Filezilla at SourceForge is malware - <AUTHOR> http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/reviews <comment><USER3> Just want to be clear about something:

\- This program (bundling) is opt in for the project (Filezilla) and SourceForge ("the pimp") pays Filezilla ("the whore") for each download.

\- This isn't recent. In fact it started well over a year ago and was well publicized.

\- Even a year ago it was all very malware-y.

\- A lot of people were super dismissive about this issue a year ago (see Reddit threads and here). In fact many supported the practice.

\- Those same people are now whining about it.

\- Suggesting that "but Github exists!" as a solution entirely misses the point. Sourceforge pays the project money, and both Sourceforge and the project profit. So unless Github can match that (hint: it cannot) then that is a non-starter.

<comment><USER4> This is why I have high hopes for integration with the Microsoft store in Windows 10. I'd be pretty happy giving the Filezilla people .99 cents, assuming no 3rd party installer tricks. MS would store my credit card, it would be a one-click process, take the onus of hosting from Sourceforge/Filezilla, and pay a nice little chunk of change on the side directly to the Filezilla people.

Of course, anyone is free to fork it and host it for free. There are a lot of little things that drive me crazy about Filezilla. I imagine others have the same issues. I could see a fork with good management being very successful.

<comment><USER5> I think this is a point a lot of open source projects miss. They can, and probably should, sell the software even though it is open source.

Trademark (?) protection would prevent a third party from using their name even though it was open source (at least I think so based on the whole Iceweasel event).

Personally, I'd also gladly pay Filezilla a small amount even though it's open source.

<comment><USER6> It's 4 in the open source definition.

[http://opensource.org/osd-annotated](http://opensource.org/osd-annotated)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you read through this thread [1] on the filezilla forums, you'll see that the administrator defends the use of SourceForge over and over. My guess is that they're receiving kickbacks of some sort for the installation of said malware.

[1] [https://forum.filezilla- project.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3294...](https://forum.filezilla- project.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32945)

<comment><USER8> Someone has to pay the bills.

I think the world would be better if people just expected to pay a small amount for software, but we don't live in that world, and so we get "free" software you can download "for free" that installs a bunch of crap so the developers can get paid.

<comment><USER9> Up until rather recently, it was hard to pay or receive sub-dollar amounts. This problem is solved on the two mobile platforms (though Apple still takes a much larger cut from payments). Paypal / Stripe / Square sort of solve it in the web space.

But we still lack a nice software store (or several) where you could pay a piece of software and pay a nominal amount (or more if you choose to donate), knowing that you won't receive any malware / nagware in exchange, and that a large cut of your payment goes to the authors and maintainers.

Similar things seem to happen around indie musical tracks, so _probably_ the model could survive in the "indie" software area.

<comment><USER10> Yep, I love it when I find good music on youtube abd a link to bandcamp where I can pay a small minimum amount (or more). They seem to have done something right as me and others typically pay well over the minimum price

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just make sure to add ?nowrap to the end of the url and you'll download the orignal package without that crapware installer sourceforge adds.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like a job for a userscript.

...and someone has already made one for SF and a few other sites: [http://userscripts-mirror.org/scripts/review/417459](http://userscripts- mirror.org/scripts/review/417459)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It sounds more like a SourceForge issue than FileZilla. SourceForge used to provide clean binaries, but I guess they changed that process in the past year or two to bundle apps in the installer wrapper. You need to be extremely careful during the installation process to make sure that you do not accidentally install some extra software. The same happen to uTorrent - <USER2> also added tricky question during the install process to include advertisement, change default browser and such. That's a sad way to earn money - the end-users will definitely move on because of that.

<comment><USER14> FileZilla could choose to move away from SourceForge, to be honest - any party staying with SF after stunts like this (and this isn't the first one) are as corrupt as SF themselves are IMO

<comment><USER15> par0xyzm is hellbanned, but this is interesting: [http://gonullyourself.org/ezines/exp/exp02.txt](http://gonullyourself.org/ezines/exp/exp02.txt)

is hosted at Sourceforge, so they share a server with thousands of other customers. Every single customer is able to execute commands and access the other project directories. Pretty stupid, eh? You only need to find one hole in one hosted site and you can access ALL the project databases

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Open source software really should abandon SourceForge. You can't even download any binaries through HTTPS from them. Even if you log in the download links redirect to plain HTTP.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's really no reason to use SourceForge anymore. GitHub can do almost everything SourceForge can do, aside from app reviews I guess. GitHub also doesn't make you feel like you're in 2004.

<comment><USER18> I don't know, GitHub isn't quite as easy to navigate as a layman if you're just looking for a synopsis and downloads.

<comment><USER19> There's no big "Download" button but you can easily add one yourself.

<comment><USER20> There should be one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> isn't this more, the SourceForge wrapper is acting unsafely?

regardless, this has been happening for the entire last year with the consent of the developers: [https://forum.filezilla- project.org/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=13...](https://forum.filezilla- project.org/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=13d72227c55b2204476060d348e64d37)

I would be very doubtful they will listen to their users any further about the harm it does.

I'll probably avoid FZ from now on, I don't exactly enjoy using software that is openly hostile towards me

<comment><USER22> I've heard similar things about FileZilla and it's creator. Do you have any recommendations for an open source, GUI-based, Linux FTP client?

Most of the time I simply scp or rsync files as neccessary, however I use FileZilla to manage files on my phone and tablets via FTP. I've never found the FTP/SFTP/SMB support in Thunar to be all that reliable...

<comment><USER19> IIRC GNOME has FTP and SFTP support, so you should be able to just use Nautilus.

<comment><USER22> I'm not using GNOME. I'm using XFCE, and unfortunately in my experience Thunar (the XFCE file manager) doesn't handle those sorts of connections too well. I think it's more to do with the FUSE layer beneath it (possibly the same driver that's used by GNOME).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if Mozilla could argue that Filezilla is infringing on their trademark and damaging their reputation because of this.

I mean, it's an open-source client for a common internet protocol that ends in "zilla". It would be easy for users to assume that Filezilla is affiliated with Mozilla.

And up until the move to Sourceforge's adware downloader system, that would have been fine for everybody - they're both good products.

But now? Now filezilla is riding on mozilla's coattails with the confusion and profiting from it, to the detriment of mozilla's reputation.

</comment><comment><USER23> We've been sending Windows clients to [https://ninite.com/filezilla/](https://ninite.com/filezilla/) to download it but perhaps we ought to start avoiding it completely. I don't particularly like any other FTP client I've used in Windows, but its been a while since I looked.

<comment><USER24> Have you tried WinSCP? Since I found it, I haven't touched FileZilla.

<comment><USER25> Agreed. WinSCP is not only easy to use with a fairly "native" Windows feel (just drag and drop stuff from one half of the window to the other), but it's also not bundled with malware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It works really well unfortunately. I would prefer my installations without the potential for malware, but I don't see another sftp client as mature as filezilla. There used to be a ton and then it emerged as the best. fwiw it seems the auto updates are malware free.

<comment><USER27> WinSCP is a nice alternative.

[http://winscp.net/](http://winscp.net/)

<comment><USER28> WinSCP is far superior to filezilla. At my last job stuck using a Windows machine for some things, I ended up using it quite extensively. Every bug I submitted to the author was fixed within months. He is also active on the forums, though has a bit of a Linus Torvalds style... which can be offputting for some.

Filezilla use will drop down because most admins I know that hear about this will immediately write it off as too dangerous to even try to get around. Sure you can dig into the sourceforge files and maybe find a clean version, or maybe find a checksumed mirror, but would you really trust it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> SourceForce itself pushes a lot of malware these days. If your software comes in an installer, I wouldn't trust it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.virustotal.com/fi/file/d0d418efb07df4378b24bccac...](https://www.virustotal.com/fi/file/d0d418efb07df4378b24bccaced697bf34745de33ad1521beffa18565d9f2e1c/analysis/1420630836/) If you download the package, it will be unique malware packet for you. So if you check it with virus total, it's not the same file.

<comment><USER30> As usual, Avira is right on the money with "Adware/InstallC.buzg." ESET is pretty good too with "a variant of Win32/InstallCore.UQ." None of the other providers clearly identified it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you really need FileZilla, you can directly download the portable version with this workaround.

Visit [http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/filezilla/FileZilla...](http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/filezilla/FileZilla_Client/3.10.0/FileZilla_3.10.0_win32.zip) to directly start downloading

Or, switch to someother FTP client.

References:

List of FTP __Server __Software -[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FTP_server_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FTP_server_software)

Comparision of FTP __Client __Software -[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_client_softw...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_client_software)

<comment><USER32> Or click the direct download link on the front page.

[https://i.imgur.com/o7sE9aP.png](https://i.imgur.com/o7sE9aP.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As time marched on, I've found myself more and more hesitant to use SourceForge at all, even to download things. If a project isn't available on GitHub, BitBucket, or through a package manager, then I'm very unlikely to download the source.

</comment><comment><USER33> Separate from any particular issue with Filezilla: all Sourceforge downloads are via insecure HTTP, so could be redirected elsewhere, or corrupted in transit, to deliver malware.

Even if you try to use an HTTPS link, Sourceforge redirects to a plain HTTP download.

<comment><USER34> And if you ask them about this, you get no reply. Which is interesting.

Yes, they should be regarded as a malware site these days. It's a shame, really. Some other site should probably mirror the projects that aren't anywhere else and host them properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just an FYI for those cases when you need to download something that isn't available anywhere other than SourceForge: there's a small, plain-text "direct download" link under the big download button.

They tend to move this around a bit to make it harder to spot, but it's always been there since the malware-infested download manager was introduced. The malware & crapware is entirely limited to SF's download manager. The application binaries themselves are totally clean.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is not about SourceForge or FileZilla. This is an issue that plagues most Windows freewares, everyone is integrating offers to the installer. Even FileHippo started this recently.

The download manager (wrapper) of these 2 companies are provided by the same Israeli company InstallCore.

</comment><comment><USER37> As far as I remember this is an opt-in feature for developers who host their projects on sourceforge that makes the installer offer additional software, by 3rd parties, to be installed. That additional software may be malicious.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ever since 2007-2008, Source Forge and places like CNET really started to lose trust for me. When I noticed something from source forge had some sort of downloading tool I put my hands down and refused to continue with that sort of thing.

We have enough Ask Tool bar kind of crap from Oracle Java installers, and when useful tools step to doing similar things, it really makes me lose respect and find alternatives.

As a developer, I need to have a work environment that is robust and dependable. Additional promotional packages that can slip through will disrupt or degrade my work. That is not something I can take and feel sane.

</comment><comment><USER39> What about doing a Fork of it? Clean build. Call it Forkzilla.

</comment><comment><USER40> I haven't paid for the program and have not installed any adware on my machine, I am happy with the product and have no qualm with someone who has spent their time making something to try to profit from it. I'm not the sort of person who opts-in to install malware so its not an issue to me. If I wanted to be upset about something I would buy a commercial, ad-free, program and complain that it does not have features of filezilla.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've had a similar experience trying to install OpenCV.

I use windows, and I couldn't figure out why something like OpenCV could possibly have malware with it. When I downloaded it, chrome said "Stop! This is malware!" I thought that there was no way there could be a problem with the file unless Sorceforge was having issues.

What fixed the issue for me was downloading from a different mirror. So perhaps some of the mirrors are compromised?

</comment><comment><USER42> I faced the same problem. This is a total mess and I could not believe that a most reputed web program like Filezilla hosted at Sourceforge is a malicious software. The best thing should be that Filezilla should be available for download from [https://filezilla-project.org](https://filezilla-project.org) firsthand.

</comment><comment><USER43> Solution: Use the zip version. It's portable. Avoid sourceforge where possible. The download page even says:

>This installer may include bundled offers. Check below for more options.

Yes, it's a bit dirty. Valid discussion here is how to make open source viable, otherwise pimps like sourceforge will exist.

Now get off my lawn with your fancy installers :)

</comment><comment><USER44> Can we file a report against SF? Then when users attempt to enter the site browsers will warn about the dangers.

</comment><comment><USER45> I haven't trusted anything from SourceForge since they were compromised 4 years ago, regardless of their 'data validation'.

[https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-attack-full- report/](https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-attack-full-report/)

</comment><comment><USER46> What happened to you Sourceforge? I hope the same thing doesn't happen to Github in 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER47> I've been a long-time user of WinSCP anyway, regardless of FileZilla's antics. Seems to work better, for me at least.

Unfortunately, this is a reminder that free software isn't a guarantee of software freedom or safety.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is a solved problem: [https://chocolatey.org/packages/filezilla](https://chocolatey.org/packages/filezilla)

Chocolatey packages include silent, malware free installers

</comment><comment><USER49> Is there a good cross-platform alternative to FileZilla?

Or seeing as it's licensed under GPLv2, maybe we should just setup a GitHub repo with the latest source and links to pre-compiled binaries.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think Google should mark SourceForge as malware site.

</comment><comment><USER51> Also let's not forget that Filezilla will silently cache all your credentials in plaintext without telling you :(

</comment><comment><USER52> Sourceforge has been doing this for years. I would never download anything from there these days.

</comment><comment><USER53> Nobody should use Sourceforge. I rarely take projects seriously when hosted on Sourceforge.

</comment><comment><USER54> so easy to avoid by just toggling the Direct Download Link option at top of file list to On

</comment><comment><USER55> i m an idiot but does this impact the linux version ? I use Filezilla on my ubuntu that I downloaded around September'2014 and not sure if I downloaded from Sourceforge. I am guessing this issue is only for Windows, right ?

<comment><USER56> If you used `apt-get install filezilla` then no. Does anyone know if sourceforge include malware for their Linux binaries?

<comment><USER57> I installed via the Linux Mint package manager and found no issues of malware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow. They even wrap the _source_ packages, and the portable ones.

Bastards.

</comment><comment><USER14> For Windows and my own servers I don't even bother with FTP anymore, it's just another possible entry into my servers. WinSCP / SCP itself works fine, no FTP server required.

</comment><comment><USER58> Is there a fork without the malware?

</comment><comment><USER59> The worst thing about FileZilla is clear text password files. The developer refuses to fix it I am not sure why.

<comment><USER60> What's the alternative? It's a good thing that the developer does not give you a false sense of security.

[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/39321/should- i-u...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/39321/should-i-use- filezilla)

<comment><USER61> A master password, no?

<comment><USER60> No.

See the acres of discussion about Google Chrome not having a master password. The fact that they caved in and no provide a master password does not mean it's a good idea.

<comment><USER62> The argument that I recall for Chrome not having an optional master password was that it was often less secure than using the system's encrypted data store for their account, if available.

Requiring a master password to decrypt the network passwords is a perfectly fine idea if you want to maintain portability and reduce the chance that your network passwords are accidentally exposed. An attacker has to both have the password file _and_ either figure out the master password or have code execution privileges on the user's account to gain the network passwords. This is more secure than trying to ensure the password file doesn't get "misplaced" (e.g. on an unencrypted drive, in unencrypted backups, unintentionally through a fileserver, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Someone tries to monetize his GPLd software in an unfriendly way.

</comment><comment> ro-mx sadly it is true

</comment><comment> ro-mx sadly it is very true

</comment><comment><USER64> Seems to me like there's a market for a reasonably priced, excellent, simple, Windows FTP client. (cross-platform bonus points)</comment>


Foxconn's buildings in Wisconsin are still empty, one year later - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/12/21217060/foxconn-wisconsin-innovation-centers-empty-buildings <comment><USER2> There's an NPR podcast (I will try to recall a link) on how the local town / county government was willingly duped into being the gullible country folk who would agree to give Foxconn such huge subsidies for the promise of jobs. And how some more cautious citizens really fought against the secrecy being applied to the whole deal by the town council.

Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, a country-simple and inexperienced elected official, who's being presented with a huge fantasy of a deal (well beyond my order of magnitude experience), and being asked to keep this secret from the press and constituents.

Is it likely that I'm such a good negotiator and master of finances and state incentives and my town is so special, that the huge company I'm dealing with (with dozens of analysts) is asking me to keep it secret because they're afraid of how they're getting screwed? Or maybe the other way around?

Those town council members and mayor got taken for the ride of their lives by their gullibility and desire for national politicians to chalk up a headline, which of course, never materialized.

Edit: oh, I see someone has just posted the Reply- all podcast link to that story, thanks!

<comment><USER3> > _Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, a > country-simple and inexperienced elected official_

No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple". They certainly don't throw hope for their community out the window because they're too "country-simple" to understand that it's a lie.

Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, an educated tech enthusiast, who's being presented with a decision and self- delusion I can't empathize with. Is it likely that my narrow experience can be applied in judgment of all other people? Or maybe I have never known the desperation of living in a dying region?

<comment><USER4> > _No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple"_

Of course not. But this is a story of a small town government negotiating with a multibillion-dollar company. They kept negotiations secret. They didn't seem to hire best-in-class bankers nor lawyers.

I understand the desperation. But stupid doesn't become less stupid because it was dumb for the right reasons. Best case, they deluded themselves into believing they found a golden goose. That's incompetent.

<comment><USER3> > _But stupid doesn't become less stupid because it was dumb for the right > reasons._

I think you misunderstood my post.

I wasn't saying that what they did _wasn 't_ stupid. It was. The post I was replying to implied the following in a condescending way:

1) the poster is not "simple" enough to be conned by a massive corporation

2) all people living in rural areas are "simple"

3) all people living in rural areas should _know_ that they are simple and never aspire to anything that we big-city people do because it is beyond their cognitive abilities

4) doing something that will probably fail (trusting Foxconn, in this case) is never a rational decision

Regarding #4, it's easy to say that Foxconn is 100% untrustworthy, but we all know that mostly in hindsight. Even if they had a 1% chance of coming through, a region with a dying economy might actually be rational to throw away an enormous amount of money. If it's their only hope, it would be rational to throw away _all_ of their money.

<comment><USER5> Just to jump in here to add some additional comments:

* Mount Pleasant WI is not rural (city-data.com says 95% urban). It lies on I94 just 1hr 15min from Chicago and 30min from Milwaukee. * I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying.

If I remember, the deal was pretty opaque and many details were murky. I find it more likely the local officials were incentivized somehow as opposed to sheer incompetence.

Additionally, it should be noted that the WI governor (Scott Walker) who orchestrated this deal lost his re-election bid shortly after this. While there was always uncertainty about Foxconn actually following through, the lack of Walker (and thus probably Trump) basically sealed the deal.

<comment><USER3> > _Mount Pleasant WI is not rural_

I think you're right. I was responding to someone saying they are "country" people.

> _I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying._

Milwaukee's metro area (which includes Mount Pleasant and Racine, the places most closely tied to Foxconn's scam) has seen a massive decline in manufacturing:

> _" The Great Recession hit Milwaukee's manufacturing industry especially > hard, and the city continues to have discomfiting employment > statistics..."[1]._

Broad economic numbers aren't great for Racine County as far as I can tell. They're worse than the US overall. Even if they were great, we know from examples across the US that declining blue-collar jobs may be especially painful for the non-urban electorate -- people who influence the local officials who believe the wishful nonsense Foxconn peddles.

> _" 'This area desperately needs the investment. There's nothing here > anymore,' said Tom Johnston, a 54-year-old veteran of [Racine's] once- > vaunted manufacturing sector."_[2]

1\. [https://www.badgerinstitute.org/Reports/2013/A-Fresh-Take- on...](https://www.badgerinstitute.org/Reports/2013/A-Fresh-Take-on-an-Old- Reliable-Milwaukee-and-Manufacturing-.htm)

2\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-the-economy- teete...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-the-economy-teeters- trumps-eighth-wonder-of-the-world-wobbles-with- it/2019/09/28/478baca2-da59-11e9-a688-303693fb4b0b_story.html)

<comment><USER5> Oh, I agree with your post and appreciate you adding real substance to this thread. I'd say the area's in "decline" as opposed to "dying" but that may be splitting hairs. I do think "dying" implies that there's no hope for revival. Like it's some remote coal town that lives or dies by that single industry. Sure yeah, the manufacturing industry is not doing well here and Racine has fared particularly poorly. That made Mount Pleasant vulnerable to Foxconn but is only one part of the story. There's a lot of political nuance when it comes to Wisconsin and Milwaukee. This deal wasn't getting done without the state government backing it no matter how naive or desperate one municipality was. My point is that it's far more likely corruption or even just normal political incentives drove this deal as opposed to stupidity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not surprising. A great episode about this issue is on Reply All, worth listening to even now:

#132 Negative Mount Pleasant DECEMBER 6, 2018 A small town in Wisconsin becomes the site of a completely unprecedented experiment. [https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply- all/wbhjwd](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd)

<comment><USER7> Wow. This story was mind blowing. I don't understand how a small town can borrow against a state's future tax earnings? Why are Wisconsin's taxpayers on the hook for the stupid mistakes of these council members? Also the story doesn't make this clear. How are the incentive payments made to Foxconn? I'm certain that it's not just a direct transfer of tax dollars from the city/state to Foxconn (?).

<comment><USER8> The statewide officials were in on it too. Blame Scott Walker first and foremost, certainly more than any one individual at the town level.

<comment><USER7> I can understand the naivete of Americans on the receiving end of this, like Walker or the president of the town for just being lured in by the idea "investment => profit". Foxconn however is obviously much more sophisticated and the story alludes to how manufacturing is cheaper in Asia; so the premise of why they'd invest in a plant here doesn't make much sense. Although it flirts with answering this question I still don't have a clear answer. It sounds like they received tax incentives, which, maybe were incentive enough for production demand that they at some point may have? It just doesn't make sense to me if they weren't planning on actually hiring 13,000 workers, what's the incentive? Tax breaks do you no good if you generate no revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I lived in Mount Pleasant, WI from 2005 to 2015, a few miles away from the Foxconn factory. Some of these comments are honestly extremely disappointing.

* Mount Pleasant is not some backwards county where people are "country-simple" (?), most people live in urban/sububurban areas with farmland quickly being eaten up for new construction. Milwaukee is 30 minutes away. Chicago is just over an hour.

* The economy of Mount Pleasant is not dying. Where you got that from is beyound me.

</comment><comment><USER10> I always thought it was weird that Wisconsin was a swing state. They seem like they would always be red, tons or manufacturing and farms, not a lot of big cities. But, it seems like Wisconsin Republicans are always making the national news for corruption, the Foxconn plant, allowing a vote in the middle of a pandemic for a minor Republican gain, and when Scott Walker lost his governor seat he removed a lot of power from the governor so, the Democrat coming in couldn't do as much. I know there are good and bad people on both sides, but Wisconsin Republicans have some work to do.

<comment><USER11> Wisconsin is one of the most segregated and polarized states in the country. It's split between pure blue Milwaukee and it's pure red suburbs (the "WOW" counties).

[https://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/democratic-r...](https://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/democratic- republican-voters-worlds-apart-in-divided- wisconsin-b99249564z1-255883361.html)

<comment><USER12> It's also one of the more corrupt states. From Scott Walker level public theft, to a DA that actually exchanged light charges on drug gangs for charity donations. (Of course, all of the "donations" had to go to "charities" run by his friends in his municipality. That way he could make sure the money went to help "the children".)

What can I say? Wisconsin is crazy bad. But it's home for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is good reporting. I think it's pretty obvious the sole (ok, maybe not sole, but certainly 90%+ purpose) of these "innovation centers" was political show, on both Foxconn's and the US politicians' side.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Foxconn has announced a giant glass dome that will house a data center"

I'm hard pressed to think of a worse place to put a data centre than under a glass dome. The moon, perhaps?

<comment><USER15> The moon would be very bad. No atmosphere = no heat dissipation.

For thermal reasons alone, computing is a massive challenge in space.

<comment><USER16> you have a planet you could vent heat into?

<comment><USER17> Venting heat _into the ground_ is not even remotely an efficient process, unless you have no other option.

<comment><USER18> Not on earth, where the ground is relatively warm... but lunar subsurface temperatures are -20 or -30°C. You could sink heat into that pretty fast.

<comment><USER15> They are -20C until you drop a bunch of heat into them. Air works well because it's a fluid. And even as a fluid it's completely ineffective at cooling a cpu. You need to pair that fluid with a heatsink that creates massive surface area and a powered fan that is blowing in a steady stream of cool air to replace the air that has heated up.

Even liquid cooling setups on earth eventually blow their heat into the atmosphere as the primary means of keeping the liquid cool.

<comment><USER19> Lots of types of rock have better thermal conductivity than water or air. The subsurface of the moon is vast and would dissipate the heat far too quickly for an appreciable temperature change.

<comment><USER20> But the subsurface of the moon is somewhat less mobile than air or water in cooling systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The verge can go ahead and write next years article about this, because at this rate, these will probably remain on the back burner.

</comment><comment><USER22> Aside from the politics, which really can't be left aside, I was under the impression the principal reason Mt. Pleasant was selected was due to its unfettered access to fresh water in the form of Lake Michigan. And also it's proximity to The Brat Stop on I-94.

Not necessarily in that order.

<comment><USER23> Not sure why you were down-voted. Access to water with no restrictions in a location dead center between Milwaukee and Chicago was the obvious play here. There was never an honest attempt to make a new silicon valley. They got land that in 20 years will be worth 10+x what the Union Grove taxpayers paid for it with reduced tax obligations. I'm sure the 100's of other businesses in that corridor would love similar tax breaks to what Uline, Amazon, and Foxconn have gotten.

Also, Brat Stop is right there... for better or worse.

<comment><USER22> Me either. Thanks.

To your point tho', Uline, Amazon, et.al. know the entire geographic location hits a major distribution sweet spot. There are many built-in advantages other than those offered by state and local government.

Plus, many residents living between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line remember the huge impact American Motors had on family, friends, and neighbors. AMC, then Chrysler, workers had stand-on-your-feet jobs with good pay, good benefits, and good retirement.

It was not an insignificant event when that plant closed 32 years ago.

Every city council from Kenosha to Milwaukee knows the meaning of 13,000 manufacturing jobs firsthand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Chinese style factories in the US are not going to work. See _American Factory_ on Netflix.

Factory work should be safe and no more than 8 hours as well established, maybe even less so there can be more jobs.

If anything Chinese style management of production needs to care for workers more, even if products cost more.

Innovations can be made other ways than making people into slaves that never see their family, live a life and have a quality of life at work and time away.

Happier people are more productive workers and need less time to produce the same as crunched, overworked workers. Everyone in game development or engineering knows this. Just pressing the gas does not lead to the best results, an ebb and flow and research and development of mentally prepared, rested workers is key.

</comment><comment><USER25> Was foxconn given tax breaks only? Or did they also spend significant tax dollars?

Its always odd to me when subsidies are advertised as a cost, i.e. lost tax revenue. That would mean not having Foxconn come to Wisconsin at all is also a cost, i.e. lost tax revenue. And that Foxconn also cost adjacent states a ton by not moving to them either. That seems odd to phrase it that way. Subsidies are not a cost.

When I buy something at Target for 50% off, did I just cost them money? Doubtful. They're still making money. And its in Wisconsin's interest to make some money, rather than nothing.

<comment><USER26> Residents were displaced to build the facilities. People lost their homes and their lives were significantly disrupted, that's a cost it's difficult to put a dollar amount on.

<comment><USER27> I remember one of the first cases in my business law class was about immenent domain and how it was found that the government has no obligation to follow through with their reasoning for taking your land.

Pretty messed up.

<comment><USER28> Kelo v. New London is an (in)famous Supreme Court case holding that "public use" for eminent domain can include just handing the property over to private interests, on the theory that doing so could produce economic development.

The actual New London development fell through anyway and the area is just vacant. A large Pfizer presence nearby was a major reason behind the plan in the first place; in the wake of mergers and with the tax breaks that lured them there in the first place expiring, Pfizer pulled up stakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've seen comments wrt this situation that there weren't any actual subsidies given to Foxconn. That was conditioned upon the plants actually being operational, and making stuff, which they, so far, have not.

If true (which I bet it is - that's how I'd structure a deal like that), this would mean those country folks in Wisconsin are not as stupid as liberal media wants you to believe.

</comment><comment><USER30> Foxconn officials seem to be taking the Aristotelian view that nature abhors a vacuum and consider the fact that there is air in the buildings as good enough to be classified as "not empty."

</comment><comment><USER31> If it appears there is enough space there for our Congress to sit together with social distancing.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's events like these that make me believe a large government will always become corrupt.

with smaller governments, ppl will focus their corruption on more lucrative organizations.

And hopefully free market capitalism in such a system would be a check on the corruption.

<comment><USER33> While there may be some naivety in this comment, I think it may be a better idea to address the issue or educate the folks that may not consider perils of unchecked capitalism to be a significant risk instead of just downvoting them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't understand the point of the article, they are just saying that the building is empty and they are lying about it right ? But why should anyone cares ?

<comment><USER10> >>As part of the agreement, Foxconn was set to receive subsidies ranging from $3 billion to $4.8 billion (paid in increments if Foxconn met certain targets), which would be by far the largest subsidy ever given to a foreign firm in U.S. history. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn%27s_Wisconsin_plant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn%27s_Wisconsin_plant)

Why should Americans cares how there tax dollars are spent, right?

<comment><USER35> >if Foxconn met certain targets

Have they been met? Has it been a net negative from the taxpayers' standpoint?

<comment><USER36> Not every tax credit had the targets set. The environmental laws changed for the site are vague enough that anything they decide to do there is okay, and many people lost their homes due to condemnation to clear the land, and roads for the plant. (Plus all the money already spent to upgrade roads, freeway off-ramps, power, and utilities in a very rural area.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zeitgeist 2: Addendum - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

<comment><USER2> I tried, but I couldn't watch the movie.

Even assuming for one second that their claims are true (which I highly doubt, they barely present any evidence in the first 30 minutes), why on earth would you make your movie look like a propaganda film from the 1930ies? It has pseudo flicker and a narrator voice that will haunt you in your nightmares. In. fact. the. narrator. talks. extra. slow. so. that. you. really. understand. their. crazy. theory.

Terrible. I'd be interested in an intellectually honest criticism of the reserve banking system, but this is just pure rubbish. It explains nothing. It just creates fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Just thinking about it makes me angry. Some people will undoubtedly fall for this. It is sad.

The answer to right-wing propaganda cannot be left-wing propaganda. Movies like this contribute nothing. They don't even provide a basis for discussion. They are a waste of human effort and bandwidth.

PS: I just realized I'm feeding the trolls; this has nothing to do with hacking. Sorry.

<comment><USER3> I went into class the other day, and the professor said during office hours, a female student told him "I feel so depressed when I come out of this class. I want to go home and curl up in my bed and just hide. Because it's that depressing."

And our professor said that in AA meetings, the first step is recognizing there is a problem. The second step is getting angry. And the third is taking action or doing something about it.

I would say you're almost there. These videos are not being circulated because someone wants to destroy the US. What incentive would there be? Have you seen the corruption in the corporations of America? Even if I thought this guy was just making stuff up, I would still be highly skeptic of the entire economic system we have right now. It has changed dramatically since the 30s, and even more dramatically since the 80s. Politicians are now a commodity that can be purchased, it's just lobbying.

There are academic scholars behind this, too. Go read "The United States Since the 1980s" by Dean Baker. Then go read "The Problem With The Media" by Robert McChesney. And you'll "get it." The corporations are after profit, and everything else follows that. The Federal Reserve is not federal, it's run by 12 private banks, and a board that has almost zero oversight. The only people that get voted into the board are those who agree to carry out the private interests of the corporations.

This stuff is created to wake you up to the reality of the system. It's not comfortable, but you should be aware of it. It's always your choice to ignore it, but don't say nobody warned you ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first half is a downer, but the second half blew my mind - good to know there are others out there who think this way.

<comment><USER5> Could you make a short summary? I looked at the first 10 minutes and it just seemed like a pathetic propaganda-movie full of short manipulative clips.

<comment><USER4> Sure, it's pretty simple -

1 - working in technology directly and fundamentally improves people's lives in a way politics, finance, and marketing don't.

2 - one day we will look back on our society as being uncivilized, wasteful, and destructive.</comment></comment></comment>


Erlang at Basho, Five Years Later - <AUTHOR> http://basho.com/erlang-at-basho-five-years-later/ <comment><USER2> I think the most important point here is that you should hire engineers from _your domain_ , but not necessarily your exact technology stack -- in their case it's simple because almost no engineers know Erlang well, so they have to hire "database people" and convert them, but I think it's more generally applicable.

Personally, I would much prefer to hire a "web person" regardless of the stack they're used to than, say, a "Java person" who has never written a website. But even more specifically, I would look to find somebody whose interests are in my domain, as they will always have better ideas and motivation than a strictly mercenary engineer.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the fact that most experts will spend their time on concept on design rather than code cutting. I think Rob Pike said it well when he said he didn't event have commit privileges at Google while working on Go because he still coded in K&R C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a pity they didn't talk about Erlang's strengths and weaknesses in a bit more detail.

I like Erlang a lot, and pushed to use it in a project I'm working on - it is the right tool for the job in this case.

But programming languages aren't like hammers or saws. You can do a ton of things with any one of them. This particular project probably could have been made to work one way or the other with Java, Javascript, Tcl, Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, Haskell or any number of other things. And this is, in some ways, a problem for Erlang. It's really, really good at a few things, ok at a number of things, but feels a bit spotty for other things where other languages have something in place. At least that is my impression.

<comment><USER5> I saw the article as more of a reaction to all of the technical (and often times inane) blog posts about why company x uses technology y.

The main points I took away from the article were:

\- They did their homework, and \- They knew that, even though it is not the most widely known technology stack, they were seeking the kind of engineer who would not only be able to pick it up, but understand their rational for choosing it

And it seems as though they've been successful! As engineers, most of us are interested in the many interesting technologies available to us, so much so that, when examining a company like Basho, many of us ask "Why Erlang?" before we ask "What are you making and why?"

Without putting words in their mouth, it is my impression that Basho sought to create an incredibly powerful and easily scalable database. They chose Erlang because it was, in their opinion, the tool for the job. As I see it, 10gen got the ball rolling towards approachable scaling/development and now Basho and the team behind RethinkDB are trying to improve by creating systems free of MongoDB's many limitations.

<comment><USER6> What do you see as MongoDB's limitations, and are any/most of them solved by (the product I work on,) TokuMX[1]?

[1]: [http://www.tokutek.com/products/tokumx-for- mongodb/](http://www.tokutek.com/products/tokumx-for-mongodb/)

<comment><USER5> You guys seem like a step in the right direction! The improved locking, in particular. Sharding is still a nasty issue w/ MongoDB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a phenomena worth understanding, if you don't already:

"I had an entertaining and ironic conversation about this recently with a manager at a large database company. He explained to me that we had clearly made the wrong choice, and that we should have chosen Java (like his team) in order to expand the recruiting pool. Then, without breaking a stride, he asked if I could send any candidates his way, to fill his gaps in finding talented people."

</comment><comment><USER8> I found Erlang to be much easier to digest the second time through. The first time I looked at Erlang, I knew of its benefits, but didn't have much experience with functional programming. The unusual syntax and unfamiliar paradigm led me to put it aside.

Later, after I learned me some foldr and flatMaps (mostly thanks to Martin Odersky's Scala/FP course on Coursera), I revisited the language when I saw an article here about an Erlang based CMS ([http://zotonic.com/](http://zotonic.com/)). It seemed pretty cool, I host some websites for local businesses, so I set up it to evaluate it and realized that I now had no trouble at all with Erlang and the syntax made more sense. Searching around for some other web stuff I found Chicago Boss ([http://chicagoboss.org/](http://chicagoboss.org/)), a Rails-inspired web framework with ridiculously easy Comet/WebSocket/"real time" support.

Now I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to do some cool things with it.

<comment><USER9> My experience was quite similar, although it took me three tries to get it. I think it was [http://learnyousomeerlang.com](http://learnyousomeerlang.com) that finally helped me understand enough to really start to enjoy Erlang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The large database company example is especially telling. The company I work for chose Java mainly for the benefit of a large talent pool, but we have great difficulty hiring people. I think it's because we're in the middle of nowhere and don't pay Silicon Valley wages. I think if we had chosen a more "offbeat" language (to borrow mosburger's adjective) we would have had a novelty factor that would increase interest in the job. After all, we're doing interesting stuff, but our technology decisions make us seem very dull.

 _Edit_ : Please note I don't have the authority to make a technology change and see what the effect would be on our hiring, despite the good ideas of those replying to me.

<comment><USER11> You could start migrating to Scala, which is simple with a Java-based stack. Scala is sufficiently hip at the moment to attract programming enthusiasts.

<comment><USER12> Similarly Clojure is JVM based and it draws interest of many Java gurus, because they do not need to learn the platform from scratch (the Java library is available).

<comment><USER13> I think you mean Clojure.

<comment><USER12> thanks, fixed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is sort of similar to pg's "Python Paradox" essay. [http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html)

It's a slightly different conclusion (use best tool for the job, earn respect of developers vs. use esoteric tool for the job, attract developers eager to learn something off-the beaten-path), but with similar ends. Using an offbeat language can have its benefits.

</comment><comment><USER15> it would be interesting if they covered some of the technical problems they've had with using erlang in a database. writing a db in a VM language like erlang or java you inevitably end up fighting with the VM for some workloads. i noticed that recently one of their engineers tried to submit a patch to erlang to force it to not put schedulers to sleep when there is work to be done ([http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- patches/2013-June/004109....](http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- patches/2013-June/004109.html)). it had an interesting flag name '+zdnfgtse' which looks like z-do-not-f-go-to-sleep-ever :)

</comment><comment><USER16> I do believe that Erlang is the right tool for the job when you're building a distributed database, especially for the _distribution_ part. For a company like Basho it's understandably a good investment to take expert distributed systems/database engineers and let them take their time learning Erlang.

If, however, you, like most of us, are not building a distributed database, think carefully before you choose Erlang, especially if you're in a startup.

Most startups don't have a distributed database as their core technology, and for many startups, it's important that developers can push production code from day one.

<comment><USER17> I think the important question for HN, here, is: what "app ideas" map, in the end, to "having a distributed database as core technology"?

If you're building the next Facebook, is that, fundamentally, a distributed database?

If you're building an MMO, is that, fundamentally, a distributed database?

If you're building a payments platform, is that, fundamentally, a distributed database?

And so forth.

<comment><USER18> What distributed application can not be "philosofed" into essentially being a distributed database, and I feel like I'm just repeating your question.

With that in mind, I believe it boils down to where is the logic located, with the data, or not. Because a lot of "databases" are just used as a datastore.

So let me try to create some scenarios:

1\. To push out a product(Startup/Prototype/POC): Develop in the technology you know, and let the stake holders know you are acquiring Technical Debt. After startup/prototype product is a success. Explain to stake holders why you need to move to a better technology stack that supports distributed systems "better".

2\. If you have a design or product, develop directly in a distributed technology stack.

It boils down to use the correct tool for the correct job, but you will mostly only know if you used the correct tool later in the development of the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We use Erlang at 2600hz and I feel like this is an Echo Chamber of the kinds of conversations we have around the table. Erlang is a beast, but if you're doing hard work it's more about the idea than the tools.

Lots of wisdom on this blog post. The truth is that if you're passionate about doing something hard, and communicate that passion, people are drawn to it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I like that they focus on the experience related to DBs and distributed systems instead of hiring engineers that can program in X. You can pick up a language relatively faster since you'll need to build the other skill slowly with real world experience.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "While it's theoretically a nice bonus for someone to bring knowledge of all the tools we use, we've hired a significant number of engineers that had no prior Erlang experience and they've worked out well."

Nice to hear a company understand that talent and abiliaty does not equate to n-years using a specific toolset ('not "expert hammer wielder"').

</comment><comment><USER21> The only thing I didn't like about Erlang is its syntax - but I am sure I could adapt. I just don't like too much syntax in general, one reason why I like Scheme.

Now, Erlang's runtime seems fantastic.

I wonder if they (Basho) investigated Elixir recently and their opinion of it.

<comment><USER22> Elixir has some good things about it (hygienic macros, protocols, and so on) but the syntax is not enough by itself to make us switch. "Ugh, Erlang syntax sucks" is a refrain heard around the Internet, but it has not hindered us from getting good engineers who are happy to develop with it. I daresay that the syntax is the _least_ of your problems when learning Erlang; the message- passing concurrency and fault-tolerance models, and functional style are more difficult to understand. Those problems don't go away when you use Elixir instead.

If you want something Scheme-like on the Erlang runtime, there's LFE (Lisp- Flavored Erlang): [https://github.com/rvirding/lfe](https://github.com/rvirding/lfe)

<comment><USER23> > I daresay that the syntax is the least of your problems when learning > Erlang; the message-passing concurrency and fault-tolerance models, and > functional style are more difficult to understand.

That's my feel as well. I hear tirades about commas and periods. What are they going to do when they hit a net-split.

Bashing Erlang and stopping at syntax is like bashing a new battle tank because it doesn't have a leather interior. Yeah it is nice if it had leather seats and a mini fridge but if that is really the main criteria used in picking it, one has to wonder...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do other people have much experience cross-training people? I am struggling to find decent Senior Perl developers at the moment in London. I am open to the idea of hiring a Senior X Dev and cross-training them ... I'm just not sure how well it'd work out.

<comment><USER25> I would rather have a wise and experienced developer X than a developer with Y experience in Z.

As long as you are hiring people with skills in solving similar problems to the ones you are having or are anticipating on having.

Edit: However that may not work for you. I think that a senior Perl developer would be more than competent in any language you point towards. While the opposite may hardly hold true. The presumption is that one believes that a senior Perl developer really exists.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is going on with Reddit right now? - <AUTHOR>

There's just so much drama going on between the upper management of Reddit, past and present. What exactly is going on? It's quite disheartening to see such behavior among professionals.
See the threads below:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszjqg2?context=3 <comment><USER2> It is the post-drama fallout. This post has a good explanation of what has happend: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_wa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_was_riama_along_with_a_number_of_other_large/)

Afterwards, The CEO resigned. Here is a message from the new CEO: [https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_ol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_team_at_reddit/)

<comment><USER3> It's interesting how public some of the comments have been including executives and previous executives of Reddit commenting on some big changes and big opinions. Including the once CEO of Reddit /u/Yishan publicly criticizing and stating he no longer respects /u/Kn0thing.

It'll be interesting to see how Reddit evolves in the coming months, it's been _the_ social news site since the Digg V4 apocalypse, which is about 5 years.

Digg was at it's height form 2005 to 2010, Reddit took over from 2010-present. Is a 5 year window the time to Eternal September? Or can Reddit hold onto it's user base despite the many public problems?

Stay tuned for the next episode of "People Talk About Stuff on the Internet" to find out!</comment></comment>


Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinmetz-the-wizard-of-schenectady-51912022/?no-ist <comment><USER2> I remember reading a book on Steinmetz when I was in high school. I was really awed by this guy and the stuff he did. Before Nicola Tesla was one of my idols, Charles Steinmetz was the major figure in engineering who I was enamored with.

As I recall from the book, he went on a trip once, and forgot to take his log tables (this was back when lots of math was done using printed tables of logarithms). He sent a request to have his secretary have his printed log tables delivered to him, but by the time they arrived, he'd worked them all out and recreated the tables himself from scratch.

Edit: I _think_ this is the book in question, if anybody is looking for more on Steinmetz. There's also a much more recent biography of Steinmetz that I haven't gotten around to reading yet. So there are at least two books on him available.

[https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Tamed-Lightning- Steinmetz/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Tamed-Lightning- Steinmetz/dp/B000ITMMXG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1545858253&sr=1-1&keywords=man+who+tamed+lightning)

</comment><comment><USER3> Excerpt: "Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn't solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford's skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.

Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000.

Ford acknowledged Steinmetz's success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford's request with the following:

Making chalk mark on generator $1.

Knowing where to make mark $9,999."

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact: General Electric in Schenectady is represented by zip code 12345

</comment><comment><USER5> Elementary Lectures On Electric Discharges, Waves And Impulses, And Other Transients

Is a very interesting readable book he wrote

<comment><USER6> Google Books has a scanned 1914 edition of this available for download:

[https://ia902307.us.archive.org/26/items/elementarylectu00st...](https://ia902307.us.archive.org/26/items/elementarylectu00steigoog/elementarylectu00steigoog.pdf)

Steinmetz was also the originator of the Phasor Transform used in steady state RLC circuit calculations.

And BTW that's phasor as in Argand plane not phaser as in Star Trek. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"One Friday afternoon in 1921, Steinmetz hopped in his electric car and headed off for a weekend at Camp Mohawk"

I wonder what he would have made of the fact that people are arguing about whether electric cars are practical almost 100 years later.

<comment><USER8> It's a bit like nuclear fusion power.

Working prototypes have been demonstrated decades ago. Something that would be viable _economically_ is a whole different kettle of fish. With fusion power, it's not reached yet. With electric cars, it's only starting to emerge on mass markets.

<comment><USER7> I don't know where you get that idea. The current problem with fusion is not that it isn't economic, it is that it is not yet at the stage where it produces excess power that can be used.

The electric cars 100 years ago were functional as a form of transport.

<comment><USER8> I tried to express the imperfection of the comparison by saying "a bit like".

Both nuclear fusion producing energy and an electric car capable of driving some distance were demonstrated long ago. At that moment, neither was economically viable compared to alternatives (both based on combustion). Both remained in that non-viable state for decades. Electric cars seem to have crossed the border of viability in certain niches; fusion power still has not.

<comment><USER7> Fusion power has not yet reached ignition, without that it is not just uneconomic, it is not working period. - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_energy_gain_factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_energy_gain_factor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a good article. The anecdote about Henry Ford's generator probably isn't true though: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where- man/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/)

<comment><USER10> Yup. [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/) has better sources and traces it back to 1908.</comment></comment>


Senior programming "guru" who can't program - should I find a different career? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1246058/senior-programming-guru-who-cant-program-should-i-find-a-different-career

<comment><USER2> I don't really see anything about this that suggests he can't actually program. The worst bit might be this:

"... if you ask me to sit down and code up a new application from scratch I will spend ten times longer than programmers who are much more junior than me."

That doesn't sound so bad to me. It kind of implies that he can still get the job done, just more slowly than some others. I don't know if that should be a "I can't program" qualifier, though.

He must not think that his extra coding time adds any value to the process. In my case, I know I'm not always the fastest around, but I like to think that my code is better designed and easier to maintain than the average (* may or may not be true...) because I'm almost pathological about building my applications from small, self-contained components, never having the same logic exist in more than one place if at all possible, and perhaps most importantly, clean, clear and consistent naming conventions. That kind of stuff takes time but, IMO, improves overall quality in immeasurable ways. Speed isn't everything.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's always nice to see someone do an honest self assessment, and then own up to it, even the negative parts. My current office-mate is like this, he sucks at coding, but is very broadly knowledgable in tech stuff, and very good at bringing ideas together, and getting broad strokes of what needs to be done fleshed out. I'm sure a lot of places will hire someone like this, but the job title is usually Architect or similar.

As a tangent, if I was him, I would fess up to this at interview time -- any employer who doesn't want good self assessment from employees doesn't deserve someone like this.

<comment><USER4> "Fess up" is an interesting suggestion but I'm pretty sure that would not go over well in an interview situation even with many employers who otherwise would be good to work for. Admitting weakness in an interview is generally just giving the other side arguments to use againsnt your candidacy with very little upside. In some rare cases you may find someone empathetic but I doubt it's worth the risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I've worked with you before.</comment>


The complete correctness of sorting (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://twanvl.nl/blog/agda/sorting

<comment><USER2> The permutation criterion seems kinda arbitrary. Showing equality of multisets seems good enough to me.</comment>


Show HN: Tetris Implemented in ClojureScript - <AUTHOR> https://djblue.github.io/tetris/ <comment><USER2> This is super condensed but still very readable if you know Reagent and Hiccup.

It's interesting to compare this to a lot of tetris clones written in TypeScript. There are a few that take enormous pleasure in defining a type hierarchy and what not.

Contrasting that to the very compact representation of tetrominos

        {:I {:color "#1197dd"
           :dim [4 1]
           :zero [1 0]
           0 [[-1 +0] [+0 +0] [+1 +0] [+2 +0]]
           1 [[+1 -1] [+1 +0] [+1 +1] [+1 +2]]
           2 [[-1 +1] [+0 +1] [+1 +1] [+2 +1]]
           3 [[+0 +1] [+0 +0] [+0 -1] [+0 +2]]}

and the very cute rotate function:

       (defn rotate [r] (-> r inc (mod 4)))

gives you a good idea what a Lisp is about.

<comment><USER3> Why pick Typescript instead of Javascript as a comparison? there's really not that much difference in your example if plain javascript objects/arrays/functions was used.

Clojure has better and more map handling functions in the std lib for sure, but I find that with the help of some libs you can write lots of Javascript in a Clojury way without too much hassle.

<comment><USER2> Typescript is becoming a popular alternative to JS and is often being chosen to correct the perceived shortcomings of JS. Just like ClojureScript, which is often chosen to correct the perceived shortcomings of JS ;)

<comment><USER3> You picked on static typing, which Clojurescript doesn't have.

<comment><USER2> I picked on needless complexity due to top-down design not on static typing per se.

Here's a good video highlighting the difference of approach. Well worth watching. Applies to how many Java architects would design a solution. I see the same kind of top-down approach happening in the Typescript area as well.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb823aqgX_0&list=PL0ydHZ1qvY...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb823aqgX_0&list=PL0ydHZ1qvYKrjY3EwcOY5BQ7sJuV6cZ8U)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work! :)

A few years ago some friends and I wrote a tetris clone to celebrate the 30th anniversary of tetris and learn ClojureScript in the process. Really fun group project.

Playable here: [http://t3tr0s.com/](http://t3tr0s.com/)

Repo: [https://github.com/imalooney/t3tr0s](https://github.com/imalooney/t3tr0s)

<comment><AUTHOR> Your project is substantially superior to mine. It looks so goooooood!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's my tetris copy: [http://wolandbros.com/tetris/](http://wolandbros.com/tetris/)

Both the game and the source are much more minimal, it's very easy to customise the rules. You can see the source here: [https://github.com/gunn/tetris/blob/master/src/store.js](https://github.com/gunn/tetris/blob/master/src/store.js)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet! Thanks for sharing. I see you're using pure-store to manage your game state. My implementation also uses a redux pattern for state management :)

<comment><USER5> Thank you too! It's fun seeing the different ways we implemented the same things, even pieces and rotation.

pure-store is a library I made for very simple but efficient state management. The entire source is this file: [https://github.com/gunn/pure- store/blob/master/src/index.ts](https://github.com/gunn/pure- store/blob/master/src/index.ts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is sick! Link to source: [https://github.com/djblue/tetris](https://github.com/djblue/tetris)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If interested in more ClojureScript games, I made Breakout: [http://city41.github.io/reagent-breakout/](http://city41.github.io/reagent- breakout/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The HTML page, which includes the JS scripts embedded, is only 75KB... not bad for a language so different from JS.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://jstris.jezevec10.com/](https://jstris.jezevec10.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Up being rotate rather than hard drop is tripping me up. I guess I could fork it, though. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was following [https://tetris.com/play-tetris](https://tetris.com/play- tetris), but I would be down to change it. It messes me up when I use the HJKL mapping.

<comment><USER11> I really appreciated that it followed that convention because I was used to it. Also remembering 2 buttons (rotate and hold) makes it harder IMO. Being able to use up for rotate means I can just keep my finger hovered over the hold button. Then again I'm not much of a keyboard gamer.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please help me choose between golang and clojure? I like both.... - <AUTHOR>

I like both, but want to seriously concentrate on one.... Golang or Clojure-JVM? <comment><USER2> Make a rock-paper-scissors game for each, and have them play each other. You'll either pick best out of 3, or the one you preferred making the game for.

Other than that, figure out which one suits the type of programming you intend to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> With the amount of information provided as to what you want to do with the languages, the most I can do is suggest flip a coin.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I intend to create concurrent programs, in pragmatic and lightwieght way, a good community support is a plus. Here the jvm and the googles' baby clash....</comment>


Show HN: I built an actual Chaos Monkey for Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/richstokes/cheekymonkey <comment><AUTHOR> This has been my silly weekend lockdown project. Would be helpful if anyone is able to test it and give any feedback. Thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: Who is using Common Lisp? - <AUTHOR> What/why? <comment><USER2> At the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) we are using a DICOM server written in Common Lisp [1]. DICOM is a network protocol used for medical images and other medical data. This was originally developed as part of the Prism radiation therapy treatment planning system [2][3], which was completely written in Common Lisp, and was used as the sole planning system at UWMC for many years.

1\. [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=963921](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=963921)

2\. [https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~ml/papers/lisp40yrs.pdf](https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~ml/papers/lisp40yrs.pdf)

3\. [https://www.redjournal.org/article/S0360-3016(96)00322-7/abs...](https://www.redjournal.org/article/S0360-3016\(96\)00322-7/abstract)

</comment><comment><USER3> Rigetti Computing [1] uses it for a variety of their projects, including their high-performance quantum computer simulator called the QVM [2], and their quantum compiler.

Some of their use of Lisp has been presented in more detail at the European Lisp Symposium. You can see it in the Cutting Edge section of the proceedings [3].

[1] [https://www.rigetti.com](https://www.rigetti.com)

[2] [https://youtu.be/f9vRcSAneiw](https://youtu.be/f9vRcSAneiw)

[3] [https://www.european-lisp- symposium.org/static/proceedings/2...](https://www.european-lisp- symposium.org/static/proceedings/2018.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Then you should mention Grammarly, with about 10 million users per day. Orbitz has similar numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A month ago I built an entire working MVP for a cloud-based biomedical knowledge management, discussion, and decision-making system, entirely in CL (ccl), using raw HTML, down to the metal, in a week. And we went from MVP to mid-VP (near beta) in another three days, and were running live user experiments at the end of that week. ~2000 lines of CL. One.5 weeks' work. MVP NLP and ontology management, discussion management, role management.

Yes, I'm for hire! :-)

ps. That was a month ago. What I've done in the meantime, aside from wind surf, is build the AI underneath that -- another 2000 lines of working CL. Lisp Rules!

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the best way to contact you?

<comment><USER5> Post a gig (free!) on SFCL...uh, that's SF CraigsList (not SF Common Lisp :-) If it looks interesting, I'll answer it. If I don't, you're likely to get other reasonable folks answering it. (Only reasonable folks answer Lisp job ads, because only reasonable folks know Lisp; It's not like Python where kids who have one high school python course are applying for jobs!)

<comment><USER5> Haha...a friend of mine, reading the above over my shoulder, reminded me that there are, like, two complete a-holes over on comp.lang.lisp who long ago drove everyone else away. (Usenet is pretty much dead anyway, but these folks hastened the early demise of c.l.l as a useful forum, even before the rest of usenet folded to Stack Overflow.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SISCOG [1] uses on all their products. Actually they use Allegro CL from Franz. [2]

The main reason (for still using it) being that it all started out as an end of college project, by the two CEOs, around Artificial Intelligence proof-of- concept-general-tools (so to say) until the big breakthrough for danish railway company, NS, which was impressed with their fleet scheduling project. This adventure began in the late 80's and they were using Lisp Machines!

I suppose the reason for still using Lisp to be a mix of i. there is no technological necessity to change; ii. the codebase of existing products is too big to translate; iii. CTOs don't have enough knowledge on other technologies to evaluate the feasibility of a change; iv. many of the developers actually love Lisp :-).

Most of the support technology is also done in-house and they don't tend to use many external libraries.

1\. [http://siscog.eu/](http://siscog.eu/)

2\. [https://franz.com/products/allegro-common- lisp/](https://franz.com/products/allegro-common-lisp/)

<comment><USER7> Planning and Scheduling is a domain where Lisp has historically seen a lot of applications. For example the planner for the use of the Hubble Space Telescope (and many other telescopes in space and on earth) was originally developed on TI Lisp Machines and later ported to Common Lisp on other platforms. Generally there were a bunch of Lisp-based planners for space operations (like payload planning for Space Shuttles or planner for mars operations). There were a bunch of Lisp-based planner application in military - with the most famous being the DART system - which was used for planning the logistics for the first gulf war and saved more money that the US had ever invested in AI research up to that point in the past 30 years. With field- deployed Common Lisp applications in the middle-east, talking to remote servers. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replannin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replanning_Tool)

<comment><USER6> Indeed. As for space exploration goes I don't remember if it was The Martian or Interstellar which mentions Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). And from there I found this nice article about Lisping at JPL, by Ron Garret [1]. I think it's an enjoyable reading.

1\. [http://flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html](http://flownet.com/gat/jpl- lisp.html)

<comment><USER7> [https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/scheduling/nasa.lhtm...](https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/scheduling/nasa.lhtml)

<comment><USER6> Wow!!! I had no idea. Thanks for the link. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want to echo Grue3[1] that the tooling around common lisp is amazing; some tools I've used are better at one level of abstraction, but none are as good all up and down the levels of abstraction. Very few languages (smalltalk comes to mind) have the culture of caring about tools.

A lot of other features that are great about lisp have become mainstream in the 15 years since I learned lisp.

Or to put it another way, python feels like a slow lisp implementation with a friendlier syntax[2], a large standard library, and poor metaprogramming support[3].

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17617889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17617889)

2: Some lispers will be annoyed by me calling python's syntax "friendlier" than lisps, but it seems to me to be true, inasmuch as this can be objective.

3: One major reason for lisp's syntax has persisted is how easy it makes metaprogramming. Once you've learned the basics of lisp, I can explain to you how Common Lisp's macro system works in under 5 minutes. The ratio of power/simplicity of it is really astounding.

<comment><USER9> python friendlier? just kinda different, i'd say, like algol-ier

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm planning to write a game for Ludum Dare 42 using SBCL and clopengl. I wrote a simple Asteroids game way back with SDL ([https://github.com/andyhd/asteroids](https://github.com/andyhd/asteroids)), but I haven't had much opportunity to use CL since then. I find Lisp is the most enjoyable language to write in, because it has such minimal syntax, but is incredibly flexible.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm using Common Lisp for all my personal projects ([https://ichi.moe](https://ichi.moe) is the biggest one). I find it the easiest language to develop in, because of the tooling (SLIME), language features (CLOS, macros), and it fits my mental model the best. Granted I've been using it for a very long time, so maybe I'm just more familiar with it.

<comment><USER12> I have no real opinion on the tech stack (beyond being glad that it works for you), but this is very cool, and is something I've looked for in the past, unsuccessfully.

<comment><USER13> For something a bit more mature, you might also like [https://jisho.org](https://jisho.org) , which uses the venerable MeCab [1] for morphological analysis, instead of the apparently homegrown system of ichi.moe, and also incorporates a lot of other resources.

[1] [http://taku910.github.io/mecab/](http://taku910.github.io/mecab/) , also available as a Debian package

<comment><USER11> Except Jisho obviously produces worse results on pretty much any non-trivial sentence. Sure, I wrote my own segmenter because everyone else's wasn't good enough, that's a feature not a downside.

<comment><USER13> Can you give an example?

<comment><USER11> Just a few deficiencies that I found:

1\. Jisho can't really do conjugations. It only says "X could possibly be an inflection of Y with these forms" based on the ending of the verb. For example 邪推してしまう becomes

邪推してしまう could be an inflection of 邪推する, with these forms: Te-form. It is a connective form of the verb, usually called the gerund.

As you can see it only saw "邪推して" and ignored all the rest. ichi.moe always fully parses each conjugation.

2\. Jisho can't handle when words are spelled in kana, unless the word is specifically marked as "usually kana". For example when parsing a sentence "ヤバそうなはなしを聞いた", the word "ヤバそう" is not recognized at all, and "なはなし" is parsed as "なは"+"なし". ichi.moe can often handle such spellings.

3\. It splits expressions like "いざとなったら" in "いざとなったら勇気が無くなった" (despite the word obviously being present in their dictionary) and the meaning of the expression can be hard to guess from the components.

Considering their segmenter apparently last updated in 2013 there's little hope this will ever improve.

<comment><USER13> When I do _echo '邪推してしまう' | mecab_ I get

      邪推	名詞,サ変名詞,*,*,邪推,じゃすい,代表表記:邪推/じゃすい カテゴリ:抽象物
      して	動詞,*,サ変動詞,タ系連用テ形,する,して,代表表記:する/する 付属動詞候補(基本) 自他動詞:自:成る/なる
      しまう	接尾辞,動詞性接尾辞,子音動詞ワ行,基本形,しまう,しまう,連語
      EOS

and I have no idea why jisho.org completely ignores the しまう.

The other problems do seem to be related to the segmentation approach MeCab takes. I've usually found it to be satisfactory, but maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough for errors. I might try and see how well your Ichiran works as a replacement. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Slightly off the topic: if I have to start using Lisp now, how do I start? I tried curating things on my own but felt overwhelmed with the alternatives and resources.

Will appreciate your take on this.

<comment><USER15> Best beginners book [http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/](http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/)

Curated library list [https://awesome-cl.com](https://awesome-cl.com)

Cookbook [https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl- cookbook/](https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/)

IDE+Runtime [https://portacle.github.io](https://portacle.github.io)

Printable cheatsheet [http://clqr.boundp.org](http://clqr.boundp.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The venerable pgloader ([https://pgloader.io/](https://pgloader.io/)) is written/maintained in CL. It's pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm using Common Lisp for a program I wrote called simple-content-host. I'm connecting Common Lisp and C++17 to create a tiny CDN! Not only that, but I stream my programming live on Twitch and youtube, check it out: [https://youtu.be/hWmrSyWZS5A](https://youtu.be/hWmrSyWZS5A) [https://www.twitch.tv/kingherring](https://www.twitch.tv/kingherring)

P.S. here's the code [https://github.com/kennymalac/simple-content- host/tree/maste...](https://github.com/kennymalac/simple-content- host/tree/master/src/program) ;)

</comment><comment><USER18> A lot of us at #lispgames[1][2] community using it to make games and related tools. We have a bunch of awesome libraries and wrappers, few game engines/frameworks (3D/2D alike) in development, games too!

Reasons we all chose Common Lisp are often personal, but almost all agree it is the superior interactivity, high language and runtime customizability, performance.

[1]: [https://github.com/lispgames/lispgames.github.io/wiki](https://github.com/lispgames/lispgames.github.io/wiki) (lispgames.org)

[2]: #lispgames channel at freenode.net

</comment><comment><USER19> SISCOG, a Portuguese company, uses Common Lisp on their planning software.

[http://www.siscog.eu/](http://www.siscog.eu/)

[http://www.siscog.eu/upload/GESTAO-DE- LISTAS/News/PDF/eclm-2...](http://www.siscog.eu/upload/GESTAO-DE- LISTAS/News/PDF/eclm-2013-siscog-a-story-written-in-lisp-20130602.pdf)

If you feel like enjoying Lisbon or Porto's weather, they are hiring.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's nothing major, but I built a simple web scraper for collecting screenshots from various forums and then creating a static site from it.

I've also used it to build small tools like generating project documentation or collating data from online api's.

Emacs was my gateway (via org mode) and I messed around with Emacs lisp for a while before learning Common Lisp. Developing in Emacs + SLIME is a lot of fun once I get in the rhythm.

</comment><comment><USER21> As part of a startup, I wrote an automated trading platform in SBCL Common Lisp. It is about 70,000 lines.

I use lisp these days when hacking some automation around common tasks like scraping web sites, extracting info from xlsx or rtf files, and producing LaTeX documentation.

</comment><comment><USER22> FYI: there's currently a DNS problem for "sbcl.org", so instead, please use what it ordinarily points to:

[https://sbcl.sourceforge.net/](https://sbcl.sourceforge.net/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I use clisp mainly with quicklisp. Lisp isn't rather unique and simple so I have used it for an occasionally algorithm that is annoying any other way. Not for the entire system typically.

<comment><USER24> Same, for small personal projects only. Drawing a quicklisp map for example:

[https://github.com/pablovaldes/quickdot](https://github.com/pablovaldes/quickdot)

You can find a picture example of the whole thing in the directory doc

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does using StumpWM count?

<comment><USER26> I think it does! The whole Lisp desktop is a step closer now: StumpWM, Emacs & GuixSD.

<comment><USER27> It's kind of funny that those all use divergent versions of Lisp... :)

<comment><USER5> Doesn't matter. That's why it's called "Common" Lisp. Any code will run on any conformant CL.

<comment><USER28> Fair point, but in the specific case the differences matter indeed. StumpWM is coded and extensible in Common Lisp, while Emacs use Emacs Lisp and Guix is built on Guile Scheme - both not CL conformant.

it's a very lispy stack, otherwise!

<comment><USER5> Ah. Yes. Right. But these aren't Common Lisps. But you've indirectly brought up another useful point, to wit, the general Lisp paradigm is so useful that language designers regularly approximate it when building new platforms. (Clojure is another.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've brought or used CL in a few companies.

2005: At a bank dealing with mortgage secondary markets, we snuck it into the Research group (where "research" isn't R&D but feeding information to the trading floor) for plowing through dirty data from multiple databases before our DBAs could make it available via Oracle. This hack helped keep the math & stats PhDs' pipelines full.

Rationale for using CL: because values have type rather than variables (but may be asserted with CHECK-TYPE; see Google CL style guide), this essentially gave us late-binding of schema.

2006: at Zillow, we were building autonomous server farm control at a time when AWS still emerging. Unfortunately, two things happened at the same time. 1) There was a re-org in Ops leading to discontinuing contractors, so both of us had a 2 weeks to finish it and finish early. 2) SBCL had just reached 1.0 after years in 0.x land. One modification in the run up to SBCL v1.0 that I overlooked in the changelog was how bindings for special vars were handled across threads. It required a trivial fix, but we didn't track that down before time ran out-- oops!

Rationale for using CL: 2 guys still learning the language (one also working on Masters) got lots of traction quickly.

2007: at an education administration start-up, same colleague as from Zillow and I began working on a conceptual sibling to Amazon Dynamo, roughly when their original white paper came out. In 5 weeks, we had an MVP; Kevin wrote all the code, I helped with design and code reviews; it handled arbitrary data payloads and migration of data "ownership" by node. We were about to begin multi-node load & capacity measurements when the business joined a Microsoft incubator and removed all Unix-only folks.

Rationale for using CL: 2 guys, lots of traction quickly... plus, late binding of schema via MOP tricks.

I would like to believe that parts of this continue as Kevin's vivace-graph despite being a very different animal.

2008: at a Seattle-based ad network (I still bear the shame...), the geek- macho angle was that this is one of the few types of businesses likely to see billions of requests per day. In 4 months, we were deployed at RackSpace and completed baseline load & capacity measurements.

There was an issue with garbage-collection after Hunchentoot would release a HTTP connection, because by the time FreeBSD would release the underlying TCP/IP structs, several minutes would elapse before gc could reclaim everything. Not ideal, but it was manageable!

Rationale for using CL: 1 guy, lots of traction, successful hand-off to new hire (the guy who later brought Clojure to Amazon's retail side of the house).

Bonus: local Angels and VC (Madrona) came to us but then came the economic crash of 2008...

2009: recruited into Memetrics, a former startup that had been acquired by big consulting firm, and the core software was already written in CL from nearly a decade earlier. I was only in the core group briefly, but subsequent work using CL was my default choice and already approved. (Then again, I didn't ask permission or beg forgiveness.) There were more dirty data cleaning tools and a Recommender system from which China's answer to Amazon became a client. Mind you, they didn't use this code, as they had their own, but it demonstrated that our group understood the principles. I still count this as a win.

Rationale for selecting CL: was decided by folks in Sydney before I arrived. Their head-hunter found me after their acquisition.

2013: Splunk acquired BugSense. BugSense used "Erlang, Lisp and C" (Scheme R4) for handling billions of inbound requests per day non-stop from all time zones into our cluster. While not CL, having previously gone sufficiently deep into CL allowed me getting from zero to presenting at Erlang Factory conference in exactly one year while reaching more than 25x performance increase with the pure-Erlang rewrite.

Rationale for selecting Lisp by their founder: made for malleable query language.

2015: wife wanted to move back to Canada after several years in Silicon Valley. Resurrected a pet project circa 2007, snagz.net, and I attempted founding a company. Back-end is CL for Natural Language Processing work-flow. Core NLP things now use spaCy.io, because their NLP-fu is far better than my self-taught version. Some intermediate working data sets were pushed into a slightly modified Anarki fork of HN, partly to see what the Arc language was about, and partly because that tool fit the (internal) need.

Rationale for selecting CL: Lisp is a beautiful language within which to work.

Others in and around Vancouver using CL: Routific mentions Rust and Common Lisp in their job postings; D-Wave previously mentioned Lisp in job postings but unable to see it today; there was at least one other, but I can't recall.

In my early experience with Common Lisp, I would have said MACROS were key.

Then, pre-populating memory followed by #'sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die was a handy trick for improving cold-start times. (Alternative to using POSIX mmap().)

Now, it's simply the joy of writing code in the language.

First milestone: parens disappear, because using the right editor config means never typing a single paren, and editing involves manipulating whole expressions with fluid motion.

Second: thinking how a function _should_ be or _might_ be named, points to something either in the HyperSpec or be the name of a package, thus easy internet search. Today, there's Quicklisp.org and Quickdocs.org, making this even easier.

That said, I'm currently learning Rust and React-Native for a tiny mobile app, as each language can teach you something new.

But something in the Lisp family will be with me for the rest of my days. I might go with Racket next just to expand my knowledge there.

So I recommend: use Common Lisp for a real project-- just because you can!

</comment><comment><USER29> Tankan is a browser-based program for Windows for memorizing Japanese characters.

[http://www.kylheku.com/tankan/](http://www.kylheku.com/tankan/)

It's written in Common Lisp, except for the little tray icon control program that is in Visual C++.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't know what the relation is between common lisp and scheme but I use R5RS (the S is for "scheme") mainly to program the GIMP to make it do batch image-processing. Gimp also has a Python api, but I just find scheme to be more accessible and user-friendly.</comment>


Clinical trials launch to test coronavirus treatments - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00444-3 <comment><USER2> > _Another study — a 300-person controlled trial — will test serum from > COVID-19 survivors. The bare-bones strategy, based on the idea that the > antibodies one person steadily builds up to fight a virus can rapidly help > someone freshly infected to fight it off, has had modest success when used > to treat other viruses in decades past_

I'm surprised we don't see this type of treatment more often. It might be worth it to set up infrastructure to do this type of treatment at scale everywhere, since it presumably works in _most_ recoverable viral infections.

<comment><USER3> It has many of the same risks as cannibalism - there are lots of unknown viruses and proteins that normally don't get transferred from person to person, but could cause harm, and if you start distributing them widely, you're gonna have problems.

<comment><USER4> can the relevant antibodies be isolated?

<comment><USER3> Viruses and prions are so small it's pretty much impossible to be sure you have removed them all from some sample.

Sure you can remove most, but you'll never get all of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They literally have a trial on Forsythia.

If I recall this was the snakeoil peddled as a miracle cure in the plotline to the movie Contagion.

<comment><USER6> I mean it makes sense. We already know Forsythia is safe-ish to eat, has antiviral properties, and it's probably growing within a couple blocks of wherever you live. If it works for COVID-19 then that's kind of the ideal scenario. ~80% of people recover on their own, so a treatment doesn't even need to work that well if it's something that's safe enough for people to just start taking as soon as they get symptoms but before they're sick enough to warrant seeing a doctor, if at that point it can actually make a difference in clinical outcomes.

Something that slows down viral growth by 10% isn't going to do anything if you start taking it a week after you get sick, but if you start taking it at t=0 it could make an enormous difference.

<comment><USER7> > ~80% of people recover on their own, so a treatment doesn't even need to > work that well...

20% of people needing hospitalization and 5-10% needing mechanical ventilation in an ICU does NOT mean treatments don't need to be very effective. ...unless you assume your in the 80% and you don't care about anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is crazy fast. Usually hit to target takes almost a year, and they are doing this all in less than a month.

<comment><USER9> Quite sure they had a Zika virus vaccine completed within a few months after the outbreak. Obviously getting regulatory approval takes much, much longer but people would probably be surprised how quickly such things can be developed.

<comment><USER7> Zika vaccine is still in clinical trials.

<comment><USER9> > Obviously getting regulatory approval takes much, much longer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting ethics of using people as the null hypothesis population knowing they are then condemned to death

<comment><USER11> You give the control arm the current best standard of care until and unless it becomes statistically obvious that your test arm is better and then ethically you're supposed to switch everyone to the drug at that point. It's not like the control group is denied the best care we know how to provide, just to accommodate experimentation.

</comment></comment><comment> corona-chan The official infection and death numbers in China appear to be completely fabricated as they followed an almost perfect quadratic progression: [https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ez13dv/oc_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ez13dv/oc_quadratic_coronavirus_epidemic_growth_model/)

None of the various measures taken to contain the outbreak have affected those numbers.

This apparently has happened before with organ donation data: [https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s129...](https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6#citeas)

<comment><USER12> This is a breathtakingly stupid abuse of data analysis. Which of course means it's at the top of Reddit's r/bestof, with thousands of upvotes.

Let's take a look at that paper you linked. The supposedly damning point is that you can fit the data extremely well with a quadratic, in the sense that R^2 is high. However, the data points are rapidly increasing, and because of the way R^2 works, that means only the last ~4 data points have any impact on R^2 at all. The statement of the paper boils down to the claim that you can fit 4 data points on a smooth curve accurately using a 3-parameter fit whose form you got to choose. This is obviously true, for _any_ 4 data points.

It's too bad that reason goes out the window whenever China is involved.

<comment> corona-chan I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand your point. There are far more than 4 data points fitting the curve smoothly. Shouldn't the data have a lot more variation for something like this?

<comment><USER12> I'm responding to the paper you linked, where you assert "this has happened before".

The story with the Reddit link is similar: at the time of the posting, only ~6 data points actually mattered for R^2, so you would expect R^2 to be very high. (The fit is extremely poor for the first ~6 data points, but that doesn't affect R^2 at all.) After the last date on the chart shown, the R^2 begins to plummet. This is also exactly what you would generically expect.

Amusingly, _both_ of these totally ordinary results are taken as evidence for a conspiracy: the 6 points that fit are taken to be fabricated, and the subsequent points are taken to be fabricated _with the sole purpose of throwing off people on Reddit_. But if you can claim evidence for a conspiracy no matter what the numbers are, has something gone wrong in your reasoning process? You be the judge!

<comment> corona-chan I would say the numbers deviating from the model after it has been publicized and discussed online are still evidence against the data being fabricated, but weaker than it could have been because there were definitely Chinese people watching those discussion on social media, and so the idea that they might have corrected the mistake and started adding more variation isn't that unlikely.

<comment><USER13> wow you make it sound like someone is sitting in front of a computer, watching reaction of foreigners on reddit, and tweaking the numbers on an excel sheet. Really? You know, Chinese ppl online really hoped it wasnt a quadratic curve. If the government was just making up the numbers and trying to hide the problem, why not make it linear, or square root? why pick quadratic, such terrifying curve...why say its cornavirus at all? just say its flu, its pneumonia, its a terrible flu season. If all the government cares about is money and economy, why shut down the cities at all and destroy the economy in the processes. When economy is down, business will go bankrupt, people will be pissed, and maybe they will revolt. Why go through all this trouble and not deflect the issue or take no responsibility at all. Isn't all about protecting people and keep people from getting sick? oh btw, now that model doesnt fit anymore, the reported number is higher than the predicted model

<comment> corona-chan I have no doubt there are Chinese propagandists sitting in front of computers watching and interacting with foreigners. I don't know why you think that idea is so ridiculous. The west does it, why wouldn't China?

You're asking a bunch of unrelated questions. It's pretty obvious the epidemic in China is very serious. That's why they are taking all those measures.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>