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Comment by michaelhoffman | Hacker News Reader

I appreciated this:

> Personal note from Richard Stallman: Eating with hackers at a fish restaurant, I ordered Arctic Char. When my meal arrived, I noted that the chef had not signed it. So I complained, “This char is unsigned—I wanted a signed char!” Or rather, I would have said this if I had thought of it fast enough.

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I love Richard Stallman's sense of humor. It feels so youthful and innocent.

Also relevant: https://www.stallman.org/jokes.html

> At dinner at a Japanese restaurant, the person next to me said she wanted to work with abused children. Since we had not yet received the tempura, I responded, "If battered shrimps are your interest, we should have some here soon."

Yeah, I'm dying of laughter over here...

That pun is so silly and childish that I can't see how could anyone take it as a serious attack on abused children. It's a pun that RMS came up with, the same way as some child, unaware of PC culture and consequences of joking about no-no topics in the modern world, would make it.

If you assume bad intentions, everyone in the world will have made a faux pas that can be perceived as offensive. I do not assume bad intentions in RMS's case - he has done so much good for the world, and such a person obviously cares about humans, including abused children. The fact that he made a pun about abused children doesn't bring harm to anyone.

If you asked him for serious thoughts on the topic of abused children, you would most likely receive a completely different response, one that you would probably like.

> If you asked him for serious thoughts on the topic of abused children, you would most likely receive a completely different response, one that you would probably like.

You realize it's RMS we're talking about here? Who has repeatedly harassed female coworkers and interns, and who thinks that "sex with kids is okay"?

Even if he later tried to retract his statements, I'm not sure I would trust him with any "mature" take on the topic of child abuse (or any other social topic for that matter)

Please stop accusing RMS of harassing anyone without providing first-hand source. That is just blatant defamation.

He never said "sex with kids is okay", the quote was taken out of context - he was talking about the absurdity that the definition of "rape" is dependent on geographical location.

If you wish to change anyone's minds, please take some time to find and discuss RMS's original texts. Otherwise, I'm dismissing you as just another yellow press defamator who is talking about things he's read on Twitter as if they were objectively true.

If you want first-hand sources, they are readily available and were posted on HN and other sites more than often enough. If you search for them, you will find them.

And while he did indeed not say these exact words, the context was perfectly clear: "[...] possession of child pornography, incest and pedophilia [...] should be legal". Exact wording or not, I stand by my statement that he is a sick and horrible person, freedom-of-speech or not, and it makes me wonder why anyone would rush to defend him.

> If you want first-hand sources, they are readily available and were posted on HN and other sites more than often enough. If you search for them, you will find them.

And how am I supposed to disprove that claim? Scroll through the entire internet?

You're the one accusing - the burden of proof is on you.

The fact that you haven't brought forward any proof only indicates to me that you have none.

In Vancouver, Canada, you could have ordered your unsigned char at the C restaurant. It seems permanently closed now. EXIT_FAILURE?

What is also nice about this story, is that it gives an official pronunciation for ‘char’.

> official pronunciation

Stallman didn’t design C or invent ‘char’ if that’s what you’re thinking.

I'm pretty sure I've heard someone in the Kernighan/Ritchie/Thompson camp (i.e guys who actually worked on the C Language) pronounce it like "care" in interviews before, so I'm not sure Stallman's pronunciation is really authoritative here. It really depends on whether you read it as its own word (like to "char" the grilled meat), or whether you read it as the first half of "character".

If you pronounce the start of "character" the same way you pronounce "care" then I'm afraid you're pretty far away from the norm already.

The audio on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/care and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/character sound like the same initial sound to me. I've never heard anyone pronounce them differently.

I pronounce the first "a" in "character" the same as in "cat", and that's how it's pronounced in the audio here: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/character

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/care

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character

???

An American could say 'care-acter', while an English person might say 'caract-er'.

(conch 1 2) -> (1 . 2)

(char (conch 1 2)) -> 1

(chdr (conch 1 2)) -> 2 ;; "chowder"

> What is also nice about this story, is that it gives an official pronunciation for ‘char’.

One thing I was surprised to learn is that people working with dead languages rely on puns and rhymes in order to figure out how to speak a language. And then it's like solving some rows in a crossword- the more you can figure out, the more it lets you figure out others.

Indeed, char should be signed by default - it's an integer type, after all (in C, anyway).

And then the chef singed it.

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