71–80 of 163 posts
Maybe a mathematician can explain whether this "trick" works or not? Intuitively, I can't see that knowing whether the M&M demand was filled makes it more probable that the other demands are filled. Say you have a pile with five black or white marbles. You want them all to be black. So you check that the first marble in the pile is black (ie no brown m&m:s). Is it now more probable that the other four marbles also ar…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would wager that you'd end up being handed a can of Coke at good proportion of the time. "Oh sorry, they don't serve Pepsi here." Richard Stallman's way makes it clear that he does not want to support Coke. He does not want you to hand him a Coke by mistake. Since I assume that is his goal, he communicated it well. His story helps you to notice, and remember, this seemingly trivial detail.
I'm confused why you think him saying "I only want Pepsi" is in any way clearer than my saying "I only want Pepsi". EDIT: Make it clearer by saying "Pepsi (absolutely not Coke or any other brand)" by all means but the person buying the drink wants to make sure you get what you want and then get on with their lives, they're really not interested in the why. It feels to me that Stallman wants to use this - as with most…
"A few cans of Pepsi (NOT COCA COLA (http://example.com) and not any diet product please)" does have the advantage of being more check-list like, allowing people to hghlight / crossout the items they've done or not done yet.
The post-mortem of a kickstarter posted to HN yesterday, where someone managed to print and deliver a poster with a misspelling of the word "BROOKLYN" as "BROOKLYIN" has made me think about how people find and prevent errors.
HN isn't a good audience to ask that question because there are different ways to write code. There is only one way to write BROOKLYN.
This seems like a good opportunity to post RMS' rider again: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer... Fabulous stuff. I wonder how often he has/gets to hang out with random parrots since this document became widely known. In my mind he is surrounded constantly by sandal-wearing acolytes wielding exotic birds of every variety.
Interview with Eddy Van Halen, telling the story first hand. :)
A contract "poison pill" or litmus test. Pretty ingenious, is that sort of thing common practice in contracts?
edit: I actually refer to them as my "Brown M&M Clauses" too!
This seems like a good opportunity to post RMS' rider again: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer... Fabulous stuff. I wonder how often he has/gets to hang out with random parrots since this document became widely known. In my mind he is surrounded constantly by sandal-wearing acolytes wielding exotic birds of every variety.
This seems like a good opportunity to post RMS' rider again: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer... Fabulous stuff. I wonder how often he has/gets to hang out with random parrots since this document became widely known. In my mind he is surrounded constantly by sandal-wearing acolytes wielding exotic birds of every variety.
This is a fantastic read! If you have previously done streaming using some streaming service and you can't immediately name the format it uses, chances are it is unacceptable and I won't let you use it for my speech. ..This might seem unfair--if a ticket is lost, it could be my fault. But my income is not large, and I cannot afford to assume this risk myself if the event offers me no income. The frustration I feel wh…
"I burned the sheets." is the result in two instances with which I am familiar.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would wager that you'd end up being handed a can of Coke at good proportion of the time. "Oh sorry, they don't serve Pepsi here." Richard Stallman's way makes it clear that he does not want to support Coke. He does not want you to hand him a Coke by mistake. Since I assume that is his goal, he communicated it well. His story helps you to notice, and remember, this seemingly trivial detail.
I'm confused why you think him saying "I only want Pepsi" is in any way clearer than my saying "I only want Pepsi". EDIT: Make it clearer by saying "Pepsi (absolutely not Coke or any other brand)" by all means but the person buying the drink wants to make sure you get what you want and then get on with their lives, they're really not interested in the why. It feels to me that Stallman wants to use this - as with most…
>DON'T buy a parrot figuring that it will be a fun surprise for me. To acquire a parrot is a major decision: it is likely to outlive you. If you don't know how to treat the parrot, it could be emotionally scarred and spend many decades feeling..
This right here is why I can't stand RMS. He's putting together a rider for all his (borderline unreasonable) demands when he speaks. And even when he's adding irrelevant things, he still manages to be a condescending know-it-all who has to tell you why your decisions are wrong, and why the way he thinks is the correct way to see things.
This seems like a good opportunity to post RMS' rider again: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer... Fabulous stuff. I wonder how often he has/gets to hang out with random parrots since this document became widely known. In my mind he is surrounded constantly by sandal-wearing acolytes wielding exotic birds of every variety.
This is a fantastic read! If you have previously done streaming using some streaming service and you can't immediately name the format it uses, chances are it is unacceptable and I won't let you use it for my speech. ..This might seem unfair--if a ticket is lost, it could be my fault. But my income is not large, and I cannot afford to assume this risk myself if the event offers me no income. The frustration I feel wh…
RMS has been travelling and giving talks for decades, and is most likely thoroughly fed up with it. If he's making the effort to travel to give an unpaid talk, he wants the organisers to make sure the experience is not much more frustrating than just staying at home.