Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

I considered moving to Portland, until I read about how a big earthquake would pretty much completely wipe it out:

http://www.oregonlive.com/earthquakes/index.ssf/2015/07/the_...

Might as well live in Washington at that point. No state income tax, while there is Oregon state income tax. Then again, Washington has sales tax, whereas Oregon does not. I used to live in Portland, and some peopled lived / worked in Vancouver, Washington, and drove to Portland to do all their shopping, groceries included.

It's really cold and wet all the time. Non-compete agreements are valid so prepare to be screwed over if you change jobs. You don't have the California code on your side if you want to do a side project-- it will be owned by your employer. Amazon will work you like a rented mule and that bald guy in charge is creepy as fuck. Traffic in Seattle is worse than the Bay Area (yes really). They can't expand I-95 because they made the decision to tunnel it through a building (long story)

I've actually worked at Amazon in the past. My experience wasn't that bad. And I'm a actually a Seattle native! For some reason, the traffic there never really bothered me.

> They can't expand I-95 because they made the decision to tunnel it through a building (long story)

Expanding highways makes traffic worse.

Expanding highways makes traffic acceptable for more people (no change or slight dip in latency, but more throughput) which increases housing supply.

No income tax + legal weed everywhere + alcohol in grocery stores + liberal gun laws + you can pump your own damn gas.

Seattle would also get hit hard in the same big earthquake. See the same article above.

Funny thing. I remember reading about this a while back. There were particular regions in Seattle that would be unaffected. I'm not sure how accurately the predicted boundaries were, but I remember my apartment being 10 feet away from the boundary, in the unaffected area. My company, though, was on the other side. In essence, I was exempt from danger for half of the day during weekdays, and a full day during weekends.

I wouldn't worry tooo much about earthquakes in any country with good local building codes. Background: I am from Christchurch New Zealand; my parents live on top of the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and my sister lives on top of the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.

Avoid living or working in brick buildings (they fall apart).

If worried, perhaps avoid high tsunami risk zones (that lack high ground, roads are less useful since they will be unusable during large earthquakes).

If you catalog your risks, earthquake death or disability is probably low in scheme of things.

From my experience, if you work in software with a laptop, earthquakes are not likely to affect your work too much.

Unless you have a neurotic partner, in which case avoid earthquake zones, because they lose the plot when the earth takes control.

Yep, I live in the city with the most powerful recorded earthquake (9.5) and not worried.

You realize the Bay Area is likely to be devastated by a large earthquake too right?

Meh. I was in the Bay Area during the 89' quake. I'm not terribly worried about what would happen here. I remember hearing "the big one" was coming for the past 30 years.

If the super volcano explodes do you really want to be alive after?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com