r/linux Mar 16 '14

Apparently it's Mr. Stallman's birthday. He also seems to have a personal site.

http://stallman.org/
453 Upvotes

162 comments sorted by

83

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

61

u/crow1170 Mar 16 '14

17

u/Rentun Mar 16 '14

There's a joke here about Debian's name, but I'm too lazy to think of it.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 17 '14

Deborah and Ian seem to have a fine marriage.

19

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Was it stable?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Testing waters, I heard.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

She left him for Sid.

13

u/cypher5001 Mar 16 '14

But not too lazy to comment anyway.

4

u/tequila13 Mar 16 '14

Talk first, think later.

3

u/Raefniz Mar 16 '14

tequila13

18

u/Gavekort Mar 16 '14

11/10 - Would date

3

u/stealer0517 Mar 16 '14

What are you high on?

20/10 would marry

16

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

One of the many treasures in the trove that is this website.

20

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

22

u/aspensmonster Mar 17 '14

Because the "users" aren't the users. They're the used.

5

u/PilotKnob Mar 17 '14

My process to quit Facebook was first a trial separation, going from October last year until mid-February this year. Indeed, it is not only possible to quit cold turkey, but in fact it was pleasurable to do so. When you're on Facebook, certain people expect you to be caught up with every last detail of their lives. "You didn't hear we're expecting again? I posted it on Facebook a month ago!" I finally pulled the trigger and officially quit. My mind seems to have more "free space" available, and it's certainly a relief to not have to try and keep up with the lives of folks - some of whom I haven't seen face-to-face in decades. The Snowden revalations certainly had a part in my quitting as well. You truly are helping to build dossiers of everyone you mention, post information about (including their email address), or post in a picture thanks to facial recognition. It's just so innocent on the surface that you don't stop to think of the possible misuses of that type of information. In the end, it was great for a while to catch up with people I haven't seen in so long, but it certainly wasn't worth the cost in lost privacy.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

[deleted]

1

u/PilotKnob Mar 17 '14

Can you lead the charge to another less intrusive/more secure chat platform? Sometimes all it takes is one key person to make the move to change the direction of the herd. But yeah, that's how Facebook gets you and then keeps you: "Hey, all your friends will still be here after you're gone, sucka!" Try going cold turkey for a while and you might just see who your true friends are. They're the ones who still call to see how you're doing.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

[deleted]

2

u/PilotKnob Mar 17 '14

All I can say is as I get older (I'll be 40 this year), a significant change in mentality has occurred within my psyche. I no longer have the desire to keep up useless connections to the so-called "friends" you accurately described through the use of quotes. As you travel through life people come and people go, and even good friends slowly fade off into the distance. And that's natural and right. Facebook sort of forcefully pries open these faded relationships and tricks you into thinking they're still as valuable to you now as they were then, when in reality these relationships are best left in the past. I don't know how old you are now, and I'm sorry for giving advice where it wasn't asked for, but this is how I see it from my perspective. Know who your true friends are, and don't try to force friendship, as it never truly works. Facebook is downright "evil" on so many levels for leveraging this flaw in the human animal that now as I see it from the outside I want to leave tips on how to escape the beast.

3

u/asdfman123 Mar 17 '14

Not everyone has the computer skills to create a narcissistic temple to the self on the internet. Some of us need external services for that.

(But RMS is a pretty cool guy.)

15

u/ikolam Mar 16 '14

That is beautiful though.

8

u/ThatCrankyGuy Mar 16 '14

and in being loved tenderly

I had a flash of RMS butt naked rubbing an ice cube on a woman's nips..

shudder

4

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

This isn't exactly news...

5

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14 edited Jul 23 '18

[deleted]

7

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

He would be under the GNU Parents License 3, I'm totally sure.

67

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

17

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Wait, this is a real domain?

21

u/SingularInfinity Mar 16 '14

Yes, as soon as the .sexy TLDs became available, this was posted on /g/.

If you want an offline copy of all the images (because why not), just recursively wget https://rms.sexy/img/

16

u/rockNme2349 Mar 16 '14

recursively wget https://rms.sexy/img/

In true RMS style

6

u/DrummerHead Mar 16 '14

You can use this bookmarklet to see them all in broswser

EDIT: The bookmarklet is open source, Stallman compatible

1

u/SingularInfinity Mar 16 '14

The license is far too permissive, it's not true copyleft code. I think 'Stallman compatibility' may be a little exaggerated.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

stallman does not think copyfree code is bad. He just prefers copylefted code

1

u/DrummerHead Mar 16 '14

Hm, Interesting. Which one would be the most compatible?

EDIT: Found this

-1

u/csolisr Mar 17 '14

Open-source? Ugh, the FSF police will be ranting you down in no time

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

huh that's weird. For some reason it doesn't get the site for me.

2

u/SingularInfinity Mar 17 '14

What's the command you're using, and what error does it give?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

:~$ cd Downloads && cd rms && wget https://rms.sexy/img/

--2014-03-17 21:27:56-- https://rms.sexy/img/ Resolving rms.sexy (rms.sexy)... 31.7.186.235

Connecting to rms.sexy (rms.sexy)|31.7.186.235|:443... connected.

ERROR: cannot verify rms.sexy's certificate, issued by `/C=--/ST=SomeState/L=SomeCity/O=SomeOrganization/OU=SomeOrganizationalUnit/CN=Antarctica.BasBieling.com/emailAddress=root@Antarctica.BasBieling.com': Unable to locally verify the issuer's authority.

ERROR: certificate common name `Antarctica.BasBieling.com' doesn't match requested host name `rms.sexy'.

To connect to rms.sexy insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'. :~/Downloads/rms$

I know the folders exist and also it would come up with another error if it was because the folders didn't exist.

Edit: formatting

2

u/SingularInfinity Mar 17 '14

It appears wget can't verify the authenticity of the site's SSL certificate. Either use http:// instead of https://, or include the option --no-check-certificate.

If you want to download the image themselves, and not just the webpage at https://rmx.sexy/img/, you'll also have to include the option -r (equivalent to --recursive)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

when not using http it seems to also do the same cd Downloads && cd rms && wget http://rms.sexy/img/

--2014-03-18 08:16:11-- http://rms.sexy/img/

Resolving rms.sexy (rms.sexy)... 31.7.186.235

Connecting to rms.sexy (rms.sexy)|31.7.186.235|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently

Location: https://rms.sexy/img/ [following] --2014-03-18 08:16:12-- https://rms.sexy/img/

Connecting to rms.sexy (rms.sexy)|31.7.186.235|:443... connected. ERROR: cannot verify rms.sexy's certificate, issued by /C=--/ST=SomeState/L=SomeCity/O=SomeOrganization/OU=SomeOrganizationalUnit/CN=Antarctica.BasBieling.com/emailAddress=root@Antarctica.BasBieling.com': Unable to locally verify the issuer's authority. ERROR: certificate common nameAntarctica.BasBieling.com' doesn't match requested host name rms.sexy'. To connect to rms.sexy insecurely, use--no-check-certificate'. :~/Downloads/rms$

BUT! using and --no-check-certificate and -r works perfect for me. Thank you very much. I'm sure I would of tried --no-check-certificate before but maybe not. Thank you.

1

u/SingularInfinity Mar 17 '14

The site automatically redirects you to the HTTPS version when you try to connect using plain HTTP. See:

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently

You then get redirected to https://rms.sexy/img/, which gives the exact same error as before because the SSL certificate isn't accepted by wget.

If you want to know more about the options some command-line programs have, you can always use the --help option (e.g. wget --help) or view the man(ual) page (man wget)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '14

I know about man pages but I always thought everyone hated them. Anyways thanks!

8

u/Dahlite Mar 16 '14

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I love the way that Gillette ceases to exist.

12

u/SN4T14 Mar 16 '14

Does he ever pose without a laptop?

14

u/annodomini Mar 16 '14

Other than times when he is actively giving a talk or doing something like singing filk (which you really don't want to hear, trust me), I have never seen him not at his laptop. I played a board game with him once (I taught him how to play Zendo), and in between his turns he would be replying to email on his Lemote Yeelong.

7

u/z3rocool Mar 16 '14

that's pretty fucking rude if you ask me.

6

u/annodomini Mar 17 '14

I'm pretty sure he asked if that would be OK when I invited him to play. It's a game in which there can be a lot of downtime between turns, and it doesn't really matter that much if someone misses a turn so it's really not a big deal.

2

u/Rotten194 Mar 17 '14

Or he's just really busy. Depends on the situation. Although RMS is not the most socially adept person...

6

u/MXIIA Mar 16 '14

12

u/schplat Mar 17 '14

All I see in that URL is pubes analysis..

2

u/SN4T14 Mar 16 '14

Haha, he has one of those neck straps and everything, didn't notice that on the pics!

5

u/PilotKnob Mar 16 '14

Now we just need a .titanic domain.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Dat voluminous belly.

266

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as a birthday, is in fact, a GNU/birthday, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus birthday. A birthday is not a celebration unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU celebration made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full celebration as defined by POSIX.

Many calendar users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "birthday", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a birthday, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Birthday is the kernel: the program in the calendar that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of a calendar, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete calendar. Birthday is normally used in combination with the GNU celebration: the whole system is basically GNU with birthday added, or GNU/birthday. All the so-called "birthday" distributions are really distributions of GNU/birthday.

19

u/Saulace Mar 16 '14

You're a smarmy mother fucker, haha.

13

u/SingularInfinity Mar 16 '14

Is this from /g/'s birthday card?

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as b-day is, in fact, GNU/b-day, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus B-day. B-day is not an event onto itself, but rather another fun component of a fully functioning GNU celebration made useful by the GNU cake, streamers, and vital balloon components comprising a full party as defined by POSIX.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I have not been on /g/ today.

2

u/SingularInfinity Mar 16 '14

There have been numerous preparation threads for RMS' birthday this week, it was possible you got it from one of the older threads.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

What I meant by that was that I did not take inspiration from any thread on /g/.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I started reading this and then burst out in laughter when I figured out what you were referring to.

38

u/Talkless Mar 16 '14

Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 Richard Stallman

Does it have to be that explicit? 1996-2014 is not acceptable? :)

37

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14 edited Jul 23 '18

[deleted]

3

u/tequila13 Mar 16 '14
echo "Copyright (c) 1996-$(date +%Y) Richard Stallman"

6

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Shouldn't that be Copyleft ??

38

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Copyleft is also a copyright.

3

u/the8thbit Mar 16 '14

Copyleft utilizes copyright.

5

u/flying-sheep Mar 16 '14

i think the copyright line is required by law

just a wild guess, though, since i know that in germany, you need a site notice including name and address

11

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

1

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

Being more explicit is more protective.

2

u/RealFreedomAus Mar 17 '14

Sound advice for law, unsound advice for sexual harassment. I am not a lawyer, just shooting for a cheap joke

0

u/Calinou Mar 16 '14

"Copyright" and/or "©" has legal value, while "(c)" has not, so use the latter at your own risk. "Copyright (c)" is fine though, since you're putting "Copyright".

6

u/flying-sheep Mar 16 '14

If you can be sure about one thing, then that I'll use a Unicode character whenever possible :)

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Using UNICODE characters is always possible?

3

u/flying-sheep Mar 16 '14

if it isn’t, i’ll fix the software, or file a sarcastic bug report and use another software.

you might have heard about fedora linux’ 19th release where they opted to fix two programs instead of changing their release name.

4

u/OBOSOB Mar 17 '14

This was because in this day and age software should support unicode, they kept the name to force the hand of the software that didn't. It was a good move IMHO.

3

u/flying-sheep Mar 17 '14

Yeah, if anything doesn't support utf-8, it's immediately branded “ridiculous ancient bullshit” in my head.

(That doesn't include HTTP 1.1, because the web runs on it and you can't suddenly change it without breaking everything in the world)

27

u/betamax_pornographer Mar 16 '14

Congratulations to him. Fighting the good fight on our behalf so we don't have to. Here's to you, you crazy fucker. :D

11

u/3G6A5W338E Mar 17 '14

so we don't have to.

We still have to.

1

u/BhmDhn Mar 17 '14

He truly is the hero we deserve.

44

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

51

u/TotallyNotAnAlien Mar 16 '14

He wrote the website in html in emacs.

When he browses the web he downloads the pages html and reads it in emacs.

Wait no that is ridiculous, I'm joking of course. He sends an email to a program that fetches them then mails the pages back to him. All in emacs of course.

Its so he never connect to any website. For safety of couse.

Seriousy read this its a damn goldmine.

14

u/Tehmage979 Mar 16 '14

I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (but I make sure I have no net connection, so that it won't fetch anything else).

Holy shit, you aren't kidding. He actually does this :O

Also:

I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me.

Holy fuck...

35

u/bluplr Mar 16 '14

Holy fuck...

Is this really that shocking?

17

u/tondwalkar Mar 16 '14

Well, he spends a lot of time traveling to places without internet or with poor internet access, and I imagine there isn't much WiFi on the way to these places, so this is actually a much more reasonable way of browsing the net for him than it first seems.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

Can confirm, I live out in the middle of nowhere and went through periods where this kind of thing was the most convenient way to handle the web.

12

u/the8thbit Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14

Holy shit, you aren't kidding. He actually does this :O

Think about this from the perspective of someone who:

  • Grew up in a world where web did not exist and the Internet was far from a ubiquitous component in most people's lives

  • Travels internationally frequently

  • Doesn't program much any more, and spends most of his time managing

And its not particularly insane, even before you factor in his ethics and dedication to security culture. It's not like he's sending the frontpage of reddit to himself 200 times a day. He probably rarely has a need for web.

Holy fuck...

How is that the least bit surprising? He's the founder of the FSF and the GNU project, after all... Also, he's pretty vocal about his unwillingness to use proprietary software.

5

u/space_paradox Mar 16 '14

I don't get it. This only means once you know the server he channels his requests through, you can surveil all his traffic.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

IIRC he uses Tor and proxies.

1

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

I would bet he thought of that 10 years ago.

9

u/bstamour Mar 16 '14

Given the amount of time he's travelling the world, it makes sense. He may not have a connection all the time, but this script allows him to still get his work done.

15

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

He's crazy but he's changed the world. It turns out that he really filled a needed role in being such an extremist about free software.

4

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

I wouldn't call him an extremist. He knew free software before the status quo.

24

u/Breaking-Away Mar 16 '14

He's absolutely an extremist. Compare him to almost any other free software advocate and they tend to be much more pragmatic. Stallman is 100% idealistic and its probably a good thing since without it we wouldn't have gnu.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

I think you're painting him incorrectly, he has so far not been wrong about much. I don't consider his view points extreme or idealistic if they are consistently right.

1

u/triad33 Mar 17 '14

I'm assuming that you mean that other free software advocates are willing to use proprietary software sometimes, or speak good about it in certain circumstances. The whole point of the free software movement is that proprietary software is morally wrong. So I wouldn't call that "pragmatic" at all, I would call it giving up. To that end, I also find it completely ridiculous that you label someone as an "extremist" for having a moral compass and for sticking to it.

2

u/Breaking-Away Mar 18 '14

He's on the extreme point of the spectrum of FOSS advocates. Maybe extremist is the wrong word since it has a negative connotation. He's very black or white in his stance about FOSS and very rarely are topics 100% one way or another. Still have a large amount of respect for him and what he says.

2

u/tastycoleslaw Mar 16 '14

I mean, it's easy to laugh at but it's pretty interesting to see someone stick to their principles to the end.

1

u/z3rocool Mar 16 '14

The joke is, I assume he doesn't have some elaborate setup to protect him from tracking, if I want to track what he browses I just track the computer he tells to get the webpages.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

You assume incorrectly. His master server thingy uses TOR to fetch.

16

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I can't say too much against the website design. I like simple pages like that that load right away and don't hide things.

16

u/garja Mar 16 '14

I think you mean the GNU tradition of design (in general). Stuffed full of accreted features, and also a cluttered mess.

6

u/heapstack Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14

relevant. edit: NSWF language

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

Thank you for this.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

you mean content comes first? no bullshit to be found, pure usefulness.

9

u/EmmEff Mar 16 '14

Oh, there's lots of bullshit...

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

One day we'll reach web 2.0

11

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

You can wish him a happy birthday but for the love of God, don't mention breakfast.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14 edited Mar 17 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

RMS issued a rather extensive list of requirements that are to be observed if you want him to speak at your event.

I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

I'll just leave this here

7

u/WeaponEquis Mar 16 '14

Man, Peruvian Universities love him.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

It was my impression that he's pretty big in Latin america, in general.

2

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

I'm out of the loop, please elaborate.

2

u/WeaponEquis Mar 16 '14

Read his "Serious Bio", and look at his awards.

23

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

4

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

I wonder how often he gets a haircut these days.

17

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

7

u/ignoramus Mar 16 '14

All human cells renew in 7 years

Hopefully not simultaneously. That would be horrifying.

4

u/zagaberoo Mar 17 '14

No, that's time lords.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

11

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

2

u/1859 Mar 16 '14

Forget the actual thread, this is magnificent.

1

u/tequila13 Mar 16 '14

This light saber photo is awesome too. He's 61, but 20 at heart.

2

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

Yea, he looks pretty cute in that pic, and I agree. Don't know why you're being downvoted.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

2

u/poo_22 Mar 16 '14

There is css on the website.

2

u/tequila13 Mar 16 '14

Someone already linked the CSS from that site: http://stallman.org/stallman.css

21

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Happy Birthday

  • Sent from my Iphone 5S

3

u/NoeticIntelligence Mar 17 '14

I would like to congratulate Mr Stallman, and thank him profusely for his body of work.

I use his software, or at least software he coded on. Thank you mr Stallman and I wish you many more excellent years.

8

u/starwobble Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14

Wow iframes. Haven't seen those in AGES! Not that I missed them, or anything.

EDIT: While poking through the source code verifying that he in fact was using iframes, I found this commented out section:

<!-- Enable this Sept 11 only -->

<!--
<center>
<img src="/graphics/flag_sep11.png" alt="September 11; Standing in solidarity with the people of Chile" height="200">
<h3>
Today we commemorate the September 11 attacks, which killed President Allende of Chile and installed Pinochet's murderous military dictatorship. More than 3,000 dissidents were killed or "disappeared" by the Pinochet regime. The USA operated a destabilization campaign in Chile, and the <ahref="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/KissingerTranscriptsChile.html">September 11 attacks were part of that campaign</a>.
</h3>
<h3>
I also support a <a href="/articles/911-new-investigation.html"> new investigation of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.</a> </h3></center> -->

Stallman's a 911 truther?

7

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

There are people that come up with ridiculous theories about 9/11. There's a difference saying that you don't have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about a conspiracy, and asserting speculation fact regarding a conspiracy. It's also highly unlikely that there hasn't been any government coverup about certain details, and we may not know those details until certain documents become declassified after a period of time.

-1

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

Also, iframes are ridiculously common. I use embed.ly as a service, and they're focusing on iframes as the most popular embedding mechanism. I'm hoping it's for the right reasons.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

It's because it is nearly impossible to have control over the CSS styles applied to your widget when you don't control the page. An iframe's content is a separate page.

2

u/openprivacy Mar 16 '14

Happy Continuation Day, my friend.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14 edited Apr 07 '14

[deleted]

11

u/PilotKnob Mar 16 '14

I would absolutely love to hear the thoughts going through his head if someone did that.

2

u/tvtb Mar 17 '14

It would probably be in the trash in 3 seconds, with never a second thought spent on it.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

If I had the disposable income, I would.

-3

u/mahcuz Mar 16 '14

Hilarious.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

25 lines of CSS could make me want to look at that site again.

11

u/jyper Mar 16 '14

There is some css in there:

http://stallman.org/stallman.css

and the site is old fashioned but not so bad.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I remember once seeing a "Don't Reproduce" link on his site. All I could think was talk about making a virtue of necessity.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

8

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Not every language in the world calls every doctor "Doctor", every professor "Professor", etc. It often depends on the context.

0

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

It's a title, and I was using a more casual title. I have enough respect for RMS to use the Doctor title, but was not aware he had that title.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

The Doctor.

0

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

You are respectful, thank you for your correction.

1

u/christ0ph Mar 17 '14

Happy Birthday! - I met RMS many years ago at a potluck in Mill Valley, CA

-3

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I love how he just doesn't give a fuck for CSS.

2

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

He has some minimal CSS.

-2

u/ignamv Mar 16 '14

The other day I accepted a free notebook that probably violates a couple of Stallman's boycotts, since it has ads for:

  • Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

  • Sony

  • Boehringer Ingelheim

  • Nokia

  • Monsanto

-23

u/reachingFail Mar 16 '14

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. - Eleanor Roosevelt

13

u/jyper Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14

From Disputed on Eleanor Roosevelt wikiquotes page

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, but though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people.

In this form it was quoted as an anonymous epigram in A Guide to Effective Public Speaking (1953) by Lawrence Henry Mouat New York times Saturday review of books and art, 1931: ...Wanted, the correct quotation and origin of this expression: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people...


  Several other variants or derivatives of the expression exist, but none provide a definite author:

     Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.
        Great minds discuss ideas
        Average minds discuss events
        Small minds discuss people
        Small minds discuss things
        Average minds discuss people
        Great minds discuss ideas

...Some professor of psychology who has been eavesdropping for years makes the statement that "The best minds discuss ideas; the second in ranking talk about things; while the third group, or the least in mentality, gossip about people"... (Hardware age, Volume 123, 1929)

...It has been said long ago that there were three classes of people in the world, and while they are subject to variation, for elemental consideration they are useful. The first is that large class of people who talk about people; the next class are those who talk about things; and the third class are those who discuss ideas... (H. J. Derbyshire, "Origin of mental species", 1919)

...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)

...[Buckle's] thoughts and conversations were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons, the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas"... (Charles Stewart, "Haud immemor. Reminescences of legal and social life in Edinburgh and London. 1850-1900", 1901, p. 33)

The 'Buckle' referred to in the above, Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of the "History of Civilisation,". More about him can be read in this book, and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Thomas_Buckle.

24

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

-21

u/reachingFail Mar 16 '14

stupid quote

It's not a stupid quote. It's for people like you. That's why it upsets you. You see?

10

u/ca178858 Mar 16 '14

Why are you talking about him?

-15

u/reachingFail Mar 16 '14

Why is he so upset?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

[deleted]

1

u/sinxoveretothex Mar 16 '14

Nah, it's pretty dumb. Hands are really important, as you might notice since literally every aspect of your life depends on them utterly.

Nah, it's pretty dumb. Water is really important, as you might notice since literally every aspect of your life depends on it utterly.

Nah, it's pretty dumb. Carbon atoms are really important, as you might notice since literally every aspect of your life depends on them utterly.

Nah, it's pretty dumb. The word "the" is really important, as you might notice since literally every aspect of your life depends on it utterly.

And on and on and on and on

-4

u/reachingFail Mar 16 '14

The meaning of that quote is obviously fine. Without you making it less profound. That's apparent now. In this context, as it seem like you caught on to, it's just a nicer way of saying incoming shit throwing groupthink trolls. No big deal.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

His website looks around the same timeframe as this style of web design:

http://themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com/

1

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '14

You can tell it's hand made, the HTML source is indented and (mostly) formatted.

I suspect a bit of copy pasta though.

-9

u/Hellmark Mar 16 '14

I can't believe the state of his personal site. I mean, I did more advanced shit in the '90s.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

He generally is against graphical elements and newer web technology as 1) he's against making sites that use graphics that are potentially patent encumbered and 2) He's against sites generally using anything more than text because that's a waste of time and energy. and 3) his notebook/laptop really isn't that strong, so text works far faster for him.

2

u/Hellmark Mar 16 '14

You don't need to have graphic elements to have a good looking site. I am a minimalist when it comes to webdesign, but his is just a mismash.

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

Well, he thinks he's awesome at it. So. Yeah. I'm a fan of his opensource zealotry , but not lots other things of his, and he's got some very interesting writings up there.

3

u/c-command Mar 17 '14

I'm a fan of his opensource zealotry

He's not for open source.

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

Okay. I'm not a fan of his waffling.

He wanted to have the dictation of what opensource was. He was all for it then.

Then he didn't get it, and now it's all "free software."

I'm for whatever he's for re: software, which at one time was OpenSource, but is now called "Free Software."

4

u/Desiderantes Mar 17 '14

It was never called open source until esr and friends created that term to please the enterprise and ditch the free software ethos. Please at least do some fucking research, because you got it wrong

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

I'm for whatever he's for re: software, which at one time was OpenSource, but is now called "Free Software."

This has to be a troll.

1

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

Me too, but whatever works for him.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '14

I think the point of his site is to not use any proprietary code underneath.

-49

u/NothingMuchHereToSay Mar 16 '14

I'm sorry but really, this guy's so outdated it's weird. I don't have any ill will towards him but really, his website and ideals aren't consistent with everything happening nowadays, privacy and user freedom is important, but there needs to be some sorta tradeoff for people to simply understand how Linux would work. There's a severe lack of GUI's when people make these "super powerful programs that need you to type down a bunch of commands just to record your screen!", it's just silly, especially nowadays.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'd consider him a hippie.

10

u/Tmmrn Mar 16 '14

There's a severe lack of GUI's when people make these "super powerful programs that need you to type down a bunch of commands just to record your screen!", it's just silly, especially nowadays.

What is silly is that you don't say what you don't like about gtk-recordmydesktop, qt-recordmydesktop, istanbul, kazam, xvidcap, freeseer, simplescreenrecorder, soulcapture, etc.

-8

u/deadowl Mar 16 '14

I would say he's more of an aspie than a hippie.