The RMS Tour Rider

larry bagina writes "It's no secret that rock stars have riders — provisions on their contractual appearances that require a bowl of brown-free M&Ms or specify the exact brand of bottled water, cocaine purity, etc. Well, Richard Stallman has his own quirky list of provisions." Some of the best stuff is at the end, including: "I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do [for] breakfast. Please just do not bring it up," and "One situation where I do not need help, let alone supervision, is in crossing streets. I grew up in the middle of the world's biggest city, full of cars, and I have crossed streets without assistance even in the chaotic traffic of Bangalore and Delhi. Please just leave me alone when I cross streets."

Comments

Just seems like a well thought out list

[Dr_Barnowl]

It reads like a list of his negative experiences. Especially the bit about parrots.

I found myself identifying with a lot of it - I'm obviously just better socially adjusted than he is when I put up with these things.

It's a lot less ridiculous than some of the riders of celebrities - it actually represents his preferences, mostly his preference to be treated like an independent adult, rather than stupid things that crop up on some peoples riders like a bowl M&Ms with all the green ones picked out.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[merrickm]

The Van Halen M&Ms thing wasn't stupid. It was right in the middle of a bunch of important safety stuff that was particularly important due to the huge crowds Van Halen was drawing. If no M&Ms, they knew the venue hadn't carefully gone through the safety stuff.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[squizzar]

Mod parent up. Everyone whinges about poor specifications: Van Halen had theirs written very clearly, and the M&Ms were a trap to ensure someone had read and paid attention to them...

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[iluvcapra]

Still doesn't explain why they needed two tubes of KY jelly in the dressing room. :)

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[Darth_brooks]

Just for good measure:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

Brown Out

Claim: Van Halen's standard performance contract contained a provision calling for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms, but with all the brown candies removed.

Status: True.

Example: [Harrington, 1981]

Van Halen tends to make the news portion of radio more often than it gets airplay. There was the M&M riot in New Mexico where the band did thousands of dollars of damage to a hall when they were served brown M&Ms — their contract said the brown ones had to be removed.

Origins: Rock concerts have come a long ways since the days when the Beatles performed in boxing rings and hockey rinks, and made no greater demand of Van Halen promoters than they be provided with clean towels and a few bottles of soft drinks. As the audiences grew larger, promoters stood to make more and more money from staging concerts, which meant that not only could rock stars command higher prices for their performances, but they were able to demand other perks as well, such as luxurious accommodations, lavish backstage buffets, and chauffeured transportation. It was inevitable that some high-demand acts, all their financial and pampering whims satisfied, would exercise their power and start making frivolous demands of promoters, simply because they could.

By far the most notorious of these whimsical requests is the legend that Van Halen's standard concert contract called for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with provision that all the brown candies must be removed. The presence of even a single brown M&M in that bowl, rumor had it, was sufficient legal cause for Van Halen to peremptorily cancel a scheduled appearance without advance notice (and usually an excuse for them to go on a destructive rampage as well).

The legendary "no brown M&Ms" contract clause was indeed real, but the purported motivation for it was not. The M&Ms provision was included in Van Halen's contracts not as an act of caprice, but because it served a practical purpose: to provide an easy way of determining whether the technical specifications of the contract had been thoroughly read (and complied with). As Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography:
Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with
nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn't support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren't big enough to move the gear through.

The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say "Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . ." This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.
Nonetheless, the media ran exaggerated and inaccurate accounts of Van Halen's using violations of the "no brown M&Ms" clause as justification for engaging in childish, destructive behavior (such as the newspaper article quoted at the top of this page). David Lee Roth's version of such events was decidedly different:
The folks in Pueblo, Colora

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[The Creator]

To get into the stage costumes!

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[hitmark]

Real life is a downer if one take a good hard look at it.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[geekoid]

"... is that fact software cannot be free, "

based on.. what?

You are using the Special pleading logical fallacy.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[formfeed]

Well RMS is really just a big downer/complainer anyways. I personally have little respect for him as a person, he isn't someone I would want to work with or even socialize with.

You should invite him over for an oyster breakfast sometimes.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[Forbman]

Maybe not so bad for the poor sap (e.g., someone's kid), who promptly ate them as they picked them out.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[cs668]

I worked at a company that shipped hardware, as a part of the contract the customer agreed not to open that hardware. Inside every shipped system there was a rubber chicken, if anyone ever called the support line and asked about the rubber chicken you knew they opened the box.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[diamondmagic]

Um, that's not what equal means, all you are doing is proving the fact that all men are not identical which is an entirely different notion altogether, so step away from the chalkboard, we aren't in math class here. Jefferson was an agricultural scientist and one of the top scientists of the day, you think when writing that he really couldn't comprehend the notion that people are dissimilar? And what more, at the same time he was writing that, Adam Smith was writing about specialization and how we're all unique, and it's those differences of ours that in fact make a modern economy possible: If we were all identical, there would be no comparative advantage, and no reason to trade. Instead, we are equals, and we all have the same rights that other people have no right to infringe upon.

The problem with RMS is that software is not something that is free or unfree, only people are be free or unfree. He's right that patents and copyright licenses restrict my right to handle software, even if I own it. He's wrong when he thinks he can do the exact same thing and threaten to stop my right to redistribute it just because I don't meet his demands that I include the source code, or nothing at all. Unfortunately, many software developers have to take "nothing at all" because of those demands.

Parrots?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

What if we all got him a plush toy parrot? Would he be amused or annoyed?

Re:Parrots?

[Dolphinzilla]

As long as it wasn't made in a third world sweatshop, stuffed with cat hair, or Coca Cola branded you'd probably be OK....

Re:Parrots?

[blowdart]

And the pattern for the parrot must be open and free so others can compile their own parrots from scraps of material and discarded belly button lint.

I guess breakfast

[Megaweapon]

is the most proprietary meal of the day.

Re:I guess breakfast

[Megaweapon]

He'd farm his own eggs, but then he'd have to distribute the chicken, and the egg, and the chicken...

All modifications to distributed eggs must include the modified chicken as well.

Re:I guess breakfast

[NatasRevol]

I've got some modified chicken that I ate last night...

Re:I guess breakfast

[sentientbeing]

To make cereal yourself from scratch, one must first create the universe

Strangely inspirational

[Sockatume]

RMS gets a lot of mockery for this, but for all the eccentricity, it reveals him as a man who thinks really hard about what he does, and making sure it fits his moral code. How many of us would avoid long-distance trains, or ask conference organisers to use pseudonyms for hotel rooms, because we were so stubbornly committed to the idea of privacy? I'm too much of a pragmatist to put up with that sort of nonsense but I admire the integrity on display.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[DrgnDancer]

What about the Pepsi which he may or may not like to be offered depending on if he's sleepy or not? What I took away from this is that he wants to be a spokesman for Free Software, but not if it inconveniences him in any way or requires him to leave his comfort zone. The whole thing with refusing to speak if there are sponsorship banners, or refusing to interviews if the interviewer isn't willing to "properly" refer to GNU/Linux or conflates Free and Open Source Software... Arguably such people are the ones who might most benefit from his message. Appearing on stage next to a banner might produce the opportunity to talk about why he disagrees with such things... talking to a reporter who conflates "Free" and "Open Source" might provide an opportunity to talk about the difference. Both could be done in a non-confrontational way that none the less shows what he believes and why.

Most of this stuff says "I don't want to talk to you if you don't already agree with me almost entirely". What's the point? It's more mutual masturbation at that point than advocacy.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[Trolan]

Alas, it's also suitable to modify his moral code when it's convenient.

Big Brother has no right to know where I travel, or where you travel, or where anyone travels. If they arbitrarily demand a name, give a name that does not belong to any person you know of. If they will check my ID before I board the bus or train, then let's look for another way for me to travel. (In the US I never use long-distance trains because of their ID policy.)

And yet he's fine with planes...

Re:Strangely inspirational

[ObiWanKenblowme]

He also refuses to have a cell phone because "they are tracking and surveillance devices" and "most of them are computers with nonfree software installed". Except if he needs to make a call, he has no problem borrowing someone else's.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[Princeofcups]

RMS gets a lot of mockery for this, but for all the eccentricity, it reveals him as a man who thinks really hard about what he does, and making sure it fits his moral code. How many of us would avoid long-distance trains, or ask conference organisers to use pseudonyms for hotel rooms, because we were so stubbornly committed to the idea of privacy? I'm too much of a pragmatist to put up with that sort of nonsense but I admire the integrity on display.

Not quite. It shows that he expects other people to go to extreme lengths to provide him with very trivial wants (not needs), things that he should be able to deal with like anyone else in society. People in power get there because they enjoy power, and they enjoy watching other people jump through flaming hoops for them. It's how they show their superiority. Compare this to Woz, who hangs out in line at the Apple store for the new phone just because he prefers to live a normal life, as opposed to pulling strings and having people cater to him.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[tomhudson]

However you can't argue with his consistency.

Sure you can. He has made many speeches where he says that pirating copyright software is the right thing to do, because you're sticking it to the evil people who write such software, while he demands that his own copyright license (the GPL) be respected.

He's also a whack-job. His latest "campaign" is brain-dead Who in their right mind would think that writing a letter to, for example, IBM, offering to help them with open source, is anything but an insult and a waste of time? Or mailing it to Best Buy after the lawsuits? What a dope!

The fact is that he hasn't been able to write code in decades (the current gnu emacs is actually an import of the xemacs code, ditto for gcc being an import of egcs, because he totally screwed up both). So of course, he now makes his money bashing those who can.

His Steve Jobs remarks put him on the same level as Fred Phelps (perhaps even lower - I don't think even Phelps is going to eat his boogers and foot cheese in front of people because it's "finger-licking good", or tell women to "remove their spawn").

He's the guy putting "Open Sores" in open source.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[jimicus]

by the time he finishes his speech, he has spoken at length on the differences. why repeat it to a journalist?

Most of the media has spent the last twenty years systematically reducing their staff. It's now the case (indeed, has been for some time) that asking a journalist to do much in the way of work in terms of researching and writing articles for anything that isn't really important to their readership is pretty much a waste of time - they've got far too many pages to fill and far too little time to write the content.

This is why so many things you read in the news read like barely warmed-over press releases - because they are barely warmed-over press releases.

And Richard Stallman is expecting journalists to read 10 separate pieces (yes I counted them) and attend a 2.5 hour long lecture before writing an article? It's totally unrealistic.

Seriously, has nobody ever explained this to him?

Re:Strangely inspirational

[tomhudson]

For a prime example of hypocrisy, look at the home page of the fsf. The GPL does not conform to a single one of the four freedoms outlined there. The GPL has many more restrictions than the BSD or MIT licenses, imposes restrictions on sharing and copying, as well as on adapting (ex: linkage restrictions), and on your freedom to work with others (ex: non-copyleft licenses, linking, etc).

The guy is a hypocritical lying freeloader. That, his misogyny, his antipathy to children, his foul personal habits - yes, he's been consistent on all that. That's not a "good thing." Its the sign of someone too stupid to learn from either their mistakes or the mistakes of others.

If you want to get your message out, you don't go around grossing people out and acting like the hobo version of Fred Phelps - because then YOU displace the message.

His ego is more important than the message. The whole childish "GNU/Linux" thing is an excellent example - it's no more "GNU/Linux" than it is "Firestone/Ford" ... and we don't really need the GNU toolchain any more.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[blair1q]

I didn't see anything exhorbitant there.

He can't sleep when it's hot (and a lot of places still interested in his brand of technobabble will be sub-tropical) so he needs accomodations with adequate cooling, and he doesn't want to be fawned over (and a lot of places still interested in his brand of technobabble will be staffed by servile cultures who see him as a bigshot deserving of obsequious treatment), and he likes Pepsi, not Coke.

Other than that, he's going into a system that is designed to cater to speakers, and all he's doing is saying how he likes their setup to be set up. He's not piling on features, he's merely switching the existing configuration variables.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[tomhudson]

Here - the entire quote makes it quite clear:

When your friend says "that's a nice program, could I have a copy?" At that moment, you will have to choose between two evils. One evil is: give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program. The other evil is: deny your friend a copy and comply with the licence of the program.

Once you are in that situation, you should choose the lesser evil. The lesser evil is to give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program.

Now, why is that the lesser evil? The reason is that we can assume that your friend has treated you well and has been a good person and deserves your cooperation. The reason we can assume this is that in the other case, if a nasty person you don't really like asked you for help, of course you can say "Why should I help you?" So that's an easy case. The hard case is the case where that person has been a good person to you and other people and you would want to help him normally.

Whereas, the developer of the program has deliberately attacked the social solidarity of your community. Deliberately tried to separate you from everyone else in the World. So if you can't help doing wrong in some direction or other, better to aim the wrong at somebody who deserves it, who has done something wrong, rather than at somebody who hasn't done anything wrong.

It is abundantly clear that he believes it is better not to respect copyright, and that it pirating copyright software is okay because it is attacking someone "who deserves it."

So, to be perfectly consistent, since the GPL depends on copyright, I should be perfectly okay to violate the GPL because "that evil person who puts restrictions on what I can do with their code deserves it" - which, btw, is now a valid defense to any company that violates any GPL code held by the FSF, since they're entitled to depend on the copyright holders' public statements.

As for the "personal attacks", the wackjob known as Stallman has it coming, since he has engaged, via such statements, in personal attacks on every programmer who has ever written proprietary code for a living. Anything less is not being consistent.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[drinkypoo]

What about the Pepsi which he may or may not like to be offered depending on if he's sleepy or not?

It's clear that you have never read a rider. I've read a bunch of them for musicians and comedians both nice and douchey and most all of them demand specifically-branded products and so on. It took two women three hours a piece to shop for Willie Nelson and he doesn't even get off the bus except when it's time to perform. Or you'll have a request for this or that brand of organic bread or juice or what have you — in this backwater you're lucky if you get food made out of CHON, let alone certified organic.

Most of this stuff says "I don't want to talk to you if you don't already agree with me almost entirely". What's the point? It's more mutual masturbation at that point than advocacy.

This stuff says "I am fairly reasonable but I do have some quirks and here they are, and if you want me to come to your city and speak at your event you will need to provide me this modicum of comfort." A lot of speakers, or most any entertainer, would have a lot of expensive specific demands, many of which are actually wasted as they never consume them at all, and they sit around thermal cycling in the dressing room. A couple of pepsis, some cream and sugar, and an electric fan if it will be warm is chump change next to the cost of flying him in and putting him up overnight.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Sockatume]

His opposition to breakfast completely bewilders me. How much progress has humanity lost because we didn't have a fully nourished rms?

This kinda pissed me off

[Just Some Guy]

I saw a lot of RMS haters posting this and making fun of him for being a demanding ass. In particular, a lot of popular Mac people on Twitter were laughing at him for being a prima donna. I just don't get it. His requests are basically:

1. Don't misrepresent my position by describing me as advocating something I'm not.
2. I'm not rich, so don't make me pay for stuff out of my own pocket because I can't afford to.
3. I'd much rather sleep on someone's couch and hang out with locals than be chauffeured around and entertained constantly.

I don't think any of those are unreasonable at all. And as to the "parrot" part? Dude likes parrots. He goes out of his was to say not to buy one for just for his benefit, but if someone already has one he'd like to talk to it. I can't imagine a personal preference request being more accommodating.

A lot of people disagree with RMS and that's fine. But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision, and I'm not sure why so many people are having fun at his expense when everything he asked for seemed perfectly reasonable.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[Stone Rhino]

He goes into a level of needless detail that makes it obvious how he can be obsessive and self-absorbed. He uses paragraphs to say what a sentence could. He focuses on little distractions and loses sight of how people actually work. It reflects a lot of problems with the FSF's approach and RMS's shortcomings as a public face.

This is a man who eats things off of his foot while giving a speech. He's shockingly out of touch with the world and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[phantomfive]

But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision, and I'm not sure why so many people are having fun at his expense when everything he asked for seemed perfectly reasonable.

It's his tone, not the content. These days, in our times of bully hating, if you 'sound' arrogant, then it is enough for people to not like you, even if you're actually the nicest guy in the world.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[sunderland56]

But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision

Yeah, there is. RMS doesn't like beer. WTF? First computer geek on the planet who doesn't drink beer.

Maybe that explains his constantly surly attitude.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[demonbug]

1. I'd much rather sleep on someone's couch and hang out with locals than be chauffeured around and entertained constantly.

The temperature must be perfectly modulated. If it climbs so much as 1 degree above 72, you must supply an electric fan. God help you if the temperature reaches 75.

Also, no using any internet access that requires him to log in. His preference is apparently for you to give him your credentials so that he may log in to your account whenever he feels like it.

Those were two that just jumped out at me. Not saying these are entirely unreasonable, he just doesn't sound like someone I would have any interest in dealing with. I'm glad I have absolutely no interest in inviting him to speak anywhere (or listening to him speak), I don't think I'd be able to resist screwing with him and taking his lists of don'ts as a list of to-dos.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[dyingtolive]

The problem isn't really the 'demands'. At least, not for me. It's the ranty unnecessary amounts of detail. The guy doesn't seem arrogant, necessarily. I mean, he'd rather just bum in on the couch for fuck's sake. He just seems like he has a disturbingly small grip on reality. I didn't need a paragraph on how awesome parrots were. "I like birds, but don't get one on my account, because I don't want you to be responsible for taking care of him for the rest of your life hours later when I leave." Simple.

Van Halen "no browns" explaination

[Le Grande Raoul]

To be fair, the "no brown M&Ms" requirement for Van Halen had a practical purpose. They were finding that a lot of their technical requirements- power supply, lights, venue personnel- were being ignored and problems cropped up when they came to a gig. Sooooo... Near the end of the contract rider- after the technical requirements- they put the 'bowl of M&Ms with no browns' item in as a check. If they found a bowl of M&Ms *with* browns in the dressing room, they directed their guys to go over anything with a fine toothed comb to make sure technical requirements were met because, obviously, the venue setup people did not read the entire rider. And, yes, they found technical problems when they had the "M&Ms with browns" in the dressing room.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Xtravar]

How much have we gained!? Notice how much he talks about "working" when he has time aka "furiously posting on forums and writing emails".

I can't believe I read that overly verbose nonsense. He writes about people wasting his time with formalities, but his rider is a waste of time with all that verbiage.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Sockatume]

Well, maybe if he had more niacin, he wouldn't be spending so much time on email.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Dunbal]

Most fatties don't eat breakfast. It's one of the first things nutritionists try to fix. I should know - I used to be a fatty 60 lbs ago. Now I eat breakfast.

first rule of breakfast club

[cthlptlk]

1. Do not talk about Breakfast Club.

Life on the road

[guanxi]

Traveling is wearing. Every little thing -- finding food to eat, a comfortable place to sleep, privacy, people to talk to -- is difficult. Usually you have to compromise and accept things you wouldn't do at home. If you travel a few times per year, it's no big deal; it's even part of the adventure.

If you travel continuously, and you've been doing it for years and that's all you have to look forward to, you might to try to find a way to obtain some reliable comforts of home while on the road and without the extra effort.

Re:Tour riders are fun

[dyingtolive]

I think there's an explanation here: http://idle.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2498572&cid=37869564

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Anrego]

Yup!

When I made a serious effort to lose some poundage, this was something I fought against.. but once I got into it I noticed a definite difference (and also had a lot more energy).

(also cutting out the habitual daily pepsi was huge..)

Re:The legend of the no-brown-M&Ms

[dex22]

It's widely known to be a little-known fact!

noise filter

[meeotch]

Please don't be surprised if I pull out my computer at dinner and
begin handling some of my email. I have difficulty hearing when there
is noise; at dinner, when people are speaking to each other, I usually
cannot hear their words.

Isn't this a symptom of autistic spectrum disorders? I know it's trendy for everyone in the geek world to claim Asperger's these days... But I know that I personally can have trouble filtering signal from noise in crowded environments, and that such environments make me particularly anxious.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Are you kidding me?

[Brannon]

The unfaltering adolation of the smug technorati has destroyed any sense of shame or social awareness Stallman ever had; what's left is a barely functional self-absorbed idealogue.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[clampolo]

I lost 60 lb as well. Did it without eating breakfast. From what I've read all that matters is daily caloric intake, not when you take in your calories.

It's not just what you say, but how

[SuperBanana]

It reads like a list of his negative experiences. Especially the bit about parrots.

The document shows an unbelievably narcissistic man-child with grandiosity problems who is a technological dinosaur, has no social skills, and fails to recognize that he is an ambassador, not a king.

It's long since been time that the FSF found a new ambassador - someone who doesn't, for example, consider themselves to be hassled by having dinner with 'more than four people'.

Re:It's not just what you say, but how

[tomhudson]

First, like I said, Stallman doesn't get to control the definition of "open source". And he's welcome to try to "bite my head off" - except that he's afraid of dogs that are too big to kill with one good kick, and mine are big enough to bite *his* head off.

The GPL removes the financial incentives, and that's why we've never had a year of the linux desktop, and never will.

And that's why Red Hat is broke. Oh, wait, they aren't.

I guess you forgot that RedHat got out of the consumer desktop market years ago They make (some of) their money selling a support package with their "enterprise desktop", but most of it is support contracts for servers and middleware. So thanks for proving my point that even the #1 player in linux can't figure out how to make money selling GPL software all by itsself, and especially not linux desktops.

Linux on the desktop is dead. Even the holdouts (I've been using it since slackware 3.1 or 3.2 - 12 floppies) are facing the fact that it's a dead end on the consumer front because of the hundreds of forks and the constant breakage and the poor licensing scheme.

Or you really think the average person would find it difficult to read their emails in Ubuntu?

The "average person" wants to do more than read emails. For that, and surfing the web, they have their iPhone and iPad. The vast majority of people still using desktops and laptops have at least one "must-have" or "really really wanna have" program that just will NOT run under linux. For them, linux is a non-starter.

Linux on the desktop is the guy on star trek with the red shirt. At some point, you know what McCoy is going to say. And a large part of that is because the GPL discourages profit from "pure software plays."

If its so great, why didn't it take hold when you could buy a $200 linux desktop machine from WallyWorld during the Vista days? Fact: It died because of the inability to run most software. Why aren't online vendors like Dell really pushing their Linux offerings, instead of burying them? Because of it's inability to run most software.

In both cases, the cost of returns kills it for them. You *literally* cannot give a linux computer away nowadays. Don't believe it? Take that tired Windows XP machine, throw a desktop distro on it to "give it new life", and try to give it away. Nobody wants it after you tell them that it won't run most of their programs. "Well, you can use it to read email and surf the web - IF you can get it to connect. But forget about your multi-function printer, even if it says that it supports linux on the box, because it probably doesn't".

Linux is great for infrastructure, but as a consumer OS, it's not gonna happen. Instead, someone will either throw a layer of proprietary stuff atop it, or do like Apple did, build atop BSD. Then they can actually make money on sales of the package itself, instead of just support, which consumers won't pay for.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[lgw]

The human body is not a furnace - how and what you eat matters a lot. Once you've eliminated snacks, and are eating only to sate hunger, how and what you eat probably matters more than calorie count. You burn a lot of calories just sitting around, and that burn rate changes a lot with eating habits. Starve-and-binge is particularly bad, but in general working things out so that you don't feel loggy after meals, or have other low-energy times, is pretty important. Or you can just excercise a lot, which trumps all that jazz.

Re:Primadonna...

[Andrewkov]

My favorite part is this:

When you need to tell me about a problem in a plan, please do not start with a long apology. That is unbearably boring, and unnecessary -- conveying useful information is helpful and good, and why apologize for that? So please be practical and go straight to the point.

...Burried around page 50 of a rather long, tedious document...