"A third of firefighters live in the city, while 16 percent live in San Mateo County, 11 percent in Sonoma County and 8 percent in Alameda County... This could matter tremendously in an earthquake if emergency responders aren’t able to make it into the city."
Remember, the 1989 earthquake happened on a clear, windless day. Not so 1906.
Read about Sit/Lie and how SF voted to criminalize homelessness in 2010, and you'll see why these "hostels" for tech workers are needed now more than ever.
The older engineers are usually the nicest. They exist peacefully in a privately-defined world of polygon rendering, or TCP stacks, or vector math. They're the REAL thinkers. They won't hassle you.
They're on autopilot half the time anyway; they wrote all their best games/apps/whatever a long time ago and now they just kinda float around soaking up compliments and contributing advice.
They lead quiet, comfortable lives with a history of industry respect and good stock options. But: It's usually easier for a contractor to predict when his or her actual, final day on the job will be. Yay for Q.A.!