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Posted by u/binarynate 4 years ago
Poll: Where do you live?
I read a tweet that referred to HN as "Silicon Valley", which struck me as odd because I suspect most HN users, like me, are located elsewhere. This piqued my curiosity about where HN users are located, so if you don't mind me asking, where do you live?

Edit: Sorry about the randomized ordering (I forgot HN does that for polls). Thanks ahead of time for using cmd+f or the equivalent to find and vote for your state or country. Also, each US state is included as "US: {state name}".

Polls are not supported
jarrenae · 4 years ago
Visualization (updates every few seconds): https://ae.studio/random/where-does-hacker-news-live
skykooler · 4 years ago
Would it be possible to show the text for the smaller blobs when you hover over them? (There's an alt-text that might be supposed to be doing that, but it just shows "undefined: undefined" no matter what I hover over.)
LimitedInfo · 4 years ago
hey jarrenae,

Thanks for this update. I've included a couple points below to improve on before our next meeting:

- can i get a similar look to this but in pie chart format? Maybe just include top ten labels?

- I would like to see a larger size of the visual on the page

- the color scheme is okay but try experimenting with black font for the locations

Best, LimitedInfo

jarrenae · 4 years ago
hi LimitedInfo,

Sorry for the delayed response, I was waiting on a response from our dev team, and Susan in accounting.

I appreciate the feedback but I'm currently assigned to other tasks, so if you'd like revisions please contact Issac and submit a request for some of my hours.

Also please stop leaving fish in the fridge.

Best, jarrenae

amrangaye · 4 years ago
I’m sorry but I can’t help but ask: what is this? Is OP your worker and this is work comms? Just curious.
spdebbarma · 4 years ago
Hey, thanks for this; but on hover, they all show up as `undefined:undefined`. I'm on Firefox 96.0(64-bit), if that's any help.
joshspankit · 4 years ago
Suggestion: Group the US states in to a larger “US” bubble.

All the others (unless I missed it, in which case Sorry!) are total for the country

kroltan · 4 years ago
Hi from Florianópolis too!
gauchojs · 4 years ago
Do you recommend a Porto Alegrer move to Floripa? My work is remote now...
kk6mrp · 4 years ago
Now that is awesome!
lhorie · 4 years ago
Pasting this in dev console will give you a quick and dirty rundown. It sorts locations by points.

    [...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => [el.textContent.trim(), el.nextSibling.textContent.trim()]).sort(([,a], [,b]) => parseInt(b) - parseInt(a)).map(a => a.join(' - '))
As of this post, California is leading, followed by other places w/ large tech hubs (Germany, UK, Canada, NY, Washington)

toqy · 4 years ago
This is begging for a console.table

     console.table([...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => [el.textContent.trim(), el.nextSibling.textContent.trim()]).sort(([,a], [,b]) => parseInt(b) - parseInt(a)))

gkfasdfasdf · 4 years ago
Current top 10:

  'US: California' '79 points'
  'Canada' '48 points'
  'US: Washington' '39 points'
  'US: New York' '36 points'
  'Germany' '35 points'
  'United Kingdom' '34 points'
  'US: Massachusetts' '19 points'
  'Netherlands' '18 points'
  'US: Colorado' '17 points'
  'Sweden' '16 points'
Colorado #9? Really?

gabrielsroka · 4 years ago
More efficient, uses integers, and sortable in the table:

   console.table([...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => ({place: el.textContent.trim(), score: parseInt(el.nextSibling.textContent)})).sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score))

gabrielsroka · 4 years ago
If you're on a mobile browser, paste this into the address bar:

    javascript:document.write('<table>' + [...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => ({place: el.textContent.trim(), score: parseInt(el.nextSibling.textContent)})).sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score || a.place.localeCompare(b.place)).map(e => `<tr><td>${e.place}<td align=right>${e.score}`).join('') + '</table>')

newaccount74 · 4 years ago
I wanted a total for the US:

    console.table([...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => [el.textContent.replace(/:.*/,'').trim(), parseInt(el.nextSibling.textContent.trim())]).reduce((d, [k,v]) => {d[k]=v + (d[k] || 0); return d}, {}))
I can't figure out how to sort that, though...

runjake · 4 years ago
Neat!

Noob question: is there a similar way to dump it to JSON, instead of a table?

Deleted Comment

zander312 · 4 years ago
this is fricking awesome!! thanks!!
mmcnl · 4 years ago
TIL. Cool!
lhorie · 4 years ago
Good call!
Andrew_nenakhov · 4 years ago
One must adjust for the fact that it is a very late evening or deep night on the other side of the planet, and the poll might sink from the front page by the time everyone wakes up back here.
davidkuennen · 4 years ago
With US combined:

console.table(Object.entries([...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => [el.textContent.trim(), el.nextSibling.textContent.trim()]).reduce((rv, [a,b]) => {var key = a.split(": ")[0]; rv[key] = rv[key] || 0; rv[key] += parseInt(b); return rv;}, {})).sort(([,a], [,b]) => parseInt(b) - parseInt(a)))

  'US' 959
  'Canada' 114
  'United Kingdom' 96
  'Germany' 96
  'France' 35
  'Netherlands' 30
  'Sweden' 30
  'Poland' 24
  'Brazil' 24
  'Denmark' 19
  'Switzerland' 18

Archelaos · 4 years ago
I think for a ranking the data should be normalized by population. If I calculate it for seven leading regions manually, the current numbers are as follows:

  US: California  535 / 39.51 Mil. = 13.54 / Mil.
  Canada          244 / 38.01 Mil. =  6.42 / Mil.
  Germany         232 / 83.24 Mil. =  2.79 / Mil.
  UK              220 / 67.22 Mil. =  3.27 / Mil.
  US: New York    206 / 39.52 Mil. =  5.21 / Mil.
  US: Washington  199 /  7.71 Mil. = 25.81 / Mil.
  US: Texas       122 / 29.15 Mil. =  4.19 / Mil.
There might even be some hidden champions in the lower absolute numbers.

eriksjolund · 4 years ago
Nordic countries also get high numbers:

  Sweden  74 / 10.35 Mil. = 7.15 / Mil.
  Denmark 40 /  5.83 Mil. = 6.86 / Mil.
  Finland 33 /  5.53 Mil. = 5.97 / Mil.
  Norway  31 /  5.38 Mil. = 5.76 / Mil.
but nothing beats

  Vatican City 6 / 825 = 7273 / Mil.

culi · 4 years ago
Now we need to divide the votes by the population of each place
jeromegv · 4 years ago
Yes, hilarious to see "South Dakota" as a specific region, but Canada as a whole.
awb · 4 years ago
Would be interesting to see it expressed as a % of population as well to see HN density, as well as quantity.
lolinder · 4 years ago
I didn't get the data to do this globally, but here it is for the US (data from https://api.census.gov/data/2021/pep/population?get=POP_2021...*):

    const totalPop = {"Oklahoma":3986639,"Nebraska":1963692,"Hawaii":1441553,"South Dakota":895376,"Tennessee":6975218,"Nevada":3143991,"New Mexico":2115877,"Iowa":3193079,"Kansas":2934582,"District of Columbia":670050,"Texas":29527941,"Missouri":6168187,"Arkansas":3025891,"Michigan":10050811,"New Hampshire":1388992,"North Carolina":10551162,"Ohio":11780017,"South Carolina":5190705,"Wyoming":578803,"California":39237836,"North Dakota":774948,"Louisiana":4624047,"Maryland":6165129,"Delaware":1003384,"Pennsylvania":12964056,"Georgia":10799566,"Oregon":4246155,"Minnesota":5707390,"Colorado":5812069,"New Jersey":9267130,"Kentucky":4509394,"Washington":7738692,"Maine":1372247,"Vermont":645570,"Idaho":1900923,"Indiana":6805985,"Montana":1104271,"New York":19835913,"Puerto Rico":3263584,"Connecticut":3605597,"Florida":21781128,"Virginia":8642274,"Massachusetts":6984723,"Illinois":12671469,"Mississippi":2949965,"Arizona":7276316,"Utah":3337975,"Wisconsin":5895908,"Alabama":5039877,"West Virginia":1782959,"Rhode Island":1095610,"Alaska":732673};
    console.table(
      [...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')]
      .map(el => ({place: el.textContent.trim(), score: parseInt(el.nextSibling.textContent)}))
      .filter(el => el.place.includes("US:"))
      .map(el => ({...el, place: el.place.replace("US: ", "")}))
      .map(el => ({...el, totalPop: totalPop[el.place]}))
      .filter(el => el.totalPop != undefined)
      .map(el => ({...el, density: el.score / el.totalPop}))
      .sort((a, b) => b.density - a.density)
    )

dang · 4 years ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30211916.
bsimpson · 4 years ago
So you're saying I should have checked the comments before opening the console?

$$('.score').map(node => [node.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.previousSibling.innerText?.trim(), parseInt(node.innerText)]).sort(([,scoreA], [,scoreB]) => scoreB - scoreA)

glassprongs · 4 years ago
Nice work
Aptrug · 4 years ago
I was curious to know which locations are ranked the highest, so I made this quick 'n' dirty shell script:

    #!/bin/sh
    curl -s 'https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378' | awk '
    BEGIN {
        FS = "[<>]"
    }
    {
        for (i = 1; i <= NF; ++i) {
            if ($i == "font color=\"#000000\"") {
                printf "%s, ", $(i+1)
            } else if ($i ~ /^span class="score" id="score_/) {
                print $(i+1)
            }
        }
    }
    ' | sort -t',' -nk2
It scrapes the web page, so it's kind of fragile.

lunatuna · 4 years ago
Working well for me! Thanks.
xtracto · 4 years ago
Great to see several people from Mexico!

BTW, the fact that only the US country has options separated by state reminds me of when I lived in Europe, and sometimes we got together with a bunch of international. Invariably the "where are you from" question would pop up, to which almost everyone would answer with their country... except Americans, who would answer with their state haha.

Once, I asked someone where they were from and I think they answered some random US state, he then asked me the same, and I answered with the state where I am from in Mexico... he had no clue where that was hahaha.

burlesona · 4 years ago
US states and EU countries are generally similar in size. If you ask an Italian where they are from it would be a bit odd if they said “Europe” wouldn’t it?

I think it also speaks to the degree of autonomy and identity among the states. The US originally thought of itself more like the EU is now, a collection of sovereign nations that agreed to a very strong alliance (first confederation, then federation). The difference is when the US’ “brexit” moment happened the northern states decided the southern states didn’t have the right to leave and enforced their opinion at the cost of 1 million lives (out of a population of about 32M at the time).

So that settled that and now the US is one country, not a collection of countries.

But the original idea still plays a large role in how people think about things.

legutierr · 4 years ago
> The difference is when the US’ “brexit” moment happened the northern states decided the southern states didn’t have the right to leave and enforced their opinion at the cost of 1 million lives.

It was over a century and a half ago, but we still owe the union soldiers who died in the US Civil War a debt of gratitude for their sacrifice in ending the scourge of slavery in the United States. Their lives paid for the freedom of millions of men and women. Their sacrifice saved us all from the debasement of living in a society in which one person can be owned by another person. You do disservice to their memory when you characterize their primary motivation as being to "enforce the opinion" of the northern states with regards to the southern states' right to secede.

Not all of them were motivated primarily by the abolitionist cause, obviously—many fought because they were conscripted into the army—but those union soldiers knew that they were fighting to end slavery, and they knew what they were risking to fight for that cause.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy6AOGRsR80

It's also worth pointing out that the Civil War started after the South Carolina Militia, cheered on by the civilian population of Charleston, bombarded Fort Sumter with artillery until the US Army forces that had peaceably occupied the fort surrendered.

Who was it that enforced their opinion on whom?

amilios · 4 years ago
The US is still far more culturally homogenous than the EU, so this comparison falls kind of flat. Even if the US began as you say, with large cultural differences, it isn't really the case anymore. You could make the argument that there is a cultural divide between cities and the countryside for sure (in the sense that someone from Austin and someone from Boston are more similar than someone from Austin and someone from the Texas countryside), but this divide exists within individual EU countries as well, and is not limited to the US.
foxrob92 · 4 years ago
Dunno if your geographic size argument holds much water. Australia is about the same size as the continental US, but we always get lumped in as one entity. Canada appears to get the same treatment.
anikan_vader · 4 years ago
> The difference is when the US’ “brexit” moment happened the northern states decided the southern states didn’t have the right to leave and enforced their opinion at the cost of 1 million lives (out of a population of about 32M at the time).

An interesting analogy, but it downplays two key differences. Firstly, the confederate states opened fire on union troops, whereas Britain did not start a shooting war when it left the EU. Secondly, there is no provision in the constitution of the United States for a state to leave the union, unlike in the EU.

As a final point, I would note that the United States of America by that point had a history of using military force to expand (in line with Thomas Jefferson's "empire of liberty" doctrine), including two attempted invasions of Canada, the Mexican-American War, as well as successful wars (and massacres) against the Native peoples. So if you do take the position that the confederacy had the right to secede from the United States, it is hardly a surprise that the USA then took the opportunity to use military force to annex a smaller neighboring nation with a weaker military, limited infrastructure, and insufficient foreign support to defend itself.

austinjp · 4 years ago
If you asked someone where they were from and without context they said "Molise", that would be a bit odd, no?
kinduff · 4 years ago
I was very glad too, and I'm pretty sure not everybody has answered yet since it's "viernes godín".

I'm from Michoacan, and reading or seeing the clueless expression when I answer gives me some sort of joy and proudness.

elboru · 4 years ago
I’m from Chihuahua, I always explain the dog comes after the state, not the other way around XD
dkarl · 4 years ago
When I was in Europe as a student, everybody wanted to know what state I was from, so I got used to answering that way. Surprisingly, everybody seemed to know all the U.S. states, and had pretty strong mental associations with a lot of them. I'm from Texas, and to them, that meant horses and cowboys and George Strait and "howdy, y'all!"
skydhash · 4 years ago
A few I have from watching TV and games (probably incorrect).

Vermont -> green hills

Dakota -> hard deserts and Amerindians

Nevada -> sand desert

Texas -> ranches.

Arizona -> Lots of sun and hot.

Florida -> beach and spaces.

Kansas -> Big corn farms.

Massachusetts -> US version of Europe.

Missouri -> Rivers.

onionisafruit · 4 years ago
As an American I do this because I always get the follow up question of where in the US. It’s just more efficient this way.
austinjp · 4 years ago
If you asked someone where they're from, would you expect them to say, for example, Almaty instead of Kazakhstan?
austinjp · 4 years ago
When someone says they're from America I'm occasionally tempted to ask, "which, north or south?"
aunty_helen · 4 years ago
This is a very very common retort if you call the USA “America” whilst in South America.

Of course you can double down if you really want to get eyes rolling by following up with something like “the good one”, “el primer mundo”, or “the rich one”

xorcist · 4 years ago
The geographic version of "PC or Mac" perhaps?

Honduras, Guatemala and the other countries in Central America would be the Linux equivalent, being left out.

gojomo · 4 years ago
A useful poll!

But the very-literal should be reminded: the linguistic mechanisms of synechdoche & metonymy often result in a fuzzy use of parts, or regions, or emblematic examples, or associated items to mean some other closely-related more-amorphous entity.

For example, "the White House" for the entire elected president's policy team, no matter which part (or if it's operating from some other place). "Wall Street" for finance, even that outside of New York. Someone's "good eye" to mean their entire skills of evaluation (of detail, aesthetics, potential, etc).

And of course 'Silicon Valley' for, depending on context:

• a narrow geographical region around the south SF Bay

• dominant industries in that region, especially computer/infotech

• the whole SF Bay Area, or even Calfornia - at least to the extent there's some (possibly thin/alleged) connections to tech or the SF bay

• all computer/infotech companies everywhere, with weak but not absolutely-required implication of some connection (HQ/roots/investors) to above

• mindsets highly associated with the any of the above

These shifting boundaries based on context/intent annoy people who prefer precision, but are inherent to terms used this way.

Aperocky · 4 years ago
Well there's at least 7 user who lives in North Korea, so people are taking it with the seriousness.

Otherwise, out of 1000 people, there'd be at least 200 that are from North Korea, maybe another 100 that lives in Antarctica.

ImaCake · 4 years ago
My anecdata, as an outsider who is a researcher, is that silicon valley is either the south SF bay area or the mindset. I certainly mean the latter when describing HN to others.
posix_compliant · 4 years ago
I'm fascinated by this comment, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think it's that the author makes good points about an interesting topic, uses correct english, and even draws upon relevant examples; yet, somehow the post has an overall feeling of clunkiness.

The author starts off with "But the very-literal should be reminded". Already any readers have to implicitly know that "the very-literal" refers to the specific group of individuals who have read the original post and also have a tendency to take things literally. It's not incorrect english, but since the word "literal" is more commonly used as an adjective, it does take a beat to realize that it serving to create a plural noun as part of "the very-literal". Again, not crazy strange, but it's a language device that is more commonly seen in other contexts rather than on Hacker News.

The reader might now be expecting the author to describe what specifically shouldn't be taken literally, but instead author continues with "the linguistic mechanisms of synechdoche & metonymy". I think it's a big leap to expect the reader to know: a) what a "linguistic mechanism" is, ie, how does it differ from a phrase? b) what "synechdoche" is c) what "metonymy" is

So now not only is the reader still in the dark about what they shouldn't be taking literally, but now they are likely grappling with trying to understand these definitions unless they are in the likely minority of people who already understand all of these.

The author continues: "often result in a fuzzy use of parts, or regions, or emblematic examples, or associated items to mean some other closely-related more-amorphous entity." To me, this just reads as a poor redefinition of the previously mentioned terms. It's like saying "when words are used non-literally, it results in the non-literal use of words". It's not WRONG, per se, but it just leaves the reader more confused about what ultimate point the author is trying to make.

To the author's credit, this sentence is immediately followed up with two good examples of synechdoche; however, unless the reader previously understood its definition the ultimate point of these examples is lost. On the other hand if the reader did previously understand the definition of synechdoche, then these examples only further the previous redefinition. At this point, the reader still hasn't been told what they aren't supposed to be taking literally.

Finally, the author mentions "Silicon Valley", and it becomes more clear the the crux of this comment is regarding its definition. More examples are provided regarding the specifics of how "Silicon Valley" could be non-literally interpreted -- which is probably the gist of what the author was trying to convey in the first place, but it was buried 88 words into the comment.

All in all, this comment could be distilled down to: "Silicon Valley shouldn't be interpreted literally; it can be interpreted a few ways, here are some examples."

tluyben2 · 4 years ago
Not sure if this post still ranks in the morning as it's evening in the EU so probably not many people will answer, while the Americas will. I know there are a lot of people from the EU here.
capableweb · 4 years ago
Yeah, would depend on how long it'll be featured on the frontpage page indeed. I know people who only check the /best page once a week or something like that too who would probably miss this unless a ton of people upvote it.

Or maybe we can ask @dang to give it a "jobstory" treatment so it keeps around the frontpage for longer?

belval · 4 years ago
I mean dang could probably just tell us the actual geo breakdown of users...
rkuykendall-com · 4 years ago
Well it's only 3 hours old and it's currently #14 on /best, so there is probably a good chance everyone will see it.
tremon · 4 years ago
Also, it's friday evening now in Europe. I usually don't read HN in the weekends, only during defocus time at work.
ImaCake · 4 years ago
I’m reading this at 7am from Perth. On a Saturday, so I imagine Australian engagement might be low for the next few hours still.
paxys · 4 years ago
Especially considering most of the world would have already signed off for the weekend by now.
qnsi · 4 years ago
Im off to a party, see you later HN
tluyben2 · 4 years ago
I remember vaguely being young and friday nights meaning something different than other nights... Meanwhile I'm (in Portugal) trying to fix a dependent type tutorial that bit rotted.
dgellow · 4 years ago
Have a great time!
echelon · 4 years ago
Also it was posted in the afternoon for those on the US East coast. (A Friday afternoon!)

Unless this sits near the top of HN for a week, it's very likely to be skewed.

yreg · 4 years ago
We will need to do another one in other timezones
sigil · 4 years ago
There were similar polls in 2013. We could compare against those to measure tech dispersal over the last decade!

- "Poll: Where are you currently living?" (Countries, 2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582647

- "Poll: If you're in the US, What State Do You Live In?" (US states, 2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222370

wyager · 4 years ago
That might measure HN moving to a wider audience rather than the original audience physically moving.

The community is clearly a lot different than in it was 2013. I would guess a relatively larger portion of people outside of the Bay Area is part of that.

sigil · 4 years ago
For sure, this would only be a rough measure of tech dispersal itself, not a longitudinal study of HN users. The latter is interesting to us HN old timers, but the former is a consequential thing for the whole world.
culi · 4 years ago
I'd like to see these votes divided by the total population of each place
paxys · 4 years ago
If the goal of the poll is to determine where HN users/the tech industry is concentrated, whether the overall population in those areas is high or not doesn't really matter.
namrog84 · 4 years ago
Every geographic survey is just a population heat map result or something

https://xkcd.com/1138/

momenti · 4 years ago
And population IQ.
mothsonasloth · 4 years ago
Why does America get states and UK doesn't get England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
phkahler · 4 years ago
>> Of course, in 2008, pure investment banks largely failed.

Each US state is about the size of a European country, sometimes with similar population. That's one of the things that always comes up in polls of what surprised Europeans about the US when they visited - just how big it is.

rvense · 4 years ago
It's... still one country, though. And while I understand that Americans are very preoccupied with the difference between California and New Jersey, please understand that it's not that important (or obvious) to the rest of us.
capableweb · 4 years ago
China and India has a bigger population, and China has a similar landmass as the US yet is just one option in this poll.
croes · 4 years ago
By that logic China or Russia should also be listed with each single province or state
dools · 4 years ago
If you’re going by geographic area Australia should definitely be split up by state.
vetinari · 4 years ago
Big, but relatively unpopulated. Even California would rank together with Poland.
mlindner · 4 years ago
Because the premise of the question was Silicon Valley, so they need a category that separates Silicon Valley away from as much as possible without making the list too long. So split every state out and then have every country after that as those are also "outside silicon valley". If it was just the US as a single option it would not actually fit the premise of the question.

This question feels primarily aimed at the US population, IMO.

capableweb · 4 years ago
OP wanted to prove that HN isn't Silicon Valley-centric and instead showed their bias toward US-centrism :)
xtracto · 4 years ago
This is the right answer, but it is not OPs fault, it is a typical custom of Americans. I saw it invariably happen while living in Europe and interacting with a highly international community (Americans were the only ones that answered "where are you from" with a state, everybody else, including Canadians, Indians, Russians, Mexicans, etc named their country)
jessriedel · 4 years ago
The more pervasive bias is to think countries are the best way to carve reality at its joints.
aidenn0 · 4 years ago
Well I'm US:California, but definitely not SV.
andrewxdiamond · 4 years ago
Well, we have states that are almost 3 times as large as the entire UK. If the pollster listed every region the size of Wales, this would be a very long list
mjmasn · 4 years ago
Wales and Scotland are countries...
dghughes · 4 years ago
Canada has one a territory out of three and that one territory is 20% bigger than Alaska. And only 36,000 people live there.
munk-a · 4 years ago
Also - Canada is a monolith, at least break out Quebec!
czbond · 4 years ago
> Canada is a monolith

Canada must be separated into 100 different pointless micro services each with a different docker configuration created by the summer C.S. intern.

HN joke.

monkeybutton · 4 years ago
Seconded! Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver are all large and distinct tech hubs.
schlopper · 4 years ago
Now now... You'd just be pandering to the separatists.
jessriedel · 4 years ago
Canada is smaller than California.
dahfizz · 4 years ago
At the time of commenting, US states have 3 of the top 5 positions (and the top 1). So it seems that a US state is roughly comparable to other countries in terms of HN readership.
LAC-Tech · 4 years ago
I mean by that logic India is the most hard done by here - (perhaps) the worlds most populated country reduced to a single data point.
lhorie · 4 years ago
I posted a script above to get a sorted rank. This other one gets you the aggregate numbers for US:

    [...document.querySelectorAll('.fatitem table .athing')].map(el => [el.textContent.trim(), el.nextSibling.textContent.trim()]).reduce((a, [c,s]) => c.startsWith('US') ? a + parseInt(s) - 1 : a, 0)
As of this comment, there are around 10 times more votes for US than the second most voted country (Canada). A fourth of those US votes are for California. Meaning, there are twice as many votes for California as there are for Canada.

This suggests that Silicon Valley still represents a significant portion of the HN community.

Crosseye_Jack · 4 years ago
I’m sure Boris promised this in the Brexit Manifesto along with Blue Passports…

Someone get him on the phone, oh wait, it’s past 5pm on a Friday evening, he is probably at a “work event”.

tmalsburg2 · 4 years ago
If the US as a whole was a single option, we would not be able to tell whether the people who vote for it are in Silicon Valley or not.
tagoregrtst · 4 years ago
Because everyone has heard of most the US’ states, but most people wouldn't have a clue where South Tyrol, or Chubut are.

Also, in IT or CS, a state like TX or CA are more prominent than any European one. CA is probably more important by itself than all of Europe. Even PA or GA are heavy hitters that would smoke most similarly sized EU countries.

CRConrad · 4 years ago
> CA is probably more important by itself than all of Europe.

I recall reading (years ago) that "If California were an independent country, it would be the sixth-largest in the world"... Which would still (at least at the time) put it behind Germany. So, faaar from "more important by itself than all of Europe".

> Even PA or GA are heavy hitters that would smoke most similarly sized EU countries.

Given how wrong you are about California above, I very much doubt this one.

agilob · 4 years ago
It's like on the reddit wars:

- Americans = stupid, can't tell where Lithuania is

- Americans respond: name all states!

- Europeans respond: name all regions of all European countries

You're right, regions like London, Bristol, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Bracelona, Frankfurt, Munich, Warsaw, Cracov, Wroclaw should have separate options

croes · 4 years ago
Nope, the US should be a single option.

Just poll for countries.

mlindner · 4 years ago
Regions aren't defined by their cities.
binarynate · 4 years ago
Sorry about that! This was an oversight on my part. In retrospect, I wish I had included separate entries for regions of UK, Canada, and others. I thought about adding new entries for them now, but it seems a bit too late since folks have already been voting.
renewiltord · 4 years ago
Because American states are more significant than British regions. UC Berkeley alone has more Nobel laureates than Wales+Scotland+NorthernIreland. Think of it as Huffman coding on significance.
onion2k · 4 years ago
Maybe the author looked at the UK and thought "Look at the state of that!"
poniko · 4 years ago
Yeah and I'm totally missing Norrland in Sweden. Bummer ..
Hokusai · 4 years ago
And someone has added imaginary places like Finland, as a joke.