6 ms·
Show HN: Countries where you can leave your MacBook at a random coffee shop
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.
- captainbland 4mo agoThe page won't verify me as a human if I try to vote, I don't know why.
- stephenr 4mo agoYou can leave your laptop anywhere on the planet. 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.
- sparrish 4mo agoWhich is it? A random coffee shop or a Starbucks. 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.
- canergl 4mo agoThanks, I couldn't imagine such a distinction initially. I have added a separation between Local and Chain coffeeshops in the site.
- archleaf 4mo agoI think poster means a local area, not a locally-owned coffee shop. Meaning in NYC it doesn't matter if it's a Starbucks or Locally owned shop, you still wouldn't leave the laptop. However, if it's a local coffee shop in the middle of Nebraska, you would be ok.
- iamjs 4mo agoMight be more effective if this was by postal code instead of by entire country
- canergl 4mo agoThanks, I will consider to add such granularities.
- newsdeskx 4mo ago[flagged]
- dooberdeats 4mo agoYes, it's very difficult to make an accurate statement about an entire country that applies and an individual experiential level. You don't experience the average crime statistics of a country at a corner coffee shop.
- toast0 4mo agoYou should probably find a proper e-waste collector, but I guess if you can't find one, you could leave it at Starbucks and someone will take care of it?
- m463 4mo agoI've seen people leave purses unattended in japan in a fast food restaurant while going to the bathroom. amazing (and kind of uplifting)
- JCharante 4mo ago> Verification not ready, try again. Japan is trusted enough to leave laptops in but not trusted enough to vote :/
- JCharante 4mo ago> Couldn't verify you're human — please try again. I'm on safari without an adblocker, not sure what sketchy stuff my ASN is up to
- fyrn_ 4mo ago"Verification not ready, try again"
- badc0ffee 4mo agoCanada is currently at 31%, and I call BS. Some of us have this self-image of a country where people trust each other, but that doesn't make it true. 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.
- MichaelRo 4mo agoI had my phone fell from my pocket while in a dancing club at night. Someone found it, took it to the bartender and I got it back (saw the location on my computer using Google's find your phone). 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.
- esperent 4mo agoVoting on a country level here is too coarse, this poll is invalid. 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.
- powerapple 4mo agoThe page says Starbucks, not a random area, random coffee shop. I think it is a valid test. Starbucks is properly staffs, in reasonably busy area, the shop is enclosed.
- elcritch 4mo agoYeah but still way too granular. There’s 50 US states. Many are very different. It’d be even better if it was city based.
- kotaKat 4mo agoYou'll also need to just chop New York into two and split the city off. NYC data skews the rest of the state so hard... (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.)
- hulitu 4mo ago> The page says Starbucks, not a random area, random coffee shop. Yes but the HN title says "random coffee shop".
- ktallett 4mo agoIt's a tricky one as I've left my laptop in Glasgow, London, Tokyo, Seoul, and Berlin. I would say ancedotally they are all of varying levels of safety on the whole as a city, but it depends on the situation and judging it correctly. The only time I've ever had my phone or any piece of tech stolen was in Japan, which many would think was safer.
- 01jonny01 4mo agoThere was a time you could leave your valuables in most teashops in the UK and they would be safe. Not no more. We lost our high trust society in most places.
- systoll 4mo agoAustralian here, and the differing wording on the site kind of changes my answer. I believe I 'can' but also that I 'wouldn't'. 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)
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoWhy? Stop reserving public or publicly available spots. I you leave anything from laptop to beach towel unattended for longer than 5 minutes you're an asshole.
- ivraatiems 4mo agoSometimes the bathroom takes longer than five minutes, or placing an order...
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoThen take a seat after a poo and placing your order.
- ivraatiems 4mo agoSometimes people need to use the bathroom after sitting for a while...
- ookblah 4mo agoin korea u can literally leave ur wallet, laptop, expensive bag at your table and go eat lunch or do something else for an hr and come back and it'll still be there (and people are used to it). one of the few places that surprised me more than japan lol. but dont leave ur bike or umbrella out.
- cyber_kinetist 4mo agoSouth Korea has CCTVs all over the place (especially in the cities), and even small-scale robbery is treated as a very serious crime that often it's not worth the risk.
- horanglabs 4mo agoIt’s not only the CCTVs, haha. In Korea, even petty theft is culturally treated as a pretty serious offense. People generally see stealing itself as crossing a big line.
- napahlm 4mo agoGood to see 4 scientists in Antarctica felt safe enough to leave their Mac.
- stelmashchuk 4mo agoThe map on the website has a few mistakes. The wrong border on Ukraine, for example.
- Asraelite 4mo agoSomething similar is the lost wallet test: https://reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ijboze/study_of_civic_honesty_how_many_people_decided_to/ https://reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ijboze/study_of_civic_h... source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712 https://web.archive.org/web/20190327101602/https://www.rd.com/culture/most-honest-cities-lost-wallet-test/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190327101602/https://www.rd.co...
- ramenat2am 4mo agoI voted "yes" for Antarctica, because that is the only place I'm confident about. 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.
- stavros 4mo agoI mean, I wouldn't leave an unattended laptop anywhere. Maybe the real test is "if you had forgotten your laptop at a coffee shop for ten minutes, what probability would you assign to going back there and successfully recovering it?". 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.
- UltraSane 4mo agoFor the US this really needs to broken down by state and even county. I know places were you can leave valuables with little likelihood of them being stolen and places where they would be gone in seconds. Small towns where most people know each other are very different to large cities.
- 3836293648 4mo agoThat applies to everywhere except for like the Vatican or Monaco. The US is not special
- codedokode 4mo agoInteresting, the map author marked Crimea as part of Russia, but for some reason doesn't mark 4 other Ukranian regions as Russian. Cannot choose the right side?
- gymbeaux 4mo agoSurely they’re using a third party mapping library and they have absolutely 0 control over what the borders look like in disputed areas.
- plastic041 4mo agoSeems right. This site uses `React Simple Maps` library with `Natural Earth` map data. Natural earth marks crimea Russian territory[0] in their "default" map data. [0]: https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/issues/391 https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/issues/391
- leephillips 4mo agoMy first day in Japan (early 90’s) I was in a train station in Tokyo. A suited businessman waiting in a long line put his briefcase on the floor and left the line for a few minutes. He returned to his spot with a newspaper. The case was still there. He had not looked around nor displayed any doubt nor hesitation. Nobody reacted or noticed. I was born and raised in New York City. This was science fiction to me.
- ralferoo 4mo agoI was surprised to see in Taiwan last year several instances of people walking into a cafe and leaving their phone on the table to indicate the table was occupied and then going up to the counter to order.
- rjh29 4mo agoObviously Japan. My first year there I actually was stupid and left my phone/keys at the table when I went to the toilet and things like that. After a while I realised that while the chances of theft are very small, they are not zero.
- sunrunner 4mo agoSemantics, but are there really random coffee shops in Antarctica? I assumed no, though a quick search suggests a place called Coffeehouse at McMurdo Station, some at South Pole Station, and then assorted local station cafeterias. Even so. I guess I'd still vote yes though, so...
- ivraatiems 4mo agoThe coffee shop at McMurdo looks awesome! https://www.instagram.com/p/DDadGo8zn2i/?img_index=6 https://www.instagram.com/p/DDadGo8zn2i/?img_index=6
- sunrunner 4mo agoIt does, right? It's going to be a hard one for me to to sample to put on my personal coffee shop tier list though...
- sliqqq 4mo agoGood idea, but a hard dealbreaker issue: clicking "Yes, totally" or "Hell no" is never accepted, as it always returns "Couldn't verify you're human — please try again.". Clicking a country in the list will also show a white page. But keep going, you have built something useful here my friend ;)
- smy_smy 4mo ago[flagged]
- raks619 4mo ago[dead]
- likeclockwork 4mo agoThere is no coffee shop anywhere in the world where I would leave my laptop unattended. 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.
- puppymaster 4mo agoyou are taking this too literally. try to see it as proxy for questions like 'will i get my wallet back from uber drive' or 'will my purse be snatched by street scooters'
- boundless88 4mo agoIn fact, there are quite a few places that can do this. In the city where I live, Shanghai, China, the security is very good and the per capita income is quite high. You can just walk into any coffee shop in the city, leave your laptop there, and then leave to do something else, and it won't be lost, I've tried it countless times.
- SequoiaHope 4mo ago[flagged]
- TejashMKumar 4mo agoThis reminds me of Hoodmaps, lightweight crowdsourcing with immediate utility. Main issue is probably self reporting bias, people may vote based on national pride rather than risk levels.
- yanhangyhy 4mo agochina 43%.. LOL
- arjie 4mo agoOpened it fully wanting to vote Yes on Taiwan. Saw it was already top of the safety list. Beautiful country and people.
- try-working 4mo agoI do it all the time in Shanghai.
- Raed667 4mo agoThe "trick" that worked for me so far is to ask the person in the next table nicely if I can leave it by their side for a moment. Statistically they're more likely to be honest rather than a thief of opportunity
- aavci 4mo agoI liked looking at this. 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.
- ramon156 4mo agoThe mobile navigating is a bit iffy. I can accidentally click on a country when zooming in
- kalmuraee 4mo agoI can bet with my Macbook to have it in any random coffee shop in Riyadh, Jeddah, or any other City in Saudi , and I can say that is Applicable to Cities like Dubai Doha, these cities have a high level of prosperity, people are there don’t have to steal, and every worker in the country already by law have working permits otherwise he couldn’t stay
- nashashmi 4mo agoThose countries have pruned-controlled immigration systems. What leads to sudden disruptions in observances of law are newcomers who are not familiar with how things work in the new culture. If someone were to walk into town where all the shops and stores keep their doors open and have a box on the counter for payment when someone feels like they need something, it would be a strange sight. And this person would wrestle with the idea of taking something and not paying in full with a bunch of pros and cons. Maybe after some time he will understand better how to proceed.
- ChocolateGod 4mo agoIn the UK, it's very regional, even in the same city (e.g. London).
- malshe 4mo agoI would like to see a ranking for countries where you can ship RAM without it getting stolen on the way. I just got mine stolen by someone at Amazon last week so I’m a bit bitter right now!
- eddy-sekorti 4mo agoDenmark
- kuri-sun 4mo agojapan is quite safe actually, I sometimes do it when I go to the bathroom
- obsidian_spider 4mo ago[dead]
- juliusceasar 4mo ago"Couldn't verify you're human — please try again"
- similarboy 4mo agovery cool idea! Like others have said, "country" doesn't feel like the right level of aggregation. Municipality, street, or even coffee shop itself would feel more natural, although there's a sure trade-off with the effort to source the data
- samtheDamned 4mo agoI think it's interesting that this map shows the Sahrawi Republic, that's not a very common feature.
- photonair 4mo agoEven if the votes are highly accurate, there is no circumstance in which I would want to leave my laptop at a Starbucks. There is a likelihood I may forget, but certainly not intentionally leaving it. That said, there are places where people leave their cell phones, keys, etc just to reserve a table in a food court while they go off to buy their food. I guess this map could be a proxy on which countries are safe to do that.
- BrandoElFollito 4mo agoThis is complete nonsense. I am French and there is no way you can compare the northern suburbs of Paris with its western ones. Or the middle of Auvergne. 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?
- darthproton 4mo ago[dead]
- Sharlin 4mo agoIt seems that lower percentage = safer/ more trusting, but that’s the opposite of how the question is phrased, where a higher fraction of affirmative votes means safer. Also, please avoid red-yellow-green gradients because up to 10% of the male population has trouble distinguishing red and green.
- bercini 4mo agoIn Brazil, I wouldn't even take my laptop to a coffee shop lmao
- JohnYuan97 4mo agoCountry you can:Japan,China,Korea,Cambodia Country you can't:USA,Canada I been living in those country before, that's my answer.
- ryosandesu 4mo agoI won't leave my laptop in any country