When people meet this guy, can they resist the temptation to ask him what he’s doing for breakfast??

This is hilarious (link from a completely deadpan Tyler Cowen). I’d call it “unintentionally hilarious” but I’m pretty sure that rms knew this was funny when he was writing it. It’s sort of like when you write a top 10 list—it’s hard to resist getting silly and going over the top. It’s only near the end that we get to the bit about the parrots.

All joking aside, the most interesting part of the email was this:

I [rms] have to spend 6 to 8 hours *every day* doing my usual work, which is responding to email about the GNU Project and the Free Software Movement.

I’d wondered for awhile what is it that Richard Stallman actually does, that is how does he spend his time (aside from giving lectures to promote his ideas and pay the bills).

Emailing –> Blogging

I too spend a lot of time on email, but a few years ago I consciously tried to shift a bunch of my email exchanges to the blog. I found that I was sending out a lot of information to an audience of one, information I’d rather convey to more people. I’m surprised that Stallman doesn’t do this too. I’m sure an rms blog would get lots of readers!

From another direction, though, Stallman’s work pattern makes complete sense. Reading and responding to email is like doing the laundry (in a modern, washer-and-dryer world): you feel like you’re getting something useful done, and it feels vaguely like work, but it’s not hard work. Blogging feels that way too, but it probably takes some getting used to. If any rms friends read this, please pass on my recommendation to him that he try replacing much of his emailing by blogging.

At a personal level

Stallman’s no-brown-M&M’s list amuses me so much partly because I can see so much of myself in it. I never read email before 4pm, I don’t like to fly and offer to give talks by videolink, etc. etc.

I think Stallman is a bit over the top when he specifically requests people not to offer him cheese with green fungus (I’m not kidding—just open the linked document in Emacs and do a ^S)—but, hey, who am I to say that this is more weird than snack on celery during research meetings?

I knew the guy was unusual but reading his list of demands made me curious enough to google for more information. In particular, I found a fascinating short biography from Sam Williams and a charming email exchange in which Stallman asks out a woman online based on something he’d read that she’d written. What impressed me about the email exchange was not its content—it was a fairly run-of-the-mill effort at being cute by email—but rather that Stallman posted this on his own webpage. I’d be way too embarrassed to post this sort of thing. I’m happy to talk about my false theorem and to be open about various research setbacks but I can’t imagine posting this kind of personal item. I really admire Stallman’s willingness to post a record of him striking out.

P.S. Stallman writes: “My bank gives very bad exchange rates.” That makes me wonder: why doesn’t he switch banks? My bank probably gives very bad exchange rates too, but I have no idea. If I cared enough to investigate the matter, maybe I’d switch, no?

7 thoughts on “When people meet this guy, can they resist the temptation to ask him what he’s doing for breakfast??

  1. I believe that Stallman does not use the web, and such is unlikely to be blogging anytime soon.

    He apparently uses wget and sends email to an address which then fetches any webpages for him.

    Its somewhat ironic that a free software movement started by him which blossomed as the result of the internet does not use it himself.

    He’s also probably one of the most ethical and consistent people that I am aware of, having essentially devoted his life to an ideal. It certainly qualifies him for the title of saint in my eyes.

  2. One of the comments on Tyler’s post included this link to Stallman dancing with a laptop. It’s short and seems to provide some context for the long rant.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pube5Aynsls

    @disgruntled: the line between visionary charismatic saint and PITA is sometimes blurry. Be willing to compromise too much and you end up getting co-opted and your vision disappears. Get too stubborn and you end up a crank.

    My work life would be so much simpler if I could enforce this rule: “Please do not ever mail me a file larger than 100k without asking me first. I almost certainly do not want to receive it in that form.” I don’t think I would ever have to see a PowerPoint deck again!

  3. My oh my!

    Thanks for that link to RMS’s rider. It’s hilarious. (I have one, like most people who speak for a living, but it’s one page long and describes A/V requirements, travel & hotel payment, and how much socializing sponsors get. The rest I cover with my speaking fee.)

    Cheers,

    JCS

  4. I love the list as it covers “all” contingencies, in particular the likely occurrence of someone offering a parrot!!! The refusal to board a train asking for an id is puzzlesome, as RMS seems to agree to board planes instead…

    And, Andrew, please stick to celery and pepper during meetings, green cheese would really get you into trouble!!!

  5. Yeah yeah everyone loves laughing at these things, I think these riders are easily misunderstood. Everybody loves these hypocritical hippie stories (see Al Gore) so they go viral pretty quickly. Personally, I think if I spent that much of my life traveling and I could do something about it, I’d probably have a ridiculous-sounding rider as well.

    There’s actually an interesting story behind the no-brown M&Ms thing. According to This American Life, the issue is that VH had a lot of pyrotechnics and aspects of their show that were dependent on the organizers following instructions precisely and it was very common for concert organizers to be lazy/sloppy/unprofessional about things. The notorious M&Ms clause was basically used to test the whether they could rely on the organizers to follow instructions precisely.

    Obviously, rms doesn’t face safety issues (as far as I know) but I suspect if you’re traveling all the time little stupid things start to add up in defining your quality of life.

    Also, I don’t know if it was intentional – but kindof funny that you mentioned using RMS’s text editor in the post.

  6. Pingback: Richard Stallman and John McCarthy « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

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