Hi HN, I wanted to know which countries you can simply leave your laptop at a Starbucks, and where you can't. Feel free to click and vote. |
Hi HN, I wanted to know which countries you can simply leave your laptop at a Starbucks, and where you can't. Feel free to click and vote. |
Just put it down and walk away.
The difference between the places is the amount of time before it starts being someone else's laptop.
amazing (and kind of uplifting)
But seriously, I don't think this website solves the problem of knowing "which countries you can simply leave your laptop at a Starbucks, and where you can't".
It's just a rough indicator of percepted crime rate among a nation.
On one hand, I dropped my brand new iPhone 4 (whatever year that was) at a concert, and it was waiting for me at the bar. Multiple people did the right thing in that particular case.
On the other hand, I've had a backpack and camera stolen. I've even had toilet paper stolen while I was loading my car (during COVID). I've worked in offices where laptops have been stolen. Everyone has a story like this.
But would I deliberately leave my phone or laptop unattended on the table at a random coffee shop that I know nothing about? Probably fine but not taking that risk. Also as others pointed out, context matters. A small indoor coffee shop while I visit the toilet? No problem. Large crowded outside terrace? I'm not stupid.
For Greece, it would be pretty high, but I wouldn't just randomly leave a laptop, because the off chance of something happening is still not worth the trouble.
It's like asking the question "is it safe to cross here" for any road in the country.
Complete nonsense map. Some more useful questions: Is English spoken? Is water deep? Is there fuel?
I live in Vietnam and I can see it's getting colored red already but that's unfair.
If you're in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, then for sure you couldn't safely leave your laptop in a cafe. But if youuuUse the edit icon to pin, add or delete clips.'re in a smaller town then you'll be fine. But doesn't that apply to basically every country?
I assume that the majority of people voting here are in one of the big cities and it's coloring the results. But what it really means is that English speakers are clustered in the places where it's not safe, not that the whole country is unsafe.
On the other hand, I see Vietnam is currently green for walkable and that's hilarious, it's one of the least walkable countries in the world. Pavements here are places to do business/park motorbikes, not to mention the heat makes it highly uncomfortable. There's a ratio of ~2 motorbikes per person, nobody walks here.
> I live in Vietnam and I can see it's getting colored red already but that's unfair.
Also, it's a tiny sample: eight votes to represent a country of 100 million people.
Mostly I think this website is just a stereotype collector and in that sense is very counterproductive. It’s going to be a bunch of people who want to report their biases.
Yes but the HN title says "random coffee shop".
There’s 50 US states. Many are very different.
It’d be even better if it was city based.
Autocorrect, what did they do to hurt you so badly that you needed such revenge?!
- MacBooks are not very attractive theft targets anyway, when properly locked you can only sell them for parts. Wallet or camera or non-Apple laptop would be much more telling.
- Except for Japan, most places it depends on specifics. Who is around, where exactly is the branch, time of day/year (in a couple of countries petty theft rises before Lunar New Year when struggling people especially need money), did you leave a whole setup on your table or is it just lonely closed-lid laptop so someone can pretend it's theirs.
- "Safe to walk at night" isn't what people usually mean by "walkable". Most of the countries in the top are not "walkable".
- This does not account for race and gender. Some white male techbro is probably fine walking alone at night in most places in Thailand, but a woman or an Asian person is another story. The other year multiple people were kidnapped and it caused a big drop in tourism, and a few years earlier double murder of Westerners had some official say the woman should be either ugly or not wear bikini.
- China in the top is funny, I'm aware of multiple knife attacks on foreigners (one happened in central Beijing and I was in the city at the time).
I'm ignorant. Why does the Lunar New Year increase the need for funds?
Leaving it in that cliche highland coffee shop location in D1 by that street, yeah, no.
Indonesia too, no issue across Jakarta, Depok, Yogya, Bali, Lombok, etc
I’m surprised at Japan, I would thought it be a zero. No issue at any location at all.
Even if things are unlikely to go wrong the level of avoidable risk is simply too high.
A $3000 piece of my personal or worse employer's property and I'm just supposed to "trust"? Not worth it.
Not no more. We lost our high trust society in most places.
In the USA, I could leave my laptop at a small town coffee shop without any trouble, but never a Starbucks, which are only in larger towns and cities.
However, if it's a local coffee shop in the middle of Nebraska, you would be ok.
I was born and raised in New York City. This was science fiction to me.
but dont leave ur bike or umbrella out.
I actually find it annoying if people put stuff on tables and then walk away for an hour or more, hogging a spot that could be used by others.
Japan is trusted enough to leave laptops in but not trusted enough to vote :/
I'm on safari without an adblocker, not sure what sketchy stuff my ASN is up to
https://reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ijboze/study_of_civic_h... source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712
https://web.archive.org/web/20190327101602/https://www.rd.co...
[0]: https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/issues/391
Statistically they're more likely to be honest rather than a thief of opportunity
I'm not worried about theft, but see 'reserving' a seat like that as rude, and 10 minutes as longer than is reasonable.
(Pragmatically – I’m more concerned about having an awkward interaction with a barista that cleared the table and put the laptop somewhere, than about someone stealing the laptop)
Every cafe is different and cafes in each country vary heavily by city and area and I am not sure if I have recommendations on how to make crowd sourced data more reliable but I like the work done.
(north country anectedote: we leave our doors unlocked and laptops, keys, wallets, and iphones straight up in plain view in parking lots up here in rural nowhere. people are dumb.)