Ask HN: I'm in SF for the weekend. What places can I tour that tout their tech? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I'm in SF for the weekend. What places can I tour that tout their tech?

60 pointsnojvek32 comments

Like tech museums, startup office tours e.t.c ?

Go to the Exploratorium, the California Academy of Sciences, The Marine Mammal Center, Muir Woods.

Learn about something that doesn't use GitHub. ;)

+1 to this, the Cal Academy of the Sciences has an awesome earthquake exhibit right now. Really gives a humbling sense of how insane those earthquakes in the past were.

If you have a car, or don't mind jumping on Caltrain for the ride down, you can go to Mountain View to the Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/

Book lots of time for this place if you go. I was there for two hours last time, and that wasn't enough to really see everything I wanted.

I was there for a day and when the museum was about to close I realized I hadn't properly experienced the half of it and came back the next day to spend another day there. Hands down the best museum I've ever seen.

Among the things there are original Google servers, Apollo computers, Apple I, Lisa and a hundred more things I can barely remember that make me want to visit it for another two days just to refresh my memory.

Also, if you don't mind traveling a bit further, there's the Moffett Field Museum (http://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/), Intel Museum (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/museum-visiti...), and a bit further south is the San Jose tech museum (http://www.thetech.org/).

If you have a car, it might also be worth going to Stanford's campus -- just take a walk anywhere.

+1 to this, the computer history museum is truly awesome.

Head down to the Fisherman's Wharf, there's an arcade with historic/ancient (some over 100 years old) machines. Admission is free, but you're highly encouraged to feed the machines with quarters and play with them; that's how that place gets its money.

I was in SF for two weeks, last month and the arcade was one of the memorable places. Also the Cable Car Museum isn't too far away. My recommendation: Visit the CCM first (they close at 17:00) and then walk down to Fisherman's Wharf and play in the historic arcade.

The Cable Car Museum was surprisingly interesting. I had relatively low expectations that were made lower by actually arriving, but they've got some amazing artifacts from their history, and seeing the cable drivers for the city's lines in the same place and considering what it does is really stunning.

+1 for the Cable Car "Museum"...

It's actually a working engine room and you can smell the grease in the air and see the cogs turning and pulling the cable.

Trust me, you don't want to walk FROM the wharf to the CCM. The hills in SF are no joke, especially on foot.

I checked in google maps... it's about a mile laterally and over 200ft vertically. Much better to be going DOWN hill.

> Trust me, you don't want to walk FROM the wharf to the CCM.

Hence why I suggested going to the CCM first.

> The hills in SF are no joke, especially on foot.

Speak for yourself. Yes, they are a bit annoying. But when doing my SF tour (I had visited the historic arcade already a few days before), I first took the cable car from Market to Fisherman's Wharf (it passes by the CCM, but I wanted to do the full tour), then walked back up to the CCM. After being done with that I went up Mission Street to the Fairmont, where it crosses with Muni line 1, took that until Lands End, walked that down to the pacific beach, watched the sunset. Finally down to the west southern end of Golden Gate Park and took the Muni back to Powell. Between the public transport rides everything on foot. Wasn't that bad IMHO.

Most important: Bring water; lots of water (I started the tour with about 3l in my backpack). And drink to thirst. Dehydration is no joke, but overhydration can be a problem, too.

The walk really isn't that bad, the worst hill you hit is the one like two blocks from the CCM and if you're not in horrid shape it isn't hard.

I lived in Monterey for a few years and, as my first few impressions of SF were essentially just the Wharf with the rest of my time spent driving, I had a very negative view of the city. It wasn't until I started walking those dreaded hills and exploring the city on foot that I really appreciated how amazing the place is.

There is a pinball museum in Oakland and it's a blast. They have machines from as far back as the 30s. You pay for entry then it's free to play.

+1 on the historic arcade. Fisherman's Wharf is a nightmare, but that place is a hidden gem – more interesting than most museums you could go to.

I believe you're referring to the Musée Mécanique (http://museemecaniquesf.com). Besides the arcade games, the orchestrons are captivating.

The arcade is great. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_M%C3%A9canique

Cable Car Museum.

Seriously. Gigantic wheels spinning huge cables (the museum is also the cable hub) is WAY more interesting tech than you're ever going to see at a startup.

You can see the tech office tours on techcrunch videos... the bigger ones are giant lavish offices filled with desks and laptops. Boring. Tour the city.

check out noisebridge on mission, somewhere between 17th and 18th.

you'll see 3d printers, laser etchers, textile arts and maybe some cool art. they are open all the time, with some interesting characters. just buzz the doorbell and they'll let you up.

Two little known gems:

Hiller Aviation Museum - San Carlos

Exhibit – A collection of aviation history spanning over the past 30 years by Stanley Hiller. Collection includes 50 aircraft exhibits and numerous displays such as:

    1869 “Avitor” Hermes Jr. (early heavy-lift airship - unmanned)
    1883, 1905, & 1911 gliders (Montgomery)
    1903 Wright Flyer Replica (first manned powered flight)
    1911 Eugene Ely’s Curtiss Pusher (the first plane to land on a ship).
    1913 Lincoln Beachey’ “Little Looper” (early aerobatic airplane).
    1945 Hiller 360 (first inherently-stable helicopter to be licensed by the FAA).
    1955 Flying Platform (first ducted fan, man-carrying, VTOL aircraft)
    1955 Grumman Albatross (flew around the world).
    1956 XROE Rotorcycle (fully collapsible helicopter)
    1970 Boeing 747-100 cockpit (fully accessible)
    1985 Czech AERO Vodochody L-39
    1986 Boeing Condor (spy plane with 201-ft. wing span)
    And many more. Visit our exhibits page.

Facilities – The museum’s 53,000 square foot complex consists of a main exhibit hall, an entrance atrium, 35-seat Theater, two 50-seat conference center, gift store/restoration shop/and kitchen facilities for catered events.

Location – The museum is located at the Northwest corner of the San Carlos Airport, San Mateo County, and immediately adjacent to highway 101.

Visitors – More than 85,000 annually.

Operations – 18 staff members and 100+ Volunteers

Farnsworth Lab - Corner of Sansome and Green Streets, San Francisco. Where Green Street deadends into Telegraph Hill from the East.

No museum, yet, only a plaque. Philo Farnsworth invented many of the basics of television here. A block south of here is one of Henry Chung's legendary Hunan restaurants (inexpensive for geeks).

There are usually hackathons and meetups going on all weekend.

The Bitcoin Sunday hackday is always fun.

http://www.meetup.com/SF-Bitcoin-Devs/events/220632910/

Free Gold Watch. Play some pinball (they also do screen printing). http://freegoldwatch.com

Autodesk has a museum at One Market. It's only open to the public two afternoons a week, plus special events.[1] Design exhibits. A driving game. High-end 3D printers.

Innovation Hangar, at the Palace of Fine Arts, is open on weekends.[2]

[1] http://www.autodesk.com/gallery [2] http://ihangar.org/

Thank you so much guys. I think I'd really like to come down and stay here for a while. Love the energy compared to Seattle.

HSC electronics in SJ aka halted dot com has a fair bit of history.

I've often wishes that the Bay Area had "A Museum of Computer History." Steve Wozniak's earliest Apple devices, maybe a PDP-11...

I was a little disappointed that San Jose's Technology Museum is more of a grab-bag of biological/environmental/astronomical everything...

Have you been to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View?

http://www.computerhistory.org/

Yes! Computer History Museum is amazing! You can get a tour from old programmers who worked on systems from the 60's, really fun.

+1 for the Computer History Museum! When I went a little over a year ago, they had a full size working replica of Babbage's computing engine.

eyes the punched card thumb-tacked to his board Yes, it would be really cool if there were a place, hm, a "Computer History Museum"? If only... but where? Perhaps a "Silicon Valley." Ha-ha.

Ah, to dream.

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