mtviewdave

The original Star Control was one of my favorite games. It came out when I was in college and my friends I spent many hours playing the Amiga version in our dorm room.

I happened to know a developer at Accolade who asked if I had any ideas for new ships in the sequel they were planning. I sent an email that seems to have inspired a couple of their ships. Here's a blog post I wrote up about it a few years ago:

https://daveschreiber.com/2016/03/17/my-small-role-in-star-c...

I would doubt the groundwater contamination at Moffett Field would migrate inland. Groundwater in Mountain View moves in the direction of the bay.

The groundwater contamination in Mountain View proper comes from the many companies that manufactured semiconductors and other electronics in the '50s through the '80s. Many of which did a poor job disposing of the chemicals they used in electronics manufacturing.

> on the east side of Lawrence Ave I think, before they moved to the west side of Lawrence.

541 Lakeside Drive, Sunnyvale, to be exact. That was the original location of the original Fry's. That location moved across Lawrence Expy. sometime in the fall of 1990.

The key card still works, as I would expect. The car isn't dependent upon network infrastructure; an optional convenience is dependent upon it. You can operate a Tesla fully without installing the Tesla app.

As a comparison, my last car was a BMW. For that car, I had key fobs. I always had to take one of these key fobs in order to unlock and use the car. So going out, I would have one key with which I could operate the car.

Now, because I always carry the key card in my wallet, and I always have my phone, I always have _two_ keys with me. This isn't worse than having only one key, even if one of the keys is failing today due to an internet outage.

Essentially, I'm experiencing the worst case scenario right now, which is that I'm exactly the same situation as when I had my BMW. It's annoying (and as an iOS dev, I Have Questions on how the app came to be architected such that a network outage erases the app's settings). But I'm not worse off

I just tried this with my Tesla. The app cannot connect over the internet to the car, but unlocking and starting the car still works, as does using the app to open the charge port and the front trunk.

The Tesla app uses both internet and bluetooth to connect to the car. I would expect that even with no internet connectivity, bluetooth-related functionality would continue to work, and at least today, that is the case.

EDIT: After seeing dawnerd's comment, I just re-opened the app (didn't kill it, it was in background), and now the entry for my car is gone, which means all the bluetooth functionality I mentioned above no longer works. That's one hell of a bug.

Touchless Networking: like Chat Roulette for business networking. It helps organizers of online events replicate the "mixer" portion of in-person events.

https://www.touchlessnetworking.com/

Here's a thought experiment. Let's say an employer is based out of downtown San Jose, and employs people on-site. Would it be reasonable for them to adjust salaries depending on what city an employee lived in? The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,291 in Mountain View, but $2,390 in Morgan Hill. If an employee moved from Mountain View to Morgan Hill, would the employer be justified in reducing the salary of the employee to adjust for the fact that the (on-site!) employee now lives in a lower cost-of-living area? (Let's assume that other CoL factors are not more expensive in Morgan Hill than Mountain View, which I feel is a safe assumption).

Would it be justified if the company was fully remote?

What about if the employee moved to Sunnyvale? The average rent is $3,016; a smaller difference, but still cheaper than Mountain View.

Here's a link to the original video (without the animated text overlay):

https://youtu.be/fkWrjrdT3Zg

SEEKING WORK | Mountain View, CA | Remote or On-Site

I'm Dave Schreiber. I'm a mobile software engineer, with over nine years of experience developing for iOS. Started with Objective-C but moved to Swift in 2015. I also have experience with Node, Express, Typescript, PostgreSQL, Heroku, and React. Currently freelancing to bootstrap a startup.

Prefer part-time (20-30 hours/week), but am open to full-time.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mtviewdave/

Startup Website: https://www.nextweekapp.com

Email: [email protected]

Thanks,

-Dave Schreiber

The very first Fry's was at 541 Lakeside Drive in Sunnyvale, on the east side of Lawrence Expy. Sometime around late 1990 that store moved to 1177 Kern Ave in Sunnyvale, and then by the late '90s moved again to the current location at 1077 E. Arques.

The second store to open was in Fremont (though not at the Fremont store's current location), and the third was the Palo Alto (at the current location).

Source: I worked some summer jobs at the Lakeside Dr. store in the late '80s.

>...it emerged in SF...

It didn't emerge in SF. Quite the contrary, virtually all tech startups for most of the Bay Area's history were no farther north than Menlo Park, and often much farther south (Netflix was founded in Scotts Valley). That's why YC was headquartered in Mountain View until recently.

SF only became a startup hub within the last decade, IMHO in response to the desire of Millenials to live in urban environments.

Do you always look both ways before entering the street? I always try to do that, both because that's what I was taught to do as a child, and because it seems like the best way to ensure my safety when walking. The only times as a pedestrian when I've been nearly hit by a car is when I've failed to do that.

If you don't look both ways, why not?

>Have you ever been to the DMV?

Last time I was there (California DMV) it was to pick up a custom license plate. I made an appointment and was in and out in less than 5 minutes. I spent more time in the parking lot removing my old plates and installing the new ones.

>Social Security Administration?

Had to get my Social Security replaced a few years ago. Was in an out in a reasonable time (comparable to a doctor appointment)

>The Post Office

USPS works fine for me.

Also had no problems getting a business license from either the City of Mountain View, or San Francisco. The staff at Mountain View City Hall were also very helpful in verifying that local zoning permitted me to run my software consultancy out of my home (it does).

The thing is, there are actual parts of government that are terrible. Caltrans (aka California Department of Transportation) is quite incompetent. Apparently, if there's a big transportation project in California, often the first goal is to try to figure out how to get someone other than Caltrans to run it. When that fails, you get messes like the new Bay Bridge.

The VTA (who runs public transportation in Santa Clara County), also seems quite inept, with light rail lines that are little used and obviously dumb ideas like a BRT lane on El Camino Real.

It would be nice if people who are skeptical of government would direct their skepticism at the parts that are the most broken, rather than just pulling out Stereotypical Examples of Government Incompetence (DMV, Post Office) that actually work fairly well most of the time.