November 28, 2025
Velvet rope, meet browser wars
Lobsters Interview
Community erupts: Brave blocked, invite-only gates, and “same as Hacker News” vibes
TLDR: A thoughtful interview about Lisp (a programming language) and Emacs (a text editor) lit up the comments with Lobsters’ access woes. Readers grumbled about a Brave browser block, invite-only signups, and Hacker News déjà vu—demanding easier entry and more original posts.
Susam’s cozy chat about Lisp (a programming language), Emacs (a text editor), and math should’ve been a nerdy hug, but the comments turned into a velvet-rope debate. One reader swore they’re not switching because Lobsters blocked the Brave browser, sparking jokes about the site’s bouncer checking IDs at the door. Another vented that Lobsters feels invite-only—no open registration—so newbies are stuck outside, nose pressed to the glass. The spiciest take? A jab that Lobsters often mirrors Hacker News (HN, a popular tech forum), raising the big question: if the headlines are déjà vu, why bother?
Not all was chaos. Fans cheered the interview’s bit on defining a vocabulary for a project—one commenter said they can hear their coworkers’ eyes rolling when they try it, which became the thread’s eye-roll meme. Interviewer Alex (veqq) teased four more interviews incoming and admitted he rearranges sections for smoother reading—purists shrugged, most readers loved the polish. Between “Brave got carded,” “invite me, bro,” and “HN clone?” jokes, the crowd’s message was loud: great interview, fascinating ideas, but give us easier access and fresher, distinct stories that don’t feel like copies.
Key Points
- •The interview with Susam was published on Lobsters and archived on his website, with sections edited and reordered by Alex (veqq) for better flow.
- •Susam used Common Lisp extensively for personal projects, including a long-running mathematics pastebin and a static site generator for his website and blog.
- •He is an active Emacs Lisp programmer, building key-sequence-invoked tools to automate tasks and improve editing and task management.
- •His early work included C, C++, Java, and PHP, with a notable open-source contribution to Apache Nutch and creating the Windows key remapping tool Uncap.
- •He discovered computing via Logo, learned Common Lisp during a 2007 airport layover using GNU CLISP on Debian Etch, and now uses SBCL; Emacs and SLIME led him from Vim to Emacs as his primary environment.