Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

audio-video.gnu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 841 posts

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#651

Post by scottLobster »

Roark66 wrote: post #640
kortilla wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, every institution is default dead without constant recruitment of young people to the cause. Most things won’t make it past a generation because everyone fails to focus on how to pass it on. It’s not too late by any means, but it’s looking very bleak for Free software with most kids’ computing being smartphones and cloud services via chromebooks.

Indeed. The FSF is a very worthy cause. If it is true there is a lack of young people involved I'd look for reasons why amongst things like "is it a pleasant space to cooperate in", "are people accepting of new people"? I never had anything to do with FSF directly, but whenever I dealt with people involved with heavily "politically charged" projects like guix, guile, linux-libre and few others in addition to very nic…

Honestly this is a sign that times are relatively good. Most people of any stripe have little desire to engage in politics for its own sake, and FSF is fundamentally a political entity. When the only people participating are the radicals and crazies who make it their whole identity/want to play revolutionary, that means all the normal/reasonable people have better things to do. It's when things are so bad that the normal/reasonable people are forced to participate that you get effective political organizations.

Perhaps FSF has solved all the problems the community at large deems as worth solving.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#652

Post by frantathefranta »

sokoloff wrote: post #574
pcl wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were you typing for him?

Everything. He would sit behind me and dictate keystrokes (mostly driving emacs, of course) to do email, edit code, and generally operate the computer. I don't want to talk about someone else's medical situation, but I think it's well-enough-known that rms had a period of RSI so severe that he was barred from using a keyboard to let his wrists/hands recover. A few hours in a row of hearing and typing C-Space C-u 2 4…

That's amazing, it feels similar to people playing chess in movies (not sure if it happens in real life) without the board, just remembering the positions.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#653

Post by 63 »

bjourne wrote: post #632
tusharhero wrote: post #560

I had emailed stallman about this. My email: Greetings Dr. Stallman, First of all, Happy 40th GNUversary! I was not able to attend the GNU40 meeting in Switzerland, but I have heard rumours that you have announced that you have some form of cancer. Can you give me some more information about this? And is the cancer manageable? I hope you are around for many more years. --- tusharhero Stallman's reply: [[[ To any NSA…

Very kind of him to reply to you. Perhaps it is just my culture, but asking someone you don't know personally who has a potentially life-threatening illness what their prognosis is can be perceived as very rude. Stallman is sharing the information he wants to share and rest is none of our business.

I think it would be rude under different circumstances but this is information that he already shared semi-publicly and would've shared with OP had OP been able to make it. Also I get the feeling that Stallman is enough of a pragmatist to not get too offended about that sort of thing though I could be wrong.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#654

Post by Worldblender »

leidenfrost wrote: post #390
dEnigma wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similarly. While I absolutely can't and won't operate under the severe restrictions that an ideologically pure stance on software freedom ala Stallman would impose, I'm glad that there are some people, like Stallman himself, who take it to those extremes, tirelessly advocate for improvement and thus move the needle towards a better middle ground for everyone.

It's a lot more understandable if you consider the state of computing he experienced while growing up: Programs were way simpler, and shipping the source code in paper was the de facto way of distribution. It's not like he was a wacko around his peers. He just created what seemed a logical step from that. I'm just sad that there's no young people to pass the torch for when the time comes and the founding fathers are…

> I'm just sad that there's no young people to pass the torch for when the time comes and the founding fathers are no more.

I wish I can be one of those young people who can be a worthy successor to Richard Stallman. I already am to a great extent, preferring FLOSS whenever possible (with an unfortunate exemption for video games, especially many PC and all console games).

My primary issue is now trying to find like people who are also into FLOSS as much as I am, and they're not as common as tech illiterate people are. Maybe someone can advise me on how I can get started (online or local around the Houston, TX area).

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#655

Post by Jenda_ »

sschueller wrote: post #341
fragmede wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want an IoT plug so I can switch things off and on. It should expose a tcp port and allow me to send packets to it via wifi with some level of authentication. I don't want any cloud shit with it. Just a simple (okay, it's not actually that simple) device that connects to wifi and lets me throw packets at it to control it. Without GNU, that's just a fever dream. Many cancers are survivable these days. I hope he…

All the tools exist to build your own. For example with a esp32-s3 and a custom pcb at one of the low priced fab houses in China. Sure you have to do it yourself. The primary reason off the shelve products are cloud etc. is because these companies spent the time and money to do the above and since no on wants to pay 100+ for an iot switch they add cloud garbage etc. These products are now sold to the masses and if yo…

> For example with a esp32-s3 and a custom pcb at one of the low priced fab houses in China. Sure you have to do it yourself.

Interestingly, even after years of professional hardware engineering, I still feel some hesitation when interfacing with 230V AC.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#656

Post by toasteros »

kriberg wrote: post #366
bitmadness wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he have a reputation for poor hygiene?

More anectodal evidence: I've eaten pizza with him twice. Didn't notice anything.

Also anectdotal: Ate at a Chinese restaurant with him, he's not gross at the table.

I did hug him later and he was very sweaty - but we did just traipse across London in a bit of a rush and he was absolutely exhausted.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#658

Post by walteweiss »

jraph wrote: post #147
walteweiss wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This very morning, my wife performed reset of cache/cookies from our family’s perfectly fine iPad 3 (yeah, the one from 2012, 11 years old). The iPad is our kitchen TV, it shows either some content from VLC (works perfectly fine, kudos to the devs) or some YouTube from Safari (the AppStore’s app support is long gone, web app still works quite well, even considering it was updated recently). Today I spent my morning t…

I wish I could install an up to date version of (real) Firefox on the iPad 2 I inherited and for which updates stopped in 2016. This alone would make it massively more useful. Today it mostly serves displaying music sheets, it's fine as a PDF viewer (although there's nothing to prevent the screen from going off too soon, which is incredibly dumb and annoying). Even better, I would very much like installing some Linux…

Yes, yes, yes! A million times yes! Our iPad 3 may have a bit of ‘kids device’ time, but after that it’s useless. Its battery life is over any laptop I have in my household (except just one with M2, obviously).

My wife is Ukrainian and we do live in Ukraine. And hadn’t left, as our city is relatively safe from missile and drones attacks. But the winter was harsh and we had extreme blackouts last winter. We could have from days (at worst) to hours (at best) without any electricity and internet connection. I bought top of the line MacBook Pro 16 with M2, just to do my work, which involves heavy renders quite often. Also we have a generator and a huge battery pack that can power some critical devices up to a day.

Still, given all that, the iPad saved our winter, as we could download offline most of the various content and almost never its battery was depleted during those blackouts. This tablet ($30 on a used market) and a $4K laptop were two devices that held its battery basically without need to be recharged either from generator or the battery pack.

Now Apple and Google tell me I have to retire the tablet just because. Also, I have an obsolete 10” Intel Atom netbook somewhat 5 years older than this iPad (ca. 2007–2008), and it runs fresh Arch Linux with the latest Firefox. Its battery is dead, but I know I can replace the cells, when needed. It can run many of my tasks, has an HDMI port and 4 GB of RAM. And is perfectly usable in many cases. But the iPad that could run rounds across the netbook, if allowed to remove all the bloat and update what’s needed— well, you know. You better buy a new one to watch YouTube and your precious local content.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#659

Post by calderknight »

robertlagrant wrote: post #563
calderknight wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia, China, Vietnam. Anyway, you're being illogical. A flawed argument will remain just as flawed when it is used to reach a true conclusion as when it is used to reach a false conclusion. If you want to prove me wrong, show that it is sensible to infer from the fact that an extremely selected-for sample has some property that the entire population has that same property - and do so without appealing to a bigger p…

The Russian and Chinese death toll under Communism went into the mid to high tens of millions, no?

You seem to be focusing on something quite beside the point. Anyway.

Under communism, China went from being "the sick man of Asia" to the most economically successful and politically powerful country in Asia, no?

It's the greatest single power on Earth other than the USA, no?

But perhaps under a capitalist regime China might have had even greater success?

Well, let us see:

How does one compare the stumbles of early Communist China to the consistent failure of capitalist India? Which path would you have preferred for your country?

Post reply on HN