Stopa
stopa.io · Personal blog · on HN since 2019
Stopa (Stepan Parunashvili) writes about Lisp, programming, math logic, and personal tech projects like a locked-down iPhone.
What HN saysCommenters praise the Lisp syntax post as an intuitive explanation, and one followed the iPhone dumbphone guide to restrict their own phone.
35HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
132stories submitted
5.3Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2019people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1An Intuition for Lisp Syntax12 people · 736 points · first shared 2020 · 197 comments on HN
- 2iPhone dumbphone6 people · 700 points · first shared 2025 · 396 comments on HN
- 3Web Applications from the Future: A Database in the Browser6 people · 197 points · first shared 2021 · 73 comments on HN
- 4What Gödel Discovered5 people · 1.1K points · first shared 2020 · 259 comments on HN
- 5Advice on Starting Out3 people · 12 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 6Experiments with “AI” and Diet Logging3 people · 6 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 7The Hacker Way: How I taught my nephew to program2 people · 261 points · first shared 2020 · 79 comments on HN
- 8Bel in Clojure (2022)2 people · 255 points · first shared 2022 · 13 comments on HN
- 9A Graph-Based Firebase2 people · 179 points · first shared 2022 · 51 comments on HN
- 10Simulating RAM in Clojure2 people · 150 points · first shared 2020 · 12 comments on HN
- 11Inventing Monads2 people · 140 points · first shared 2020 · 122 comments on HN
- 12Classes are a way of writing higher order functions2 people · 125 points · first shared 2020 · 147 comments on HN
- 13Crafting Functions2 people · 74 points · first shared 2020 · 18 comments on HN
- 14Fun with Lambda Calculus2 people · 28 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 15Risp (in (Rust) (Lisp)) (2019)2 people · 24 points · first shared 2020 · 12 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
titanomachy · 2025-10-13
I followed the instructions here to cripple my phone using Apple Configurator: https://stopa.io/post/297
Now the browser doesn't work and I can't install new apps. I also turn on "Do Not Disturb" almost all the time, which allows through notifications from exactly 3 people.
bko · 2025-04-28
This was the best most intuitive explanation of lisp syntax and why's it's natural and so powerful
https://stopa.io/post/265
shsachdev · 2023-06-21
Great post George. I find that the school environment we're brought up in really (or at least for me) shapes our brain to view risks as bad things -- we're taught to get the answer right on the first try. But the real world is a completely different model where you have however many shots on goal and you only need one to really land. And each one is one you can learn from, thereby hopefully improving your odds the next time.
I like this post on the topic too: https://stopa.io/post/228
garren · 2021-05-27
It reminds me of this [0] post from a few months back which implements something more or less similar using js arrays as a kind of sexp.
I’m working with a system that relies extensively on logic implemented as json structures. We’re not using this lib, I found it to be difficult to follow and more difficult to debug. Ymmv, but I’d definitely think hard before leaning on something like this.
[0] https://stopa.io/post/265
adamkl · 2021-05-27
Here’s some great instructions on how to use JSON to do just that:
https://stopa.io/post/265
jgwil2 · 2021-05-27
Some good programming/mathematical logic content here: https://stopa.io/
Russ Cox of Go: https://research.swtch.com/
manesioz · 2026-08-13
Great breakdown: https://stopa.io/post/269
shlip · 2025-10-08
There was an article not long ago about using Apple Configurator to dumb down an iphone : https://stopa.io/post/297
Maybe this could be handy.
matthewn · 2023-06-05
Similar argument from this lengthy but enjoyable essay: https://stopa.io/post/265
satvikpendem · 2023-01-10
Read this: An Intuition for Lisp Syntax (https://stopa.io/post/265)
Lisp is simply a different way of thinking, in S-expressions. It's hard to explain but easier to show you, via the above link.
bengtan · 2021-06-13
Hmmm ... I thought a lot about this ie. whether to include the HN link. Problem is ... when I write the newsletter, most HN links are empty or only have one or two comments.
Later on, the story reaches the front page on HN but it's a new HN link. So if I include the 'original' HN link, it's not useful to the reader, and may even mislead them into thinking there was insignificant HN discussion.
For example, I linked this story:
[Web Applications from the Future: A Database in the Browser](https://stopa.io/post/279)
in early May but it only recently garnered significant discussion a month later in early June (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424496).
So I'm not entirely sure how to resolve this.
slibhb · 2021-05-17
There was this thread a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25115746 (direct link: https://stopa.io/post/269)
As someone with limited math knowledge, I found it quite readable and understandable though I can't vouch for its accuracy.
I would say, though, when talking about Godel, there is significant disagreement over what his work implies about the world or about the status of truth statements (if anything). You can see people arguing over that in the comments.
edit - this one looks good too, maybe better as it avoids the controversial philosophical discussion: https://dvt.name/2018/03/12/godels-first-incompleteness-theorem-progra…
stopachka · 2020-07-23
Curious, did you really find that microservices helped?
The downsides can be so tremendous -- I wonder if nubank would have done better to services in the low digit range.
(context: my thoughts on it -> https://stopa.io/post/236)
wmeredith · 2025-09-11
iPhone dumbphone https://stopa.io/post/297
henil2911 · 2020-09-21
Here is the list of blogs on my rss feed. I have found most of them from front page on HN.
https://stopa.io/feed.rss
https://kliu.io/index.xml
https://waitbutwhy.com/feed
https://rsshub.app/blogs/paulgraham
https://danluu.com/atom.xml
https://lethain.com/feeds/
https://programmingisterrible.com/rss
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/index.xml
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml
https://www.benkuhn.net/index.xml
https://www.netmeister.org/blog/rss.xml
http://www.sheshbabu.com/atom.xml
https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/rss.xml
https://fasterthanli.me/index.xml
https://feeds.feedburner.com/sirupsen
https://drewdevault.com/blog/index.xml
https://www.stephendiehl.com/feed.rss
https://blog.acolyer.org/feed
EDIT: Added some more links which i found interesting from other comments.