How free software activist Richard Stallman surfs the web

Right, I believe he’s well beyond utility but I appreciate that he exists.

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Python’s actually pretty good in a scientific environment… unlike, say, perl or java, where systematic biologists &etc. will build the most hideous code you’ve ever had to troubleshoot in your life.

Performance doesn’t matter that much, because hardware is far cheaper than highly trained programmers who are comfortable at the intersection of cladistics, linnaean taxonomy and DNA-based molecular phylogeny (if any such beast even exists).

Maintenance and quality control are very big issues in cutting edge scientific programming. In my experience the researchers want to find things out, and they are fiercely internally driven to do so, and without diligent care they will write programs that tell them whatever they want to hear, that can’t be understood by anyone but the author.

Edit: actually, the authors quite often don’t know how their program works!

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Oh, I totally understand. Perhaps the he solution is to increase the speed of the python compiler/interpreter, not switch to language that’s harder.

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or a throwback to 1990.

He’s also got a (possibly well deserved) reputation as a misogynist that hits on any women in site following his talks. I have a coworker (female) who watched it happen to friends of her. Having been warned of this behavior ahead of time, she made sure not to make eye contact with him following his talk. Her friends were not as lucky. So he’s a creeper.

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Safari’s “reading list” has dissettling privacy implications.

Ok? I’m not sure how that is germane to this conversation since I don’t think Stallman uses Safari (not to mention that all reading lists in browsers are basically “opt in” features, not automatic ones).

In France the prime minister said that “Anybody who uses TOR is suspicious of terorism” Welcome big brother. Bye bye freedom :confused:

BiaA from France

That’s a new one. I’ve never heard that come out at all after all this time, I’m sad if that’s the case.

Of course not. But many of the “reading list” features of browsers these days use the cloud.

Don’t look at me. My employer just added Pocket integration to our browser.

That is not what the guys said…

Why does boingboing comments page hijack Ctrl-F?

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He should not fly. Aircraft are controlled by a system that relies on non-free software and use non-free software to control their systems.

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Python provides glue between native libraries. That’s its strength. Python is slow because a java style just in time compiler is unable to optimise the code, so it has to be interpreted on every pass.

The people who idolize him. Someone in this thread called him a prophet for example. Its not hard to find folks like that, people looking for some kind of messianic leader to lead them through the confusion towards the promised land.

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I suppose there might be some people like that. But the people I know who admire RMS’s work are all quite capable of separating the man from the mission. It seems that his detractors rarely are.

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The mission contains good bits but to me is tainted by zealotry. I could say much the same for the man but I’d be speaking quite generously.

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Thankfully we can reap the benefits of various aspects of the mission, and the zealotry is self-inflicted, not forced outward.

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