Returning to Free Software: A Guide - <AUTHOR> http://words.steveklabnik.com/returning-to-free-software-a-guide <comment><USER2> I hope we see a lot more of this soon. It's disappointing to see so many hackers using proprietary OSes/editors/etc. to build systems based on free software.

<comment><USER3> via Tim Wu's Master Switch - open vs closed = freedom vs convenience

It's a trade-off. One is not better than the other.

<comment><USER4> Eh, that's a false trade-off. I'm more productive on a free OS, which I can customize to my needs (since I can choose a the best window manager for me from tens of good alternatives and so on).

<comment><USER3> It takes time and effort to make a good choice "from tens of good alternatives". Its great to have that freedom, but to many, spending that time and effort is an inconvenience. That is the trade off.

<comment><USER5> a stitch in time saves nine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope the author appreciates the irony of hosting this blog with svbtle…

<comment><USER7> yes, not only that but I'm getting bored by people pretending they're doing anything good just because they've (finally) realized that using non-free software suffers from collaterals

I'm bored by people pretending they've gone free just because they managed to replace OSX with some exotic gnu/linux distro (and with exotic I mean whatever which isn't mainstream)

And I'm bored by people upvothing posts like this

And I know someone will tell is me who is wrong (and boring) but listen, that is just your opinion, as this is mine. One thing isn't opinionable though, svbtle isn't free, so this post really isn't a good one, for me

And if your story is about "how you reinstalled some random gnu/linux", well that is a 20 years old story; what is an hacker (news reader) interested in? the .Xmodmap settings?

The fight for freedom today seems to me to have been moved for the great part somewhere else, on the webapps. How about we "return to freedom" by debating on how we get rid of all these non-free web applications?

<comment><USER8> > _I 'm bored by people pretending they've gone free just because they managed > to replace OSX with some exotic gnu/linux distro_

Isn't it better than just doing nothing? What are you planning to do to _do any good_? What do you think the average non-tech guy should do?

<comment><USER7> sure it is better than doing nothing, except in my perception HN isn't a place for average non-tech guys so I get bored by this kind of posts

About me, I'm planning (and practicing) not to release any non-free code and also looking for alternatives to a few web apps which I'm still unable to replace (as per first post). That would be a much nicer topic to discuss for me.

Installing gnu/linux, no really. Again that is 20years old story.

<comment><USER9> > sure it is better than doing nothing, except in my perception HN isn't a > place for average non-tech guys so I get bored by this kind of posts

I agree. There's a lot of avoidance of criticism for fear of "negativity" on HN. Not only does this hurt the (very positive) _constructive_ criticism by regression-to-the-mean, it also causes us to lower our collective bar, from a "collection of smart people" into something more average.

The only non-free software I can't find a replacement for is a good sound/wave editor, something with an intuitive interface. Audacity's navigation controls are just terrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised no one has mentioned that using software full disk encryption on an SSD is a really bad idea. It increases wear dramatically, completely invalidates TRIM and works against the controller every step of the way. LVM has an option that supposedly passes TRIM through but in my case I'm pretty sure it didn't do anything.

<comment><USER11> Can you explain more about this?

Even if my disk wore off faster, I'd still use full-disk encryption. What if laptop is lost or stolen with financial info in it?

<comment><USER10> Right. The thing is, when you wear out an SSD, you get these enormous (multiple seconds) pauses that, if you're doing anything I/O bound slow you down to a crawl. Even opening a heavy web page can trigger them. Buy a fast HDD if you want consistent long term behaviour with FDE.

The reason FDE breaks SSDs is that the implementation in LVM works at the block level. To send TRIM, the filesystem says "this block is empty, tell the controller" but depending on a thousand things, among which are cipher mode, cipher block size and other minutiae, LVM will invalidate the TRIM command. Without TRIM, SSDs deteriorate rather quickly.

Personally, I understand why FDE is needed but I'm of the opinion that selective encryption (with possible plausible deniability measures) is a much neater, if more difficult, approach.

<comment><USER12> You should enable encryption at the controller level, many modern SSD support it and it shouldn't influence the performance.

<comment><USER10> Indeed! Which is why I said "software full disk encryption" in my OP. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm running FreeBSD on a 4 + year old netbook for close to a year now, and before that it was various unix-like OS choices, from Xubuntu, to Kuki, to Tiny Core, to Fedora, along with too many others to list as I sought an OS to suit my needs.

I wiped WinXP (eXPloitable) off my hdd years ago, and haven't looked back ever since.

My only caveat is Netflix, but this is easily fixed by booting into a persistent Debian USB flash drive installation and running compholio's netflix-desktop.

As for those who complain about having to configure their unix-like systems, you can't really claim to be much of a "hacker" if configuring your own system is a task too onerous.

After all, if a moron such as myself can do it, genius such as yours should have absolutely no problem using unix-like systems.

<comment><USER14> _After all, if a moron such as myself can do it, genius such as yours should have absolutely no problem using unix-like systems._

Saying things like this hurts the quality of your post and may not be HN- worthy. The rest of your post was good enough to make your point.

(edit: formatting)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _One thing that I have yet to explore (but I'd like to) is to use a tool > like Chef to set up my personal machine, so that I can periodically wipe > everything and re-build from scratch._

I'm in the same boat. Does anyone know a good tutorial to learn how to do this with Chef or Puppet? I don't have much of an interested in learning the tools, I just want to set it up and forget it (and occasionally update it).

Do people make their Chef/Puppet configuration files public (e.g. on GitHub) just like they do with their dotfiles?

<comment><USER16> Not chef or puppet, but Eivind Uggedal published the saltstack states for his personal archlinux machines: [https://github.com/uggedal/states](https://github.com/uggedal/states)

I plan to do the same for my debian setups, but i am not there yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What does the NSA/privacy issue have to do with your switch? I'm curious to know how using free software could possibly protect you from the current NSA issues that have been brought to light. You are still using the public Internet (services such as email, web/http etcetera), which has nothing to do with free software. You are using telephony (well, perhaps you don't have a phone) systems provided by private companies which provide the info to the NSA. Security is still a two way street in every case. Sure, everything I use might be 'secure' but how do you know that every one you collaborate with is just as 'secure' as you? Once you send data to anyone, it's out of your hands.

I'm just asking questions. I respect the switch. I've tried several times, but I still like OS X too much to dump it. I know freedom can come at a price, such as having a lessened user experience (in some cases). I really don't feel, and have not been shown, that Apple has been reading all my data and sending it to third parties. So, on the security aspect, I've no reason to get rid of the OS that I work on and that contributes heavily to my income. Now, I use an awful lot of free software but I just can't give up OS X at this time.

<comment><USER18> As I said in the post, I made the decision to switch beforehand. One of the issues that made me finally do it was mysterious load spikes that would happen on my machine, and I couldn't figure out what was up. Like, "Why are my fans running? Top says my load is at 2, but no process is using more than 2% CPU."

With software that is Free, I can be pretty damn sure that there isn't something that's sending something somewhere behind my back.

That said, it would not help _directly_ with the NSA situation. They're related because everyone was asking me to write this post up, because they care a lot more about privacy and information freedom in light of recent events. Taking control of my own computer is just one step, it's not 'foolproof' or 'secure' by any means.

If anything, the NSA situation just confirmed what I already knew: the executive branch doesn't give a care in the world as to the intent of the law, only the letter. As someone who has... generally unacceptable political views, and expresses them in front of a reasonably large audience on a regular basis, I constantly wonder about things like some of the other stories on the front page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have been using archlinux exclusively since 2006. I would be lost and furious without a central repository for all the updates, compiz goodies, and the free-of-malware/viruses peace of mind that only linux gives me.

What is this "Chez" that OP is writing about?

<comment><USER20> OP was talking about "Chef" a server configuration tool [http://www.opscode.com/chef/](http://www.opscode.com/chef/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure the X1 Carbon is such a great idea. I heard that Lenovo laptops are way cheaper in US than in Europe, but here, getting MBA instead would give you cheaper computer with better screen, and way better touchpad, while going for rMBP 13 would give you computer with better performance, more memory, way better screen and way better touchpad, while still being cheaper than the X1.

Now more expensive than Apple product, while worse ... that requires actual effort!

I'm planning to do just the same with Linux, though I'm waiting for Haswell Zenbook.

EDIT: I hope I recall correctly on X1 having TN screen.

<comment><USER22> If you want to run Linux, Macbooks are not that great, as it takes ages to get support for each generation. You could buy a second hand or refurb one perhaps. I bought an old cheap discontinued model Lenovo (X201i) a few years back and put an SSD in. It could use more memory, although you tend to use VMs less on Linux than on OSX as you can run code natively. Should be good for a few more years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The author mentions installing Ghostery, which appears to be nonfree.

<comment><USER24> It is free, unless you have some politically overloaded definition of free.

<comment><USER25> I think the definition here was Free Software, which considering it doesn't seem to have a public repository with the source code, means that it is nonfree.

<comment><USER26> Just in case that's not clear, when people capitalise "Free Software", they're generally referring to the definition used by the Free Software Foundation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For me, it is a matter of moving in the right direction. I can't run on all free software. For example, I had to dig my old Windows laptop out of my junk closet today to do a homework assignment (without warning, the last assignment for the Cousera Data Science class requires Windows :-( )

Also, I prefer Android (not free software, but at least more open) but the are a few apps on my iPad I really like so I am not giving away my iPad anytime soon.

<comment><USER28> For the assignment that required Windows, did you try using WINE? If so, how did that work out? Just curious.

<comment><USER27> I installed the app on Windows, but it was a real nuisance. I was annoyed :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> GNU/Linux really isn't an option for laptops until the battery life improves. Yes, yes I know PowerTOP helps, but 3 hours under even the most minimal distro vs. 8 hours under Windows is unacceptable.

(Note: I know it's the hardware manufacturers fault for not releasing power related drivers, but as if the end user cares!)

<comment><USER30> It does take some tinkering to get things setup right, but on my Asus Zenbook UX32VD I do get ~5 hours of battery life for simple usage, which is the same as the advertised battery life with Windows. This is running Ubuntu 13.04 with the latest linux kernel (3.9.6 atm), laptop-mode, bbswitch to turn off the discrete graphics card, power saving mode on for the wifi card etc.

IMO its paramount to be running recent kernels, both for good battery life as well as compatibility with the latest hardware.

<comment><USER31> Agreed. With just a bit of tweaking I have my x220 using around 8 watts with average use, getting 10+ hours. Windows only gets around 8 hours on the same system.

This looks like a post from years ago. I'm suspicious that this guy is just a windows apologist looking to spread FUD.

<comment><USER29> I have an IBM x60, x61 tablet and several recent Asus lappys, all had terrible battery life out of the box under several different distros. After fiddling they all had _better_ life but nowhere near what I got under xp 7 or 8.

It's great if the HN community can config their OSes to get every watt out of it, but the truth is the lay man doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't want to know how to do that...

<comment><USER9> > It's great if the HN community can config their OSes to get every watt out > of it, but the truth is the lay man doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't > want to know how to do that...

How is this even relevant? We _are_ the HN community, right? Where are these lay men? I don't think the OP as targeted at lay men.

I'm starting to think all this talk of "the end user doesn't care" or "the lay man doesn't want to know" are all just euphemisms for "I want it to be easier for _me_ ".

Which is fine, but then just admit it, instead of hiding behind a hypothetical end-user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My current stance is that I'm fine with using any device not internally linked to an online identity. I.e., not associating my user account with an apple ID.

I still think of OS X as an open platform since I can use entirely free software alongside Apple's amazing apps. I also still trust that the Mac's limited market share makes known backdoors less valuable to the powers that be, and more dangerous to Apple's reputation if discovered by anyone else.

Using iOS, on the other hand, necessarily waives the right to privately install software. That's one I won't give up.

<comment><USER29> Can you please list the free software you use on OS X?

<comment><USER32> vim, tmux, zsh, mutt (ppl & ldap for addressing), vimperator, qemu, pass, homebrew, seahorse, general programming languages, general unix utils, pandoc (& LaTeX), ffmpeg, kdenlive, lots of associated plugins and helper scripts, keyremap4macbook, tarsnap, rtorrent, nginx, plex. Probably much more in the future (homebrew's repo is huge); I'm just recently making the switch from Arch.

I'll need a better free & open cloud sync solution, but I was using Dropbox on Linux anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Unless there is a guarantee where the network traffic is going through, this is worthless even with encryption.

Secret service agencies have the ability to pose as whatever they want, even using "legit" certificates.

<comment><USER25> > Secret service agencies have the ability to pose as whatever they want, even > using "legit" certificates.

That's why I greatly prefer the WoT model to the CA model and refuse to use S/MIME in favor of OpenPGP.

That said, you _could_ write down the checksums of the certificates you trust. Effectively you do trust checking by hand then.

<comment><USER33> How would you ever prevent whoever gets the information to pass it to secret services agency?

That is why as European I find the whole PRISM discussion overblown as if people weren't aware secret service agencies have been doing this for years all over the world.

<comment><USER25> > How would you ever prevent whoever gets the information to pass it to secret > services agency?

I think it is about third parties. If I can't trust the person I am communicating to, why would I want to tell this person any secrets?

> That is why as European I find the whole PRISM discussion overblown as if > people weren't aware secret service agencies have been doing this for years > all over the world.

I agree completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> No matter how much "free" software you will still be tracked. The government has access to all the data you use on their internet via service providers as well as the internet hubs.

Besides the government the data that the companies collect is used to improve their software, so is that really bad? I agree I do not like being snooped on, but the government is the only body I really have any interest in because it is in the constitution not to snoop on me without cause, the company (usually) doesn't provide such assurances/promises.

</comment><comment><USER35> I primarily use gnu/linux and I'm planning to upgrade my laptop. Any recommendation? rMBP, Zenbook, Carbon X1...? Long battery life and performance are the primary criteria.

<comment><USER36> I have a lenovo x230 that works great for me... It's not as high-res as an X1, but it is super easy to swap in 16G of ram and an SSD. I think the X1's ram is soldered. I also have an extra battery that snaps onto the bottom which will give me ~10-12hrs of total battery life when I'm going about my usual business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> _I still have improvements to make, but what I have works well so far. Please let me know what you think, and suggest ways to make this setup even better._

A crunchbanger for 2+ years, recent convert to elementary: [http://elementaryos.org](http://elementaryos.org) , especially if you are looking for 'polish'. Do check it out once its out.

<comment><USER38> Well, I <3 eOS, and I am developing for it, and chat to the devs on the daily (#elementary-dev on Freenode). Great guys, great OS.

Thing is, it _does_ take away a lot of the "choice". It's very Mac influenced, and has a "convention over configuration" and "opinionated" view on how things should work.

This is not a bad thing, if it fits you (like it does for me!). However, a lot of hackers on here won't be keen, considering their opinions on Unity anyway ;)

Do give it a spin in a VM and see what you think, however!

Personally, I have a Samsung Series-5 ultrabook 13", running Ubuntu 13.04 - it's brilliant. I've used Linux as my daily on my laptops since 2005 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Lot of comments on what exactly constitutes free software (and the snarky insinuation that somehow only the FSF can determine what exactly that means).

Let's let Richard explain it :

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPikY3uLIQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPikY3uLIQ)

<comment><USER28> I wonder if we can get that video in a format that doesn't require Flash Player.

<comment><USER39> 1) In Firefox get the "DownloadHelper" helper plugin.

2) Visit the page (hopefully you still don't have Flash plugin in the first place or have completely extricated it from your system)

3) DownloadHelper icon will start animating. From the dropdown select your resolution and download.

4) The video format you have downloaded is patented and must be erased quickly. Therefore, download Handbrake ( [http://handbrake.fr](http://handbrake.fr) ) which is open source and convert it to a free format.

5) Run a disk eraser program to ensure that the deleted offending technologies are in fact deleted off your hard drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Coming from OSX, how do you handle the cmd + * to ctrl + * switch? After years of cmd key combinations I always find hard to switch to ctrl key combinations. The app switching with alt instead of cmd kills me too.

<comment><USER32> Remapping is very easy. Many resources recommend the xmodmap command, but I've had much more success on recent distros by setting xkbmap options in the Xorg config.

A big list of possible rules are located at /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst

Changing alt+tab to ctrl+tab is easy with most window managers.

(I find the alt/command physical key much more ergonomic than the physical control key.)</comment></comment>


Creating a Gmail Account Requires SMS Verification - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/07/creating-gmail-account-requires-sms.html

<comment><USER2> What's with the inflammatory (and patently incorrect) HN title?

<comment><USER3> (it has since been fixed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can still use mail providers other than gmail (which actually provide true anonymity as a service), and you can also buy a SIM card and phone with cash.

<comment><USER5> The last time I checked, you could also accept a gmail invite without giving your mobile number.

<comment><USER6> Yep, quoting the article: _"Also, if you know someone who already has a Gmail address, you can ask them to email an invitation to you."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I fail to see how this "kills email anonymity" You can get a phone for $10 at any Walmart / Target / Bestbuy activate it anonymously with a number in any area code you want w/o providing any personal information what so ever.

<comment><AUTHOR> in my country you need to provide identification (that is logged) to buy a sim card that way

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who didn't even own a mobile phone until half a year ago (and still doesn't like the idea of them), I don't really like the sound of this.

<comment><USER9> As someone who dislikes spam, I really like the sound of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've actually been toying with doing this rather then email verification and a captcha for a social site. Would you find this more or less annoying then an email loop and a captcha?

<comment><USER9> Yes, I'd only do it if I trusted the site, but it works far and away better at preventing spam than a CAPTCHA. It seems more annoying to the bad guys than the good guys. To this day it's the only thing that Craigslist has done that has worked. Phone numbers are expensive to get, especially since they block most VoIP stuff.

Google around about Craigslist phone verification and you'll read all the spammers having freak out sessions. It's a great way to spend an hour.

</comment></comment><comment> meat-eater It's been this way for years for most other countries. But the invite method does work and I got my first gmail address via that. However for my other gmail address, I just gave them my mobile number and typed in the verification code I received via sms.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Also, if you know someone who already has a Gmail address, you can ask them > to email an invitation to you.

I'm taking it at face value as anti-spam.

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone know if a trakfone will work for this?

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure it would. You have a number and can receive text messages.</comment></comment>


Too old to start IT career? - <AUTHOR> This is my first post here. I'm a MBA Enterprise risk analyst and investment analyst that has always been intrigued with programming and software development. At 44, am I too old to get into IT? I'm also interested in cybersecurity. <comment><USER2> Unless you really hate your job or are having trouble finding work, you may not want to go down this path. We need more informations about your skills.

Have you dabbled in programming before? What languages?

Do you use a unix-like operating system? Windows? How comfortable are you with inner workings of your preferred operating system?

If you use unix, how comfortable are you comfortable with command line tools like grep, sed, and/or awk? Do you primarily manage your system using a GUI?

WRT security, do you know much about IP? Are you aware of differences between unix sockets and ip sockets? Are you aware of common vulnerabilities for outward facing services? (ie: sql injections)

Without knowing a bit more about you, it's difficult to say. I can't imagine it'd be a good move for someone with an MBA in a separate field to move to the IT field if the above questions are not trivial to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, it depends on how much money you want/need to make and how long you want your career to be. If you want to retire at 55 then it may not be worth it. It may take you 5 years or longer to go beyond 'entry level' in an IT career. So you may (probably will) not make six figures during that time. Does making ~60k while you learn the ropes sound good?

There is some age discrimination (less than people make out imo) in the IT/programming world, does that bother you? Does the idea of being on a team primarily of younger folks sound fun or terrible? :-)

The company I consult for hired a new batch of HTML programmers (very entry level), many are college age and we had one guy who looks to be in his late fifties. _shrug_

At 44, is your ego prepared to be constantly battered? If you do It/programming right, this _never_ goes away, as you'll continually hit plateaus that are painful to overcome.

Basically I'm trying to say that there's no 'yes/no' answer to 'are you too _______ (old/young/smart/etc) to become a professional ______ (programmer/It/security expert)'.

It's all trade offs, and depending on which ones you are OK with making will influence your decision. I find programming incredibly rewarding, but I very much liken it to a difficult sport. How bad do you want it, and are you willing to endure the challenges of getting there?

</comment><comment><USER4> At 44, the smarter thing is to think about how you're going to retire in 20 years or whenever. Not a good time to be taking any sort of pay cut!

Programming is a nice hobby. In many ways, it is a nicer hobby than it is career. Some die-hard programmers dream of having more money so that they could work strictly on whatever hacking interests them. I don't know whether enterprise risk analysts regard enterprise risk analysis that way, but I'm guessing no.

If you want to do programming and get paid for it, and get paid well, then connect it to your present work. Do some programming which helps you analyze investments or perform enterprise risk analysis.

If I were an MBA enterprise risk analyst (but otherwise the same person that I am, with my software skills) I would definitely not change career to programming. I'd grab all that enterprise money I could and carry on my programming projects, where I dictate the requirements, design, implementation and all the rest of it, and where my name is on everything at the end of the day.

</comment><comment><USER5> You are not too old, but unless you go into enterprise/corporate IT or plan to do consulting/freelance, you may find a lot of ageism.

</comment><comment><USER6> You are never too old. It sounds like you are interested in software development and software engineering which is a whole different ball game than IT (although often IT will overlap, but not always). If you are highly motivated and driven to learn new things on your own you will do great.

<comment><USER6> I should also add that it is quite a bit easier to get into a career doing IT work than software development..

<comment><USER4> It may be easier to get into, but it also seems like an easier way to yourself into a lot of hot water, whereby a lot of stress is focused on you through several layers of management above.

As a developer, I do not envy the IT people who have to fight fires such as company-wide security breaches. Or multiple failures in server farms.

I mean, we sometimes have a difficult time estimating work, and due to combinations of estimating mistakes and caving in to product marketing or whoever, we sometimes have to meet unrealistic deadlines. But IT work can be completely unpredictable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The reason I post here is that I can see that there is a depth of knowledge and professional experience that I can't tap into with mainstream media. I'm behind saving for my retirement and I really to step up my game for my family. Very open to suggestions and ideas.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unfortunately 44 is too old to make a career switch especially to programming/development. In my personal experience, Ageism is much more prevalent in IT and Technology field.

Once you hit mid-forties, it is very difficult to find a programmer/developer job even when you have been in technology all your career. I know people, in 40s and 50s, who took over a year to find a development job after being laid off from their previous development jobs when company got bought out or folded. Personally, I will not recommend a career switch to development in mid-40s.

But not everything is lost. If you can learn development on your own, consider launching side projects in your domain of experience or scratch your own itch. Also, freelance and consulting opportunities will open up with time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Since your MBA is in a different field, it probably won't bring you the same salary premium if you become a junior developer. Would you be ok with a steep pay drop?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How does Machine Intelligence and Deep learning fit into programming? What type of background does a person need to get into that ballgame?

<comment><USER6> That is computer science (software engineering). For Machine learning and AI you will need very very strong math skills. If you don't plan on going to school I wouldn't suggest this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, I'm also a Navy Reservist...5 months before I go Inacitve.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been very fascinated by Mindops.com, Metamind.io, and others...</comment>


HN, it is time to lobby the government for tech entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR>

Tech. entrepreneurs are essential to the modern economy.
Yet, you are under-represented in global politics. Governments are stuffed with old-fashioned, technophobic politicians who lack a grasp of new technologies. Often they implement regressive Internet policies---such an SOPA---that stall economic growth.
It is ripe time to organise a well-funded tech. lobby?
An Internet enterprise think tank would lobby on behalf on Internet entrepreneurs and investors, representing their interests to national governments and transnational organisations to promote favourable policy change.
The mission group would:
(1) Campaign for productive policy change. This would include lobbying for: a larger funding pot for tech. entrepreneurs and investors, net neutrality, tax breaks for tech. entrepreneurs and investors, introducing a more rigorous computer science education syllabus in primary and secondary schools, extending Internet provision in the developing world.
(2) Summarise current (and prospective) relevant policy for clients. This would include: briefing stakeholders on relevant taxation and budgetary changes (alongside flagging up tax breaks), net neutrality developments, Government funding opportunities, relevant IP law changes, entrepreneur visa changes, etc.
(3) Build awareness of the sector's interests through traditional media, i.e., editorials in national broadsheets.
Is there scope? Is there real interest in a narrowly-defined think tank serving the tech. enterprise sector?
What are the sector's priorities? What policy briefings would stakeholders be interested in?
email: ekpyrotic [at] gmail [dot] com
location: London, UK <comment><USER2> Why not get involved with groups that already exist such as <http://www.openrightsgroup.org/> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> ig1, while there are established forums for narrow technology policy hot points---IP, net neutrality, piracy---there is no contingent representing the tech. enterprise sector. Most current groups are motivated more by libertarian philosophical values than by the need to represent the business interests of the sector.

I believe there is space---and need---for a business lobby that represents our interests.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure there's strong enough alignment among tech enterprise for a generic group to make sense.

For example when it comes to funding incumbent players may want the exact opposite from startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> ig1, I think that's a reasonable concern. While the organisation would lobby on general tech. policy issues, it's focus would be on start-up tech. entrepreneurs. Other, larger, companies have a voice through the general business lobby, i.e., the CBI in the UK.

Unfortunately, this has meant that start-ups---through a combination of lack of time and lack of funds---are not properly represented in the political discourse.

At the moment the voice of tech. comes from the likes of Apple and Google, but this is---like you hinted---economically disadvantageous to the start-up crowd. The big companies have an incentive to clampdown on small-time tech. funding and implement regressive licensing policies.

Here's my main worry: While the tech. start-up community is essential to ongoing economic growth, esp. as international competition intensifies, time and funding commitments mean that they are sidelined in national and transnational policy/funding settlements.

I believe that the community needs to coalesce around an experienced and informed mission group in order to secure our interests.

NOTE: Thanks for engaging ig1. The original post made my ambitions in this direction sound too broad. Our discussion has helped me narrow-in on the type of organisation I believe the sector needs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Leslie Lamport's Writings - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.html

<comment><USER2> A great bunch of papers. I read some of the LaTeX related one's as I spent a good part of my youth trying to tame it!

 _I'm pessimistic about software in general. When computers were the province of the technically sophisticated, people wrote software for technically sophisticated users. Now, technically sophisticated users are an insigni ficant niche market. Standards are being driven by the marketplace, which cares only about the masses. So, mathematicians have no place in the brave new world of computing. They will have to make do with the same ashy but technically impoverished tools that the little old lady in Peoria uses. So, you can display video animations on the web, but there's still no good way to display a mathematical equation._

So very true.

Thanks for the link.

</comment><comment><USER3> Including one of the classics of computer science, of course:

 _Time, Clocks and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System_

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/p...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.html#time-clocks)

<comment><USER4> Yeah this is one of my all-time favorite papers on distributed systems</comment></comment>


Private Beta Launch of Hosted Rhodecode - <AUTHOR> https://rhodecode.com/blog/18/our-private-beta-launch

<comment><USER2> Thanks for mentioning! We put a lot of effort into the private beta. Please try it out guys, it's free during private beta and we offer unlimited repos for Git & Mercurial.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well now I want to get preferred access ;)

<comment><USER2> Open your email inbox. It is already there :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds nice, I will give it a try</comment>


A micro manual for Lisp – Not the whole truth (1978) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/pub/misc/micromanualLISP.pdf <comment><USER2> An only slightly altered version for Common Lisp. The LABEL syntax is slightly different to make it valid CL.

[https://gist.github.com/lispm/d752d5761f7078de4041d4e453e70c...](https://gist.github.com/lispm/d752d5761f7078de4041d4e453e70cbe)

Tasks to explore:

Check that it is actually equally to the published code.

Check that it can interpret itself.

Understand the language it implements and the consequences of no error checking...

      MCLISP 139 > (mclisp:mccarthy-repl)
      mce> (label example (lambda (foo bar) (cons (cons foo 'nil) (cons 'bar 'baz)))
                  'qix 'qux)
      ((QIX) BAR . BAZ)
      mce>

<comment><USER3> An only slightly altered version for Raspberry Pi/ARM assembly:

[https://github.com/marcpaq/arpilisp](https://github.com/marcpaq/arpilisp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And some implementations in:

\- C: [https://nakkaya.com/2010/08/24/a-micro-manual-for-lisp- imple...](https://nakkaya.com/2010/08/24/a-micro-manual-for-lisp-implemented- in-c/)

\- Python: [https://github.com/mario-goulart/not-the-whole- truth](https://github.com/mario-goulart/not-the-whole-truth)

\- Javascript: [https://kybernetikos.github.io/Javathcript/](https://kybernetikos.github.io/Javathcript/)

\- Swift: [https://www.uraimo.com/2017/02/05/building-a-lisp-from- scrat...](https://www.uraimo.com/2017/02/05/building-a-lisp-from-scratch-with- swift/)

<comment><USER5> For practical (mature, usable in production) implementations i'd recommend:

in C: ECL compiles Common Lisp down to C or allows it to be embedded in a C program

Python: "Hy" allows to write Python with lisp syntax

Javascript: Parenscript compiles a Common Lisp subset to javascript. Clojurescript compiles a Clojure subset to javascript.

<comment><USER6> I spent a whole evening last week playing with Hy Lisp (written in Python). It was fairly easy to write to the Keira's APIs. Can anyone share any interesting HyLang uses/ applications?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lots of Lisp interest today! Here are a few resources.

On Lisp: [https://www.lurklurk.org/onlisp/onlisp.pdf](https://www.lurklurk.org/onlisp/onlisp.pdf)

Lumen - a Lisp for JavaScript and Lua: [https://github.com/sctb/lumen](https://github.com/sctb/lumen)

The Art of the Interpeter: [https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6094/AIM-453....](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6094/AIM-453.pdf?sequence=2)

(^ this last one is _very_ practical. If you reach the point of wanting to implement a practical interpreter, this paper will force you to consider many unexpected cases.)

Simulating circuits with Lisp: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/book/book-Z-H-22.html#%_sec_3.3.4)

My favorite part of SICP: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/book/book-Z-H-24.html#%_sec_3.5.4)

War stories: [http://paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://paulgraham.com/avg.html)

Lisp in _Jak 'n Dexter_ / _Crash Bandicoot_ : [https://all-things-andy- gavin.com/2011/03/12/making-crash-ba...](https://all-things-andy- gavin.com/2011/03/12/making-crash-bandicoot-gool-part-9/)

Fun fact: Lisp is still used today in gamedev! _Last of Us_ uses it heavily: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox2H3kUQByo&t=2415s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox2H3kUQByo&t=2415s)

<comment><USER8> +1 for the link about Andy Gavin's work on _Crash Bandicoot_ and _Jak and Daxter_. This past winter I dusted off my PS2 and started playing Jak and Daxter again, the first time in about 15 years. I noticed something I had never noticed before: even though it is one of the first games released on the PS2, the game loads _almost instantaneously_ when you hit the "New" or "Load" buttons.

I had to know why, and came across that exact link you referenced. AG had figured out how to do a lot of preprocessing while the game boots up, obviating the need for a lengthy "Loading..." screen. Naughty Dog wrote some very impressive software, that is for sure!

<comment><USER7> Yes! I've been fascinated with GOAL / GOOL for nearly a decade. I ripped a copy of Last of Us and tore through the game data looking for the lisp code, but unfortunately they only ship the compiled output.

What I wouldn't give to see the source... And Viaweb's source, and HN's source, and gosh there are so many amazing Lisp systems out there.

<comment><USER9> Well you can the Lisp code of Abuse, which was quite entertaining in the late 90's.

[http://abuse.zoy.org/](http://abuse.zoy.org/)

[https://archive.org/details/abuse_sourcecode](https://archive.org/details/abuse_sourcecode)

<comment><USER7> oh

my

you just made my week, month, and year. I've been looking for a practical Lisp-based game design since I was a teen! Dude.

Thank you.

EDIT: THIS IS SO COOL [http://abuse.zoy.org/browser/abuse/trunk/data/lisp/guns.lsp](http://abuse.zoy.org/browser/abuse/trunk/data/lisp/guns.lsp)

Edit2: Whoops, fixed the link. I meant to link to this lisp codebase, not SICP. :)

Suffice to say, Abuse is amazing. Thanks! This is an absolute gem of a reference for seeing what worked in practice for Lisp-based gamedev. And in 1995 too!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>