epicnoodles (u/epicnoodles)

epicnoodles commented on Ask HN: Has anyone here left the big city in pursue of a simpler life? · Posted by u/rockbruno

giantg2 · 3 years ago

Where are you that you think you can live rurally and have a (commuter) train?

epicnoodles · 3 years ago

The best example of this is the Thameslink. Loads of towns like this in Hertfordshire. You could live in Biggleswade which feels very rural when you are there, and be into Kings Cross or Farringdon in 45 minutes. Very frequent and reliable train.

edit: to take this further. You could live in Broom, a hamlet, which has a population of 579. Cycle or drive 10 minutes to Biggleswade station and get the 45 minute train in. In theory if you got really efficient, you could be in the heart of the City of London 1 hour door to door.

epicnoodles commented on Ask HN: Has anyone here left the big city in pursue of a simpler life? · Posted by u/rockbruno

spicyusername · 3 years ago

I've found life in a rural or suburban area 15-45 minutes outside a city with a ~1-2 million metro population to be the sweet spot.

Life is slower, there is more of an emphasis on community, the cost of living is lower, the schools are solid, there is far less crime and homelessness, and you can commute to the urban amenities as needed.

Does it have EVERYTHING an large urban area provides, obviously not, but life goes on just fine without those things. What's more important to me? A boxing gym in walking distance or being able to pay my house off in less than ten years?

epicnoodles · 3 years ago

Same here.

Moved from London (9m pop) to suburban North Leeds (800,000-1m pop), much better. Still get the semi-anonymity of a city, and the things that I enjoy about them (varied food to eat out, markets, theatre, cinema, bowling etc), but I'm also 5 minutes from national parks, waterfalls etc.

The beauty about Leeds in the UK is as soon as you go North, there is basically nothing major until you hit Scotland. So you can be away from people very very quickly which is rare in the UK, whilst also not cutting yourself off from the world.

It's also ace as the city has a great identity and community. The running clubs are full of the most varied and grounded people, from all walks of life, that I have ever met. We do a lot of fell racing in the Yorkshire Dales in all elements. The community spirit found around running the rain, up hills, and bonding over cake, local beer and Yorkshire tea is amazing and reminds you of how great most humans are.

There is also great civic pride in local food, drink, culture. There are incredibly accessible and affordable spas for weekend breaks to sauna and massage (Rudding Park) within a 20 minute drive, that aren't booked out months in advance or full of instagrammers or full of London city bankers. Just locals having a laugh.

OP, I get the feeling, I almost did the same. But do not go remote for these reasons. Move somewhere smaller maybe (smaller cities have greater identity and community than large mega-cities without the drawback of towns or hamlets), but make sure you assess the world through the people you talk to and interact with, not the internet or news. Otherwise you will get way more depressed.

Happiness is only real when shared.

epicnoodles commented on Citymapper Joins Via content.citymapper.com/ne... · Posted by u/gsa

_dain_ · 3 years ago

London is a really unattractive place when you consider salary vs housing affordability. Most of the high tech salary goes straight into the pocket of landlords. And you can forget buying.

But London is where most of the innovative high-paying firms are. So tech workers are in a bind: move to London for a nominally high-paying tech job but get fucking hosed on rent and travel costs, or stay in the regions and work in a lower paid, less interesting firm. There isn't much real difference to your standard of living.

It's not just the absolute level of rent either; it also goes up faster. People don't want that kind of liability, you need a raise just to stay in place, and raises aren't forthcoming lately.

And it's not easy to get a London-tier salary while working remotely from rural Yorkshire or something. They've been tamping down hard on that kind of thing.

The housing market is rigged for boomers and it's strangling Britain's growth. Forget freedom of movement with Europe; I'd like freedom of movement inside my own fucking country first.

(And all of the above sounds similar to NYC and SF -- it is, but London's salary upside is nowhere near as high as those places. And Americans have several big metropoles to choose from, we only have the one.)

epicnoodles · 3 years ago

This is the biggest problem in the UK.

I'm lucky to be working remotely as a Software Engineer from North Leeds for a London based prop-tech startup. Salary around £70k, 1.5/2 years experience.

I was living in London for about five to six years, but our rental came to an end. With the mania of last year, we were looking at £2000-£3000 per month for a very average, fairly cramped flat within zone 2 (or 40 mins to our offices). Despite my partner being a solicitor (£50k, but could have been closer to £100k now if we stayed), it felt like a really long road to be able to afford a home.

As much as I love London, my friends and the opportunities, we were killing ourselves for vague dream of eventually owning a very average house, or a good leasehold flat in 5-10 years time. It was incredibly demotivating. But maybe our standards are high.

We instead bought a huge five detached bedroom house. 15 minutes on the bus to the city, 5 minutes drive and your in the countryside, another 20 and you're in the Yorkshire Dales. David Llyods 5 minute drive away. Empty state of the art, free to use, public tennis courts 10 minutes walk. Massive park (used to be Europes largest urban park) right outside our door. Lots of local pubs and eateries within walking distance and more variety throughout Yorkshire a short drive away. Our monthly mortgage repayments are £1800 (£950 interest, the rest on capital). Quality of life is a no brainer. We live like royalty up here.

Even for start-ups the cost of office space is felt high in London. My company were looking at some really average 10-15 seater rooms, which were coming in at £10k per month. I'm sure office space in smaller cities is much cheaper, plus you probably get better employee retention as they aren't squeezed so hard by living circumstances (or poached as a result of needing more money).

It's just such a shame that 90%+ (guess) of innovative start ups are in the South East. It becomes self fulfilling as the labour market thickness is much greater there as you can rely on public transport (unlike the North), so more people go there, so more thickness, so easier to hire the team you need.

1) Create reliable public transport in other cities which is competitive to London. Get out of UK centrist mindset. 2) Change cultural perceptions about the rest of the country. Literally a few fictional TV shows or stories about young, techy people living a lifestyle where they all own their own houses, maybe turn an old industrial mill room into a little start-up HQ, go swimming in waterfalls in the Dales at the weekend and still have great nights out in Leeds is all that is needed to break the London fixation. To show people that there is in fact, life beyond London. 3) Create incentives to get some first movers to relocate. Like if a start up physically locates in a particular area (say Leeds city centre), the government will pay half the salaries for the first 20 employees for 3 years. Maybe even throw in some free accommodation in a co-living space to help people settle when they relocate (a bit like a uni experience). Make it financially attractive to founders to scale their businesses in different places.

I'm sure there's flaws in those arguments, but there are definitely things the UK can do to make it less depressing to start a business here! It just takes some will, and the government to have the balls to do something tangible outside of the Whitehall bubble.

epicnoodles commented on Ask HN: Share your personal site · Posted by u/MaxLeiter

Wowfunhappy · 4 years ago

https://jonathanalland.com

I’m actually really proud of it—I love the way it looks and feels. I wanted the site to be playful but still professional, and to feel "modern" without being flat. Feel free to tell me how I did.

Everything is handwritten HTML + CSS + Javascript; I avoided even using a build system. I did use some tiny Javascript libraries, but I gave myself a limit: the site had to contain more bytes of my own code than other people's code.

The site also supports back to IE11 and Safari 6, as long as Javascript is turned on. (And it works without Javascript in modern browsers.)

epicnoodles · 4 years ago

Fellow Camp Horizons Alum here! I was a British counsellor who flew over for the summer of 2015/16. Beautiful place. Amazing memories.