You cannot learn about music or visual art by just reading text! Sure Hoftstader seems to know some stuff about Bach, but unless you augment the book with some serious listening and/or music reading he might as well just be making it all up.
This is laughable. Many authors of many books _could_ be fabricating all of everything that they write. This book, GEB, like many of its kind, gather, survey and condense many subjects, references and ideas in a neat package for consumption, each piece of which one can seek out for himself if he chooses. The real question is... Is Hofstadter making it all up? Of course not. If he was, people would be screaming bloody murder by now.
Sssh. Quite now. Do you hear anything?
Neither do I. Although I think I heard someone on Slashdot griping about "lip-service." If I may be so bold as to anticipate Hofstadter's point in writing GEB (although I think he makes it quite clear in the twentieth aniversary edition's preface), it was NOT to teach anyone anything about visual art or music or meta- math and logic. That, if anything, is an unavoidable consequence of the meat of the book, a setup for a serious discussion about the nature of consciousness, creativity, etc, when we assume that are both computational and subject to its conditions and restrictions.
As for Penrose...
And Escher's art, as you can conclude from how well it sells, is more pop than profound: sure he had an amazing intuition for the Golden Ratio and similar mathematical series, but the recursion is all pretty basic. (If you want to learn about advanced tesselation, you're better off reading The Emperor's New Mind.)
Of Escher's works, since when are profundity and popularity irreconcilable? I could easily imagine that art which reveals a universely profound statement could be universally popular. A lot of people like Magritte too...
Ah, but that's the whole point, the whole point of the book -- not all of the recursion is basic -- sometimes there are hidden and not-so-hidden strange loops that can occur in the presence of isomorphisms which, as Hofstadter argues quite elloquently, lie at the heart of some of Godel, Escher and Bach's most interesting works, and are the foundation of human creativity and consciousness.
However, the state of affairs in Quebec is not just a footnote or a equitable translation. It is a maditory regulation that if a sign displays a name or phrase in a language other than French, it must not only provide a french translation but that translation must be at least twice the size and bold.
I don't believe I said anything to the contrary. I am well aware of the laws; I live in it.
But you must be aware of the socialogical impact of decisions like this: "As long as you, provided you, if you, you're free to": you're parents are not free to select the language of your initial instruction and not everyone is willing or able to make the effort to compensation for this. It's easy to see that a child that recieves instruction predominantly in one language will continue their higher education in that same language. And many parents either cannot or will not accept the cost of an imposed tariff for sufficient private instruction in another language. It is easier to go with the flow.
With the ubiquity of English language colleges and universities all around the world, comprising the absolutely cream of the academic crop, any potential academic who is not completely fluent and articulate in English is at a disadvantage. Note: I'm not recommending that the world drop everything and start learning English; I am recommending that the parents of future generation of Quebecois be permitted the option to allow their kids every advantage they believe is worthwhile.
Absolutely! As a country, in greater Canada, our official languages are English and French.
I have no qualms with a government or province who wishes to specialize in a perticular language of representation to better serve the population; that's their choice and if properly handled will make life easier for the majority of the occupants. Pick any official language you want, put your road sign in any official language you want, keep your legal documents in any official language you want, etc... and I'll be forced to learn it less I stumble around like a blind man.
Similarly, I expect a government to respect my choice to express myself in whatever language I choose, e.g. don't screw with me when I want to place a purely English sign on my storefront. I suppose any francophone who doesn't understand English will skip my business for one with a sign that he or she understands but that is my loss and my responsibility, not the responsibility of a provincial government body, to correct if I so choose.
There is a sharp difference between choosing an official language of respresentation and dictating language preference to a whole population.
Speaking as another, more politically-and-culturally-minded anglophone in Quebec, for the benefit of all those on slashdot, while I agree that "hated minority" is an overstatement, it may not be too far off the mark and I would hardly call it igorance. It's an awareness. Not only are Anglophones in minority but they have fewer privilages with respect to their language than francophones. Anytime a government takes specific steps to inconvenience or discriminate against one group of people for reasons of beliefs, language, culture, etc, there is a problem.
This is not a case of poor application of "linguistic" equal opportunity. Nor is this a case of poor reasoning, "Oh, look, we have more than twice as many francophones as anglophones, therefore the french type on all signs should be at least twice as large!" This is not even a case of ignorance on the part of the Quebec government -- No, these laws are clear, direct, were passed with intent, designed to be abused.
Many laws specifically refer to english as it relates to french and many laws use the mother tounge of a citizen or of his parents as justification to alter the rules.
Case in point, English public schooling is a perticularly sticky topic here in Quebec: It's all here. Many francophone parents are realizing that learning proper English is important in today's world. Not that we all won't still have our mother tounges, with which we can speak whenever we want, but for business and academics, for critical technical discussion, English is the prefered medium. But because of close-minded aspirations of nationalism and cultural purity, generations of governements here in Quebec have managed to legislate, against the will of many Quebecers, any purely francophone couple sending their children to English school. This is discrimination against potential anglophones. One of many. Immigrants are not permitted to study in English-language schools either.
It is also wise to note that the Quebec laws are only operating under a loophole in Canadian law. Otherwise they would not be constitutional and certainly a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And if you're confused or maybe you disagree with my appraisal of the situation citing bais or prejudice, you need only look up a few choice addresses of either Levesque or Parizeau to get a good impression right from the horses mouth.
How about we keep this objective? Admonishing me against taking certain substances does nothing to forward this arguement. You can do what you want to do and I'll do what I want to do and we can keep this from personalizing unnecessarily. For the record, I have used tryptamine psychoactives and may use them in the future; it is not certain. What is certain is that fearmongering from you is not likely to change that; I need proof.
Regardless of what a few ignorant researchers may have done in the 1960s, the primary and immediate effects LSD have not been shown to mimic schizophrenia. At the time, neither schizophernia nor the neurochemistry of hallucinogens was very well understood. A few psychologists may have given LSD to grad students, noting some physical and mental manifestations which were similar to schizophernia but you must acknowledge that they were working with soberingly blunt instruments and it was unlikely that they could have checked their conclusions quantitatively. Unfortunately, putting this question to rest is just as difficult today: these substance are Schedule I, unresearchable, and we still don't have a test to conclusively prove or disprove a similarity between the two. The only dead stong connection between schizophrenia and the psychedelic experience that I know of is that they both share a marked increase in central nervous system arousal. But this can be said of many states of altered consciousness and is not unique of the two we're interested in.
Blantant Sarcasm Alert: Oh well... I guess it's just easier to wave our hand and accept that the state resembles schizophrenia than to work out all the nitty, gitty details.
So there was a gradual onset! I was confused. Sorry! However, I still don't necessarily see the connection here. There are many factors that cause schizophrenia. What makes you so certain that it was the LSD? How do you know that your father was not already a border-line schizophrenic or was in the midst of developing it? As you probably know, people are rarely born with the disorder; it develops later in life, usually in early to mid-twenties, often with major episodes significantly delayed. Now -- had you said, "Twenty-eight years ago, my father had a acid trip where he was convinced that there was a conspiracy manifesting against him and they were doing all sorts of nasty things; it scared the bajesus out of him and he never recovered," I would have immediately said, "Bingo. LSD psychosis. I guess he wasn't prepared for what he might encounter while on the trip." But that doesn't seem to be the case here and the connection is a little more tenuous and quite vague; just because "there is no telling what LSD will do to a person", doesn't mean that schizophrenia is a likely outcome.
Genuine Appeal Alert: While it won't make your situation anymore palatable, you really should entertain the possibility that LSD may not be to blame. Mind you -- when you've got proof that it was, by all means, put it up on a pedestal for all to see; I too would like to see it that I might alter my behavior. In the meantime, not arbitrarily singling out an enemy or cause for your father's problem might be healthier for you too.
I agree with you: too many kids are taking this stuff without understanding what's going to hit them. But the problem is larger than this: not just with psychoactives, but in general, they are not aware of the consequences of their actions, whether it be sex, alcohol, hallucinogens or even awful addictive stimulants and narcotics. Let's face facts, these kids are going to continue to do these things whether or not they are illegal or provably/suggestably bad for them. Some do it only because it is considered wrong in defiance! So, without unnecessarily condoning or denouncing their use, why not objectively educate them about what these substances do, what to watch out for and what the real dangers and benefits are? Telling people that "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?" or "LSD is bad, mmm
I'm probably replying to a very clever troll, and if so I'll have a nice day, but seriously:
You cannot rightfully blame your father's schizophrenia or psychosis on one or two LSD trips that he had 28 years ago, especially since the disorder came on quickly and from nowhere. People develop schizophrenias and psychoses all the time without a catalyst such as LSD. It just happens, for whatever reason. Hallucinogens and psychotomimetics can be responsible for activating a latent disorder if all the conditions are just right (or just wrong, depending on how you want to see it). But they are not schizotoxins. You have to be fucked up already before these things will work against you. And from that, we get the standard hallucinogenic disclaimer as a corollary:
"Individuals currently in the midst of emotional or psychological upheaval in their everyday lives should be careful about choosing to use strong psychedelics such as LSD as they can trigger even more difficulty. Also persons with a family history of schizophrenia or early onset mental illness should be extremely careful because LSD is known to trigger latent psychological and mental problems."
There are plenty of reasons why people become schizophrenic or psychotic. LSD can certainly precipitate these effects but it happens immediately not out of the blue 28 years down the road. LSD may produce a temporary psyschotic state but schizophrenia is completely different from a user's state of mind while tripping. LSD, or any hallucinogen for that matter, does not cause schizophrenia in and of itself. Spreading FUD about a substance, which is relatively benign if used correctly, will not make your father suddenly snap back into reality.
I feel sorry for your father -- I really do -- but your story does not provide me with ample evidence to accept your conclusion as truth.
Motion picture film with processing, printing and negative conforming isn't cheap by amateurish standards. Any suitably large format is almost certainly out of reach of all but the most dedicated Joe Filmmakers.
But! On the pro end of the argument, film is very cheap, comprising a vanishingly small fraction of the budget of most films, sometimes five percent or lower. This is especially true today when salary demands and post-production effects are driving film budgets.
If, god forbid, you ever find yourself playing with an old mac again, this may be of some use:
There is a system-wide global variable which holds the menu bar height on 68K macs and maps to $0BAA, part of the non-volatile PRAM. It determines how many scanlines the menu bar will occupy on screen.
Unfortunately it is not as simple as setting this to zero (like the toolbox calls does). Although the menu manager will not draw beyond that line, the window manager is not aware that is it allowed to draw where the menu bar used to be. The dirty solution is to just union the old menu rect with the desktop "GrayRgn" (Of course this doesn't preserve those "cute" rounded screen edges. Ugh.)
After that, you'll need to fire off a paint event to every window on the screen. (Although a paintone/paintbehind event pair to the foreground window will work just as well.)
We've heard in the past that many people who have so-called "abnormal" brain physiology (Asperger's, etc) seem to be attracted to technical professions.
Is it possible that people who _naturally_ have these brain wave patterns find it easier to understand, play and emmerse themselves in videogames?
Forget dust-bunnies in older equipment; new equipment can have it's fair share of problems as well. After a recent experience with a brand new d-link switch powersupply that caught fire, I realized that I may be a little too trustworthy of things I leave plugged in unattended even if they were designed to be run continuously.
It reminds me of a scene from an episode of The Simpsons:
Krusty: [touches clock] Ouch! Marketeer: I forgot to tell you that clock gets extremely hot if you leave it plugged in. Krusty: Um... That's okay. In fact, all of these products is fine. [motions to venerable death-traps]
Does a week go by without some "researcher" claiming to solved this dilema?
For the life of me, I can't imagine how closed and open source programs could be equally
secure simply because there's no quantitative measurement to prove that. Even if there was, it would
be so unlikely... Notwithstanding, I believe to generalize this issue at all is just mental
masturbation -- security depends on the development context -- just because something was
developed close/open-source just doesn't make it any secure or less secure by definition, it
doesn't make it equally secure either.
As other people in this thread have pointed out, no, it is not possible to completely solve chess _from the beginning of the game_ but some very clever people are working towards a complete solution of all possible endgames (fewer than seven pieces on the board). At this point in the game, there are a comparatively few possible positions and it is possible to compute and store a "moves-to-mate" number for each position, assuming that each side plays its best move.
With these "tablebases", as they are called, it is easy for a computer to look up the _best_ move for any given endgame position and therefore play _perfect_ chess. Quite neat.
If any distributed chess project should be attempted, it should be to help out Nalimov compute the rest of the tablebases for 7+ pieces. Then they could even be useful during the meatier part of a match!
The beard is so evil. It makes him look like a pirate:
"Y'AAAR! Avast ye two-timin' land-lubbers! I'm Red-beard Stallman, the evil GNU pirate! Me thinks ye be leavin' me outa yer popularity contest, so I've come ta steal yer Linux booty! Y'AAAAR!"
Slashdot Mirror
This is laughable. Many authors of many books _could_ be fabricating all of everything that they write. This book, GEB, like many of its kind, gather, survey and condense many subjects, references and ideas in a neat package for consumption, each piece of which one can seek out for himself if he chooses. The real question is... Is Hofstadter making it all up? Of course not. If he was, people would be screaming bloody murder by now.
Sssh. Quite now. Do you hear anything?
Neither do I. Although I think I heard someone on Slashdot griping about "lip-service." If I may be so bold as to anticipate Hofstadter's point in writing GEB (although I think he makes it quite clear in the twentieth aniversary edition's preface), it was NOT to teach anyone anything about visual art or music or meta- math and logic. That, if anything, is an unavoidable consequence of the meat of the book, a setup for a serious discussion about the nature of consciousness, creativity, etc, when we assume that are both computational and subject to its conditions and restrictions.
As for Penrose...
Of Escher's works, since when are profundity and popularity irreconcilable? I could easily imagine that art which reveals a universely profound statement could be universally popular. A lot of people like Magritte too...
Ah, but that's the whole point, the whole point of the book -- not all of the recursion is basic -- sometimes there are hidden and not-so-hidden strange loops that can occur in the presence of isomorphisms which, as Hofstadter argues quite elloquently, lie at the heart of some of Godel, Escher and Bach's most interesting works, and are the foundation of human creativity and consciousness.
As for Penrose... *screams bloody murder*
However, the state of affairs in Quebec is not just a footnote or a equitable translation. It is a maditory regulation that if a sign displays a name or phrase in a language other than French, it must not only provide a french translation but that translation must be at least twice the size and bold.
I don't believe I said anything to the contrary. I am well aware of the laws; I live in it.
But you must be aware of the socialogical impact of decisions like this: "As long as you, provided you, if you, you're free to": you're parents are not free to select the language of your initial instruction and not everyone is willing or able to make the effort to compensation for this. It's easy to see that a child that recieves instruction predominantly in one language will continue their higher education in that same language. And many parents either cannot or will not accept the cost of an imposed tariff for sufficient private instruction in another language. It is easier to go with the flow.
With the ubiquity of English language colleges and universities all around the world, comprising the absolutely cream of the academic crop, any potential academic who is not completely fluent and articulate in English is at a disadvantage. Note: I'm not recommending that the world drop everything and start learning English; I am recommending that the parents of future generation of Quebecois be permitted the option to allow their kids every advantage they believe is worthwhile.
Absolutely! As a country, in greater Canada, our official languages are English and French.
I have no qualms with a government or province who wishes to specialize in a perticular language of representation to better serve the population; that's their choice and if properly handled will make life easier for the majority of the occupants. Pick any official language you want, put your road sign in any official language you want, keep your legal documents in any official language you want, etc... and I'll be forced to learn it less I stumble around like a blind man.
Similarly, I expect a government to respect my choice to express myself in whatever language I choose, e.g. don't screw with me when I want to place a purely English sign on my storefront. I suppose any francophone who doesn't understand English will skip my business for one with a sign that he or she understands but that is my loss and my responsibility, not the responsibility of a provincial government body, to correct if I so choose.
There is a sharp difference between choosing an official language of respresentation and dictating language preference to a whole population.
Speaking as another, more politically-and-culturally-minded anglophone in Quebec, for the benefit of all those on slashdot, while I agree that "hated minority" is an overstatement, it may not be too far off the mark and I would hardly call it igorance. It's an awareness. Not only are Anglophones in minority but they have fewer privilages with respect to their language than francophones. Anytime a government takes specific steps to inconvenience or discriminate against one group of people for reasons of beliefs, language, culture, etc, there is a problem.
This is not a case of poor application of "linguistic" equal opportunity. Nor is this a case of poor reasoning, "Oh, look, we have more than twice as many francophones as anglophones, therefore the french type on all signs should be at least twice as large!" This is not even a case of ignorance on the part of the Quebec government -- No, these laws are clear, direct, were passed with intent, designed to be abused.
Many laws specifically refer to english as it relates to french and many laws use the mother tounge of a citizen or of his parents as justification to alter the rules.
Case in point, English public schooling is a perticularly sticky topic here in Quebec: It's all here. Many francophone parents are realizing that learning proper English is important in today's world. Not that we all won't still have our mother tounges, with which we can speak whenever we want, but for business and academics, for critical technical discussion, English is the prefered medium. But because of close-minded aspirations of nationalism and cultural purity, generations of governements here in Quebec have managed to legislate, against the will of many Quebecers, any purely francophone couple sending their children to English school. This is discrimination against potential anglophones. One of many. Immigrants are not permitted to study in English-language schools either.
It is also wise to note that the Quebec laws are only operating under a loophole in Canadian law. Otherwise they would not be constitutional and certainly a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And if you're confused or maybe you disagree with my appraisal of the situation citing bais or prejudice, you need only look up a few choice addresses of either Levesque or Parizeau to get a good impression right from the horses mouth.
How about we keep this objective? Admonishing me against taking certain substances does nothing to forward this arguement. You can do what you want to do and I'll do what I want to do and we can keep this from personalizing unnecessarily. For the record, I have used tryptamine psychoactives and may use them in the future; it is not certain. What is certain is that fearmongering from you is not likely to change that; I need proof.
Regardless of what a few ignorant researchers may have done in the 1960s, the primary and immediate effects LSD have not been shown to mimic schizophrenia. At the time, neither schizophernia nor the neurochemistry of hallucinogens was very well understood. A few psychologists may have given LSD to grad students, noting some physical and mental manifestations which were similar to schizophernia but you must acknowledge that they were working with soberingly blunt instruments and it was unlikely that they could have checked their conclusions quantitatively. Unfortunately, putting this question to rest is just as difficult today: these substance are Schedule I, unresearchable, and we still don't have a test to conclusively prove or disprove a similarity between the two. The only dead stong connection between schizophrenia and the psychedelic experience that I know of is that they both share a marked increase in central nervous system arousal. But this can be said of many states of altered consciousness and is not unique of the two we're interested in.
Blantant Sarcasm Alert: Oh well... I guess it's just easier to wave our hand and accept that the state resembles schizophrenia than to work out all the nitty, gitty details.
So there was a gradual onset! I was confused. Sorry! However, I still don't necessarily see the connection here. There are many factors that cause schizophrenia. What makes you so certain that it was the LSD? How do you know that your father was not already a border-line schizophrenic or was in the midst of developing it? As you probably know, people are rarely born with the disorder; it develops later in life, usually in early to mid-twenties, often with major episodes significantly delayed. Now -- had you said, "Twenty-eight years ago, my father had a acid trip where he was convinced that there was a conspiracy manifesting against him and they were doing all sorts of nasty things; it scared the bajesus out of him and he never recovered," I would have immediately said, "Bingo. LSD psychosis. I guess he wasn't prepared for what he might encounter while on the trip." But that doesn't seem to be the case here and the connection is a little more tenuous and quite vague; just because "there is no telling what LSD will do to a person", doesn't mean that schizophrenia is a likely outcome.
Genuine Appeal Alert: While it won't make your situation anymore palatable, you really should entertain the possibility that LSD may not be to blame. Mind you -- when you've got proof that it was, by all means, put it up on a pedestal for all to see; I too would like to see it that I might alter my behavior. In the meantime, not arbitrarily singling out an enemy or cause for your father's problem might be healthier for you too.
I agree with you: too many kids are taking this stuff without understanding what's going to hit them. But the problem is larger than this: not just with psychoactives, but in general, they are not aware of the consequences of their actions, whether it be sex, alcohol, hallucinogens or even awful addictive stimulants and narcotics. Let's face facts, these kids are going to continue to do these things whether or not they are illegal or provably/suggestably bad for them. Some do it only because it is considered wrong in defiance! So, without unnecessarily condoning or denouncing their use, why not objectively educate them about what these substances do, what to watch out for and what the real dangers and benefits are? Telling people that "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?" or "LSD is bad, mmm
I'm probably replying to a very clever troll, and if so I'll have a nice day, but seriously:
You cannot rightfully blame your father's schizophrenia or psychosis on one or two LSD trips that he had 28 years ago, especially since the disorder came on quickly and from nowhere. People develop schizophrenias and psychoses all the time without a catalyst such as LSD. It just happens, for whatever reason. Hallucinogens and psychotomimetics can be responsible for activating a latent disorder if all the conditions are just right (or just wrong, depending on how you want to see it). But they are not schizotoxins. You have to be fucked up already before these things will work against you. And from that, we get the standard hallucinogenic disclaimer as a corollary:
There are plenty of reasons why people become schizophrenic or psychotic. LSD can certainly precipitate these effects but it happens immediately not out of the blue 28 years down the road. LSD may produce a temporary psyschotic state but schizophrenia is completely different from a user's state of mind while tripping. LSD, or any hallucinogen for that matter, does not cause schizophrenia in and of itself. Spreading FUD about a substance, which is relatively benign if used correctly, will not make your father suddenly snap back into reality.
I feel sorry for your father -- I really do -- but your story does not provide me with ample evidence to accept your conclusion as truth.
Sorry.
Ciao
Motion picture film with processing, printing and negative conforming isn't cheap by amateurish standards.
Any suitably large format is almost certainly out of reach of all but the most dedicated Joe Filmmakers.
But! On the pro end of the argument, film is very cheap, comprising a vanishingly small fraction of the budget of most films, sometimes five percent or lower. This is especially true today when salary demands and post-production effects are driving film budgets.
It can be done. Obviously.
If, god forbid, you ever find yourself playing with an old mac again, this may be of some use:
There is a system-wide global variable which holds the menu bar height on 68K macs and maps to $0BAA, part of the non-volatile PRAM. It determines how many scanlines the menu bar will occupy on screen.
Unfortunately it is not as simple as setting this to zero (like the toolbox calls does). Although the menu manager will not draw beyond that line, the window manager is not aware that is it allowed to draw where the menu bar used to be. The dirty solution is to just union the old menu rect with the desktop "GrayRgn" (Of course this doesn't preserve those "cute" rounded screen edges. Ugh.)
After that, you'll need to fire off a paint event to every window on the screen. (Although a paintone/paintbehind event pair to the foreground window will work just as well.)
*sigh* What useless knowledge...
These repeating stories are almost as bad as those blasted X10 camera ads.
It's a real crying shame I can't block the stories like I block the ads...
We've heard in the past that many people who have so-called "abnormal" brain physiology (Asperger's, etc) seem to be attracted to technical professions.
Is it possible that people who _naturally_ have these brain wave patterns find it easier to understand, play and emmerse themselves in videogames?
Forget dust-bunnies in older equipment; new equipment can have it's fair share of problems as well. After a recent experience with a brand new d-link switch powersupply that caught fire, I realized that I may be a little too trustworthy of things I leave plugged in unattended even if they were designed to be run continuously.
It reminds me of a scene from an episode of The Simpsons:
Krusty: [touches clock] Ouch!
Marketeer: I forgot to tell you that clock gets extremely hot if you leave it plugged in.
Krusty: Um... That's okay. In fact, all of these products is fine. [motions to venerable death-traps]
Does a week go by without some "researcher" claiming to solved this dilema?
For the life of me, I can't imagine how closed and open source programs could be equally
secure simply because there's no quantitative measurement to prove that. Even if there was, it would
be so unlikely... Notwithstanding, I believe to generalize this issue at all is just mental
masturbation -- security depends on the development context -- just because something was
developed close/open-source just doesn't make it any secure or less secure by definition, it
doesn't make it equally secure either.
As other people in this thread have pointed out, no, it is not possible to completely solve chess _from the beginning of the game_ but some very clever people are working towards a complete solution of all possible endgames (fewer than seven pieces on the board). At this point in the game, there are a comparatively few possible positions and it is possible to compute and store a "moves-to-mate" number for each position, assuming that each side plays its best move.
With these "tablebases", as they are called, it is easy for a computer to look up the _best_ move for any given endgame position and therefore play _perfect_ chess. Quite neat.
If any distributed chess project should be attempted, it should be to help out Nalimov compute the rest of the tablebases for 7+ pieces. Then they could even be useful during the meatier part of a match!
Part of the look and feel of film is in its framerate. It's actually desirable.
The beard is so evil. It makes him look like a pirate:
"Y'AAAR! Avast ye two-timin' land-lubbers! I'm Red-beard Stallman, the evil GNU pirate! Me thinks ye be leavin' me outa yer popularity contest, so I've come ta steal yer Linux booty! Y'AAAAR!"