5 ms·

Imagine if the massive empty complexes along the 101 in Silicon Valley gets repurposed to be hacker spaces and dorms, imagine if RadioShack and Fry's makes a co

Imagine if the massive empty complexes along the 101 in Silicon Valley gets repurposed to be hacker spaces and dorms, imagine if RadioShack and Fry's makes a comeback and returns to their roots of supplying bare parts, imagine if 3D printers become affordable and everywhere, imagine if crowd funding sites can wire funds within a day, imagine if the distribution channels can also mail out products the next day. Imagine the number of cycles microevolution that can be achieved throughout a single year.

i386 14y ago
> Imagine if the massive empty complexes along the 101 in Silicon Valley gets repurposed to be hacker spaces and dorms I sympathise with your intent but that sounds like a sweatshop to me.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  I kind of agree. However if you put up an advert here saying " three years in a dorm in SF - running your own Shanzen style mini fab company, no time wasters". You will get hundreds of genuine people willing to do the sweatshop thing.
- alaskamiller 14y ago
  Those poor college aged kids and their sweaty dorms enjoying the benefits of youth, low overhead, access to information, and sharing knowledge.
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    Slaves, really.
    - msutherl 14y ago
      And what of working retail, or in a factory?
- derleth 14y ago
  > that sounds like a sweatshop to me. No, for one fundamental reason: The people in real sweatshops don't have any other realistic option. The people in the proposed complexes along the 101 would have the ability to say "screw this" and go do something else. I once had the idea that wealth really means having options. I don't know if that's universally true, but it certainly applies here. Silicon Valley is fundamentally wealthier than the areas where sweatshops which are sweatshops spring up.
muyuu 14y ago
Silicon Valley rent prices and living costs make it impossible to ever be competitive with China in EE manufacturing. But not only China, also Taiwan, Korea, Japan and even parts of Europe and the rest of the US. Nothing wrong with it though. This only sustains because there are more profitable industries there now.
- alaskamiller 14y ago
  Bigger problem is that Americans don't understand high density living. That's going to take a few generations.
  - nnq 14y ago
    The one thing I loved when first coming to the US was how spread out and spacious everything was (compared to most European cities), bar NYC. It's amazing how you Americans strive to change exactly the things that foreigners absolutely love about your country... for me "high density living" is a mind wrecking nightmare that only those with the "hypesocial city rat" personality type can enjoy...
    - muyuu 14y ago
      Depleting oil reserves are quickly forcing this change. I'd take "medium" density any day though. Enough density so people don't need to move miles daily, not enough density so people can't afford some healthy living space. NYC and SanFran are way over the top.
      - nnq 14y ago
        Agree, probably your "american style medium density" is what I would consider "low-ish density", healthy and pleasant too... ...but using the "depleting oil reserves" and other eco arguments to make people leave in what I see as much lower quality conditions is inhumane and cruel in my pov - just build good quality public transportation, make it electrical (even trains are efficient) and go all nuclear to power it all, putting up with all the eco-consequences of it ...or maybe Elon Musk's Hyperloop will redeem everything :)
pm90 14y ago
One of the biggest shocks for me when I came to the US for the first time was to see what Radio Shack had turned into. Especially because it is often cited as one of the reasons for technological progress in america (easy availability of electronics)
- alaskamiller 14y ago
  They pull $4B a year from over 7,000 locations around the world, it's hard to turn a ship that size. Especially when mobile phone subsidies is becoming a big part of their income stream. That's like crack to them now, hard to turn away from that. But if this DIY/3DP movement is going mainstream in the coming generation then they need to make a big move. Imagine if Radio Shack makes a comeback consolidating the parts market by buying up the likes of Sparkfun, Quirky, and IndieGogo while partnering with Digikey for retail distribution. Then imagine they developing mobile apps that can quickly identify and give contextual information to individual parts so the average consumer hobbyist can be empowered to chase their dreams. I would bet on that instead because empowering others will always be a better purpose. Otherwise they're going down like Sharper Image or Best Buy because Amazon is here coming to eat their lunch.
- mapt 14y ago
  What is disgusting to me is that the Apple Stores, marked by extreme profit margins, and high turnover due to a scarcity of locations, have become a model copied by every chain retail store in the US, ten to a shopping mall. Big amounts of sleek empty space separate units to toy with, and ten employees wander around begging you to let them assist you. Cell phones are commodity items, not modular case+fans+CPU+GPU+PSU+motherboard+X+Y+Z purchases. You can (and some markets do) fit $100k of product into an 8'x8' stall and have plenty of space left over. Cell phone plans are perfectly centralized, and can be purchased online or over the phone. At the same time, online reviews are essentially the only reasonable place to seek unbiased advice, and are plentiful. This is a market demand that, while it may have reason to exist, could be filled by 10% of the current locations selling cell service & phones. Instead, T-Mobile needs a storefront, Verizon needs a storefront, Apple needs a storefront, and half a dozen adjacent electronics stores or electronic departments sell cell phones on the side, in every large strip mall or indoor shopping mall in America. In a functional market economy, profitability is minimized through competition; It's a waste that we tolerate in order to incentivize performance. By 2013, the cell phone companies & retail established have established de facto agreement that it's better for them to plow profits into essentially purchasing large quantities of well-manned empty space in every major electronics store in the nation, rather than lower prices or improve their infrastructure.

i386 14y ago

> Imagine if the massive empty complexes along the 101 in Silicon Valley gets repurposed to be hacker spaces and dorms I sympathise with your intent but that sounds like a sweatshop to me.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
I kind of agree. However if you put up an advert here saying " three years in a dorm in SF - running your own Shanzen style mini fab company, no time wasters". You will get hundreds of genuine people willing to do the sweatshop thing.
alaskamiller 14y ago
Those poor college aged kids and their sweaty dorms enjoying the benefits of youth, low overhead, access to information, and sharing knowledge.
- batgaijin 14y ago
  Slaves, really.
  - msutherl 14y ago
    And what of working retail, or in a factory?
derleth 14y ago
> that sounds like a sweatshop to me. No, for one fundamental reason: The people in real sweatshops don't have any other realistic option. The people in the proposed complexes along the 101 would have the ability to say "screw this" and go do something else. I once had the idea that wealth really means having options. I don't know if that's universally true, but it certainly applies here. Silicon Valley is fundamentally wealthier than the areas where sweatshops which are sweatshops spring up.

muyuu 14y ago

Silicon Valley rent prices and living costs make it impossible to ever be competitive with China in EE manufacturing. But not only China, also Taiwan, Korea, Japan and even parts of Europe and the rest of the US. Nothing wrong with it though. This only sustains because there are more profitable industries there now.

alaskamiller 14y ago
Bigger problem is that Americans don't understand high density living. That's going to take a few generations.
- nnq 14y ago
  The one thing I loved when first coming to the US was how spread out and spacious everything was (compared to most European cities), bar NYC. It's amazing how you Americans strive to change exactly the things that foreigners absolutely love about your country... for me "high density living" is a mind wrecking nightmare that only those with the "hypesocial city rat" personality type can enjoy...
  - muyuu 14y ago
    Depleting oil reserves are quickly forcing this change. I'd take "medium" density any day though. Enough density so people don't need to move miles daily, not enough density so people can't afford some healthy living space. NYC and SanFran are way over the top.
    - nnq 14y ago
      Agree, probably your "american style medium density" is what I would consider "low-ish density", healthy and pleasant too... ...but using the "depleting oil reserves" and other eco arguments to make people leave in what I see as much lower quality conditions is inhumane and cruel in my pov - just build good quality public transportation, make it electrical (even trains are efficient) and go all nuclear to power it all, putting up with all the eco-consequences of it ...or maybe Elon Musk's Hyperloop will redeem everything :)

pm90 14y ago

One of the biggest shocks for me when I came to the US for the first time was to see what Radio Shack had turned into. Especially because it is often cited as one of the reasons for technological progress in america (easy availability of electronics)

alaskamiller 14y ago
They pull $4B a year from over 7,000 locations around the world, it's hard to turn a ship that size. Especially when mobile phone subsidies is becoming a big part of their income stream. That's like crack to them now, hard to turn away from that. But if this DIY/3DP movement is going mainstream in the coming generation then they need to make a big move. Imagine if Radio Shack makes a comeback consolidating the parts market by buying up the likes of Sparkfun, Quirky, and IndieGogo while partnering with Digikey for retail distribution. Then imagine they developing mobile apps that can quickly identify and give contextual information to individual parts so the average consumer hobbyist can be empowered to chase their dreams. I would bet on that instead because empowering others will always be a better purpose. Otherwise they're going down like Sharper Image or Best Buy because Amazon is here coming to eat their lunch.
mapt 14y ago
What is disgusting to me is that the Apple Stores, marked by extreme profit margins, and high turnover due to a scarcity of locations, have become a model copied by every chain retail store in the US, ten to a shopping mall. Big amounts of sleek empty space separate units to toy with, and ten employees wander around begging you to let them assist you. Cell phones are commodity items, not modular case+fans+CPU+GPU+PSU+motherboard+X+Y+Z purchases. You can (and some markets do) fit $100k of product into an 8'x8' stall and have plenty of space left over. Cell phone plans are perfectly centralized, and can be purchased online or over the phone. At the same time, online reviews are essentially the only reasonable place to seek unbiased advice, and are plentiful. This is a market demand that, while it may have reason to exist, could be filled by 10% of the current locations selling cell service & phones. Instead, T-Mobile needs a storefront, Verizon needs a storefront, Apple needs a storefront, and half a dozen adjacent electronics stores or electronic departments sell cell phones on the side, in every large strip mall or indoor shopping mall in America. In a functional market economy, profitability is minimized through competition; It's a waste that we tolerate in order to incentivize performance. By 2013, the cell phone companies & retail established have established de facto agreement that it's better for them to plow profits into essentially purchasing large quantities of well-manned empty space in every major electronics store in the nation, rather than lower prices or improve their infrastructure.