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I often wish local councils would fund places where you could just go to to hang around. My uni had a bunch of these places and it would just be an air conditio

I often wish local councils would fund places where you could just go to to hang around. My uni had a bunch of these places and it would just be an air conditioned room with lots of couches/chairs and a ping pong table. Often I'll be sitting at home thinking "I want to go out and do something but it's too hot and I don't want to go shopping/spend money" Maybe these services do exist and I just don't know about them. In that case I wish they were advertised better.

hug 7y ago
Libraries, maker spaces, men's sheds, and community gardens all fill some of the role you're talking about. Depending on your hobbies, there are other similar things: I have a membership to a local community motorcycle garage, where you can hang out and work on bikes. Or just hang out. I know you're probably not talking about bars, deliberately, but a lot of bars have pool tables and darts and you don't have to feel obliged to drink too much while there.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  >Libraries, maker spaces, men's sheds, and community gardens all fill some of the role you're talking about I see these around the city but unfortunately I'm living with my parents stuck in the suburbs and it seems like there is nothing around. All of the bars I have been too have been loud and packed, I feel that there is essentially 0% chance of meeting someone there. It has only been useful if going with a group and getting food/drinks so we can take one of the outdoor tables.
reaperducer 7y ago
I often wish local councils would fund places where you could just go to to hang around. When I lived in Seattle, the State of Washington had a set up for just this sort of thing at the convention center. If you needed someplace to go and bang on your laptop, it offered free space with free electricity and WiFi. Instead of being a formal co-working space, it was just large chairs with built-in desks, like we used to have in elementary school. Except that they were comfortable, wired with electrical outlets, and scattered around a nice hallway with good views of the city. Very inviting, but almost nobody used them in part because they weren't promoted — you just had to stumble upon them. And also because at the time, they weren't necessary. Finding tech office space was as easy as striking up a conversation in a coffee shop. I landed a squishy office on the 30th floor of a downtown skyscraper with views of Puget Sound for free just because the startup guy I bumped into at Tully's liked the sound of what I was working on. Alas, with the arrival of VC money into the tech sphere, the days of bootstrapped cooperative entrepreneurship appear to be gone. I wish someone would write a book about that era of tech. It was really something.

hug 7y ago

Libraries, maker spaces, men's sheds, and community gardens all fill some of the role you're talking about. Depending on your hobbies, there are other similar things: I have a membership to a local community motorcycle garage, where you can hang out and work on bikes. Or just hang out. I know you're probably not talking about bars, deliberately, but a lot of bars have pool tables and darts and you don't have to feel obliged to drink too much while there.

jdnenej 7y ago
>Libraries, maker spaces, men's sheds, and community gardens all fill some of the role you're talking about I see these around the city but unfortunately I'm living with my parents stuck in the suburbs and it seems like there is nothing around. All of the bars I have been too have been loud and packed, I feel that there is essentially 0% chance of meeting someone there. It has only been useful if going with a group and getting food/drinks so we can take one of the outdoor tables.

reaperducer 7y ago

I often wish local councils would fund places where you could just go to to hang around. When I lived in Seattle, the State of Washington had a set up for just this sort of thing at the convention center. If you needed someplace to go and bang on your laptop, it offered free space with free electricity and WiFi. Instead of being a formal co-working space, it was just large chairs with built-in desks, like we used to have in elementary school. Except that they were comfortable, wired with electrical outlets, and scattered around a nice hallway with good views of the city. Very inviting, but almost nobody used them in part because they weren't promoted — you just had to stumble upon them. And also because at the time, they weren't necessary. Finding tech office space was as easy as striking up a conversation in a coffee shop. I landed a squishy office on the 30th floor of a downtown skyscraper with views of Puget Sound for free just because the startup guy I bumped into at Tully's liked the sound of what I was working on. Alas, with the arrival of VC money into the tech sphere, the days of bootstrapped cooperative entrepreneurship appear to be gone. I wish someone would write a book about that era of tech. It was really something.