Silfen

8 ms·

31.
by Silfen 9y ago
"Compile time" is artificial, but the difference between static and dynamic is natural (in some sense, I realize these words are quite slippery). It emerges from the underlying mathematics. There's a real difference between c
32.
by Silfen 9y ago
While this might be accurate of downtown, you've lost the forest for the trees. Seattle absolutely has protected views for many of the single family houses. If they expire, it's on 30-40 year time horizons. Most of the city's
33.
by Silfen 9y ago
I have some "old Seattle" credentials. I grew up in Capitol Hill. I absolutely believe that Amazon is unfairly scapegoated, but at the same time do understand the gripes that many have about the city's changes. The most bitte
34.
by Silfen 9y ago
For us mortals, it is far more likely that you simply lose your balance, strength, or concentration. A typical multi-pitch climb is hard work and the odds of missing a move are pretty high. Granted, I'm a mediocre climber (can lead 1
35.
by Silfen 9y ago
> Typescript annotations are little more than documentation This is true at the boundaries of your codebase, but if your application is complex enough, tsc is a life saver. Typescript saves me from bugs literally every day. Not to mentio
36.
by Silfen 10y ago
It's bad when modern society depends on the integrity of the biosphere.
37.
by Silfen 10y ago
I don't think the issue is purely semantic. The government provides a financial incentive to buy houses. I can decide whether I want to be $x richer and have a mortgage to pay. I can similarly decide if I want to be $y richer and have
38.
by Silfen 10y ago
It's not a mandate, it's a tax incentive. I'm not forced to buy a house, but if I choose not to have a mortgage, then I forgo the federal tax benefits. If you accept that the mortgage deduction is within the scope of the gove
39.
by Silfen 10y ago
This is a strange non-sequitur. The concern is about the warming effect of the atmospheric CO2, not about whether it's safe to breathe. The particular concern of this article is about the potential for positive feedback in warming.
40.
by Silfen 10y ago
We have already seen many, many species go extinct. The exact figures are not well understood, but there's a lot more at stake than just the polar bear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
41.
by Silfen 10y ago
This is pretty much what boosting is. Although we can ask the same question of the boosting algorithm, I guess.
42.
by Silfen 10y ago
I'm not so sure we do disagree :) At the risk of splitting hairs... there are costs associated with finding developers who have this education and/or fostering a company culture where security best practices are important. If soft
43.
by Silfen 10y ago
I don't think endemic poor software quality is about "lack of perfectionists." It's mostly about perfectly rational cost/benefit analysis. A lot of software is valuable for reasons other than code quality (e.g. netw
44.
by Silfen 10y ago
The random number generator generator (or monkeys at typewriters) analogy is deeply flawed. The entire point of natural selection is that it is non-random. Think instead of a stochastic optimization process that provides feedback at each it
45.
by Silfen 10y ago
Maybe not exactly relevant to the article, but we have observed plenty of "new features." For example, bacteria that have evolved specific enzymes to digest compounds that didn't exist before the 1930s. See http:/&#x2F
46.
by Silfen 10y ago
The commonly cited downsides include (a) rent seeking among protected industries and (b) prices of domestically produced goods are higher. How true these are in practice is probably somewhat controversial and difficult to measure.
47.
by Silfen 10y ago
Depends (like most of these generalizations) on your college and teachers. I had two professors who hammered the point that the priorities are: clarity, correctness, and performance. In that order. Perhaps a bit dogmatic, but a useful idea.
48.
by Silfen 10y ago
C# incidentally solved many other shortcomings with Java. The languages are getting closer to parity, but for many years C# was pretty far ahead (if you only consider language features and not tooling/ecosystem). Between reified generi
49.
by Silfen 10y ago
The DSM exists for billing purposes. It's not exactly a scientific taxonomy of psychiatric disorders.
50.
by Silfen 11y ago
The issue is the outsize power that suburban districts have relative to population. Intra-Seattle light rail would clearly be best for the city, but Snohomish gets as much of a say as the city proper. The U District stop is actually a great
51.
by Silfen 11y ago
GP isn't talking about taking legal action against offensive speech. If you're offensive, it is entirely reasonable for people to take social action against you - like branding you an asshole - but you should never be arrested or
52.
by Silfen 11y ago
There is likely an efficient (in the economic sense of the word) level of CO2 emissions, but I doubt that anyone knows what it is. It's very difficult to price. However, I do agree with you that it's probably not zero. The good ne
53.
by Silfen 11y ago
Really? Most big businesses in America devote incredible resources to following the law. Of course there are prominent examples to the contrary, but those are the exceptions, not the norm.
54.
by Silfen 11y ago
I don't know where you're from, but cannabis is certainly very available in many parts of the U.S. And much easier for minors to obtain in areas where it's illegal!
55.
by Silfen 11y ago
(even more anecdata and speculation) I live in Washington, and it is absolutely not a problem here. The main difference, to my mind, is that alcohol induces higher risk behavior, while cannabis produces risk aversion. Prohibition has been a
56.
by Silfen 11y ago
I'm not sure how to unpack this. If there isn't energy scarcity, why does petroleum cost money? Scarcity isn't just a question of production, but also one of consumption. With some goods (e.g. food), we could reach a point wh
57.
by Silfen 11y ago
Someone with a little more knowledge of financial markets, help me out here. Is it really news if a tech company's stock drops 8-10% on a day when NASDAQ is down over 3%?
58.
by Silfen 11y ago
This is why I find the gradual typing paradigm so interesting! You begin by writing your program in an untyped language, allowing for easier iteration and more exploratory programming. As you codebase grows, you transition modules over to s
59.
by Silfen 11y ago
Training near your 1-rep max is as much about training your nervous system as it is your musculoskeletal system. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgi_tendon_reflex and http://www.wisegeek.com/what-i
60.
by Silfen 11y ago
I think this is fairly revisionist. This narrative undersells the influence that Buddhist thought had on enlightenment philosophers[0]. IANAHistorian, and am likely well out of my depth here, but I'd venture a guess that the influence

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