Any Hackers in Middle America?
niels_olson: Ignoring the first 14 years of life, I've lived in1) Kansas City for high school2) Annapolis for college3) Rhode Island for six months4) San Diego for four years5) Annapolis for two and a half years6) New Orleans for 5 weeks to start medical school7a) Lived with my parents for one year in College Station, Texas after Katrina7b) Attended classes in Houston for that year8) Back to New Orleans with trips to San Antonio, Houston, College Station, Washington, DC, Norfolk, Virginia, and New Haven, Connecticut.If I were going to move to one of those places for the purpose of starting a start up, first, I wouldn't. Second, I'd prioritize the list like so1) College Station (couldn't study for all the people talking about setting up this or that, whether they had set up their S corp, when the fiber would be laid down, etc). These people are definitely still engineers.2) San Diego3) Washington, DC, including Annapolis (home of Wonkette)4) New Haven (mainly due to proximity to both Boston and NY)5) Norfolk, VA (lots of military contracts)6) San Antonio7) Rhode Island8) Houston9) Kansas City10) New OrleansWhy is New Orleans last? I mean, I'm here, and clearly I've learned more about programming and system admin here than anywhere. I can't believe I'm saying it, but there really is an element of old world culture down here that I will miss when I leave. And it's sort of a city within a city: you meet the people you know all over the place. And really, I've learned more from the programmers I've met here than from anyone (except my brother, who lives in San Antonio). But there are two overwhelming factors working against ever trying to do a start up here: 1) Who would ever put a server in New Orleans? 2) Tulane dismissed their entire engineering college after the storm. No hacker I know is here because it's a good place for hacking. In some ways, it awesome. But there's virtually no one here. I think I've identified all the XOs in the city, and it adds up to about 6 (it was 5 until someone in Texas mailed me a spare).Why would I rank Houston below San Antonio? Houston is much larger, 4th largest city in the US. Surely there is a greater absolute number of hackers in Houston. But having lived in Houston, you would be hard-pressed to get me to move back. It's so huge and spread out and the public transit system is so non-existent that you end up spending your life in a car. And I get the sense that most people would rather live in Austin or, if they want to stay close to the engineering, they go to College Station.