quickaskq

Hey HN. There’s not much reliable / unbiased analysis of SpaceX’s mission statement of making humanity multiplanetary. So, what are the chances? I’ve been following spacex for a while and, ignoring all the elon shenanigans old and new, they do incredible stuff. Docking with the space station, humans on the space station, reusable rockets launching more than weekly… it’s insane. The progress they’ve made in the last 15 years is unheard of, only rivaled by the Apollo program.

But a self sustaining civilization on Mars? I’m skeptical. Yes, it’s physically possible. And spacex seems to be heading in the right direction. But the sheer difficulty of the problem I think is sometimes understated.

Elon’s rough estimates on what it’ll take to create a self sustaining civilization vary from interview to interview. One quote:

“Roughly 800 to 1000 per year. That’s about what’s needed over ten years to create the fleet to build a self-sustaining city on Mars”

More than 3 launches per day for 10 years? That’s where the impossibility of it all starts to seep in.

Many seemingly unsolvable problems also arise. Where does the money come from? How will we make the Martian surface habitable? Even if getting launch costs down to 2 million as Musk stated once is possible (hard to believe, Falcon 9 is nowhere near that today), the amount of peripheral costs (maintenance, staffing, logistics, training, the list goes on) is extraordinary.

I’m pretty sure they’ll get to mars in the next 10 years. And they even have a good shot and doing that multiple times. But based on the sheer amount of payload that needs to get to Mars, it seems like a mission that will exceed the lifetime of SpaceX.

I’ve been sensing a trend of techies making moves to NYC. I’ve also heard of insane rent increases by the order of $500 - $1000, and a huge scarcity of available properties.

Has anyone recently made the move to NYC? How was your experience?

Hey HN, I’m a long (…long) time lurker, very occasional poster. I am starting my completely remote job soon and have hit a difficult problem that I am having a hard time figuring out: where to live. I have no S.O., no large family, no ethnic/religious community (not trying to be melodramatic here, I’m quite content with my life), which means I have no ties to anywhere. Where do I live?

I love San Francisco. I love walking around Russian hill, Cole valley, Noe valley, getting a burrito in the mission, biking through golden gate park, chilling in Alamo square, etc.

Although I am a techie, I’ve grown away from associating with tech. It’s my 9-5, but afterwards I want to talk about anything else. I do read HN religiously though :)

I am still dating and am at a point in my life where this is very important. At a cis male what is the scene like?

I make good money, but I still have a deep sense of what something should be worth. Paying 2.8k for a 1 bedroom hurts but I can afford it. Otherwise the city seems expensive but not outrageous. I had a sushi roll for $15, which is like $3 more than it should be imo.

I could go on. What I would really appreciate is what long term SF residents think about SF life. Can I find friends here? Make a relationship? Will the insane beauty of twin peaks wear off?

Thanks HN

Hi everyone. I’m a little past 3 years at a FAANG; as I look back at what I’ve done I’ve realized that I’ve had little to no impact. No major features shipped. Nothing I can point to and say I designed that. Nothing I can brag about. What have I made? Dashboards no one looks at. Bug fixes, so many bug fixes. Half made features that were cut months in due to poor planning. And so much, what I like to call, dashboard clicking.

I’m not sure what to think about this. I have golden handcuffs here at FAANG. I’m not too willing to take a different job given my sweet gig. Plus I don’t have to work super hard. But in return I get an unfulfilling job.

What is your experience?

Given a person with very few marketable skills, how can this person make money online?

There are services such as Amazon’s mechanical turk that fit the bill, though the given example usually nets less than $8 an hour.