It has been a decades long journey getting here. There are so many contributing factors it is hard to even know where to begin. The most important thing to remember is that about half the country is very unhappy with the way things are going.
I think the best advice is use something you are comfortable with. But the second best advice is hopefully that isn't WordPress. Yes, you can do it in WP, but you would have so many more options if you picked something like Angular or React as your frontend. Then outsource auth and payments (auth0 and Stripe, for example) and that will take you pretty far. Good luck!
Back in my freelance days I had a client who refused to pay. I took him to small claims court and won. Actually collected the money.
- small claims court is very easy and relatively quick. no need for a lawyer.
- there is a cap on the amount, so I won $10k, not the full amount owed. But close enough and much better than $0.
- make every reasonable attempt to resolve this prior to filing but, as stated throughout this thread, do not stress yourself out. This should be a fire-and-forget process. Consider the money lost, and if you win, it's just bonus.
This doesn't seem like that cynical of a take at all. The US is terrible at infrastructure projects. I feel like you would never go wrong betting against them. Or at least betting that they take 10x the time and cost than predicted.
Exactly. If growing up on a spaceship was all you ever knew, it wouldn't seem like a problem. It only seems like a problem to people who grew up with a lot of choices on Earth. Most people on our planet don't have a lot of choices in how they live their life.
I just think it is a case of thinking small. A few key advances and all the problems are solved. For example:
- Increased lifespan making the trip possible in 1 generation
- A hollowed out asteroid or other extremely large biosphere. It is not hard to imagine something large enough to overcome the ecological problems
- Virtual reality (the holodeck) if you're still worried about social issues in a large space. BTW, most teens today would be happy to stay in a closed room, as long as they had a phone. (I exaggerate, but only a little)
All of these things are reasonable extrapolations of existing tech. In 200 years, I'm sure a whole lot more will be possible.
This is a really hard lesson to learn and it takes most people (myself included) many tries to learn it. From reading your post, it is super clear that you understand the lesson-- validate your idea early. But understanding the lesson and actually learning it are worlds apart.
You have put a lot of time into this project, and it is not going to go anywhere. This is a tough realization. One that you naturally want to argue against. It's easy to be stubborn. But the more time and effort you put into this, the more time and effort you are wasting.
The positives: you have built a foundation and undoubtedly learned some things along the way. Take that knowledge and pivot to something that people want/need. Good luck!
I feel like this is one area that requires a less extreme approach. It feels silly to forego batteries completely, but equally silly to put 100kW of batteries in a car. Most car trips for most people are going to be well under 50 miles.
In the US, I think it is more likely that we will regulate automobile speed than guns. I thought there might be a joke here, but sadly, this is just true.
It's really hard to "accidentally" not make payroll. This shouldn't be something that sneaks up on you. If you feel the founder deserves the benefit of the doubt, I would suggest reaching out to them first before doing anything else. But if that doesn't work it's really just a question of what you want out of the situation. You will probably never see the money regardless (lawyer/court costs, squeezing blood from a stone, etc) but it might be worth it to you to make the (very valid) point anyway.
I think most engineers need to be both. In most situations at least, you are deciding on engineering time vs non-engineering time. Meaning, if I can build something in a day that "gets the job done" with some usage constraints, or I can spend a week to build something that removes all constraints, then I need to calculate the trade-off. Could something more useful be built with that extra time? At least in start-up world, I find myself calculating that trade-off a lot.
This is an interesting perspective. My takeaway from the OP was not "depressed" in a clinical way--and I certainly could be wrong there. But I thought it was more a case of being young, overly focused on university, and needing to get out and live a bit. If it IS clinical depression, then your advice is excellent.
I guess my question is: why do you want to go back to school? It seems like you would get a TON of practical experience spending that time at Shopify. In most situations having a few years of work at a well-known company is going to be worth infinitely more than a degree. And if you just want to learn for learning's sake, you can always continue with free options.
The most important thing to remember is that there are no bad choices here. If you pick any of these paths, and focus on the things you enjoy, you will be fine.