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by axod 5993 days ago
>> "To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me."

You have to admit that sounds slightly quirky? I assumed it was an attempt to maintain that his personal PC is free from any closed source software, since it's not even rendering websites, it's just receiving email.

Sorry, but to me it sounds like either someone who is so into ideals that they're cutting off their nose to spite their face, or someone who has simply failed to keep up with changes in technology.
2 comments
ptomato 5992 days ago
No, I'm pretty sure that is an attempt to remain mostly-distraction free and not waste time on the internet. There are (several) entirely open source/free browsers he would use if that was the issue.
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axod 5992 days ago
The internet does have some useful productive things on it as well as time wasting devices :/

For a start it's pretty useful for documentation.

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bingaman 5992 days ago
That's what wget -r is for.

Pretty sure Stallman isn't going to show up in this thread ;)

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dagw 5992 days ago
According to the interview he only has an internet connection two or three times a day at most. In that sort of scenario his set up kind of makes sense. If I only had short bursts of internet connections during the day I'd probably also set up a system where I could queue up URLs to be automatically downloaded for offline reading next time I had a connection.
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elblanco 5992 days ago
You're missing the point. why does he have such limited connectivity?
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dagw 5992 days ago
Whatever the reason I doubt it has anything to do with closed software or his free software philosophy. There are plenty of completely Free ways to get online. Perhaps he lives in a place where you can't get broadband, and only bothers to dial up a couple of times a day. Or perhaps he simply doesn't want a permanent Internet connection because he doesn't feel a need for it.

Actually there have been at least a couple of threads about working without internet on a some of the RV/nomad threads here, and based on those I'm considering trying pulling the plug on my internet connection for 4 hours at a time when working to see what it will do be my ability to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted by hacker news. Perhaps Stallman has a similar approach.

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rbanffy 5992 days ago
When I have a tight deadline, blocking Google Reader, HN and Slashdot increases my productivity by a couple orders of magnitude.
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