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Tech Founder Complains About the Shithole City He's Forced to Make His Millions In

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

San Francisco! It's the worst. The weather, the people, the cyclists, the dreary architecture and glum landscape… just ugh—why would any sane person want to live in this urine-scented homeless wasteland? Without the skrillions of available venture funding dollars and generous tech tax breaks, it's obvious San Franawful would drift off into an ocean of irrelevance.

At least, that's the opinion of Peter Shih, co-founder of an assuredly ground-breaking credit card-processing start-up who was forced to move to San Francisco by his cruel funders at Y-Combinator.  Peter took to Medium—the thought platform that's currently the darling hood ornament of the tech community—to air his thoughts on his adopted hometown.  Cleverly titled “10 Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition”—which I won't link to on principle—he breaks down SF's problems in a conveniently digestible listicle.

Let's take a look at his better points:

1. Public Transportation

If you don’t agree with me that the SF MUNI is a pathetic excuse for a public transportation system, then I suggest you visit either of the following cities at your convenience and then proceed to get your head out of your ass: New York City, London, Paris, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, and… actually you know what? Just goto any real city…

San Francisco should be lucky to have Peter.  Peter is bringing the credit card industry to its knees.  Peter is going to change the fucking world.  How dare San Francisco consider itself a real city when its public transportation service isn't exactly what Peter expects.  If Peter lived in a real city, Peter wouldn't need to call an Uber to get where he needs to go.  San Francisco is making Peter use Uber.  How dare San Francisco?

3. Weather

I hate how the weather here is like a woman who is constantly PMSing. I hate how I can’t tell the difference between August and February. I hate how I have to turn on the heater in the middle of summer. I hate having to always carry a jacket because of the 20 degree swings between day and night.

Nature, who the fuck do you think you are?  Peter understands that you're Mother Nature, but you're at least 6,000-years-old according to Rick Perry.  Can't you go through menopause already? Peter needs it to be at least 10 degrees warmer outside so Peter can leave his tech-branded hoodie at home.  Peter is about to unfollow @karlthefog on Twitter.

5. 49ers

No, not the football team, they’re great. I’m referring to all the girls who are obviously 4's and behave like they are 9's. Just because San Francisco has the worst Female to Male ratio in the known universe doesn’t give you the right to be a bitch all the time.

Peter is special.  Peter was accepted into Y-Combinator. Can you imagine some dumb shit woman possibly thinking they are slightly-less-than-perfect around Peter?  Peter is a God.  They should make statues of Peter.  You are a woman in a club.  You are just a 4 compared to Peter.

6. Homeless People

San Francisco has some of the craziest homeless people I have ever seen in my life. Stop giving them money, you know they just buy alcohol and drugs with it right? Next time just hand them a handle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes, it’ll save everyone some trouble. I’m seriously tempted to start fucking with people and pay for homeless guys to ride the Powell street cable cars in the middle of the day, that ought to get the city’s attention.

Peter has been crushing it lately.  Peter's start-up is seeing exponential growth.  Peter is raising money.  Peter is raising hell. Peter is about to hire a growth hacker.  Peter is king.

But San Francisco is bringing Peter down.  San Francisco is allowing mentally ill, drug-addicted homeless people abandoned by society to be in the same 49 square miles as Peter.  Peter does not approve.  Peter just wants to make apps for other Peters, call out some women for being bitches, and put the world's issues out of Peter's mind.  But Peter is a visionary.  Peter is an innovator.  Peter is going to disrupt the city's blindness to Peter's problem with homeless people by paying the homeless to hang out with tourists.  Peter will solve homelessness for Peter.

8. Nightlife (or lack thereof)

Nowadays I don’t even want to go out because getting kicked out of a bar/club at 2AM, which usually is the peak of the night, is just depressing. Pair that shit sandwich with public transit being non-existent past midnight and the Transvestite to Taxi ratio being quite literally off the charts – it is impossible to get home safely, especially if you live far from downtown.

Peter is a warrior.  Peter is not some 9-to-5, color-inside-the-lines corporate drone: Peter is a code-slaying rebel. Peter believes that if you work hard, you should get to play hard too.  Peter wants to shred code all day that disrupts the credit card market, drinking Red Bull and eating Swedish Fish at his desk until 10pm, then go to the club and scold all the 4s who think they're 9s for being bitches.  Can you imagine the gall of California State Law telling him to go home at 2am?

What a bunch of 4s.

10. Bicyclists

Stop being fucking hypocrites. If you want to share the road, then you need to respect the rules of the road and stop running stop signs and lights. Next time I see one of you fuckers bomb through a crosswalk and almost mow down a row of pedestrians I’m going to clothesline you.

Peter drives like he codes: move fast and break things.  Like government regulations and general ethics, bicycles are just getting in the way of Peter's greatness.  Peter will fucking clothesline you.

Peter should go home.

UPDATE: Peter is backtracking.  Peter has deleted the most offensive parts of Peter's article and put up a desperate disclaimer stating it was intended to be satire.  Here is the original post.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

World Class Google Glass Hater Opens Up

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

“Ollie,” the local hero who takes to Craigslist to shame breastfeeding Google Glass owners about doing “bad, dumb things,” opened up to SFist in a wide-ranging interview about his thoughts on SF, tech gentrification, the San Bruno Mountains, and, of course, Google Glass:

SFist: Why have you taken to Craigslist to voice your displeasure about all this? What does that platform afford you? It's a pretty old-school approach.

Ollie: I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about any of that. It's a place you can write things. It is a medium designed for anonymity, public access, and hyper-temporality. It is low-commitment, non-self-aggrandizing, and lends itself well to writing shit while throwed. All of these things are good.

SFist: What do you think of the current tech/gentrification conversation that's going on in S.F. right now? Where are we headed with that?

Ollie: At Valencia and 15th there's a complex opening up that costs $2000/head. Two fucking thousand dollars a head. Kitty-corner away at Mission and 16th you've got the city capitol for stabcrimes. The rate of violent crime in the Mission has only increased over the past six years—I think that's how long SFPD has put crime reports online—and that's when rents have really started to take off.

I don't have an answer. I'm a smart person, kind of, but I understand I lack the context and foresight to offer an answer of any actionable value. In a certain meaning of the word, though, I am content to say “here is a tower where wealthy-ass boring motherfuckers eat $50 pizzas and here is a corner where folks get stabbed, and this optical contrast is fucked up.” We should feel bad about this. There's a certain virulent strain of Aspiring Rich Person who treats this process as acceptable, or as some kind of necessary tradeoff for “development”—which has taken on a role in the vernacular as a widely misused bullshit-word for when you need to run coverage on some real heinous shit—and that's some borderline sociopathy.

SFist: What do you love and hate about this city?

Ollie: I love the important things. Dore Alley was a couple weeks ago. I was biking through the Mission and I saw a guy walking his kid on a leash. The guy's shirt said “WHORE FUCKER.” Three blocks away I threw a thumbs-up at a guy casually stroking off in a crosswalk.

Read on.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Babysitting Startup Advertises Outside of Local Sex Shop

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Excuse the grainy picture, but right there is a Mini Cooper parked outside of Good Vibes Dong Shop, slathered in stickers reading “No Baby On Board” and propping an app that is effectively Task Rabbit for people you entrust not to throw your crying monster down the stairs.

Not sure if this is targeted advertising or pure coincidence, but I love it either way.

(Side note: has anyone else been noticing the drastic uptick in startups parking billboards in the Mission's bike racks, parking spots, and in front of fire hydrants? I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before the city looks to ban those too.)

Google Glass and Breastfeeding, Together At Last

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Look, we get it: trashing Google Glass is played out.  Ever since a glass-eyed Joe Shuttlebus strolled into Shotwell's, San Francisco came together and decided that emaciated nerds who motion like Cyclops to read text messages are the epitome of Valley hubris.  We had our laughs, scoffed at the price point, quickly conceded we'd like to try them on someday, and started to move on.

Then someone had to do this:

Yeeeee-ikes.  Someone would eat at West of Pecos and still feel responsible breastfeeding their baby while that sludge is passing through their body?

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Alt Mapping Project Produces Bold New Map of Dolores Park Neighborhoods

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I'm not completely sure what this OpenStreetMap thing is all about—I think it's Google Maps for people who hate cops—but their coverage of Dolores Park is packed full of convenient and not totally bullshit names for the park's various ethnic neighborhoods. (Compare this to Apple Maps, which merely highlights where various drug dealers can be found pushing their products onto bored teens.)

Many of the names have been around for a while and slipped into the general Mission lexicon (Hipster Hill, Gay Beach).  And while some old favorites are missing from the list (namely, Tallboy Terrace), there are some startling additions: Atomic Family Land, South of Statue, Appville, and Little Tenderloin.

Of course, “Little Tenderloin” seems the most bizarre and confusing (are there people selling drugs? bed bugs? public pooping? art galleries? Twitter employees??), but who am I to question technology.

[via Tom Coates]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

The Modern San Franciscan

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

The “Most San Francisco Photo Ever Taken” that was passed around a few weeks ago was certainly good—featuring a glasshole with Silicon Valley hubris eating his face like a vampire squid and two human unicorn/discoballs trotting past in the background.  However, this specimen documented by Olu Johnson might be one better: not only is this photo not questionably staged for explicit internet consumption, the subject appears prepared to ask Siri the very question that is on his shirt (if only he were able).

Was it warm enough for this modern San Franciscan to shed his hoodie? Only Siri knows.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Google Giving Dolores Park Free Wifi

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

In an effort to help “bridge the digital divide” and make it easier to check the Yelp reviews of local drug dealers, Google is sponsoring the installation of free wifi in 31 city parks, including the notorious cell phone dead zone of Dolores Park.  SFGate reports:

Supervisor Mark Farrell and Google will announce a plan Wednesday to bring public wireless Internet access, on the technology company's dime, to parks, recreation centers and plazas across San Francisco. The $600,000 gift from Google will cover the costs of the equipment, installation and maintenance of wireless capabilities for two years.

It will allow residents to work from Mission Dolores Park, let visitors download information to their mobile devices in Civic Center Plaza and make it easier for parents to sign their children up for recreation programs at centers from the Excelsior district to Bernal Heights, Chinatown, the Marina and the Sunset District.

Well, I guess that just killed off the market for Dolo?

[SFGate | Photo by Denise Collier]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Pop-up BART Arcade Proves Past Better Than Future

— By Eric Gregory (@mrericsir) |

 

Back in 1976 when it was but a wee little tike, BART did what many four year olds do: it started playing video games.  Over at the Chron's The Big Event blog, Peter Hartlaub dug up some photos of old local arcades, including this one on the BART platform at Powell Station.  That's right: an arcade!  On the BART platform!

Installed by Atari, the cabinet contained six arcade games.  Atari and BART split the quarters as part of a revenue sharing arrangement.

 

 

The Golden Age Arcade Historian blog has more details on the BART arcade, including the above photo scrounged from an old Atari magazine.  According to the caption, this cabinet is the “Atari Theatre Kiosk.”  The upper part of the cabinet contained a slide projector which, of course, displayed ads.

This seems to prove that the past was better than the future, or at least more futuristic.  Why don't we still have this?  As Hartlaub points out, “Hipsters + Pong = $$$.”  And it's not like BART couldn't use the money.

While smartphones make it easy to play games while waiting for your train, the social aspect of an arcade right on the platform has been lost.  Sure, the original Atari company is long gone but there's plenty of other local game developers that could use such an opportunity to show off their wares and entertain commuters at the same time.

Incidentally I could find no information as to why this was removed.  If anyone has more details on this arcade, share away in the comments.

(Photos: SF Chron and Atari Coin Connection via Golden Age Arcade Historian)

Visionary Yelp Map Reveals the Mission is a 'Hipster' Hood

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Yelp's Visionary 'Hipster Heatmap'

Yelp, the once proud restaurant review site, has turned to mining the mounds of data they've accumulated over the years for popular keywords like “PBR,” “bacon,” and “sketchy.” Aggregating the wisdom of their semi-literate foodie users, they've produced some handy maps showing just where to go in the city for all your sketchy cocktail consumption.

The biggest shock of all, of course, is that the Mission is a hipster neighborhood.  Who knew???  Yelp knew, that's who.

Interestingly enough, the “yuppie” map overlaps quite nicely:

[Thanks, Olivia!]

The NEW New App for Finding Your Friends at Dolores Park

— By Eric Gregory (@mrericsir) |

Dolo app

Dolo's map

Does this ever happen to you: You're supposed to meet your friends at Dolores Park, but once you get there the place is so crowded you have to walk all over the place to find them?  Of course it does.  I mean, you are reading Uptown Almanac.

Now you could simply text your friend, or use one of the many “find my friends” apps that already exist.  You could even use Dolo, the web app that helps you locate your friends in Dolores Park. Yeah, you could go any of those routes.  But let's not be stupid — what you really need is an iPhone app that's not only new, but features adorable cat graphics.

Thanks to Y-Combinator funding iHateMondays.com, Garfield bought a luxury condo on Valencia.

Thankfully, as of today we have a solution: TechCrunch brings word of a new iOS app named Dolo.  Like the unrelated web app of the same name, Dolo lets you “check in” to an arbitrary location within Dolores Park, placing a marker at your location that your Facebook friends can see.  The app is brought to you for free by a team of locally-sourced software artisans who frequent Dolores Park.

Perhaps the existence of Dolo is yet another sign that Dolores Park has become a victim of its own success.  Although if you were at Dolores Park last weekend, you didn't need an app to tell you that.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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