> Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast.
Is this a dialect or a typo. I would have thought he'd have said "... about what I will do FOR breakfast"
Richard Stallman’s rider
171–180 of 292 posts
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#172I detest Richard Stallman, probably not justifiably because I respect the work that he did 20 years ago, but cannot stand the man's absolutism today.
However "I can speak in English, French, and Spanish." surprised me, and I see him in a different light, strangely.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#173you need to know what I dislike: avocado eggplant, usually (there are occasional exceptions) hot pepper olives liver (even in trace quantities) stomach and intestine; other organ meats cooked tuna oysters egg yolk, if the taste is noticeable, except when boiled completely hard many strong cheeses, especially those with green fungus desserts that contain fruit or liqueur flavors sour fruits, such as grapefruit and man…
By pure coincidence, the exact set intersection for "things rms has stuck up his ass and been unable to extract."
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#174""" Food: I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up. """ Love it. Anyone know why?
As someone who does not eat breakfast, I imagine it's to avoid the kind of response I get when I tell my host I don't eat breakfast: "Oh, are you sure? It's no trouble? It's good for you! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Why not just eat breakfast with us?" etc. etc.
I can empathize with that, since I also have some traits that raise similar responses, which I'd rather avoid.
But I'd better word my request as "please don't question my choices" instead of going into that much detail about them, which is precisely what I'd like to avoid in the first place.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that even somewhat ambiguous? Personal and, perhaps, skirting the outer edge of what a remarkably parochial person might regard as quirky, but he laid out a drink preference specific enough someone has a shopping list and doesn't have to guess. Which is what a rider is for. You don't even need to buy him tea; he explicitly says he always brings his own with him.
So if I provide tea he likes, I don't have to provide milk and sugar. If I provide tea he doesn't like, I have to provide milk and sugar. Unless of course he chooses to drink his own tea, in which case my tea, my milk, and my sugar will all go to waste. This is fine, as long as I know precisely what kind of tea he likes. But that's not specified, so I just gotta guess what he might like. And then buy some milk and su…
Having had experience organizing lots of public speaking/platform events, I can assure you that "please provide milk and sugar" is one of the easiest-to-comply with requests I've ever seen. He doesn't specify that it must be soy milk, or 2%, or half and half. He doesn't say it has to be natural cane sugar grown on the sunny side of a hill and harvested by certified sugar cane naturalists during the summer solstice. He just wants milk and sugar; beyond that he leaves the details to you.
Worst case scenario is that he doesn't use them, in which case you're out what, two dollars? That is peanuts compared to what some riders cost you by specifying elaborate A/V and lighting setups, specific vendors and contractors (i.e. friends of the speaker) you have to deal with, luxury transportation and lodging, et al.
As to the "what kind of tea" issue, he helpfully solves the problem for you -- he'll bring his own, which he is guaranteed to like. So there's no scenario where your failure to choose the right tea will result in him being tealess. Strictly speaking the only thing you're on the hook to provide is hot water, which is free and easy to scrounge up at short notice.
It's really a remarkably stress-free document, as riders go.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#176I, too, was disappointed by Richard Stallman' talk. We were a bunch of students in a conference in general software engineering. And he was invited to give a talk about copyright and freedom.. cool, right?
Not exactly. He came in and started acting like he really didn't wanted to be there and didn't care at all about us, the place and the organizers. I'm usually not the kind to judge someone else dressing but Stallman' look was terrible. Not terrible like in "old geek" or whatever; terrible like I had pity of him. Seems like he didn't washed for days.. anyhow, let's continue for the talk.
Before even starting, he started yelling "OPEN THE LIGHT", " I SAID OPEN THE GODAMN LIGHT". That was crazy as hell. Basically, what he wanted to say is "Please, open the light because I don't want my audience to fall asleep". But jesus, there's a way to say things and a way to say things.
And, as much as I wanted to like him and the talk, it was extremely boring and even false at some points.
And, with all that, it just makes me really sad. It makes me sad because this is such a genius and a legendary hacker but it seems that he stopped trying.
It's like if you see someone trying to open a door by pulling really hard when it's clearly written push. And, you see that person getting frustrated and over frustrated about the fact that the door doesn't open.
For me, Richard seems like that. There are ways to make things change. But you have to adapt. As someone already said "It's easy to go outside and whine, but true revolutioners dress up and change things from inside the system." (or something like that).
Stallman could give so much if he wanted just a little bit, but he decided to keep pulling that door.
Look, we get it, it's supposed to be called GNU os and not Linux. But there's a way to explain that to total newbies that don't know the history of unixes. It's not by being frustrated in front of an audience that people will understand and change their minds.
Or when he talks about freedom, it seems so theoretical. Yeah right, Ubisoft should publish their code open sources and preserve the right on their assets. But comon, there are lots of money and families involved. Even thought it would be nice to have everything open source, in practice, you have to make trad-of. And, in my opinion, it's better to be practical and try to make the world a little better, rather than being an extremist and changing nothing.
There's a reason why it's called Linux and not GNU; and yelling after everyone won't change that.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really a mixed bag as to who is to blame. On the one had the committee coming up with this should have done some research (and asked themselves "why hasn't rms done any convocations before?"). I've known organizations entertaining the idea of rms as a keynote, and it almost immediately gets shot down by anyone how has actually watched him speak. Yeah. It seems like ordering squid at a restaurant: if you order sq…
I think you should have read the whole comment you were responding to. Dead squids don’t have brains. rms does.
I believe that the plural of squid is squid.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#178you need to know what I dislike: avocado eggplant, usually (there are occasional exceptions) hot pepper olives liver (even in trace quantities) stomach and intestine; other organ meats cooked tuna oysters egg yolk, if the taste is noticeable, except when boiled completely hard many strong cheeses, especially those with green fungus desserts that contain fruit or liqueur flavors sour fruits, such as grapefruit and man…
By pure coincidence, the exact set intersection for "things rms has stuck up his ass and been unable to extract."
TRe: Richard Stallman’s rider
#179ESR looks infinitely more reasonable by comparison: http://www.catb.org/esr/travelrules.html
The fact alone that he can make ESR seem like a reasonable person by comparison must be a legitimate superpower of some kind.
Re: Richard Stallman’s rider
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I provide tea he likes, I don't have to provide milk and sugar. If I provide tea he doesn't like, I have to provide milk and sugar. Unless of course he chooses to drink his own tea, in which case my tea, my milk, and my sugar will all go to waste. This is fine, as long as I know precisely what kind of tea he likes. But that's not specified, so I just gotta guess what he might like. And then buy some milk and su…
Having had experience organizing lots of public speaking/platform events, I can assure you that "please provide milk and sugar" is one of the easiest-to-comply with requests I've ever seen. He doesn't specify that it must be soy milk, or 2%, or half and half. He doesn't say it has to be natural cane sugar grown on the sunny side of a hill and harvested by certified sugar cane naturalists during the summer solstice. H…
It would've helped if he had just specified which kind of tea he likes. That way, he wouldn't have needed to write most of that paragraph.
Now we're left to guess, which means we will stock several kinds of tea, in the hopes of one being to his liking.