watermoose

This is an article essentially about how anxiety affects political views, so here's my experience on that matter.

I'm an independent that leans conservative especially on fiscal but also somewhat on social issues, and I know that my worry plays a part in it.

I've voted for independents, Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats in past presidential elections, and plan to vote Democrat this year, and I will do so because of my worry about the Republican candidate. This candidate is unpredictable, and is focused on the wrong side of issues that I care about. I'm a compassionate person, and the candidate is not. I'm also a Christian, and the candidate is the antithesis of the behavior and goals I would hope to have in my country's leader. And of course, I think that a woman should have a chance at leading our country, even if she's not the one that I'd chose typically. So, my anxiety will play a part in the election, but not in the way this article would suggest.

Sam, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I hope it's ok, but I've got a few questions about something not directly related to YC applications.

As a middle-aged developer, I've seen a lot in my lifetime, but I believe that right now, even though in some ways I'm much more hopeful for the future than I've ever been, I feel like there are many huge time-bombs out there in the world that make focusing on a startup just to have a chance to become financially successful a petty and, for some, a possibly futile ordeal.

For example: political divisiveness/change/chaos, scary world leaders and potential world leaders discussing/threatening/testing nuclear weapons, wars for and against religions involving terror, causing mass death, spawning racism and restricted freedoms, other random shootings/acts of violence, discord and violence between people that are racially targeted and those who want to serve the public to protect people regardless of their race, terrible diseases/epidemics some without cures or growing resistance to cures that we've long depended on, weather related natural disasters, economic troubles, etc. The list goes on and on.

Given the climate of the world today and all of our problems, what things do you want to see- not just in the startups that you and/or YC as a whole want to help, but across the board? And what do you say to those that think that just don't feel safe enough to invest the time, money, and effort on a startup which has a greater chance of failure than success when they could just be working a stable job to try to save enough to survive what is ahead?

I'm incredibly excited about this.

I would actually like to hear more about what happens on Mars: the steps to generate oxygen, food, energy, water, and the fuel for the return trip. What are the various ways that Mars could be terraformed, and what are the ethical and practical considerations?

I know that this comes on the heels of an unfortunate accident, but I'm in the camp that accidents and mistakes can lead to better process with less risk, and sometimes simpler solutions.

And, I'd like to invest in SpaceX. Whether it's in stocks or bonds, I just want to help.

Google didn't intentionally change the world in Angular 2 to make sure that developers were learning new Angular 2 stuff vs. something else. If they wanted to do that, they were too late, because a lot of people had moved to React already.

Angular 2 is so different because they were trying to fix all of the problems with Angular 1. In fact, Angular 2 didn't even settle on how to do that after starting early releases of Angular 2. But, that wasn't some secret conspiracy to get people to use it. If anything, a lot of people that were sold on Angular 1 are slower to migrate, but that's what they get for trying to do things right.

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks!

I would think there is a high chance that if aliens are capable of listening to us, they would be using AI to do so. After all, within decades of starting to listen for Aliens, we've already made significant progress in AI development.

However, once their AI deciphers what we're saying to them, they'll probably just get annoyed like the FCC and HAM radio operators get annoyed with people mucking around with radio transmissions before knowing the rules.

> Suppose an octopus stacked rocks in piles of prime numbers (not including unity). Would we care beyond possibly putting it on display in an aquarium?

Considering that a lot of research is done on animal communication, I think that's a poor example.

Yeah- I changed my wording to "scalable". And I appreciate the developers and community around SQLite. It has its uses, and I appreciate it. However, I think it could be better with concurrency.

> Do people agree with this?

I don't. I've corrupted SQLite DBs enough to not have warm and fuzzy feelings about it like I used to have.

I think it's only a good choice when you just need a database for your app that will barely be using it, and if you didn't use it you'd be writing to a file instead. And, that's basically what the SQLite docs say.

However, even then, I think it can be short-sighted. I've used webapps before that used SQLite and I thought to myself: if they'd only used MySQL or PostgreSQL and then provided access to it, I could have used it.

Be aware though, if you decide to use a scalable DB like PostgreSQL, it will require a port to be open for the DB, even if only locally. If you're trying to minimize how people can access your data, you don't want a port open/an extra port open, and you're not going to hit it very hard, SQLite's probably your best choice.

> At the same time I cannot use toy languages that have no compile time type checking

This guy seems like and sounds like a serious developer, so I'm totally confused by this statement.

Dynamic languages that don't do compile time type checking are not toys.

I used to only write in Java or C++, but I think it's a stage of maturity as a developer to realize that you can develop code that can take arguments with the assumption that the objects sent in are of types that will have the behavior you need to work with them.

If you argue that the code is faster when it is compiled- that's fine, and I agree, and that's good, if it matters.

If you argue that you need types because otherwise you can't be safe, I'm sorry, but that's like being a helicopter-parent. Sometimes maybe you can't trust what is calling your code even when you give it trust, and that's valid; just like as a parent, sometimes the child really needs that level of micromanagement. But, for a lot of if not most of practical web development, you can use dynamic typing, and most children do not need that level of micromanagement.

There's nothing wrong with languages that provide type checking, but it isn't necessarily a deficiency when it's not there.

This explanation dismisses refraction because it assumes the atmosphere is of a single consistency. The atmosphere is composed of different types of elements at different densities and temperatures depending on altitude, etc.

Also, our atmosphere contains an ionosphere where electrons, which are involved in light propogation, could bend the light more depending on the amount of ionosphere the light must travel through on the way to our eyes.

It's strange to me that these things were not discussed.

> P.S. I could interview well with a mid-senior electronics role or a junior programmer role.

What do you mean by "electronics". Electrical engineer? Electrician?