How Richard Stallman Browses the Internet
article.gmane.org
article.gmane.org
Given what RMS does all day and what seems to matter to him, this seems perfectly rational to me. Consider how old the GNU tools are, or how long some of them go between revisions. I don't think Stallman needs or wants to keep up with things in real time. I think Stallman is like Tolkien's Ents - he isn't slow, he's just operating on a different timescale to the rest of us.
It's the same sort of logic behind Tim Ferriss not answering his phone or Don Knuth doing his email in six-month batches - if you create enough latency in your connection to the world, you bring everyone else to your pace and avoid having to worry about minutiae. It's amazing how many problems resolve themselves when given sufficient neglect.
If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.
- Calvin Coolidge
"Mr Coolidge's genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is not an indolent inactivity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity, which keeps Mr Coolidge occupied constantly" - Columnist Walter Lippmann, 1926
Surely everyone who knows to consult Stallman knows how to operate a GNUsignal.
> It's amazing how many problems resolve themselves when given sufficient neglect.
True, but there's a big downside.
"Being very detached from the Hollywood scene, Murray does not have an agent or manager and reportedly only fields offers for scripts and roles using a personal telephone number with a voice mailbox that he checks infrequently. This practice has the downside of sometimes preventing him from taking parts that he had auditioned for and was interested in, such as that of Sulley in Monsters, Inc, Bernard Berkman in The Squid and the Whale, Frank Ginsburg in Little Miss Sunshine and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He also regretted losing the chance to play Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he heard that he was considered for the role, which he says he would have definitely accepted."
I don't think turning down major opportunities through outright neglect is ever a good habit, even for those with a surfeit.
The key is to use a ranking procedure that is appropriate for the interval, so that the reader doesn't get new stuff for that day, but the best over N days (or N seconds -- not everyone is Richard Stallman).
This feature may be silly and unoriginal; but I'm commenting on the internet so I thought it fit.
[Edit: when I said "delivered" I didn't mean by email! Just "updated".]
i only could find the cache: http://bit.ly/c9dWWF
Why? [edit: Okay, I didn't see that he could only find the cache. Just for future reference doron, at the top of the webshot is displayed the URL.]
Here's the URL unshortened and uncached: http://www.slowlab.net/slowmail.html
http://news.ycombinator.com/best
It's really useful, but it's somewhat obscure since there's no link to it from the main page. (You can find it under "Lists" at http://news.ycombinator.com/lists)
There's a good summary of Mathic life at http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Mathic_Society (the site contains spoilers, but that page looks safe to me).
This is my new favorite quote. I've never thought about it that way, but it is quite true.
It seems to be working so far - my productivity has gone up and the pace of email correspondence has slowed (so a 10 email conversation takes a couple of weeks now rather than a few hours).
Several people have commented that they enjoy talking with me for this reason; they don't feel pressured to reply "right now" and enjoy getting a response after some undetermined delay.
I sometimes wonder if the march of technology has had some downsides in terms of "right here right now" thinking.
When I am here (Google) I cannot read my e-mails because my e-mail goes onto my machine and the only way I can get into that machine is when I am physically on that network. So maybe I am a cuckoo, maybe I am a bit crazy, and I care about security more than most people do. https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/LinusTalk200705Transcr...
In another part he was about to demonstrates a kernel diff, but stops when he realized he's disconnected from Google's net. Here's the talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 One of my favorites; a classic. And I don't even do software.
This isn't the half of it:
What hardware are you using?
I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.
It's a bit like self-reliance, for some it's important to sacrifice more wealth to increase their self-reliance, in the end it's really what aspect(s) of your life you want to maximize.
The issue with wiring diagrams is that most don't have a chip fab in their basement so the benefit they receive from having wiring diagrams is mostly intangible. I think for most people it's far more important to have a CPU that executes a popular ISA (ie. x86) than to have wiring diagrams. Similarly, most users receive intangible benefits from having access to the kernel source, as they will never modify it.
I suppose if you had access to a chip fab and needed to modify your CPU design frequently it would be important.
I have long argued that software and hardware are the same from a source code perspective. Have you ever looked at the source code for a CPU? I have (many CPUs: ARM, Intel, and more). It's just code like if/else statements and assignments. Just like C (plus the extreme concurrency). Manufacturing? Yes, it's an issue. In theory, I could wave the FPGA argument, although it's not a practical solution.
It doesn't matter if you don't have the skill to modify it as long as others do have the skill and freedom to modify it. They'll make changes for you!
My point was entirely about whether hardware source code should be treated differently from software source code.
This one is good too : http://jason.rohrer.usesthis.com/ refreshing :)
a pair of data hands that he found off ebay: $3000
Q: I'm fascinated with a message I read about how you read the web with a wget demon. Could you elaborate on it?
A: It is a program that runs wget and mails me back the result.
Q: Do you then convert the HTML to plain text and read it by email, or do you load the retrieved file in a browser? (If so, which browser?)
A: I can do either one.
Q: Finally, is it free software, or something that you'd be willing to release?
A: I did not write it, but our sysadmins say it is kludgy.
Original entry: http://waxy.org/2008/01/personal_ads_of/
A quick summary is that RMS does not recommend openbsd because the ports tree contains links to non-free software and because these links are there openbsd is recommending non-free software.
Sometimes his ideals seem to just do more harm than good for free software and even though I do respect that he is so willing to follow his ideals to the letter he is eccentric enough to hurt a following.
Such as his comment that started an entire outrage was that openbsd contained non-free software, then his opening argument about non-free firmware blobs, and then onto the ports tree urls.
Edit: from Theo de Raadt http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134986
Seems like a good trait to have.
"If you think Stallman's information theshold is too low, maybe you need some more information ;)" - Love, the smiley face. Yes, in this case I think the e-mails prove his information threshold was too low and it shows. I think you need to read the whole exchange :)
He really does. I used to be involved in Emacs development back in the day and he frequently changed his opinion on things if you presented him with with a well-reasoned argument. Sure, he's a stickler for his principles, but he's not afraid to admit when he's wrong on practical details or unable change his mind about stuff if you give him a good reason to.
I wonder if he eats open source food.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134756
I don't understand "send mail to try to find the message the URL refers to".
How do you browse the web?
I wonder if he refuses to drive because of the closed source on-board computer. I wonder how he feels about the flight control system of the Boeing when he's flying.
I deeply respect him for his dedication but find him lunaticly extreme in almost all the cases.
He doesn't own a car.
That strikes me as somewhat nifty.
I am not on vacation, but I am at the end of a long time delay. I am located somewhere on Earth, but as far as responding to email is concerned, I appear to be well outside the solar system.
After your message arrives at gnu.org, I will collect it in my next batch of incoming mail, some time within the following 24 hours. I will spend much of the following day reading that batch of mail and will come across your message at some point. If I can write a response for it immediately, the response will go out in the next outgoing batch--typically around 24 hours after I collected your message, but occasionally sooner or later than that. As a result, you should expect a minimum delay of between 24 and 48 hours in seeing any response to your mail to me.
If you are having a conversation with me, please keep in mind that each message you receive from me is probably a response to the mail you sent 24 to 48 hours earlier, and any subsequent mail you sent has not yet been seen by me.
It seems Craigslist is an example of about the most browsing you could really do, as it's only ever 1 link deep (if you form your own search URL's). Only problem there is time is always a factor on Craigslist. Well, that and Craigslist probably isn't open source. (I don't know the man very well. Would he refuse to use something like Craigslist if the code is private?)
probably this is the reason that he is going to release GNU HURD soon! http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html (this is a joke guys, he is going to release HURD soon since 1990)
add.: I wonder if the down-voting is because of the "RMS Z S" remark, or because of the implied crowd of down-voters apparently thinks eating things off of ones own feet is acceptable when it's RMS doing it - I honestly don't know what to think.
Or all the people who self-impose IP blocks against popular timewasting sites. Or people who have "noprocrast" enabled on HN.
We are not logical creatures, but we cope.
Most of the time I like to be on top of things and I use email, IM, the web. Its not a distraction, because it is important for me to see whats happening around me.
So, horses for courses :-)
Then again, he may just be nuts...
---- (I don't really think he's nuts. Toleration of eccentricity is a sign of a high level of civilization.
But now he can get one of those 3G USB modems and change the simcard in each country.
I don't think he is hacking the network or whatever. He is hacking his time, and his attention, and that's more like meta-thinking.
(I'm willing to "spend the karma points" on this one)
(ditto on the karma points)
Try not to encourage this kind of mindlessness.
P.S. I'm a BSD supporter, so this isn't a matter of 'factions', I just have a vested interest in preserving the culture here.
Thank you for your cooperation.