Ah, this never gets old.
Also, using Pepsi to keep awake.
Are all riders this god damn picky? It wouldn't surprise me. I imagine there is a great amount of antagonism between performers/speakers/etc and the venues.
The good ones are. When you travel and speak that much, you have figured out what you need in order to perform at your best. The more specific you can be to an event organizer (and the more you can get it out in advance, so they don't have to ask about it), the better shape you'll be in to perform. Some people are super easy-going and enjoy the adventure of travel, and can do with a one-page rider that just talks about sound - but they're few and far between. When you travel three weeks per month, that romance is gone. Your event is just one more engagement in one more city for the presenter, and consistency/familiarity is the highest virtue you can provide..
For all the weird stuff on there (like buying a parrot, or checking to make sure you can dial out from a hotel), it's probably listed because someone's done it before, and he didn't want it to happen again. If you're interested in more examples like this, check out the Smoking Gun's collection of celebrity riders - http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage.
Methinks in large part such "pickiness" is reasonable. These are people, not minor deities. They are being thrust into wildly different situations with complete strangers on a daily basis. They know what keeps them functioning, optimal, and sane - and nobody else is going to know, guess, or care unless it's spelled out in black-and-white. Their stress and schedules are maxed out enough as it is without having to deal with annoying mundane inanities (or worse) for a significant part of every day. Odds are their income/costs are high enough that just the time spent saying "I can't stand diet sodas, please get me the real thing" cost more than having a 2-liter of what he said he wanted on ice right there when he wanted it. And yes, there are odd little things that make all that stress tolerable, and the absence of which can drive one batty (every morning make sure there's 2 tbsp unflavored non-French-roast coffee beans, a small hand grinder, an Aeropress coffee maker, and 200F water or I'm not going to start the day well; a hard-won point of daily satisfaction for me, bewilderingly specific to others).
For certain performers, it's pretty much necessary. Someone else has mentioned Van Halen's "No brown M&M's" clause here, which they used as a quick way to see if every line in the rider has been followed. That's especially important when pyrotechnics or special stage instructions are in the rider, because if the venue is following small details like "no brown M&M's", they're much more likely to follow large safety requirements.
Question: Isn't writing the kernel most of the work in an operating system?
Answer: No, many components take a lot of work.
If I recall correctly, work on the GNU kernel began in the mid-80's (HURD in 1990?). I'll leave the correlation to the reader.
Sure, if enough folks wanted to, they good finish Hurd. But what's the point? They should go work on Linux.
And a lot of talks maybe in 'emerging nations' who assume that since he is American he is rich and FSF is something like IBM - so he can afford to fly half way round the world without being paid.
This is from a few years ago (ie recording on tape) so GNU/FSF/Linux may not have been as mainstream and organisers might have only advertised this as a computer department seminar rather than a large event. I once organised a university SciFi society talk for a UK "childrens" author - just as they became a global hit. A talk that might bring 20 people suddenly filled the largest auditorium.
The rest of the stuff is just an engineers approach to solving problems. Rather than tell a dozen people at 100 talks a year how I like my coffee - I write it down once and end of problem