Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

I have a feeling my own "Why I Chose New Hampshire" would not have the same traction on HN, though it would bear some similarity to this post. Maybe I should write it anyway.

I live in an 1840's house that I love. I walk seven minutes to main street (and work) every day. I live a mere hour from the mountains, the ocean, boston, minutes from country. I don't have any wants, I just like programming and reading and making things. I live a simple life, I like to think.

Yet I get an email from a recruiter once a week (or a little less often, some more personal invitation) who are thrilled to talk to me until the point that they find that I have no intention of leaving New Hampshire.

Willingness to uproot one's entire life and move (to Silicon Valley), it seems, is a foregone conclusion to them and I never cease to astonish my correspondents by not wanting to go there.

I don't begrudge them. But I don't understand why in the grand game of chess I would exchange 23 years of life for a single job.

(At last one correspondent signed, "let me know if you ever decide to head west, young man :-)")

I got the same astonishment from my friends when I told them I was leaving NYC. "Why would you leave New York?" "Is there anything in Wisconsin?" One even told me if I wasn't happy in NYC, I should seek therapy, because there was clearly something wrong with me.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." --Samuel Johnson

That's hilarious, its exactly the attitude in NYC.

"The truly educated man can never be bored" Arthur C. Clark, long before social media was invented.

and douglas adams's beautiful take-off on the quote:

Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe.

Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words "When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life", the suicide rate quadrupled overnight.

(from "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe")

I'm from Wisconsin and I don't think there's much there. But perhaps that's exactly why you went?

I think it is. The trees are exactly the right height. I'm kidding :) There is a lot here, just not people, which is why I came. I wanted more trees, more rivers to canoe, more lakes to relax by. You can find that in upstate NY, too, but I already had family and friends back here, so upstate was out.

"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding." - John Updike

Strangely, New York and Silicon Valley are the two places that I've always eliminated when I considered moving. I, too, graduated from utexas, and then stayed in Austin for about 20 years. I never wanted to take the cut in my standard of living that either SV or NY would mean. A few years back, I did move, even further from civilization.

Back in 1994, I bought a three-bedroom townhouse for $45,000; during the dot-com boom, I realized that moving to Cali would mean living in a refrigerator box with six other people. These days, I'm paying (half of) a $1600/month mortgage on a house on 1.5 acres on the shore of the Tennessee river.

Austin is a great place to live. Great food, the best music, a very low cost of living and a thriving tech scene. Since the city is home to one of the best CS programs in the country (UT Austin) you have a plethora of fresh engineering talent for the picking.

It continually surprises me how many folks make it out to Austin for SXSW each year, and yet still go back to California. As a native Texan and Mexican food addict, I found the lack of great food options in Norcal lacking. :)

(disclaimer: I actually live in Dallas, which is a nice city, just not as nice as Austin)

Not much to say. Just really like your "grand game of chess" anology. Too many people overlook what they're giving up to get something. Especially time, or tranquility.

So how do you have a programming job in New Hampshire? This description is how I feel about Western Massachusetts.

Anywhere particular in NH? I seem to see a distinction between purely software-based startups (based in the Bay Area or NYC) and more hardware-based companies based in Mass (Boston) (MIT spinoffs, boston dynamics, iRobot) or New Hampshire (DEKA, Segway...) ... I wonder why?

To be fair - most of the bay area is very similar to New England, just a lot more expensive, with better weather.

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