFO.
The protesting slime seem to think they have a god given right to be where they are.
Yes, evil microbrewers all over America are taking the bread out of the mouths of megaswill brew workers. Shameful!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I find their choice of protest targets rather strange (If you think that autonomous vehicles are the biggest of your problems, or that Google is the major threat in that area, you are painfully uninformed...); but do you seriously expect people to just 'GTFO' (and to where?) whenever technological change comes knocking? Economic threats are one of the few things that reliably get people worked up, and technological change definitely is one, if you are the one being rendered obsolete at a given time.
Rhetoric for, or against, 'natural' or 'god given' rights tends to be nonsense; but expecting people to not get touchy when you come after their bread and butter seems like either profound ignorance of history and human nature, or a... perhaps unsteady... theory of social order. Hard to keep a game running if most of the players lose most of the time, no?
Of course it's about unions. Look who is being targeted. What other possibilities are there? These smart-phone toting "protestors" aren't protesting working conditions overseas, that would be amazingly hypocritical. It can't be the greenies, these ride shares are getting single occupant cars off the roads. It's not going to be any Democrat groups, many of those targeted are going to be liberal Dems given the region of the country. Who is left other than organized labor? Who else would have an axe to grind against these workers?
Do actually follow the link. Don't worry; there is a great big picture with a few words, so you don't have to read much.
The very first thing you should notice is that this is about more than property values. This is also, and perhaps primarily, about hate for technology and technologists. The black-and-white image of Levandowski's house doesn't say "so and so is pricing you out of your neighboorhood." It says:
Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation. He is also your neighbor.
So at this point we should be all done soft-pedalling these people (a la this submission) as good but misguided folks in fear of "impact on the San Francisco Bay Area economy," or whatever. These are neo-luddite libtards fomenting hate and using surveillance to intimidate individuals.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I only live a mile from where they pick folks up, and they drop me off about a mile from work" Maybe SF should take into consideration that non-goog-app-fac employees might want to ride on the same line. These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.
There are few people that live in SF and work a mile from Google HQ in Mountain View that aren't already Google Employees -- I'm sure there are some, but few would choose to do that commute if they didn't have the bus service -- the peninsula is so spread out that there just aren't that many employers close to each other, which is why transit is so difficult t here . It wouldn't even be worth setting up a program to let those few people reserve a spot on a bus and pay the fare (which would likely have to be in the $20 range to cover costs of providing the bus service and fare collection)
That's all well and good when the jobs are still there, they're just changing. That candlestick maker, he can retrain to work on robots ! But when jobs are shed and not replaced, this will eventually lead to big problems. Shaming the unemployed is not so effective when there are no jobs.
So the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe are shuttled to work in their private Wi-Fi enabled comfort busses, free from having to deal with the riff-raff of society while the common folk are out their sucking on exhaust fumes.
I can't imagine a scenario where this turns out badly.
I can imagine one scenario -- if the buses stopped overnight and suddenly 30,000 people decided to drive to work instead of take a shuttle since public transit is so unusable for their commute. So instead of hundreds of buses, you'd have thousands of extra cars on the road.
So the 55-year old candlestick makers were supposed to upgrade their skills or do what? Starve?
Basically, yeah. And I say that as someone who has upgraded his skills and changed careers twice since I turned 50.
You can't simply let all those people fend for themselves without any support.
Change doesn't happen overnight. Even some animals are smart enough to stock up for the winter.
No, I think you'll find that cities guard their mass transit federal handouts "earned" by providing the least suitable services that just barely qualify, as if they were the goose that lays the golden egg.
They even pulled their precious obsolete streetcars off the line for fear of looting and rampage after last week's Football game.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Sounds like the Tech companies need to get the hell out of Commie-Fornia.
They are no longer welcome, and that state HATES businesses with a passion.
More likely the city of San Fransisco hates having to provide the infrastructure for all of the tech businesses but not reap the benefits of tax revenues to pay for it because they built outside the city. States have this issue all the time, where the populace lives predominately in one state but work in the next state. It's not about being anti-business, it's about having to pay for the services provided.
So they're being too eco-friendly with the bus rides? Or everyone's jealous about the benefits? Or public transportation isn't crowded enough? I don't get it but I have the sneaking suspicion that these people are morons.
I think you've missed the point. Dozens of companies in the peninsula have their own dedicated bus lines. The bus-to-person ratio is quite high, and this is not as eco-friendly as you might think. It also causes congestion in the city, and confusion at the shared bus stops (which are owned by the city of SF), both of passengers and of citizens looking for a bus they can actually ride.
The city taxing the bus services allows maintenance to be applied to the extra load of the stops as well as planning for the increased traffic these systems create. I think it is quite reasonable.
Daily Kos had a good explanation of the problem back in April.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Ahem..
BART!?
Oh God! Not military hospitals! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
San Francisco is Contrary City - Whinge - whinge, whine - whine, protest at the drop of a hat. "What are we protesting today, Fred?" "I don't know, Dave, I just looked up in the sky and saw the Protest Signal." The crazy thing is as screwed up as The City seems to be, it still works and people like living there. (It is a fine place to visit, just don't bring your car!)
The real problem here is the mobility of workers has caught up with the ability for them to get to work. 101 is a rotten old road, which seems to always be under repair in some stretch and those work zones play havoc with the dense traffic. I-280 is a pretty good bet for a sprint, until you get near Redwood City, where it begins to clob up (and there's just no good way of getting through these bay area cities and to the campus along Shoreline. Google should just open a campus in SFO (or expand whatever they have already.)
This moving people about in cars, when you are a tech company at the forefront of communications is an anachronism.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
no, they are wrong, 100%. industrial uses of precious metals are a tiny fraction of the demand, and NOT what drives most of the practices people find abhorrent. Should we give up on technology because a lot of women(and men) like gold and diamonds? or maybe we should stop feeding the beast by validating a love for shiny crap.
Except for the fact that there is no city bus that runs from San Francisco or Berekely to Mountain View, so the competition would be with CalTrain which is owned by Amtrak. As for Bus service, anyone who does the SF - South Bay commute will be familiar with Bauer's busses and they are a private company doing exactly what you are saying can't be done. So, the whole "can't compete with gubment" thing is a bit stupid in this context.
The fact that the Google/Yahoo/Facebook/Genentech etc buses exsit at all is just a demonstration of the abject failure of SF Bay Area's public transportation system. This could have easliy been done by SamTrans, or Caltrain, or BART, MUNI or some combination. But those entities are too caught up in their inane union rules and they retarded management. Or Ed Lee who would rather make Muni free, and still crappy, rather than fix it. The politics around public transport are ridiculous. Everyone wants a piece of that big-money pie.
I live 1 block from the J Muni, but would rather ride my bike because Muni is uterly unreliable. For my spouse to get to Palo Alto she is stuck in a two transfer Muni nightmare to Caltrain, so mostly she drives.
Easy solution: These companies should open major offices in downtown San Francisco. Build a skyscraper (vertical campus!) that is walking distance from a BART subway stop. They already have one (very small) office in the downtown SF area (opened in 2007). Same with Yahoo (though they can't afford a skyscraper), who recently bought the old SF Chronicle building.
Build a skyscraper!? You really don't know anything about SF, do you?
Now you have hundreds more cars on the roads.
I mean really, what can they possibly hope to gain? Without the buses there would be many more cars on the road, or these people would move and local businesses would lose out on the disposable income.
Ya ask me this is only the beginning. the gap between those who have and those who have not is going to fuel hate as you've haven't seen in well over 10,000 years. IMO
Jack of all trades,master of none
One question...why? If I worked at Google I wouldn't want you on my bus. Google is a big machine. As someone who also works for a big machine, I'm only here for the perks and I have no interest in sharing with outsiders. You want my perks? Come break your back with me and work 60 hours a week...then the bus rides, free food, nap pods, etc. will seem less like privileges and more like justifications for your insanity...
Yeah, because having a whole bunch of high earning software developers paying income, property, sales, and liquor taxes within the city isn't enough.
San Francisco has no income tax.
They've long enjoyed being an employment center for the area so instead of a payroll tax paid by employers rather than an income tax. But the protesters aren't complaining about taxes, they are complaining that high paid employees are driving up rents and making the city expensive. However, if large employers continue to bus employees out of the city for jobs, then I'm sure SF will revisit the income tax issue.
If Google, Apple, and Facebook are not welcome in the San Francisco, I'm sure there are a lot of other places that would welcome them.
For instance, taxes and cost of living are much lower in Ohio. Plus we have all this lovely snow.
[Insert pithy quote here]
That could actually be a net win for long time residents since the Googlers would move closer to work and rent in the city would fall back to affordable levels.
Does San Francisco not run buses on the same lines? If not, the problem is with the city, not Google.
The problem is with the entire region. San Francisco buses can only run in San Francisco, with limited service to a couple recreational areas a few miles away. The rest of the region doesn't want to get caught up in San Francisco's myriad governance issues, so they operate their own transit systems. There are only a couple systems that cross the entire region: BART and Caltrain.
So, to get from my home to Google via existing transit lines, I'd have to take a bus to Caltrain, then take Caltrain to Mountain View, and then take a bus to Google. The pretty good regional trip planner says that it would take me 4 buses, 2 hours, and $13 to get from my home in San Francisco to Google, even with rush hour express service. It's cheaper if I get monthly passes and take my bike onto Caltrain, but it still takes a lot of time.
Have a nice time.
They are total fucking morons. Their problem is with rising rents. Rising rents are a result of a shortage of housing in the city falling way short of demand. Shortage of housing in the city is the result of these same idiots objecting to every residential development taller than a gas station. Who do they blame? Not themselves, they prefer to scapegoat some tech workers, most of whom spend money in local businesses and help the local economy anyway. These ignorant cretins are so fucking stupid on so many levels I don't even know where to start.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Just like the earth's climate can change, so can the business climate of a state, and California's has. Momentum will carry things for now, but the state seems determined to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
And if you think the San Francisco Bay Area has cheap rent, you are way off base.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
That is a completely different ball game. You know how much work they would be adding, with insurance, and 30 times the number of busses, and now their is no room to work, and the baby crying is interrupting the meeting they are trying to have.
That is like the worst idea I have ever heard.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
That could actually be a net win for long time residents since the Googlers would move closer to work and rent in the city would fall back to affordable levels.
Unlikely - even if the buses stopped overnight, employees can't move overnight since they have leases and other logistics to deal with.
There's enough demand to live in SF from employees that do work in the city that as long as the economy keeps at its same level, housing freed up from Google workers that choose to live closer to Mountain View will be filled without a large drop in rents.
Ahem..
BART!?
Needs to be bigger, faster and fewer strikes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm pretty sure its the people protesting a simple engineer and blaming him personally for socioeconomic conditions the world over and not taking any responsibility for their own huge complacency in such a system.
Never mind the implied sky net shit about self driving cars.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.
Sounds great. And they could grow the system as more and more people want to use it - multiple pickup spots, more stops, more destinations.
We could call it "public transit"!
Please help metamoderate.
Oh please yes! Get the Google employees here in the suburbs so they expand Google Fiber out to where I am.
In Chicago,. when a large business is in an area that is remote, the CTA/RTA provide busses to get there. So in this case instead of the government paying for the transportation, Google is. How evil!
Why pay for a nursing home when Soylent Grey is a saleable commodity?
Shaming the unemployed is not so effective when there are no jobs.
Sure it is! It's still a perfectly good rhetorical justification for not doing anything about them, and I'm certain they'll either starve or do something we can imprison them for soon enough!
Ahem, what about those of us who live in the vicinity of Mountain View and aren't multi-millionaires? Our rents are high enough here. Googlers can live wherever the hell they can afford to and so can you.
"What are we protesting today, Fred?" "I don't know, Dave, I just looked up in the sky and saw the Protest Signal."
They must have heard about the Paris Riot Signal and decided they wanted them some o' that.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Just like the earth's climate can change, so can the business climate of a state, and California's has. Momentum will carry things for now, but the state seems determined to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
And if you think the San Francisco Bay Area has cheap rent, you are way off base.
I don't think California's business climate has gotten notably worse than the last tech boom, and yet companies still keep coming. It could certainly shift in the future, but shows no sign of doing so. I thought the Bay Area (Silicon Valley in particular) was going to die when a lot of the semiconductor makers moved out, but that hasn't proven to be the case.
The Bay Area is huge -- 7000 square miles and 7 million people, so any large scale shift will take decades. It's a lot easier to recruit people to grow your startup when you don't have to relocate employees, which is one thing that makes the Bay Area attractive despite the high cost of living.
I wasn't saying SF has cheap rent, just that people that say Google should move to Portland, or Austin or Wichita or wherever rents are cheap and land is plentiful (for now) are missing the point.
If you plan for the future, you don't have to get angry at the present.
Hello, Tu quoque fallacy.
One does not need to operate completely in adherence or consistency with a concept or argument they're promoting in order for that concept or argument to be valid. Thus: nor is it valid to challenge someone's argument because they have failed to do so.
Argument pro tip: if you're focusing on the person (ad hominem) you're Doing It Wrong.
Please help metamoderate.
Yeah, from the article its not even clear if this group is actually related to the gentrification protesters at all. Could it be that these are just anti-tech protesters and they really are afraid of some kind of "roadnet" becoming sentient and plunging us into a dark and dismal future?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Ya! Look vat ve do to your autonomeautomobil!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
if it takes a private bus to get them to stop driving, the issue is that they're already looking down upon "regular" people, and that is not to be rewarded.
Bullshit. Lots of people don't take regular buses because:
1) The schedule is not as regular as you might hope
2) Hard to work on most public buses (not good seating for it or network access, and you may well not get a seat).
3) Total time taken might be very long if you have to transfer, and the bus is not going exactly where you are so there's some walking component when you reach home.
4) Bus schedules at night get worse.
The company buses potentially solve all those issues:
1) Buses will be more regular as they have fewer (or possibly just one) stop.
2) Seats meant for working and enough buses so that you can get a seat.
3) Total time taken is greatly reduced and it's going exactly where you are, so no wasted time walking after the bus stops.
4) Can run buses on demand.
Really the reason these companies have buses is because employees can get hours more work in per day. That's also better for the employees because they do not necessarily have to stay at work late if they can finish up things on the bus.
There's nothing elitist at all, it's just that a bus tailored to working serves people far better than public transport ever can. There's nothing wrong with this and as many have pointed out it is reducing congestion for everyone and ever keeping the public buses less crowded for rush hour commuters.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When you (or any of these protesters) earn the privilege of being an employee of such an organization then you may enjoy the perks of the arse busting that was required for that attainment. In the mean time quit b*tching. Every person on one of those buses is one less car on the road frustrating your commute. They each represent a spigot for money harvested from around the world to be placed into your local community, its stores, schools, roads, parks, etc..
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Maybe the people who both live and work in the city, and have done so for years, who suddenly find they can't afford to live there anymore due to new people who spend 90% of their time outside the city being hired by companies outside the city and provided with free transportation to their rental units.
Sounds like a lucrative tax-base to me. Though I don't support the concept, the city could tax these folks and use that money for low income (or "worker") housing.
IMO, it still makes the most sense that the labor unions would be behind this.
the private buses stop there, but the private buses do not pay any additional tax
Well now they do, but even if they did not why exactly SHOULD they pay extra?
The companies already pay extra taxes that take care of the roads. The companies do not ask for signage at the stops. They are there only briefly and then gone...
The other issue is that, since all of the young high-paid workers are living in the city instead of near work, they have driven up prices to the point that existing residents can no longer afford to live there.
Oh no! They caused the house you bought a while ago to have a massive increase in value! Those bastards!
I'm just curious where exactly you think the tech workers SHOULD live if you think this is an issue. They cannot all live in the city itself. Wherever you put them you have the same "issue" of having a bunch of people that pay a ton of taxes also looking for nice places to live. See "Detroit" for what happens when you drive those people away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
mastered the art of making sure that as little as possible returns to the communities that incubate them.
I think that you will see that the average income of tech-industry workers around the SF bay area is among the highest in the nation. That money largely flows back into the local economy.
The money I earn gets spends on my rent, local sales tax, CA income tax, CA SDI, car insurance, etc etc etc. It's not like I can have my paycheck sent to the Cayman Islands and enjoy a tax-free income.
I also believe that Google provides free WiFi in the Mountain View area, just as a service. And every school in the area will have some form of sponsorship from the local tech giants.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
I whole heartedly agree. I couldn't bare to see Texans squeezed out of Texas. Keep them there where they're well contained and away from me. It's bad enough I have to deal with their politicians from time to time.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Guess I can blame this one on the breeders.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
If the root complaint is that housing prices are going up, then San Francisco and its residents are at least as much to blame as the economic success of their region. They consistently vote to nix new housing developments because they feel it will upset the character of a neighborhood, or block the view of an adjacent one. To put it bluntly, it's property owners voting down measures that would dilute their property value and current tenants voting down measures that they feel would change the demographics of their neighborhood.
The city is a popular place for young people to live, and with proximity to strong schools like Berkeley and Stanford, young professionals have money. Without growth in housing units, the free market will push housing prices up so long as demand will support it. This is just like any other real estate market in the country.
Many residents complain that the tech buses are using public bus stops. That's between the city and the tech companies, and they've got a negotiated agreement. Maybe the residents are not happy with how their city represented their interests and what they got in return, but that's between the residents and their government. As of right now, the tech companies' use of public bus stops is legal and agreed-upon. Any protests against that use should be at city hall, not at the bus stops.
As for mass transit, that's a hugely sticky issue in the area as well. Caltrain fares are more than the cost to drive for a given distance and it doesn't connect to the BART system, nor does it wrap around at San Jose / Milpitas. The state can't afford to buy the land or pay the construction crews to connect and harmonize these lines, nor will homeowners allow for significant expansion due to the perceived loss in home value. And then there's the problem of the entire western half of SF, where there is no rail or subway at all.
How broad geographically is CTA/RTA's scope? I'm curious because this sounds like a completely logical and intelligent idea.
The main challenge I can see in Google's case is that these buses would run through 3 counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara), each with its own transit authority, and CalTrain and BART are two additional transit authorities. There is a visible lack of coordination between these agencies, and funding is uneven. With one joint overall authority, greater alignment might be possible.
This is just another face of the same stupid coin that continually rears its ugly head. I will not accept an inferior {x} because of inflexible/incapable {y}. I will not accept the bar being lowered to the lowest common denominator. Step up or step aside.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Read the fucking article; get a fucking clue. Sitting here and making up shit just makes you look retarded.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Private buses may be decreasing the number of public transit riders, but our local transit system is already 85% subsidized, which is about the highest in the nation. Almost none of the lines are profitable ever, before or after Google. So while I welcome more folks riding transit, and think that a public system that helps non-car-owning (generally low-income or student) populations to get around is a good thing, putting every Google and Apple and Genentech employee on the buses won't do much to the subsidy level.
Each an every Google employee represents new revenue poured into the local community. If no one is entrepreneurial enough to capture some of that and employ others to help that is not the fault of Google, nor its employees.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Build a skyscraper!? You really don't know anything about SF, do you?
I live there, though I can't say I've tried to construct a building there. How about you?
You do realize that pretty much the entirety of Mission Bay was built in the last year or two, right? Tons of tall buildings (that link is just condos) going up in that area, among quite a few others. I could count maybe a dozen 20+ floor complexes around the city that are opening within a year of today. That includes the 80-floor Transbay Tower.
Funny that you mention the Transbay Terminal -- planning for the Transbay Terminal replacement began around 2000, and the project isn't slated to be finished until 2017, nearly 20 years later. And this project fulfills a civic need to have a transit terminal, it's not just a private office building. Total cost for the center is projected to be around $4.5B. And it's already $300M over budget, they kept the project going by taking money from funds that were supposed to be used to extend the trains there -- you know, the whole purpose of a transit center... transit!
Somehow I don't think Google is going to commit billions of dollars and 2 decades to trying to build an office tower in SF. Especially given that many in SF already blame Google for the city's problems.
"Long time residents" are not owed lower rents continuing into the indefinite future. Neighborhoods evolve. Some people win, but some people lose. That's too bad.
Personally, I expect that as a professional, I'd find those neighborhoods more interesting with the influence of the better-paid residents.
It wouldn't be so bad if their drivers weren't pricks. I've been cut off several times
by these assholes. At least VTA has supervisors that monitor drivers.
There are lots of pricks on the roads, I haven't found employee shuttle drivers to be worse than others, they are just more visible in those big white buses.
I met Lewandowsky when he was an undergrad at Berkeley, building a self-driving motorcycle, while also running a startup to sell a two-screen display for field use at construction sites with a player for drawings. I was impressed. He does tend to deliver on his schemes.
The Google bus thing is impressive. Google now has a huge bus fleet. They're all the same, they're all huge, and they're all white and unmarked. They're more visible than the public bus lines, because they're concentrated in a few areas. Yesterday, I was caught in a traffic jam of Google buses in Mountain View.
One of those areas is the Mission District in San Francisco. It's an OK low rent neighborhood, but not great or particularly cool. (SOMA, pre Dot Com Boom 1.0 was cool - lots of art galleries, performance spaces, clubs, warehouse parties - the fun things that need big, cheap spaces. That's over.) I have friends living in the Mission. I've been there many times. It's not really being "gentrified". It's just that rents are going up on existing buildings, which is annoying residents. SOMA and Dogpatch have been redeveloped, with most of the old buildings replaced and most of the rest converted to residential lofts or such.
SF is driving out low-income people. Mayor Brown said a few years ago that no one making less than $50K a year should live in SF. Really. The Mission was one of the few cheap neighborhoods left that was merely poor, not awful. SF still has a few bad cheap neighborhoods, but they're under attack, building by building. The 6th Street corridor is still a druggie and flophouse area. But go a hundred feet off 6th and there are luxury lofts. The area of Market Street around 6th to 8th was also a big druggie/homeless area. Then Twitter HQ moved in there. As that area gets gentrified, the 6th St. corridor will be cut off from the Tenderloin across Market. We'll know that's happened when the last strip club there closes.
Seriously. California is a basket case economically. They are located in an area that drives their costs up almost beyond comprehension. They are starting to get pushback from the surrounding communities for what reason? Being successful.
Longer term that area is going to go bouncy bounce in a very unpleasant way. Being located there will NOT be fun.
It's not nice, and getting worse. In the long term they are guaranteed things will get REALLY FUCKED BAD.
Time to start working on an exit strategy.
And the tax income would drop like a rock and so would a lot of the jobs.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The problem is: how do they tax them? Based on whether they work inside city limits or commute elsewhere (such as itinerant labourers do)? The problem is that the normal avenues of taxation (fuel taxes, sales taxes, etc) are being evaded inside the city, and so the only taxation that really hits them is property tax -- which for rentals, is reflected in raised rental rates for the entire area. They could, of course, put tolls on all the routes between the city and these company's HQs; busses would still have to pay per-head, and they could recoup some money there. But that wouldn't bring rental rates back down significantly, as the companies would still be paying the tolls, not the employees.
IMO, gentrification is a "thing" ... It happens all over the country, and as often as not, it winds up a net benefit to a city's economy.
EG. Memphis, TN, where my wife is originally from? If you drive around most of Memphis these days, it almost all looks run down. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of postcards and promotional photos for Memphis depict parts of Beale Street. That's one of the last remaining streets in the whole city that still looks like it's flourishing, thanks to all the tourism directed towards the famous restaurants and clubs there. And the truth is, there's really no good reason it needs to be that way. Among other things, Memphis is the nation's hub for FedEx -- no small company! They've seen a gentrification underway in parts of midtown Memphis though, which finally brings in a crowd with some interest in rehabbing some of the old buildings and revitalizes some business in the area. I suppose if you're one of the low income residents from that area, it seems like it's pushing you and your family out? But bottom line is, there's just not a benefit to discouraging people with more spending money to make part of a city their home.
I think the protesting of Google buses and the rest of it is insanity. The whole country knows perfectly well that cost of living anywhere near Silicon Valley is one of the highest in the nation. Nobody I know ventures out that way without that understanding. If you find you can't afford to live there anymore because you don't earn as much as more successful people getting hired in your town? Tough .... Probably time to move out (and sell your home at a big profit while you're at it, if you're not renting).
I live near Washington DC myself, and our family struggles with the exact same issue out here. Home prices out here are insanely high, thanks to all the overpaid politicians and government contractors out here, not to mention high ranking military/ex-military just across the border in Virginia. So what did we do? Moved out a little further to a more rural area where it was more affordable, and deal with the commute. It sucks, but I see no point in trying to fight economic realities. (And I feel like in my case, I'd actually have MORE justification to complain than if I was upset about private businesses like Google running up home prices and tax rates. In this case, a lot of it is funded via my tax dollars!)
And the newcomers are not owed a warm welcome or special access to public spaces such as bus stops..
All he needs to do is point a webcam out his window and I'm sure he'll be able to get face recognition hits, names, addresses, SSNs, etc... of everyone standing in his yard.
Yes, constantly upgrading / learning new skills sets is important core part of life. I see plenty for 55+ people working at walmart that takes no skills at all just a pile of patience for stupid.
No sir I dont like it.
Market force too strong...can't resist urge to live closer to work, work closer to home, or seek employment in different city...
Key word: tech industry workers, in an industry known for a low number of workers per dollar funneled to oligarchs. You, personally, may not have that Cayman Islands account --- but Google Corporate (or whichever authoritarian technocratic oligopoly you work for, and all the bigwigs a few layers up from your boss) certainly does. Your pay represents a miniscule fraction of Google's take (expatriated to offshore tax havens, and accumulated in the pockets of an oligarchic elite); perhaps not much compared to sweetheart tax breaks and shenanigans pulled by Google HQ.
Their complaint is that the company is making it to easy to live in the area and driving up rent. They want the Google employees to have to live closer to Mountain View, so that rent in their area will drop again. Not terribly realistic, since now that the thought has been planted in people's head if Google were to discontinue providing bus service someone would create a business to provide that service anyway.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
If they thought that he was someone else...
Some other Levandowski who WAS Jewish... and then they peed on his rug?
Besides... Maybe he converted when he got married.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
One question...why?
If I worked at Google I wouldn't want you on my bus. Google is a big machine. As someone who also works for a big machine, I'm only here for the perks and I have no interest in sharing with outsiders.
You want my perks? Come break your back with me and work 60 hours a week...then the bus rides, free food, nap pods, etc. will seem less like privileges and more like justifications for your insanity...
Can't tell if trying to insult me, or recruit me.
If you RTFA, its renters irate about rising rents driving them out of the area as wealthy Google/Apple/etc. employees move in. Nothing to do with unions at all.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
SamTrans runs an express bus between from SF and Palo Alto, but that's only halfway to San Jose. Too many counties!
But nobody's suggesting that they go live on the street.
I live in New York City. One area or another has been gentrifying since before they came up with the name. You know what this means? It means the city is healthy - there is an influx of new people. Yuppie types (who themselves, like these protesters, kicked out people as well) come in and move to the cheaper areas they can afford and make them fashionable. Some of them stay (and make more money as they advance), and some richer people move in now that there's restaurants and other amenities. And the next generation of yuppies goes somewhere else and the process repeats. For example, my parents now couldn't afford the apartment I was born in - it's now worth more than their decently-sized house in one of the wealthiest suburbs in NJ. The Daily News loading dock across the street was turned into a bunch of really, really nice condos.
And this is a good thing! And it's been happening forever. The '66 West Side Story movie showing a grimy Upper West Side was actually filmed in the grimy UWS - about where Lincoln Center is now - and now that neighborhood is one of the most expensive parts of one of the most expensive parts of one of the most expensive cities. You know why you don't hear people in NYC bitching about it? It's because people don't feel like they have a right to live anywhere in particular, so they're comfortable with moving, and public transit is so good that there's a large area you can move to (including parts of NJ) without significantly affecting your commute. There's also a lot of housing, at various price levels.
Now, of course, SF isn't really like that. Public transit sucks, so moving makes it really hard to get to work, and they've been so adverse to improving it - or building more housing of any type - that housing is dramatically supply limited. There simply aren't any units available, and whenever one is, some techie who can afford to pay 6 months rent in advance is going to get it. Can you really blame them, or the landlord? It's a supply problem exacerbated by no-transit hyperlocality (e.g., it has to be *right here*)
Yes, I think everybody - including the techies! - agree that the status quo sucks. Perhaps the proud, longtime residents of SF shouldn't have spent 30 years making it impossible to avoid this problem, and shouldn't be fighting the solutions now!
We already have a name for the right to stay in your apartment for as long as they like - it's called "ownership", and it can suck. Renting avoids that hassle, and is cheaper, but the whole point is someone has to agree to rent it to you, and that can be withdrawn. You can't have it both ways.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Apparently it is better to curse the darkness, whining to politicians, than light a candlestick.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is kind of an argument from ignorance.....you are saying you can't think of any other reason, therefore there must be no other reason.
There is an alternative: people from San Francisco are crazy. Even the homeless people are more crazy than other places. I don't know that can be, but it's true.
More respectfully, these protestors seem to be people who are upset about changes in their community. That is something that happens everywhere. It is spilling out into protests because, hey, protesting is fun, and San Franciscans know it. It's a San Francisco thing to do. Seriously, if you live in the area, join a protest sometime. It's fun.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That what buses where for. People who couldn't afford their own transportation They weren't created for better traffic, and they are the least green way to move people.
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You have a weird definition of public spaces if there are certain classes not allowed to use them.
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That's because you're not thinking about the other benefits.. More buses means less traffic which means fewer road lanes are required. It also means less maintenance on the roads, less pollution, and less fuel use. Because of all these external benefits, public transportation really should be free or nearly free for passengers: more people riding public transportation is a net gain for the city. Overall, money is saved in lowered road construction and maintenance and lower fuel/vehicle costs for passengers.
That has been the problem in CA since the 70s.
Really, the State need to take over the public transportation, this county approach has been broken for decades.
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Crazy people. Read the flier, and what thye are saying. They are saying some stupid nonsensicle and crazy shit, Like 'Steal from the techies whose house you clean'
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The high income earners will tend to live in areas that are high property value. That means they pay more in property tax through their rent or lease payments.
I'm not sure "evaded" is the term I'd use. I doubt their primary consideration is avoiding tax, I'd bet the average worker wants to avoid a miserable commute. I know when I've had long commutes, I would have loved to ride in a nice coach and not have to drive. It wouldn't have been about gas tax, road tax, tolls, or any of that, it would be purely a quality of life consideration. Driving is stressful. Reading is not.
Sure, because ideological organizations would never use a pretext.
Troll? Really? Instead of leading people on or being sarcastic, I answered the question -- people get upset when their rent goes up. As a disclaimer, I've been hit by the exact situation where I live, although it's a different megacorp bussing its employees around. It's definitely affected rental rates in the area. Unions don't seem to mind, as they're driving the buses (and it's not a pro-union area). But people who have lived in the area for generations are getting a bit upset that their children are being forced to either move away or take a job with the megacorp.
u should problem spend less time reading carlin and more time studying about averages and what they are.
HInt,
120
130
110
126
128
85.
Are half the people below average?
And you get an education for knowledge,skills, and contacts. It doesn't make you smarter.
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3rd party surveys show that 46% of the Googlers would move if the shuttle buses went away.
Mountain View it is then. Enjoy your move!
I'm pretty sure many of the residents who are upset would find b to be acceptable.
So these people can't debate in a rational manner.
So they're going to invest in lynch mob mentality and harass people?
It must really suck to have an IQ in the low single digits...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is kind of an argument from ignorance.....you are saying you can't think of any other reason, therefore there must be no other reason.
Wait, are question marks no longer an acceptable way of indicating a question?
There is an alternative: people from San Francisco are crazy. Even the homeless people are more crazy than other places. I don't know that can be, but it's true.
Crazy folks don't tend to organize.
More respectfully, these protestors seem to be people who are upset about changes in their community. That is something that happens everywhere. It is spilling out into protests because, hey, protesting is fun, and San Franciscans know it. It's a San Francisco thing to do. Seriously, if you live in the area, join a protest sometime. It's fun.
Stalking people where they live or vandalizing people's transportation is not exactly what I'd call fun. Whoever these people are, they are assholes for doing this. Unions are the brotherhood of assholes, which to me is another sign.
This does happen everywhere, but rarely does it turn into this kind of madness. I get pinged by west coast tech companies frequently and stories like this encourage me to stay far, far away. I'm sure the liberals would be happy about that, but if too many people do the same, those companies will inevitably have to open up shop elsewhere. They're not going to lower salaries or take commuting options away from their employees just because some thugs told them to.
60 houre a week in an office is not 'breaking you back'?
God your soft andd spoiled.
I also work in an office(Software engineer), but I have never considered it 'back breaking', even when I did 100 hour weeks.
Maybe that's because I have actual worked 'back breaking' jobs.
Go work in a field, or put up dry wall. or did a ditch. You have no real perspective.
I'm not saying your job is easy, or stress free, but back braking? that's laughable.
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"..earn the privilege..."
wow, aren't you a corporate bitch.
Busses are worse then driving environmentally, and traffic wise.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
let's not forget some people can not up skill. Due to age, or assets.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and when you plans are destroyed by an investment firm who uses money from accounts that they where not supposed to use?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
3rd party surveys show that 46% of the Googlers would move if the shuttle buses went away.
How many would take public transit to Mountain View? I still say that most of the remaining 15,000 would commute by car , because unless you live close to Caltrain, taking Muni to get there is a non-starter. So instead of a few hundred buses on the streets, there'd be 10,000 cars competing for roads *and* parking.
..to create that flyer. Or did they take advantage of technology to avoid hiring a professional. I know that there are problems to be solved with jobs lost to technology. I can't believe the solution is to have people do the jobs instead.
several studies came out this week. Gentrification is a boom for anyone who stays.
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They may have a point, but picketing a person's home is disgusting.
Really harms the legitimacy of someone's position, and is a terrible invasion.
Really needs to be illegal. I'm pro-civil liberties, but stuff like that should not be tolerated, and should be a felony for repeat offenses.
Disturbing someone at home because you don't like the implications of the technology he works on or the fact materials for it are mined in the Congo or whatever (bet the protestors own iPhone or use other tech that needs minerals) is frightening. Not only gov't can have a chilling effect!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
That what buses where for. People who couldn't afford their own transportation They weren't created for better traffic, and they are the least green way to move people.
Why do you say that buses are the least green way to move people? Full buses are very efficient. An 8mpg bus with 50 passengers gets 400 passenger miles per gallon. 200 passenger mpg if it runs half the route empty.
Fill a 12 mpg Hummer H2 with 6 passengers and it tops out at 72 passenger mpg.
Even if the bus has only 10 passengers and runs half the route empty, it's still getting 40 passenger miles/gallon -- better than most cars on the road.
I think small passenger ferries take the crown for least-green method of travel.
Wish I wasn't on the mod ban list, I'd throw an upvote your way.
However I've done back breaking work in tech. I was laid off in 2001 and went to work for a bar (not backbreaking) During the day though I was a IT consultant, my own company.
One customer had these giant mini fridge sized IBM netfinity servers that needed to be rack mounted. My partner couldn't hold his grip, so (unwisely) I told him to let go and let me carry the load. I slowly felt something in my back rip. I couldn't breath deep breaths for almost a year after that. It took years of struggle to get my back to the pain free status it is today, but it still makes odd pops and clicks whenever I stretch.
Texas is open for business. I'm not a resident there, but I'd love to see a mass exodus from California and watch their liberal paradise sink into third-world status overnight.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
How about not harassing engineers at their homes, and instead voting out politicians you don't like and not buying from companies you don't like?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Wait, are question marks no longer an acceptable way of indicating a question?
You started by saying, "Of course it's about unions. Look who is being targeted. What other possibilities are there?" Over and over, you blame unions, as if you have some kind of blind hatred for them.
At least be honest about the argument you are trying to make.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So they're idiots for not wanting to live surrounded by skyscrapers.
No, I'd say they are idiots for blaming others for the things they themselves are partly to blame for. I'm referring to the building and property zoning laws. Hell, you know democracy, I'm sure. If majority rules, then everyone shares blame. That also means not singling anyone out, like these cretins are doing to some random engineer who happens to work for a company that they currently find fashionable to hate or are be jealous of.
No idea about Mountain View.
The traffic and parking will tend to drive a few more to closer location.
some kind of "roadnet" becoming sentient and plunging us into a dark and dismal future?
As long as my car can drive itself in the dark, I'm cool with that.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
wow, aren't you a corporate bitch.
I'm not sure what that even means. However, given the tone I would infer that you are on the outside looking in. Whose fault is that? But more importantly, if those on the inside are "b*tches" why should it matter to you what perks we get in exchange? Enjoy your freedom and forget about us.
Busses are worse then driving environmentally, and traffic wise.
Citation required
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The bus stops are for public transportation.
Since SFMTA is "renting" the stops for $1/day, it turns out that the bus stops are for all bus transport.
If you "don't want to be surrounded by skyscrapers" then move to the suburbs or the wilderness. Living in a place like San Francisco and complaining about the city's evolution and increasing density is the very definition of stupid.
Higher density (which is better for the environment, you know) is the only thing that's going to solve this problem, not standing like an idiot in front of a coach and angrily waving a sign.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Either the Googlers are responsible for the increased demand and the rents would drop if they left, or they're not. You can't have it both ways.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's a question inviting people to contradict my theory that it's the labor unions. You even quoted me posing the question.
You appear to have a blind hatred for people that ask questions. Labor unions look like the most likely culprit. I'd consider other options, but I haven't seen any that are more compelling.
As for honesty, blaming Google employees because you can't make you rent payment is a bit dishonest and stinks of blind hatred, does it not?
(That's a question.)
In Ontario we have a train/bus service called Go Transit. Regulated by the province. The goal is pulling workers into Toronto and out of Toronto without them driving. It works great and is expanding. The only thing it sucks for is people not working the 9 to 5.
u
At least now we know that the 85 in the list is yours.
It seems weird to me to blame individual where the problem is really political. But if we follow that scheme, protesters would better gather at CEO's houses. Or even better, at shareholder's house. And then perhaps people will discover they have financial products that should cause them to protest at their own place.
Ahem..
BART!?
Needs to be bigger, faster and fewer strikes.
The California High Speed Rail project has been in various phases of development for over a decade.
These things aren't built overnight. It also relies on voters getting passionate about funding it, which changes depending on how the economy's doing.
The former mayor of Palo Alto wanted to hold it up awhile ago, because he's basically afraid it'll reduce property values. The new mayor basically bragged to her constituents upon taking office about successfully holding up the project at added expense to the state. So, you have those kinds of obstructions to consider as well.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
It is now, for $1/stop/day but it wasn't before.
A lot of people have pointed out the fact that getting rid of the shuttle buses will increase traffic. But another thing that strikes me as odd is that they accuse this guy of developing an apartment building in Berkeley. Don't they understand that this would increase housing supply, and bring the cost of housing down? They're basically sending a message to developers not to build any new buildings, which is a really dumb idea if they want to halt gentrification.
Great, problem solved. Now the people protesting the busing of the Silicon Valley employees can turn their attention to the actual underlying situation, in which their futures are literally being stolen from them.
Google does seem to do this, they are paying a chunk of costs of the shuttle going between the train station and the Shoreline area. In the past this shuttle had mostly died off and there were only a few private corporate shuttles. Granted this new shuttle is mostly Google because Google has acquired so many of the buildings in the area, with the economic downturn there aren't as many companies clustered there as there used to be.
This shuttle is listed on the official caltrain schedule.
If Google didn't build their own private air terminal at San Jose Airport to get around flying with the riff raff, or build their own private bus system to get around employees riding BART with the riff raff, they probably wouldnt have so much back lash. They are not doing things that is for the community. They are trying to shield themselves from the community. To outsiders, I'm sure it appears they are building their own utopian society that is somehow greater than the one they live in. If they want to be seen as helpful, they should be doing helpful things. The whole creepy factor about everything they do is also more than most people can handle as well. Whether it be using Google Glass to try to lookup criminal histories of random strangers on the street, or using the Google Bus to avoid interacting with regular humans, or using the Google Airport to avoid interacting with regular humans. Apple is in similar circumstances, but they are less creepy and so people are not up in arms about them, yet.
And more likely to kill someone? It's bad enough when a prick in an econobox cuts you off, but there's a reason people who drive much larger vehicles are supposed to be held to higher standards.
Note, I have no idea how the Google bus drivers behave, I live on the other coast.
It's a question inviting people to contradict my theory that it's the labor unions. You even quoted me posing the question.
lol ok. I'll concede that point then, and leave while pointing out that you are really bad at making your questions not sound like rhetorical questions lol.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The problem is that buying is not an option for many people, because the money that they would otherwise be putting toward paying off a house (or that 20% of a house they have to put down up front before they can pay the rest off over time) is instead spent paying off their landlord's mortgage for them.
I'm 31, make a bit above the national median household income since about two years ago, and live in a moderately expensive area (not the Bay, but not Bumfuck Idaho either; average home price here is about $350k), and homeownership is a distant long-term life goal for me, which is so strenuously nigh-impossible that it's just about displaced everything else I ever dreamt I might want to do with my life. I've just barely managed to buy the smallest cheapest mobile home I could buy last year, but that still has me paying space rent about equal to the rent on a room I'd been paying my whole life since, and it's looking like another 5 years of saving at least before I can afford to put a down payment on a real house and FINALLY have my housing expenses go toward buying something of my own instead of borrowing something of someone else's. (Then another 30 years of working my ass off to pay those bills and I can finally afford to spend time doing something meaningful with my life in last five years of it, provided I have any energy or sanity left by then to do the shit I wanted to spend my life doing when I was 20).
The only reason gentrification is a problem at all is, for one part, the property taxes issue, which Prop 13 has fixed; and for the second part, the can't-get-out-of-renting issue, which is the real problem, and a major manifestation of the real underlying cause of all the excesses of capitalism. Rent of any form is inherently parasitic and market-distorting and needs to be eliminated entirely if we ever want people to be free from serfdom. Just because we live on one lord's land while working another's now does make it any less feudal than when we live and worked the same lots.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
High speed rail is a separate boondoggle which won't pay for itself, and costs billions that could/would instead be spent upgrading Caltrain and Bart and other more useful rail. Caltrain improvement projects have mostly been put on hold or scrapped because of the HSR stuff.
And yes, people in Palo Alto, Mountain View and much of the rest of Silicon Valley don't like the HSR because they propose to cut the cities in half with huge earthen berms (a big wall, literally) without helping to solve any of the areas transit needs. So, yea, that will piss the people living there off.
It's an open secret that major media have a soft spot for hard-right politics. On Thanksgiving eve, the Gannett-owned Asheville Citizen-Times included a 48-page pullout of Republican Party propaganda disguised as news. So many people complained about the pullout that even the Asheville TV news station : Business News India Online Indian News
If you think that's bad, just wait til their wish comes true and those companies actually leave.
Remember Detroit? Yeah well they were kind of hostile against the auto companies (mainly in the form of unions and legislation pricing themselves out of the market,) and then people wonder why Detroit is in the mess it is in now.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Maybe some analogue to these guys?
As for the article, my response:
His two hour commute - Well duh it can be considered research! If he's 'driving' a prototype self driving car you need it to be able to handle all sorts of situations, including rush hour traffic. Given that accidents are still a low order event(most people make it through without an accident each day), you need a LOT of hours in the vehicle to get statistically valid results. Plus, as a developer he can use the time to muse on optimization schemes, notice anything out of spec, etc...
Association with the military- Google bought a military research company. They don't even consider that maybe Google was after the research to reuse it for civilian purposes. Technology that can deliver a missile to a target can be used to help navigate a drone, whether it's a spyplane or cargo craft.
77 unit apartment building - 'cyber-capitalist utopia'? What the hell is this supposed to mean? Searching around I found this description of the buildings. Seems to have some neat sustainability ideas.
The Nautilus Group is composed of designers and builders who have created military installations, malls, and hospitals. Levandowski is now making his contribution to the further sterilization and gentrification of Downtown Berkeley and Shattuck Avenue.
So they're professionals. So frigging what? The military needs buildings as well, and generally speaking has the same demands as any other business - outside of very specific buildings(such as munitions dumps), their warehouses, offices, and housing are no different than civilian versions.
"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety."
...So doing something about our resource usage/despoiling the planet is 'pretending'? Students and 'young professionals' who are poor enough to work on a rooftop vegetable garden are the 'ruling class'? I'm not going to say that there will be poor people living in these apartments, but they probably won't be .1%ers in the states either.
He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest.
Oh my god, if he's not paying attention to the baby he's a robot!!! Never mind the physical sensations providing constant feedback about the kid's status.
There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine nor will his children.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, not much gold in electronics today, it's too expensive.
In short, sounds like the protestors are a group of delusional, self absorbed luddites.
I don't read AC A human right
And watch it not trickle down. Is starting to unravel. Before the revenge is over it will be biblical.
No to mention that not only to those people not get bus ride, free food, or (are you kidding me) nap pods, but they also probably get paid a small fraction to do a job that is likely a lot less rewarding and more physically demanding (and many times more than 60h).
Soft and spoiled isn't the word I would use. Privileged entitled asshole is I think more descriptive.
Maybe it is this kind of attitude that gets people all protesty...
You make some good points about the historical subsidization of automobiles via the road infrastructure. People should really internalize this basic truth -- that government spending always subsidizes something at the expense of something else, and therefore reinforces some behaviors at the expense of some other behaviors.
The rest of your post is stupid.
I worked at Microsoft in Seattle for a while. MS had a policy of giving free bus passes to any employee. I took the bus on many occasions, especially if my car was broken.
Taking the bus took longer than driving. That's when everything worked perfectly. The bus route I needed came past my house once per hour. If I missed the bus (my fault), I was losing an hour of work day.
I also needed to take a transfer to actually get the rest of the way to work. The transfer overlap in the schedule was close, it was different on different days/times of the year, and if the bus came past my house too late, I missed my transfer, and I sat at a bus stop for 30-60 minutes. More wasted time.
Getting home in the evening was even worse. Sometimes the busses just didn't show up at all. More wasted time -- both mine and the people who I needed to work with to get alternate arrangements to get me home. And wasted time for the people who needed me to leave by a particular time to get where I was going by a particular time.
I gave up on the Metro King County bus system because it wasn't ON TIME and it wasn't RELIABLE. I had better options, so I used them.
People of Google caliber need transportation that is ON TIME and RELIABLE. Their time is worth a lot of money, to Google and to the larger economy. Not to mention themselves.
I've always assumed that people put up with bad transit because they are stupid or because they cannot afford better options. People who put up with bad transit for some weird notion of "public good" or "higher purpose" baffle me. I hope nobody actually does that.
You're given a very short time on this planet to do all of the good things you can possibly do for yourself, your friends, your family, and society.
Wasting time dealing with inefficient transit isn't a good use of your life.
Google caliber people realize that. Certainly, the people behind the Google bus program realize that.
Finally, there are some other positive impacts that come from having a private commuter service. In addition to being more time efficient for google and google employees, employees on a private bus can get more work done better because
- wifi
- they can collaborate with other employees on the bus
- they can assume some level of company privacy
- they -- critically -- are not dealing with shitheads.
Another problem with subsidized public transit isn't the elite looking down on the regular, as you posit, but the shitheads that ruin public transit for regular and elite alike.
I have a _very_ low opinion of people who think they have a God-given right to harass me. If at all possible, I don't use public transit in American cities unless I'm carrying a gun.
"Regular" people aren't and have never been a problem for nerds. Obnoxious people are a problem for everybody, and the "elite" have options to avoid them. They'd be foolish to not take advantage of those options.
Busses will never be as efficient as cars for getting a _specific_ person from A to B, unless you add significant time costs for retrieving/storing the car at A, B, or both. Busses that share the road network with cars will always lose to cars, ignoring parking time costs. Efficient mass transit is disjoint from road networks (e.g. subways)
However, if you can optimize your bus route to closely match the employees you want to move, and you can make the bus experience as productive as possible for them, the productive time they gain back using the bus can offset the time delta they lose vs. a car. (And again, storing/retrieving a car in the bay area is a real consideration)
I've ridden
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
So when the refrigerator was invented, the ice box manufactures union should have lobbied government to create laws making these "electric" refrigerators illegal, protecting the millions of jobs in the whole chain of ice delivery and ice box construction industry, as it is their god given right to sell ice to ice boxes.
You sound like the damn RIAA and MPAA.
I mean really, doesn't Google already own a hollowed out volcano for this sort of thing. If not, what are doing?
Also for protecting their water shuttle from protesters, let me suggest sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads...
Do no Evil indeed!
Seems the solution is Google builds "dense urban housing" on their campus a la Foxconn. They save the money for the shuttles, their fuel, and the shuttle drivers and return it to the shareholders - and the rest of San Francisco doesn't have to worry about upward pressure on rents, the blasting of their neighborhoods with "dense urban housing", or the Congo.
Handy double-edged sword, that "shareholder value".
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Let me make it simple for your simple mind. How would self driving cars affect unionized people who get paid to drive cars?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Public transit in SF just plain sucks.
It sucks because the public puts up with it sucking.
When someone tries to get employees to and from work efficiently with their own busses, their employees get harassed by SF "activists" (code for people on various form of mental/physical disability who are more often than not merely junkies, who choose not to work).
That's all, nothing new about SF to see here, unless you've a great deal vested in deluding yourself.
Google we have plenty of low cost housing and tech workers here.
Increased property taxes would force Google employees to pay their fair share and shut the protesters up.
Presumably they already are. The magic of percentages is that if the value of something goes up, you make more money. You don't have to raise the tax rate as well. I'm sure the assessor is valuing the properties higher and as a result, they are collecting more tax.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
So do you think that the engineer is above blame, that he isn't part of the problem, or is he simply more entitled to the benefit of the arrangement? I read the protest against Google and Facebook to mean more than just resentment that they are naking it harder for people of ordinary means to live in the Bay Area. I think it is due to the realization that these same ordinary people get whenever they use a computer that these companies are not returning something of value that compensates the impact that there employees have on everybody else. There has been a sea change. People are beginning to doubt the universal good of tech, and so they don't put up with the downside as much as they have. The downside is nothing new. The housing market has been insane in the bay Area since at least 1972. It is the fact that Silicon Valley is no longer seen as opportunity, that is is run by an increasingly closed elite, and that it hasn't realized its promise of benefit to all. In fact the conduct of Google and Facebook has shown everybody, tech or not, that there is a downside, That these companies are business as usual in the sense of malfeisance and greed that typifies more traditional industries, that hiring lots of smart people does not mean a better service. Indeed, in the case of these two companies, it indicates an advesarial relationship to the public at large. So every bit of manipulation, of spying, or effort to deceive that happens undermines the vaunted status of tech, of computer scientists, or software engineers. Ordinary people are less inclined to give tech workers the benefit of the doubt and put up with the downside.
Sorry, pal. The voting with your wallet is not as effective as harassing people you disagree with. Every business man who thinks he has it made gives that argument. Do away with the vote and with the referendum and the demonstration and let the market decide. The market is rigged and your PR can drown out the dissent, especially if you've bought the media. So I would not fall for your ruse. I'd rather leave open the possibility of a riot than let you shut up people you disagree with.
Man, can I tell that you are ignorant of history, or an elitist. Elitists always think they can get away with something, but real world events have a way of proving them wrong. You may think that the police and rule of law protects you from the wrath of a mob, just like the French Nobility thought themselves immune for the mob in 1791. Even the Great Unwashed deserves deference from you. You haven't been following events in the rest of the world, have you, and you suffer the illusion that it can't happen here. Peace in this nation is due to some realities that you might be helping to upset, but then again, most people, especially some of the smartest. become victim to unintended consequences.
Not welcome? Bail outta there! Plenty of better places to locate. Don't move to Maryland though. It's a Democratic machine and they'll ride you into the ground with taxes and other BS.
Greetings cool-guy bullies who used to make fun of all the kids into computers and math!!! All your apartment are belong to us!!! :-p :-p :-p
Yes drag me into a semantic argument based on my word choices...
Would you prefer mind breaking? The point is, those perks are subsidized services for employees so they can lure you in, work you numb, then discard you in a few years for the next set of naive drones.
If working a 100 hour week makes you feel entitled to create, "son you don't know what real work is" posts, great, but I'm not impressed. I do have perspective, I have worked hard manual labor jobs...which is why I have a Masters in CS so I can sit in a cozy office and read posts complaining about exclusive employee perk systems...
You act like having an office job is a privilege, any idiot can slide into a cubicle these days, if you're stuck hanging dry wall that's your life choices that led you there and I could really give a damn.
Rising real estate prices are good for every homeowner -- even these who don't realize it.
I'd love it if the price of my house rose 1000%. If increased property taxes are a hardship for anyone, they can simply take out a reverse mortgage, and use a small fraction of their increased property value to pay the higher taxes. They will still be far ahead of the game, compared to a scenario where their property value remained flat.
If you think rising real estate prices are bad, conversely you should think falling real estate prices are good. Nope... we tried that in 2008; it was called the Great Recession.
Renters are a somewhat different story. People who can't afford to rent in chic and tony neighborhoods don't rent in chic and tony neighborhoods. What if the neighborhood around them is transformed into a chic and tony neighborhood while they're living there? They might have to move to a neighborhood that's not chic and tony. Other than the inconvenience of moving, they're no worse off than before. Nowhere is it written that renters who start out unable to afford chic and tony neighborhoods have a right to stay in their neighborhood after it becomes chic and tony -- especially because enforcing such a rule would prevent all neighborhoods, everywhere, from improving.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.