Hacker News: Silfen

New comment by Silfen in "OpenAI models coming to Amazon Bedrock: Interview with OpenAI and AWS CEOs"

Silfen — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 01:44:40 +0000

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/bedrock...

New comment by Silfen in "LLVM merges machine function splitter for reduction in TLB misses"

Silfen — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:03:35 +0000

I'd recommend "Lambda, the ultimate GOTO" https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5753

New comment by Silfen in "The Zen of Weight Lifting"

Silfen — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 21:48:42 +0000

Vegetarian lifter here. Getting quality protein is a bit more difficult, but if you're ovo-lacto vegetarian then egg whites and whey are great sources. You don't need to overdo it, just make sure you're getting enough. Once you're no longer a complete beginner, you might also want to consider supplementing with creatine, since you aren't getting much in your diet.

For a deeper dive, I'd recommend this excellent article: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/vegetarian-and-vegan-athle...

New comment by Silfen in "Seattle Faces Backlash After Easing on Crimes Involving Mental Illness"

Silfen — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 22:56:11 +0000

To add another data point: I've lived in capitol hill for 22 years. I know zero people who have been attacked by homeless people. That's not to say that Seattle's homelessness problem isn't grave, but I suspect that there's a sampling bias in this comment thread.

New comment by Silfen in "FDA is considering drugs to help kids quit vaping"

Silfen — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 22:02:35 +0000

LD50 is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. No one goes to the store and orders 1mg/kg of a substance. When considering acute harm, the relevant metric is the ratio between a typical recreational dose and an overdose. For example, there are very few tobacco servings that contain more than 20mg nicotine. A person is very unlikely to come anywhere near the, say, 360mg lethal dose.

New comment by Silfen in "NYC Subway Trains Might Start Moving Faster"

Silfen — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 23:24:47 +0000

Yeah, I never meant to suggest that it was wrong (except in the most literal sense!). Comparative subway costs do not make MTA look good!

New comment by Silfen in "NYC Subway Trains Might Start Moving Faster"

Silfen — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 22:47:23 +0000

I assume you're speaking figuratively. Here's an extremely literal elaboration for the railfans in the thread. The route length of the NYC subway system is 245 miles. Subway construction costs vary across developed countries, but generally fall between $200-$500 million per mile[0]. So under extremely optimistic assumptions, 40 billion would get us to about 80% of the current subway network.

For those interested in analysis of subway construction costs, I highly recommend Alon Levy's work at Pedestrian Observations: https://pedestrianobservations.com/construction-costs/

[0]https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-ex...

New comment by Silfen in "Windows Server 2019 Includes OpenSSH"

Silfen — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:26:36 +0000

Shameless plug: There's also remote GUI support through Windows Admin Center. You can manage your headless server through the browser on your workstation. It's also a good way to learn CLI-based management (the implementation is almost all powershell scripts, and there is a "show script" feature) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windo...

New comment by Silfen in "Tracking China's Muslim Gulag"

Silfen — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:10:35 +0000

Yeah, and I would be surprised to find a person here who praises that policy. This is textbook, premium grade whataboutism.

New comment by Silfen in "Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs"

Silfen — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 01:30:13 +0000

No, Manhattan's vacancy rate is quite low[0][1].

[0] https://www.nakedapartments.com/blog/nyc-vacancy-rate/ [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/18HSR.pd...

New comment by Silfen in "The Media Industry and the “Make-Google-Pay” Fantasy"

Silfen — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 17:57:14 +0000

This is essentially the argument laid out in stratechery: https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-union-versus-the-i...

The link tax seems like wishful thinking on the part of the publishers - an attempt to legislate the market dynamics of yesteryear.

New comment by Silfen in "Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10"

Silfen — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 21:54:52 +0000

HN has in-feed ads for Y Combinator businesses. A great example of benevolent, win-win advertising, in my opinion.

New comment by Silfen in "Not Lisp again (2009)"

Silfen — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 23:28:14 +0000

I like having both notations at my disposal. For example, F#'s forward pipe operator[0], or pipes from a unix shell.

[0]https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/language-refe...

New comment by Silfen in "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World [video]"

Silfen — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 22:27:44 +0000

Increasing the supply of housing should lower prices, yes. In nearly every neighborhood, single family, detached homes are the most expensive form of housing.

There is an effect where improving the consumption benefits of the city may draw new migration from other parts of the country, but it is generally accepted that this effect is much smaller than the effect of increased competition between landlords and developers.

If you think that housing somehow operates differently from a normal market - increasing supply will not change the price - it is incumbent on you to explain why you think this might be true.

New comment by Silfen in "Japan's Hometown Tax"

Silfen — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 18:27:16 +0000

Yeah, and I agree. My comment was more of a tangent that struck a nerve :)

New comment by Silfen in "Japan's Hometown Tax"

Silfen — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 17:48:58 +0000

At the risk of opening the world's largest pressurized can of worms... sort of. There is an argument to be made that The South cared about state's rights only in the instrumental sense that it allowed them to protect slavery. They were also in favor of stronger federal government when it protected slavery, e.g. fugitive slave laws.

New comment by Silfen in "Japan's Hometown Tax"

Silfen — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 17:23:46 +0000

You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...

New comment by Silfen in "US to Allow Cars Without Steering Wheels"

Silfen — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 21:37:12 +0000

> why should s/he wait to cross the street if s/he knows that the car that is nearing has an anti-collision/auto-break system?

In the least dystopian-surveillance-state future scenarios, there will be a giant array of cameras and sensors pointed at anyone who crosses this way. How hard would it be to identify this person and ramp up enforcement as necessary? You'll never completely stop it, but I imagine it could be lowered to acceptable levels.

New comment by Silfen in "How the octopus got its smarts"

Silfen — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 17:31:04 +0000

In a stunning coincidence, this is from today's Washington Post: 'This is what happens to a shy octopus on ecstasy' https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/20/this-is-wh...

New comment by Silfen in "Beleaguered Didi Is Said to Lose $585M in Just Six Months"

Silfen — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 17:58:53 +0000

It's not just homogeneity. Cab and car services basically didn't exist in many US cities prior to ride sharing. I'm a carless transit fanatic, but 10 years ago I'd probably have to buy a car to live comfortably in my current neighborhood.