People who call for "unity" as the only imaginable solution to violence thereby admit that they are incapable of imagining non-violence towards members of an outgroup. Theirs is the very emotiology of hate they falsely claim to "fight"-because their only vocabulary is violence.

Emotiology-it doesn't even pass the bar of an ideology. There is no ( Read more... )

This short essay describes some challenges I leave to the next maintainers of ASDF, the Common Lisp build system, related to the "magic" involved in bootstrapping ASDF. If you dare to read further, grab a chair and your favorite headache-fighting brewage.

ASDF is a build system for Common Lisp ( Read more... )

"What is the Matrix? Control."

This essay was originally written by Daniel A. Nagy and published on his Facebook page on April 2nd, 2017. It is the third part in a series. The first two parts are available here: Part 1, Part 2. All three parts were originally published on facebook: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This is the third part in a ( Read more... )

Dear crypto-currency hacker friends,

I had the following epiphany about decentralizing crypto-currency transactions ( Read more... )

This short essay will tell you about my favorite macro, nest, discuss the modularity of syntax extension, and use the implementation of that macro as an illustration for how to use defmacro, syntax-rules and syntax-case, providing along the way a comparison between these respective macro definition systems.
Using the nest ( Read more... )

In this series where I decrypt art for you, here is Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen. Unlike my previous contributions, about Lovecraft and Picasso, I did not figure this one by myself; rather it was clearly suggested by some biography of Freddie Mercury that I once watched. I still think it deserves to be better known.

Freddie Mercury was sexually ( Read more... )

With many authoritarian governments cracking down ( Read more... )

This short article discusses upcoming changes and future challenges for ASDF, the Common Lisp build system. It also draws lessons for a hypothetical successor to ASDF, for build systems in general, languages in which to write them, and languages that would have an internal build system that could rival with modern build systems.

ASDF, "Another ( Read more... )

CALL TO ALL LOVERS OF JUSTICE AND FREEDOM, NATURE AND DEMOCRACY ( Read more... )

Matthias Felleisen jested "Why are you still using CL when Scrbl/Racket is so much better :-)" ? My response was as follows:

Dear Matthias,

you are right Racket is so much better in so many dimensions. I use Lisp because I just can't bear programming in a language without proper syntactic abstraction, and that is a dimension where Racket is far ( Read more... )