Why Google makes the perfect ISP - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133547-why-google-makes-the-perfect-isp

<comment><USER2> Whether they succeed or not with Fiber, whether it expands to every American city or not and whether they get sued because of antitrust laws (which I don't believe they will), the fact is that they're changing the status quo. Even only scaring the telecom companies enough for them to offer decent plans is a win for Google AND for the customer.

Sure Google pursues its own commercial goals but in the end it benefits the customer as well. I personally think they will succeed, will sign up as soon as it's available in my city and believe what they're doing is great for the future of the 'net.

The biggest selling point here (in Canada) would probably not even be the speed (about 40 times faster than whatever else we can get) but the unlimited bandwidth. As opposed to the USA (I think) we have very aggressive bandwidth caps up here. Try consuming anything with a 30Gb/month limit, especially when your ISP charges a few cents per subsequent Mb without telling you until you get your bill. You'd be welcoming an alternative like Fiber as well.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. It's the same as their chrome gambit. Releasing chrome kicked the IE development team into gear and lit a fire under firefox's ass. Today if I launch any of the 3 most popular browsers on this machine each of them will score 100/100 on the acid 3 test and render it smoothly and seamlessly. That certainly wasn't the case when chrome 1.0 was released a bit more than 3 years ago. Now the installed base of folks who have truly modern browsers is vastly higher and the sort of browser-side capabilities one can safely assume when they build web apps is very much expanded.

<comment><USER4> It's a total digression, but this brings a tear to my eye too. Kids today will never know the suffering that was endured by their predecessors.

<comment><USER3> Coincidentally, I just happened to stumble on this yesterday: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHb6M03Ft84>

Computer Chronicles, Battle of the Browsers, 1997.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's always been a touch of Willy Wonka style unreality about Google Fiber.

Municipalities across the U.S. know that their broadband sucks, and they wrote proposals to Google in lieu of real action, hoping Google could solve their problems with their magic wand.

Google still has a "non-evil" and academic reputation in some quarters, although anybody who makes a living on the streets of the internet knows that Google is the most dangerous and rapacious company on the net. People think, for instance, that Google is a noble warrior against web spam, although Google sustains web spam by (i) being the only signficant source of traffic for many site types, and (ii) making it possible to monetize crappy content. In fact, Google has gained "question answering" capabilities in the last few years thanks to web spam farms run by companies like eHow.

What gets me is that, in a time where the world is overflowing with capital (signified by low interest rates and general low investment returns) both the private and public sectors in the U.S. seem completely indifferent to investments in infrastructure.

(And why should they? Telecom companies can make minimal investments in infrastructure and charge champagne prices for beer products.)

Google steps in because, like Microsoft, they've got a small number of wildly profitable products and an inability to use the profits from those products to create new products of comparable profitability.

This is good for Kansas City, but it's one of just a long list of distractions, such as snake oil fixed wireless schemes for rural access, that have stood in the way of a real national plan for broadband U.S.

<comment><USER6> > anybody who makes a living on the streets of the internet knows that Google > is the most dangerous and rapacious company on the net.

I make a living on the streets of the internet, and could not disagree more with your conclusion.

You don't speak for everyone, because you certainly don't speak for me.

<comment><USER7> You are clearly in a minority though. I bet that at least 80% of internet marketers hate Google.

<comment><USER8> Have you used adwords? I have. And it is pretty transparent about almost everything that should be available to the advertiser. They certanly have the website base and actively moniter ads for inapprpiate content, increasing overall prosperity of the network. Although it could get them more money, they play for long term and keep the standard high. They need to make money like every other company.

<comment><USER7> Not really but a friend of mine was scammed out of $40k legit AdSense earnings.

As for the quality of AdWords - I have not forgotten about the 500 million dollar fine Google received for pharmacy ads.

<comment><USER8> > Not really but a friend of mine was scammed out of $40k legit AdSense > earnings.

Can you give more details? Are you/he suggesting Google scammed him? Any reason/evidence to believe so?

> As for the quality of AdWords - I have not forgotten about the 500 million > dollar fine Google received for pharmacy ads.

Adwords is better _when compared to competitors_. This does not mean it is perfect. Automation can do only so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google's core business is advertising. Google likes to do stuff with the data that passes through its systems. Google has explicitly and pro-actively taken sides in fight against copyright violations instead of remaining a neutral party.

And they've been less than steadfast on Net Neutrality, which is a big red flag for a company that wants to be an ISP.

This is not about Google being "evil", but I do not want a company with that mindset and those interests to be my ISP. It's going to be very tough, if not impossible to separate those.

I know this is already common practice in the US, with many of the major (cable) ISP's being part of companies that having a direct stake in copyright exploitation, advertising etcetera.

So ask yourself: how's that working out for you so far? Would Google really be any better?

<comment><USER10> Aside from say, Sonic.net, I'd be hard pressed to find a less "evil" company (in terms of conflict of interest - most other major ISPs tend to be wireless carriers or in bed with the entertainment industry or both).

Google may not have it's interests aligned with us end users, but they're a nice contrast to the remainder, and might be forced to play a countering role on the copyright front to differentiate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sorry for the weak pun, but I really couldn't help myself: I wish the title had been "Why Google is an acceptable ISP".

Apropos of the article, I'm increasingly unconvinced that free markets work well enough when they're dealing with infrastructure--roads, train lines, phone lines--that have an expensive one-off set-up cost and then a larger cost of switching while the original provider attempts to recoup the set-up subsidy. Certainly Britain's experience with train lines, and the US's existing telco network, among others, seems to demonstrate that it doesn't tend towards a free market. (Compare, of all places, Somalia's mobile network, which is thriving--at least relatively, for a country that's been in a civil war for two decades-- in the absence of a set-up cost).

<comment><USER12> I'd probably argue that most private industry infrastructure efforts are decidedly _not_ free markets. Given the politics involved in building out large utilities, governments tend to get heavily involved. Around the country this has resulted in some strange relationships between company and government, most involving some manner of limited monopoly in exchange for certain guarantees regarding types of service. Those agreements tend to be short-sighted and rarely updated, leaving us with aging infrastructure and legal impedements to competition.

<comment><USER13> There are some good and bad reasons for this. For example, the deregulation of electric utilities in California in 1996 was an epic failure. Part of that was due to the design of the deregulation scheme, but a lot of is was attributed to the perverse incentives of the free market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I were a potential customer, my biggest fear would be customer service. There is a track record of no-human-contact service disabling; especially with "free" products.

If Google shuts down an ad-sense account for perceived violation without good justification or interaction, how can I expect them not to do the same with my internet for an unjust DMCA complaint?

<comment><USER4> Indeed. There is much fear and uncertainty about Google's proposed service. You are right to doubt them.

<comment><USER15> Fear and uncertainty? The company that provides fairly clear blog posts, comments, changelogs and EOL guidance for its many of its products?

Goog has made a commitment for at least 7 years on this project which is great for a capital intensive project. This is a long term bet that has tons of potential for both the company and the ecosystem. Google has always been particularly good at building reference models that they are in many cases happy with everyone else copying. Look at Gmail, Chrome, Android, Maps and the features they helped create or popularize. Fiber is another example of what Google thinks is a good idea and one that they think you'll agree with.

In the end Google doesnt care who you get a gigabit connection from they just want everyone to have one. The KC network is just an example they want people to copy.

<comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The real question, and the one that the article doesn't answer is whether an advertising company is a better ISP than a telecom.

<comment><USER17> It would be really hard to be worse than a telecom, whether we're judging on incompetence or malice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Let's take a poll: How many people here understand that Google is doing this because Internet connections are a complement of your personal data, which they would like to monetize, and not out of the goodness of their hearts?

<comment><USER2> Let's take a poll: How many people here understand that Google is a corporation and therefore has making money as its primary goal?

Seriously, what would be wrong from a corporate standpoint would be for Google to be doing this out of the goodness of their heart, not the opposite. You don't like it, don't use it. I bet you'll have a real easy time finding someone to pull fiber to your house and provide you with gigabyte internet without trying to monetize it.

Welcome to capitalism, I'm personally quite happy with it.

<comment><USER18> I wasn't _complaining_ that Google is a nameless, faceless, soulless corporation just like the ISPs, just trying to remind people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > It gets better: For people that don't need a super-fast connection, Google > is offering a 5Mbps connection for free — yes, free. If Google Fiber > expands, there's no guarantee that this will remain the case, but it could > totally upset the market for entry-level broadband. Even the "catch" isn't > that much of a catch. Google is planning on charging a one-time $300 fee to > run the fiber to each residence, but if you opt for a contract, the fee is > waived. Free accounts will have to pay the installation fee, unfortunately.

Free for 7 years. I'm not saying that's bad, but it's still relevant.

<comment><USER20> The antitrust implications for this are massive.

Google would clearly be subsiding the cost of the broadband with advertising/sales from their online properties. If you are someone like Vimeo, Hulu, Netflix etc then you would forever be at a disadvantage to Youtube due to bandwidth costs. Similarly the proven importance of speed in site popularity and conversions means that an entire raft of competitors would again be at a disadvantage. And finally Google would be in a position to wipe out hundreds/thousands of small mom+pop ISPs.

The Google Fiber on its own has competition issues but a free service could just about tip it over the line.

<comment><USER21> Are you a lawyer?

Antitrust law is complicated. Simply subsidizing or undercutting competitors isn't nearly enough; nor is having a monopoly. For example, it wasn't Microsoft's monopoly that got them in trouble, it's that it leveraged its monopoly on Windows to force a monopoly of the browser (special APIs and restrictive license agreements with OEMs)...not to mention the whole Java thing.

Anyways, if someone came out with free energy or free telephones, I doubt anyone would complain. These are utilities. The internet is the same. Last year the UN even declared that the internet is a fundamental basic human right

<comment><USER22> > the UN even declared that the internet is a fundamental basic human right

The UN should stick to prancing around in blue helmets handing out food while ignoring genocide in Tibet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really hope they succeed or at least stay in the game long enough to make a difference. Remember the Verizon "open" ads a while ago when ATT was kicking their butt with the iPhone? Android came along and they quickly shoved the open thing under the rug. Nothing changed in the wireless world except for the visual voice mail aspect. The current players in the wired internet market do not have competition. All they are interested in is making commercials and getting more customers. Google would be a swift kick in the butt for comcast and others. They will be forced to improve.

</comment><comment><USER24> Once this gets rolled out to more cities, this will certainly be looked back as a disruptive product in the home internet market. Google is well-placed to destroy the traditional ISPs.

Google Fiber: come to Canada please!

</comment><comment><USER25> They are perfect because they charge $70 for gigabit fiber. period. :-D

</comment><comment><USER26> You know what'll make google the best ISP? The fact is they only care about getting you online and keeping you there, which is much different to most ISPs who only care about you _paying_. As long as you've paid that month, why bother when you're offline for a day or two?

Plus I bet they'll have the best first line techs.

</comment><comment><USER27> A company _like_ Google could make a better ISP, but to cheer a growing internet monopoly just seems ridiculous.

> Free internet at today's average speeds

> $300 construction fee (one time or 12 monthly payments of $25) + taxes and > fees

Google is going full circle. I wonder if the cost for Google to give internet to people who didn't otherwise have it (and at no charge to them) actually paid dividends very soon because that person is going to immediately generate new revenue for google from the inevitable use of Google/adwords. I think John D. Rockefeller would tip his hat, tbh.</comment>


Elm by Example - <AUTHOR> http://elm-by-example.org/toc.html <comment><USER2> Elm is a profoundly interesting language, but I've had mixed experiences developing in it. I've been working on a small-but-hairy web app using Elm, and my first reactions are:

1\. Elm encourages highly-rigorous state handling, thanks to the React-like "Elm Architecture" [https://github.com/evancz/elm-architecture- tutorial/](https://github.com/evancz/elm-architecture-tutorial/) and features like the Maybe type and ADTs. I rarely worry that I've overlooked some horrible, asynchronous corner case or that something might be null.

2\. The Elm architecture requires a considerable amount of boilerplate code, at least relative to something like Ember.js. It's often necessary to thread significant amounts of application state through parameters, for reasons similar to the ones here: [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1afMLTCpRxhJpurQ97VBH...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1afMLTCpRxhJpurQ97VBHCZkLbR1TEsRnd3yyxuSQ5YY/) But when you combine that with the need to use "case" matches everywhere to destructure ADTs, and the fact that you can't define guard expressions (or destructure things nested inside record types), it tends to result in a lot of extra typing.

3\. The Elm tooling is a mixed bag. The error message are the best I've ever seen, but the sweet time-travelling debugger just refused to run when I tried to use it with the Elm architecture tutorials. This pattern of brilliance and brokenness feels fairly pervasive at this point.

4\. The Elm community can occasionally be a bit frustrating to work with as an outsider. Sometimes, when I run into an issue, I eventually find a GitHub discussion like this: [https://github.com/evancz/start- app/pull/37](https://github.com/evancz/start-app/pull/37) , where somebody is trying to address an actual issue (one that was biting me, too), and the community is more-or-less throwing up its hands. Also, the Elm community has an occasionally surprising tendency to close GitHub issues quickly, even if it's known that they'll probably need to fix something someday: [https://github.com/evancz/start- app/issues/35#issuecomment-1...](https://github.com/evancz/start- app/issues/35#issuecomment-148939344)

5\. For me, Elm feels considerably more restrictive than programming in Haskell.

6\. Elm's type checker and design do have one huge payoff: Even very complicated apps with lots of tricky asynchronous state tend to work on the first run after they make it past the type checker. This is _hugely_ valuable, and it makes me more inclined to forgive Elm's limitations elsewhere.

Overall, Elm is exploring some really important ideas, and it's pushing the general React-style architecture to its logical limits. I think I'd consider it for small- to medium-sized apps with lots of tricky state, and with developers who are strong at functional programming.

<comment><USER3> I've had a similar experience. I was ok with it though, because the pure data -> DOM nature of Elm's architecture was better than anything else.

Until I found PureScript. Especially purescript-halogen [0], which is basically how one might make React in Haskell. Everything is still pure, but you can define nested state (not to be confused with React-style local mutable state!) without Elm's boilerplate wiring.

The "update" function runs in the continuation monad, which means that one can do something like this:

            modify (\(State s) -> State $ s { loadingUsers = true })
            users <- liftAff' $ fetchUsers
            modify (\(State s) -> State $ s { users = users, loadingUsers = false })

and this runs asynchronously, but it still modifies one global state. Compare with Elm's "return fetch effect, fire event, react on event in update function".

There's everything one might need in PureScript: functors, applicatives, monads, so the language feels much less constraining than Elm.

Drawbacks:

\- they use bower for package management - it's ok, but elm-package's enforced semversioning is really nice.

\- no default imports, so imports can get verbose [1]

\- the error messages might not be as nice as Elm's, but I haven't had a problem so far, at all

\- no elm-reactor - though since halogen is just a library, the UI is pure and there's no magic state-isolating runtime, you can probably roll your own relatively easily

\- not as easy to pick up as Elm - but no problem for a Haskell programmer. Elm definitely focuses more on user-friendliness and Javascript converts.

...but these are minor nitpicks - I am in the process of making the switch and porting an app from Elm right now, and it definitely was the right decision.

[0] [https://github.com/slamdata/purescript- halogen](https://github.com/slamdata/purescript-halogen)

[1] [https://github.com/slamdata/purescript- halogen/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/slamdata/purescript- halogen/blob/master/src/Halogen/Component.purs#L34)

<comment><USER3> One more thing that just made my life easier: Purescript recently got generic deriving [0], which means that one can derive Eq, Ord, JSON etc instances easily now!

[0] [https://github.com/purescript/purescript- generics](https://github.com/purescript/purescript-generics)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Elm has neat ideas, but there's really no need for an entirely new programming language just for functional reactive stuff, and I'm just not into languages that don't support dynamic and iterative development at the REPL. Hot swapping code is a poor replacement for a real REPL.

<comment><USER5> I think it's great to have more choices of purely functional, statically typed languages for web programming. The only other options I'm aware of are GHCjs and Haste (huge runtime size, incomprehensible code, laziness), and PureScript. PureScript to me seems like the ideal choice of the options available, with a more powerful type system and more of a general-purpose approach. But it doesn't have Elm's tooling, its nice error messages, or its wealth of FRP tutorials. Certainly, PureScript doesn't obviate Elm IMO.

As to the lack of a REPL, doesn't Elm have one? [http://elm- lang.org/blog/announce/repl](http://elm-lang.org/blog/announce/repl)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Elm with a _magic_ backend could outshine meteor. Elm apps are fast.

Edit: magic translates to instant backend and using just one language for everything. Elm-native-ui seems like a step in the right direction: [https://github.com/elm-native-ui/elm-native-ui](https://github.com/elm- native-ui/elm-native-ui)

<comment><USER7> I don't know about magic, but Elm with an Elixir/Phoenix backend seems quite nice. [http://www.cultivatehq.com/posts/phoenix- elm-1/](http://www.cultivatehq.com/posts/phoenix-elm-1/)

<comment><USER8> ...and I have something new to my to-learn list

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too bad the Elm site is down - [http://elm-lang.org](http://elm-lang.org).

<comment><USER10> That seems to happen a lot. Every time something gets posted it seems to get down. That said, I'm pretty sure it's just one guy managing it all as a side project, so it makes sense that he wouldn't want to pay for an expensive host for all the traffic he gets.

<comment><USER3> Evan Czaplicki was actually hired by Prezi to work exclusively on Elm, so the project has industry backing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> every time there is an article about elm I have to fight my first impulse which is to wonder at it still being developed, I guess I spent way too many years typing elm to get to my email to ever be able to associate it to anything else

</comment><comment><USER12> What is the history of the `.` notation? In Javascript

      obj={key: "val"};obj.key === obj["key"]; => true

and the same in many other languages, like Java, C#, Elm, Haskell (I think) et cetera. The only ones in common use I can think of now is Lisp & C (but of course there are thousands).

This pattern of putting the key to get after the object seems popular, but what is the history behind it?

And why is it uncommon to have something like get(obj, key)? Or like in Clojure, `(get {:key :val} :key)`? Seems more consistent, and uses less syntax.

<comment><USER13> Just a nit; Java does not use dot notation for map access. (Groovy can, but can also use Java notation.)

Not that it matters, but how do you reckon

`get(obj, key)` is less syntax than `obj.key`?

<comment><USER14> I'm guessing they're talking about the syntactic footprint of the language. Of course that assumes:

1\. you have free functions at all (wasn't the case in Java until 1.5 and static imports IIRC, still isn't the case in Smalltalk, and seemingly free functions in Ruby are actually methods of Kernel, an actual free function would be a Proc bound to a global name)

2\. you only have free functions, or all your syntax is expressed with free function syntax (which is fairly specific to Lisps, Julia also has generic functions but afaik still uses dotted attribute access)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMHO elm is for haskell, what meteor is for javascript. Even without support from purists, they conquered their market share. This irritated a lot of people.

Politics are boring but they are important. Imagine if all these smart people from haste, fay, purescript, ghcjs could join elm and extend it. Haskell could finally get a (deserved) mainstream role in CS. I don't know Evan (elm's creator) but he seems to have enough charisma for the job. Let's see if he can play the politics.

</comment><comment><USER15> HelloWorld1.html of 33KB in size irritates me. Elm should have something like

      --optimize-for=size

<comment><USER14> Isn't it because all of the Elm runtime and all linked libraries are embedded in the page, and Elm doesn't have DCE yet? I don't think there is much (if any?) optimisation in Elm at that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is the CSS host down? Because I'm used to Elm tutorials being very nicely styled, and this is... not so much.

</comment><comment><USER13> Today I learned people still use full text justification. Interesting content, but I found the actual readability a bit rough for me.</comment>


Little Lisp interpreter - <AUTHOR> https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/21-little-lisp-interpreter

<comment><USER2> I wrote one in erlang that works pretty well and is even designed to be able to call into erlang functions (if I took it that far).

[https://github.com/breckinloggins/erlisp](https://github.com/breckinloggins/erlisp)

I'm currently working on writing one in Haskell using the Scheme48 tutorial [1], though I'd eventually like to replace the evaluator with an F-Algebra[2] so I can learn about that.

[https://github.com/breckinloggins/scheme48](https://github.com/breckinloggins/scheme48)

As a side note, would any Haskellers be willing to look at the abstraction I did for parsing #-forms? I created an adhoc data structure:

        hashLiteralInfo = [
            ('f', (Nothing, \_ -> Bool False)),
            ('t', (Nothing, \_ -> Bool True)),
            ('b', (Just $ many $ oneOf "01", Number . toInteger . fromBase 2)),
            ('o', (Just $ many $ oneOf "01234567", Number . toInteger . fromBase 8)),
            ('d', (Just $ many $ oneOf "0123456789", Number . toInteger . fromBase 10)),
            ('h', (Just $ many $ oneOf "0123456789abcdefABCDEF", Number . toInteger . fromBase 16))
    	]

And then the parser consumes that:

        parseHashLiteral :: Parser LispVal
        parseHashLiteral = do
            char '#'
                c <- oneOf $ map fst hashLiteralInfo
            let literalInfo = lookup c hashLiteralInfo
            case literalInfo of
                Nothing -> fail "Internal parse error: unregistered literal info"
                    Just (Nothing, f) -> return $ f "unneeded" -- I know there's a more idiomatic way to do that
                    Just (Just literalParser, f) -> do
                        digits <- literalParser
                        return $ f digits

This works and is "abstracted", but doesn't feel idiomatic. Thoughts?

[1] [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H...](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_Hours)

[2] [http://bartoszmilewski.com/2013/06/10/understanding-f- algebr...](http://bartoszmilewski.com/2013/06/10/understanding-f-algebras/)

<comment><USER3> You might as well make a datatype for "HashLiterals":

        data HashLiteral a = HashLiteral { _character :: Char, _trailingChars :: [Char], _representation :: [Char] -> a}

(Underscores for lenses) And then ``hashLiteralInfo :: [HashLiteral a]`` rather than an ad-hoc thing.

Then you could do something like

        binHashLiteral = HashLiteral { _char = 'b', _parser = Just . many . oneOf "01", _representation = Number . toInteger . fromBase 2 }

which has a nicer type (HashLiteral Number) than some weird nested tuple.

<comment><USER2> I gave this a try but ended up going with _tmhedberg_ 's suggestion because it (as he said) allowed me to stay with lookup. I would use a richer data structure except for the parseHashLiteral function just needs to return a Parser LispVal anyway, so there's nothing "richer" just yet.

However, if I decide to go forward with some of the more advanced things in the tutorial like threading good error messages and such, I'm pretty sure some new data types are in my future.

Also, when you say "underscore for lenses", did you mean that your example would be pretty clean with the Lenses library? I've been looking for an excuse to learn that so if so I'd love to learn more!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Writing a Lisp interpreter is an opportunity to write a really beautiful program, do not waste it by stopping at a first version that sort of works. A nice implementation should read almost like a spec of the language, except maybe for the more prosaic parsing part. Look at the Norvig article, or at the implementation of Ian Piumarta for inspiration:

[http://piumarta.com/software/lysp/lysp-1.1/lysp.c](http://piumarta.com/software/lysp/lysp-1.1/lysp.c)

<comment><USER5> Or Chaitin's [http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/lisp.c](http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/lisp.c)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The tokenizer breaks on strings with parens in them. You should be able to split on each character and implement a simple variant on the shunting yard algorithm in only a few more lines of code and get a robust tokenizer.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you find that interesting, you should probably take a look at this:

[http://michaux.ca/articles/scheme-from-scratch- introduction](http://michaux.ca/articles/scheme-from-scratch-introduction)

I had fun following along with him. Now, if he (or I can get my shot at it finished) can ever finish working on the byte-code based version!

<comment><USER8> You might enjoy Lisp in Small Pieces. Is one of my favorite books

 _The book is in two parts. The first starts from a simple evaluation function and enriches it with multiple name spaces, continuations and side-effects with commented variants, while at the same time the language used to define these features is reduced to a simple lambda-calculus._

 _The second part focuses more on implementation techniques and discusses precompilation for fast interpretation: threaded code or bytecode; compilation towards C. Some extensions are also described such as dynamic evaluation, reflection, macros and objects._

[http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0521545668](http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0521545668)

<comment><USER9> Great book, although I found it hard parse sometimes (compared to say the later chapters of SICP) which I suspect is because it is translated from french. Either way, it puts so much information in one place, it is incredibly valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've written a toy Lisp interpreter that eventually evolved into a toy Lisp compiler. It's a gratifying exercise that I'd recommend for every programmer.

<comment><USER11> I couldn't agree more. Writing my own interpreter [https://github.com/cninja/pEigthP](https://github.com/cninja/pEigthP) provided many challenges but I think it was one of the most enjoyable "toy projects" that I have done. Also seeing the look on someones face when I say I wrote something to allow me to embed lisp into PHP is priceless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think more useful for me would be "How to build a complex system and _not_ accidentally write a toy Lisp interpreter".

<comment><USER13> "Write it in a Lisp" or "Use a Lisp as an extension language" don't work?

(Last time I tried the latter the more vocal members of the user base complained so much the entire effort died. That was in 2000.)

<comment><USER14> Details, please? (If you're so inclined.)

<comment><USER13> The existing product was a C code base that had been hacked upon for 16 years (!), with several distinct breaks in continuity. Sufficiently bad that it took hours of investigation to make the slightest change safely, and its performance was increasingly unacceptable, plus it was buggy. I've done a _lot_ of "code archaeology" before and some since, and this is the first time I decided a code base was a total loss with no insurance. So the deadly total rewrite was planned.

The business model was "gated open source", as in paying customers got source, the users were almost without exception system administrators, not programmers, and with one exception who was something of a programmer (at least he did more with the awful code base than any other user) and willing to give it a try, they demanded the "extension" language (actually the complicated business logic) be in Perl ... despite to our knowledge at there were no successful examples of this, whereas Lisp has many, with EMACS and AutoCAD being famous wild successes. (The whole thing couldn't be in Perl because of performance requirements.)

Despite being the only programmer working on it and not seriously experienced with Perl, I got overruled. The CEO, the only manager, was the sort who during this time of decreasing revenue felt compelled to move from Class B to Class A office space ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office#Grading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office#Grading)), and more of it---yet somehow the 3 technical people supporting almost all revenue got allocated only one office, which was tight for 2 people, and I'm one of those who needs quiet for maximum productivity (the other two were sysadmins and technical support, and had to do a lot of the latter over the phone. Whine, whine.)

Basically, only with maximum productivity on my part was this possible to pull off (and I've done this sort of thing before), as the users were _years_ overdue for real technical fixes and progress (long before I arrived).

The board got really upset, the executive director blamed me and they believed her (I after all had been there for less than 2 years and had been able to do only one month of programming in my first year due to Y2K and other sysadmin and tech support demands) ... I had to bail.

It was partly my fault, I was not very productive for several months after my major architectural decision was vetoed and that work was dumped, which happened roughly the time the office move made the company's financials likely terminal, and I should have outright refused the CEO when she demanded I drop everything to help try to sell more of the old (which her fantasy budget demanded) and pre-sell versions of the new (then again I have to wonder if that would have made any difference).

The company died an ugly death, but not before firing in revenge a close friend I'd hired to do system administration and tech support.

Bleah. Bottom lines: avoid recruiting your friends because the company may later go to hell, if you observe the former then don't _stay_ at places that don't respect programmers, can't keep them, and who don't have their eye on the ball of what brings in the cash. None of this was apparent when I accepted their offer, but I'm sure most of us know that story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How to write a toy Lisp to C compiler: [http://mr.gy/software/microlisp/](http://mr.gy/software/microlisp/)

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp](https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp)

Lisp implementation from one of the julialang devs

</comment><comment><USER17> Any environments, list-aware reader, closures or just parenthesized prefix notation translated to JS or Haskell?)

btw, _not_ related to OP, those guys who think it is so clever to translate some primitive subset of Scheme into Haskell should appreciate that writing Scheme interpreter in Scheme is a part of CS61A course and it takes one page of much more readable code.

If, for some reason, you wish to write something other than toys, look at Mark Freeley, to realize that serious Scheme system is hard.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is the best beginner project.

<comment><USER19> Which is why there's so many of them out there. (For example my own: [http://kybernetikos.github.io/Javathcript/](http://kybernetikos.github.io/Javathcript/) )

<comment><USER20> Yours wins on the name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Already down? Google-cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/21-little- lisp-interpreter)

<comment><USER22> Was down for me, thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Parenjs: Lisp-to-JavaScript compiler [https://bitbucket.org/ktg/parenjs](https://bitbucket.org/ktg/parenjs)

</comment><comment><USER24> Wouldn't it be more fun to write it in LISP itself?

<comment><USER7> You could, I think it would be more interesting to start with a bootstrap system, written in something native, that get's you the minimum you need to run lisp and then rebuild the system in lisp on top of that. Of course, that requires delving into some much more interesting topics like foreign funcitons, compilation, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> why write toy, when you can write a real one in python, check [http://hylang.org](http://hylang.org)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there some reason why every code segment inside not one but two scrolling frames?

And does anyone else dislike web design that (1) limits the text to a column a third of the page wide, and then (2) because this is too small, requires a horizontal scrollbar on code segments?

For an explanation of a small Lisp interpreter (in Python) that uses sane web design, one might consider Norvig's [http://norvig.com/lispy.html](http://norvig.com/lispy.html)

<comment><USER27> Thanks for pointing that out. The double-scrollbar was a CSS bug which was only showing up in some browsers. It should be fixed now.

I agree this page should be wider for posts like this.

<comment><USER20> At first I thought it was some play on recursion and though "neat", but then I realised it was probably just an error...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Who needs a toy lisp? Can't we just lisp for real?

Edit: Ok, ok. Now that the title of submission has been changed from "Toy Lisp Interpreter" to "Little Lisp Interpreter" my quip, having lost context doesn't make me smile anymore either.

<comment><USER29> As a learning experience is excellent. Lisp family languages are great for this since they are turing complete and with a pretty simple syntax.

<comment><USER30> Under the aesthetics of logic, I find Lisp's syntax pretty as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find someone who makes info-graphics? - <AUTHOR>

Hey, I am interested in collecting data then having it displayed neatly in an info-graphic. Has anyone hired a designer to do this? If you have a recommendation feel free to pass it along with an example of their work. Thanks! <comment><USER2> My girlfriend does freelance 3D maps, illustrations, and graphics for a number of technical journals and magazines. She targets the glossy higher end, but sometimes does research papers.

<http://cooperhawk.com/>

I obviously have a vested interested, but at the least she'd be able to answer your questions on pricing and process. Her contact information is at the bottom of the linked page.

<comment><USER3> That is absolutely stunning work! I looked through the entire portfolio just for enjoyment.

If you don't mind my idle curiousity, how much does it cost to produce a map of such high quality?

<comment><USER2> She generally tries to price in line with the suggestions from the Graphics Artists Guild: <http://www.graphicartistsguild.org/handbook/>

You can buy the book on Amazon, or glance at an out of date summary of some of the numbers here: <http://news.deviantart.com/article/120160/>

But as a very rough ballpark, ignoring size of printing, resolution of detail, research required, assignment of rights, and whether the illustrations selected for the website are representative, my over-the-shoulder impression is that a 3D map of the quality you see in a good travel magazine tends to cost about $1000-$2500.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This dude does a pretty good job: <http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> A friend started a consultancy this year:

<http://datarealization.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Ben Fry (of processing fame) has a group that does this:

<http://fathom.info/>

Can you give more details about the project and the data set?

</comment><comment><USER7> A friend of mine does freelance infographic work. You can find some of his work here: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/pseudoplacebo/sets/721576054194...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/pseudoplacebo/sets/72157605419413480/detail/)

His homepage: <http://ejfox.com/>

Contact info is at the bottom of the page.

I hope this helps. :-)

<comment><USER8> EJ does great work

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This guy (<http://infographics.byjess.net/>) has made a ton of successful social media graphics. Discovered him while researching ideas for an infographic I did recently (<http://1bog.org/solar-beats-the-bank/>). Apparently he does contract work.

</comment><comment><USER10> I haven't done this, but I know if I did I would ask this guy: <http://informationisbeautiful.net/>

No idea whether he does small contract work or whether it is affordably priced, but I like his work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It appears that this blog even links to many other helpful information designers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of my NZ friends is doing an infographic-per-week project at the moment - <http://52-infographics.blogspot.com/>

Let me know if you want an intro...

</comment><comment><USER12> My friend Mike does them - <http://mikepculhane.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER13> How much does he charge? (Feel free to e-mail me; e-mail in profile.)</comment></comment>


Mt.Gox Launches Bitcoins.com To Explain What The Heck A Bitcoin Is - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/28/mt-gox-launches-bitcoins-com-to-explain-what-the-heck-a-bitcoin-is/

<comment><USER2> Isn't this what the Bitcoin Foundation is for?

[http://www.bitcoin.org/](http://www.bitcoin.org/)

[https://bitcoinfoundation.org/](https://bitcoinfoundation.org/)</comment>


Toeayf - the oldest email at your fingertips - <AUTHOR> https://pad.a9i.it/pWmrAfW9Q6Sjbo7Z0e8sHQ?both <comment><AUTHOR> Chat groups, instant messaging and other ephemeral communication channels are eating emails, and this isn't good. Among other advantages, emails are persistent and you can easily found old messages in your mailbox. But, actually, how much old? And here is the scratchpad where anyone can post his record.</comment>


PR Nightmares: Handle them Quick & Dirty - <AUTHOR> http://alexblom.com/blog/2010/04/pr-nightmares-handle-them-quick-dirty/

<comment><USER2> Interesting article here, keep it up!</comment>


Show HN: DomTree - Visualize Your Website's DOM - <AUTHOR> http://domtree.breckyunits.com/

<comment><USER2> This is seriously cool. It's suggestive of a new approach to debugging.</comment>


Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/forced-social-isolation-causes-neural-craving-similar-to-hunger/ <comment><USER2> More or less for my entire life I've had the idea that my social needs were not on par with the rest of the people, and this quarantine seems to have proven just that.

Bear in mind _I do_ enjoy social life; when I was living in Spain in my 30s (and single) I had a very active social life, and had a moderate (~30) amount of friends split in 2 groups with which I continuously interacted.

When I left Spain for my place of origin I had only a handful of friends, and then I moved to where I live now and have only one friend, whom I see sporadically.

Nowadays I mostly interact with my partner and daughter, and the people I work with (I've been working remotely for 13 years) and to be honest, I have no cravings for social life (Except that I miss going for a stroll every once in a while at nights).

<comment><USER3> Can you really call living with your family isolation? There are people out there who live with no one, aren't near family, and can't see friends because of the lockdowns.

<comment><USER4> Yep, this me. I haven't been able to see friends or family since March 15th. So I haven't even touched another human in that long. It's been really bad for my mental health. I have a hard time empathising with people who say they've been super lonely but still live with family.

<comment><USER5> Feeling it too. Last few weeks I decided that I was going to negotiate some limited contact (occasional masked walks and hugs) with a few select people.

This is arguably a little irresponsible of me; I have a housemate who is a social worker and not isolating, which makes me a potential link in a transmission chain. But on the other hand, we're spending nearly zero time together in shared spaces (we literally go weeks w/o seeing each other) and I'm very conscientious about what I touch and when in shared spaces. And delivery or random passers-by on walks are my only other form of exposure, so it seems like a managed risk if not absolutely minimized.

I think some who live alone are going to find this kind of quaran-team approach important as we break past the first few miles of the marathon. The trick may be in really doing it thoughtfully in a planned-out conscientious manner rather than waiting until arriving at some breaking point and throwing caution to the wind.

<comment> J-dawg > This is arguably a little irresponsible of me

I'd say it isn't irresponsible at all. You've got to do what you need to do to look after your own mental health. One thing I am utterly sick of is the shaming of anyone that breaks "the rules" that seems to have become normalised. Especially when it comes from people who have families and partners at home.

We seem to be obsessed with the idea that you could be somehow responsible for someone's death if they get infected via you, even after several degrees of separation. I guess this idea has some logic to it, but it's such a departure from how we think about things normally.

By the same logic, many of us have probably helped to "kill" a few elderly/vulnerable people in the past by passing on the influenza virus.

I'm not saying we shouldn't all take sensible precautions, like isolating when you have symptoms and hand washing etc. But this shaming needs to stop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am an introvert. Many people (including many introverts) thinks this means you don't like people or social gatherings. That's not the case. Or at least it's not _necessarily_ true.

Here's the best way I can describe it: being an introvert means that social interactions _cost_ you energy. Being an extrovert (since I'm not one) _seems_ to mean that social interactions _gain_ you energy.

I see this in a relative of mine who is clearly an extrovert. Social interactions are her _drug_. She craves them and gets almost like a high from them and honestly gets really hyper as a result.

Compare this to me. At work I've had these extended work gatherings for several days where it's a lot of team-building, brainstorming and so on. By the end of the day I'm physically exhausted from all these interactions. Some people are not. Some will go to dinner in the evenings then out to a bar to drink and then back to someone's Airbnb for another gathering after that. That's all fine for them but it's just way too much for me.

So it's not like I don't like interacting with these people. It's merely a question of how much mental energy I'm capable of expending before I need to recharge.

So you see these differences really exposed by the forced isolation. I miss some of the interaction (and, to be fair, the food) of being in the office but otherwise I'm fine. You can clearly see that other people are not. While I have a natural excuse to avoid many draining activities, others are clearly being denied their recharging activities.

So yeah, I can totally buy neural cravings here. For some.

<comment><USER7> For me, part of the draining effect isn't just due to being an introvert... it's because I tend to engage far too willingly in what most would treat as shallow casual interactions.

I tend to treat even strangers with too much respect to give them less than my full attention and thoughtful responses. That makes it a draining chore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Er, yeah, I've been saying this for months.

We are social animals. Literally just existing is stressful at the moment for most of us, because there's a constant urge that is not being satisfied.

Not only for socialisation but simply the low-level stress of constantly having to 'check yourself' when you realise literally everything you'd normally be doing is either disabled or handicapped in some way.

To me, lockdowns feel like some sort of irrational loss aversion strategy. If you gave me the option in, say, 2017, of halving my mortality rate for a year, but the cost was that I had to endure relatively strong anxiety for that year, there's no way I'd take that bet regardless of my age.

Mucking around with your mental health is not wise. Add on top of that all of the economic effects, the political effects of dividing populations, domestic abuse, "non-essential" healthcare like dentistry, and so on and so forth, and honestly I reckon it's been a net negative.

<comment><USER9> There are also mental health consequences to large-scale death and hospitals being over capacity. Would you choose a year of watching your friends and family randomly die over a year of staying home most of the time?

<comment><USER8> I believe my comment about halving mortality addresses this.

They're already likely to arbitrarily die - if in 2017 I could reduce that probability by half (coronavirus roughly doubles mortality across all age groups) by having everyone stay inside or perform the various rituals like standing far apart, wearing masks etc I wouldn't do it.

If instead of decreasing life expectancy by less than a year it were something like 10 (and so we went full hazmat, disallowing things like even entering a supermarket in favour of MRE deliveries) then the calculus would be different.

The main inescapable issue, which exists lockdown or not, is visiting elderly or immunocompromised relatives, not because of the absolute risk, but because of the impact that being able to say "my visit probably killed Grandma" would have.

<comment><USER9> Coronavirus may only double overall mortality, but having no hospital capacity would cause a further increase in deaths. We'd probably just end up in a real lockdown (shelter in place orders are not a lockdown) and have a bunch of extra dead people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was Maslow's point from back in the 40s, that there's no real distinction between physiological and social hunger, besides the fact of an importance hierarchy (one needs to be decently fed in order to start caring a lot about sociality, although even a person in starvation may care somewhat).

Glad to see it's being neurologically researched as well.

<comment><USER11> Yes, all needs in the hierarchy are basic and necessary!

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't classify social interaction as a need. There's plenty of examples of people without any human contact surviving, to the point that we have a well established word for these people; hermit.

Imperial Japanese holdouts after the end of WW2 are the classical example, and to a lesser degree you have hikikomori in modern day. The most extreme example is Christopher Thomas Knight (the North Pond Hermit) with only one claim instance of human interaction in that period; he said, "Hi" to a hiker.

A need has a specific meaning; more or less, you will die if you don't have water for more then a week. It doesn't matter how strong willed you are, lack of water will kill you. Lack of social interaction will not universally kill everyone.

<comment><USER11> Please review Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [1]. I'm just communicating what he said in his book Motivation and Personality. His theory is taught in every introduction to psychology textbook.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

<comment><USER13> I enjoyed a non personal specific event. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly its scary the talk of another year like this. I have a family and even with them around living all day in my apt is starting to drive me crazy. I'd hate to be living by myself. Its a lot like solitary confinement.

My Brother had the bug, had a mild cough for a few days and lost his taste. I'm very jealous.

<comment><USER15> > Honestly its scary the talk of another year like this.

I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting you will not be able to leave your house for another year. I think everywhere has concrete plans to re-open everything short of mass gatherings pretty soon. That's the cautious countries and the less cautious countries alike.

<comment><USER16> Currently around ~5% of the US has contracted COVID. 60-70% of the population needs to become infected in order to gain herd immunity. Meaning we're about 7% of the way to herd immunity. We still have a long way to go.

<comment><USER15> I don't think anyone's saying they're aiming at herd immunity any more, are they? The European and North American countries opening up, which is all of them, are just saying they have the situation generally under control enough to relax restrictions.

<comment><USER16> I mean it will continue to spread until that percent of the of the population is infected. Containment is not possible. So right now it's a balancing act of opening up the economy and preventing an explosive outbreak. The hope is a vaccine will be created soon and a large proportion of the population will gain immunity through a vaccine rather than just naturally contracting the virus.

<comment><USER17> Yes. Those restrictions were from the time we were thinking the virus is more deadly than this (1-2% IFR).

Now with more publications, data suggests an IFR of 0.1-0.6%. Which is pretty low and does not worth crashing the economy.

This does not mean vulnerable people has to pay the price no. It is trade off. We have to reopen and go back to normal, while helping vulnerable people.

Even some paper suggest far more infections than we thought.

<comment><USER18> The IFR is proving to be ~1%.

For 0.1-0.6% to be true, 50-100% of NYC would have to have gotten infected with COVID-19...

<comment><USER19> IFR is not a fixed value and is affected by many things. For example, intial viral load may be higher in NYC than many other places, vitamin D levels, air pollution, etc. There is no single IFR for any disease.

<comment><USER18> Yes, IFR is not a fixed value. But a range (0.1-0.6%) was provided by the person I was responding to. Even assuming NYC hit the top of the range of IFRs (which seems questionable given that NYC isn't a particularly old city), one would need an infection rate of 50%, which contradicts serology studies that turned out to be half that.

IFR in other locations (e.g. small towns in Europe where blood tests show widespread exposure) has also consistently come in at roughly 1%.

<comment><USER17> The data you are putting out there is _completely_ wrong.

You can check this subreddit for publications: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/)

All most all the publications from the past 2 months show an IFR if 0.1-0.6 or at most 0.8%.

<comment><USER18> Searched for IFR estimates there and grabbed a few sample calculations: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gw5l4q/serology_fr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gw5l4q/serology_from_andorra/fssxqoa/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g6035k/new_serolog...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g6035k/new_serology_from_geneva_switzerland_shows_55_of/fo6u5i5/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gnbpkk/antibody_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gnbpkk/antibody_results_from_sweden_73_in_stockholm/fr92ppe/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gnbpkk/antibody_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/gnbpkk/antibody_results_from_sweden_73_in_stockholm/frad6i0/)

So, 0.77-1.25% for this range of estimates.

<comment><USER17> Funny how you cherry picking those.

 _confirmation bias_. Look at the other publications.

<comment><USER18> To prove that 0.1-0.6% is wrong, one only needs to show a single example that had an IFR > 0.6%. I provided several. You meanwhile have provided none.

And this range of IFR estimates (~0.7-1.1%) is what you tend to see across localities where serological tests result in substantial positive antibody rates. Studies based on low (e.g. <5%) exposure rates aren't that meaningful because false positives can dwarf the true-positives, skewing the results.

<comment><USER17> > You meanwhile have provided none.

When I say you cherrypick, I am talking about this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g4tqvk/dutch_antib...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g4tqvk/dutch_antibody_study_of_blood_donors_reveals_3/fnzkn4k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

And so, so mare which I don't have time to find one by one right now. Like the study from Finland, or other places.

I don't have anything to add to this discussion, since this clearly shows you are _incapable_ of research. One other point is there is non negligible amount of people who does not develop antibodies therefore they are not detected in serological tests. I would expect IFR go down.

(You could have find in other publications too:

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1)

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v1)

The only required skill required is googling and having open mind.)

" Iceland, (1st May) reports ten deaths in 1798 patients, CFR. 0.56%. If we assumed 1% of the population (364,000) is infected, then the corresponding IFR would be 10/3640 = 0.3%. Iceland's test and quarantine measures may have shielded the elderly group, and deaths may still go up as they lag infection by about two weeks.

Iceland's higher rates of testing, the smaller population, and their ability to ascertain all those with Sars-CoV-2 means they can obtain. an accurate estimate of the CFR and the IFR during the pandemic (most countries will only be able to do this after the pandemic).

Current data from Iceland suggests their IFR is somewhere between 0.3% and 0.56%." -CEBM

P.S. FYI Iceland has done more test than anybody I think (ratiowise).

I have a suggestion for you: READ MORE!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have been having backyard beers with a friend at a time, at a distance, on nice days. Feels safe enough and it is nice to see friends!

</comment><comment><USER21> I've spent the majority of my life in social isolation, mainly because I keep forgetting to maintain relationships. I'd drop off the radar for months on end, until a concerned friend or family member would manage to get in contact with me (I don't use social media because it's too much bother to maintain). In 2001, after the dotcom crash, I took a yearlong sabbatical where I saw no one, spoke to no one, and by the time I was pulled into the open again it hurt to speak.

TBH until I met my wife, I never thought it possible to be comfortable living with someone.

I know I'm an extreme exception, but I'm one of those people who don't feel a craving for human contact.

<comment><USER22> That's not forced; that's your choice. I'm someone who also naturally ends up being alone, however, being _forced_ to be alone is a completely different situation. The power of choice is everything and it seems essential to this study.

<comment><USER21> That conclusion of the study is highly suspect. "To address this challenge, the researchers had 40 socially-connected healthy human adults spend 10 hours (9am to 7pm) alone, with no social interaction and no other social stimulation (e.g., twitter, email, reading fiction)."

The subjects _chose_ to spend 10 hours away from all social interaction in order to participate in the study. That's not the same as being _forced_.

However, the results were striking. Just like _choosing_ to fast from food, _choosing_ to fast from social interaction caused similar cravings in the subjects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We need to ban solitary confinement in prisons.

<comment><USER14> I have a lot more sympathy for animals in the zoo as well.

<comment><USER24> I have never liked zoos! The animals look so sad. The San Diego and Cincinnati zoos are very large and that helps, but I still don't enjoy going to them. The reptiles are usually fine, but many of the mammals really shouldn't be locked up like that. A polar bear swims up to 600km a day in the wild.

I like aquariums. Most fish are fine in a big enough tank; turtles too. I avoid aquariums with Dolphins or Whales. Considering how much they swim in the while, that seems cruel too.

<comment><USER25> > A polar bear swims up to 600km a day in the wild.

Off topic, but there's no way that can be true. 600km in a day is 25 km / hour for 24 hours straight. Looking online, it looks like the top swimming speed of a polar bear is closer to 10 km / hour.

That said, I agree about the sadness of zoos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Would explain why I'm eating a bowl of cereal at 9PM nowadays...

I would encourage people to see friends at a distance whenever possible. We must remember to balance our mental health (greatly affected by seeing others) with our physical health.

</comment><comment><USER27> I just haven't been able to read books when I've been isolated a lot. It's just like my mind can't focus, it's so anxious and doesn't considering the reading to be important. My theory is it's similar to waking up in the middle of the night when lonely. The mind is searching for dangers from being isolated and alone.

I also notice my urge to buy stuff goes up when I am lonely. Another salve for the pain.

</comment><comment><USER28> I call bullshit. I stopped reading at the setup: "the researchers had 40 socially-connected healthy human adults spend 10 hours (9am to 7pm) alone, with no social interaction and no other social stimulation (e.g., twitter, email, reading fiction)." All they did was deprive them of social media. I think it's well known by now that this is a source of dopamin.

<comment><USER29> Additionally, they also forced them to get up in the early morning on the social isolation day, locked them in an unfamiliar room, and gave them close to nothing to do:

 _On the day of the isolation session, participants arrived at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT building 46, at 8.15am...Subsequently, participants gave their phones and laptops to the experimenter and were guided to a room containing an armchair, a desk and office chair, and a fridge with a selection of food, snacks and beverages. Participants remained in that room from 9am until 7pm._ [1]

It's not clear to me why reading material was withheld. It seems to make it harder to draw conclusions regarding the social isolation aspect.

For the fasting session, they only had to report for the 7pm fMRI session. It strikes me that the type of people with time to participate in an experiment like this likely correlates with people that get up later than 6-7am each morning (as would have been required for the isolation session), but it seems there wasn't any accounting for possible sleep deprivation effects.

[1] [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.006643v2....](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.006643v2.full.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> In some circles, there's even an expression for a related phenomenon: "skin hunger"

[https://globalnews.ca/news/6929793/coronavirus-disability- to...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6929793/coronavirus-disability-touch- deprivation/)

<comment><USER31> I feel like they could have come up with a better name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've lived alone my whole adult life. I haven't seen anyone I know since March 8. Doesn't seem to bother me. Guess I'm a freak.

<comment><USER33> I think there is also difference in the type of people. I feel people on the spectrum are able to empathize over text more than others and so can socialize somewhat more or feel less need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> People whose chosen occupations require a lot of time away from people they know well -- authors, artists, explorers, prospectors and geologists, traveling musicians and salespersons, fur trappers, truckers for example -- probably cope better with social distancing.

Being isolated for long periods can lead us to difficulty articulating our thoughts well. The 'gears get rusty'. Not so much for authors I'd guess ... but a fading ability to connect no doubt leaves many increasingly frustrated and feeling even more isolated. I'd guess that, for desert travelers, the word 'oasis' meant a lot more than just water.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder what people will think of criminal and justice systems after this (probably nothing). We send people to prisons all the time for extended period without outside contact in an abusive environment between the real nasty criminals and authorities.

Is it really a good idea to send someone to prison for months for a small mistake that many might end up making _and getting caught_?

Is overusing imprisonment for different types of crimes okay?

A murderer will be fine in a prison since they are harmful for the society but someone stealing food because they couldn't afford any doesn't seem as harmful that they need being locked up.

</comment><comment><USER35> This... makes a lot of sense. I get hunger cravings even when full when I have those 70+ (rare) or even 55+ (more often) hour weeks.

<comment><USER36> > when I have those 70+ (rare) or even 55+ (more often) hour weeks

This is likely a different phenomena. You're burning more fuel by working longer. Especially if it comes with less sleep as well.

The brain is quite a fuel-hungry organ and will crave sugars and carbs when stressed. If you're also sleeping less, you're burning more physical energy as well simply by being active longer.

I regularly lose weight during hard weeks unless I compensate by eating more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This makes sense to me because I dont think the feeling we call hunger is actually our bodies call to eat. I think from an evolutionary origin it is supposed to be a call to action. If that is so, then social isolation could trigger the same feeling.

</comment><comment><USER38> Eric Berne talked about this long time back in 1964 in his book "Games People Play"

<comment><USER10> Hah yes the classic "8 stroke American greeting" to prevent "spinal shriveling", good stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Like for many people here, my need for socialization seems to be vastly inferior to the average. However, after years of living very isolated, I can strongly relate to the craving as it's described in this article.

</comment><comment><USER40> Cravings are satisfied a thousand different ways these days. Social interaction has a lot of competition.

</comment><comment><USER41> According to a May 25, 2020, WSJ article ([https://www.wsj.com/articles/together-review-all-the- lonely-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/together-review-all-the-lonely- people-11590430598?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1\)61%) of Americans felt lonely during the Covid-19 crisis. While this percentage is higher than normal, the issue is not new. 2-3 years ago President Trump brought on a "loneliness" advisor (not for himself, for Americans), and since at least 2018 the UK has a Minister of Loneliness. This is becoming a global issue, including in China, where children are not spending time with their elderly parents the way their previous generations did.

</comment><comment><USER42> _Stressfressen_

<comment><USER43> _Kummerspeck_</comment></comment>