2016 RMS talk in Zurich

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pizzaiolo
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onpon4
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I think this is the first VP9 video I've watched (well, tried to watch), and my God, this is completely unwatchable. The amount of time I have to wait for the video to decode when I try to skip ahead to a later part of the video is ridiculous; I didn't have the patience to wait it out, but it seems like I'd have to count it in minutes or at least dozens of seconds. Not worth whatever size reduction it results in compared to VP8 at all.

Ended up converting it to pure Vorbis audio because of how much of an obstacle the VP9 video is.

pizzaiolo
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Can you upload your converted version? I'm also *very* frustrated at this video.

Ideally if someone could convert it to another (playable) video format, that'd be great.

onpon4
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It's technically not a conversion; the audio is Vorbis, so you can use a tool like Transmageddon to repackage just the audio without the video in an Ogg file. Just choose "Audio passthrough" and "No video". It takes just a few seconds, though downloading the video so you can do that in the first place takes considerably longer...

I'll see how long it would take to upload the Ogg file I generated. If it only takes a few minutes, I'll do it.

onpon4
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loldier
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Thanks for that. The video is a hog 2.5 gigs. Saved some bandwidth. Towards the end of his speech, there was a question hour. RMS really vented off at some of those questions claiming they were deliberately giving him not enough time to answer or rebut anything.

Jabjabs
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There is a term for this in the skeptics community, the Gish Gallop. There was a creationist Duane Gish who used to debate people by simply bombarding the other side with an excess of false arguments or misinformation with out allowing time for a full response, this was also exacerbated by making points that would have multiple talking points and not allowing for the questions/points to be resolved.

When you are on the receiving end of this - it can be VERY aggravating. Stallman did lose his stack but I don't lame him, he probably could have handled it better but I'm not surprised that he cracked.

Jabjabs
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Thank you very much! *high five*

onpon4
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And, someone else has taken the liberty to transcode the video. He transcoded it to m4v in Handbrake, but the Goblin Refuge re-transcoded it to VP8:

https://goblinrefuge.com/mediagoblin/u/neppnepp/m/richard-stallman-in-zurich/

It's a lower resolution than the original, but who needs such a high resolution for a video like this, anyway? The lower resolution makes the video much smaller, after all.

tonlee
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Joined: 09/08/2014

A javascript firefox addon is mentioned. On this forum non free javascript is sometimes mentioned. Can I get explained what it is about javascript? Is it about source code or features? Flash is about both source code and features? I installed the javascript firefox addon. It appears to make firefox slower and on duckduckgo it says that the page requires javascript and one more click must be made to get a non js page.

onpon4
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JavaScript is a programming language, a dialect of ECMAScript. Unfortunately, someone a long time ago decided that it would be a good idea to design a Web browser to let websites send programs written in JavaScript, and then automatically execute them, silently. Flash Player does the same with ActionScript, another ECMAScript dialect. The thing is, this behavior is incredibly stupid from a security perspective, and these programs also tend to be proprietary.

I do not recommend LibreJS. As you noticed, LibreJS does slow things down quite a bit, and I don't think it solves the problem. I've explained why in detail here:

https://onpon4.github.io/other/kill-js/

Instead of LibreJS, I suggest one of the following:

- NoScript: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/?src=search (make sure to clear out the initial whitelist if you choose this option, since it's quite large)
- QuickJS: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjs/?src=search

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

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vita_cell
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I love Richard's videos, thanks for sharing.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

There is older media here

https://audio-video.gnu.org/

strypey
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Thanks for sharing this. Is there anything in the talk that would be new to someone familiar with the work of RMS and the FSF? Or are you sharing it as something we can show people new to the subject?

onpon4
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I don't know about anyone else, but I like hearing the questions and answers after these talks, so I tend to just skip ahead to when questions start.

Though while I was skipping ahead, I did hear a joke in the "St. IGNUcious" routine that I haven't heard before. The joke was that when he was in China, a group of vi supporters decided to attack him, so apparently, "violence starts with vi".

lembas
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I think the Q&A session was the weakest part of this talk. I think both question and answers were bad. The last question guy even had slept during the talk where his question was addressed...

The beginning of the whole talk was kind of boring because it's so very familiar but I like how rms went though so many aspects of free software. You can see he's done it quite a few times. ;)

I think what rms did for free software is nothing short of amazing and what he's doing currently is a great idea. However to make sure his message gets though and is evaluated positively, maybe he should have a less tight travel schedule. That way he would be more relaxed and more ready to tolerate doubters, fools and even sabotage.

I guess big part of the audience reaction comes from the age old idea that "there's no such thing as a free lunch". All kind of marketing parasites try to daily rope us in to every imaginable scheme and to then abuse us. Free software makes the refreshing and incredible exception to that rule after all.

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

There's a good-for-newbies interview here from UCLA REMAP Vimeo channel. It's an mp4 but it can be downloaded and transcoded if need be. Duration 1h 10 mins, size 317 MB.

Recoding innovation Richard Stallman interview 2013

An interview in Zurich 9 February 2016.

https://youtu.be/fkkDvKGcNSo

bitbit
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Joined: 10/29/2012

thank you so much, very interesting

loldier
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Richard Stallman interview, Zurich 9 February 2016. The same as above but audio only.

https://goblinrefuge.com/mediagoblin/u/loldier/m/richard-stallman-interviewed-in-zurich/

Stallman seems to have some trouble in Switzerland. Non-native English doesn't out well from these German speaking interviewers or audience and their haphazard, ill-formulated questions upset him.

"Stop coming up with these theoretical proofs that it had to be done when the fact is it didn't have to be done.

You're just speculating, you're guessing. What's the point of that?

I think that's a bad way to approach me because I will always react with hostility to attempting to impose a presupposition that's unfriendly and based on nothing.

That's not gonna get any thoughtful responses from me because it will make me angry and I don't think as well. I have to struggle to think clearly and express myself clearly when I'm angry.

So, whatever the issue is, you can bring it up without claiming I'm wrong.

You can raise any issue in a neutral way so that I or whoever it is can then respond without having to go against pressure from you."

quantumgravity
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"Stallman seems to have some trouble in Switzerland. Non-native English doesn't out well from these German speaking interviewers or audience and their haphazard, ill-formulated questions upset him."

Yeah you know, why don't i give a talk in america and if the audience doesn't talk to me in perfect german i'll go completely mad.
Seriously, if that was really his problem, then maybe he should stop giving talks all over the world.

onpon4
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That's quite a strange interpretation. The fact of the matter is RMS is... quite easy to upset. There are examples all over the place of RMS getting angry, livid even. It never has to do with imperfect English, though. What it always has to do with is him feeling like his activism is being undermined in some way.

The biggest example I've seen on video was where he was giving a talk in Brazil, he asked whether English or Spanish would be better, and English was chosen; then, halfway into the talk, people told him that few people could understand him and that Spanish would have been better. He felt like his talk had been ruined, and he completely flipped out. It wasn't language that he was angry about; it was that he was not understood, and he wasn't told that he was not understood until halfway through the talk.

loldier
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That reminds me of the tea bag controversy in the PANtalk Zurich video. RMS wanted to clear his voice which was rapidly going down -- by drinking tea that was supplied, under his explicit wishes, I suppose. He was devastated his tea "was ruined" because there was no tea bag in the cup and he was half an hour into his speech already. He didn't at first understand that the tea was in the pot, diluted and ready to be poured. Later he admitted the tea "was a wonderful kind of tea".

I think it's a language barrier at works here that RMS suffers from. He's impatient and he takes the words at their face value. He misinterpretes the mood and the intention. Maybe he should have a companion translator or the questions should be prepared in advance for him to browse. Dunno.

bitbit
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ahahah he is putting a cream on his foot while answering the questions, lol
I love the interviews of Stallman because he speaks about differents thing not the usual pre made talks, if you have more QA of Stallman are very welcome
thx for the links very interesting

loldier
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Free as in Freedom - Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software

by Sam Williams

http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/free_as_in_freedom.richard_stallman_crusade_for_free_software.sam_williams/

ADFENO
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Joined: 12/31/2012

As for the problems created by non-free JavaScript, I have a feeling that: If JavaScript is considered dead or a *total* trap, we might as well end up in a more tight spot because there'll be probably more services as software substitutes.

I'm not sure of how right I'm in this statement, but: I think that webmail isn't always a service as a software substitute, mainly when it gives client-side JavaScript code for the user to do the most important functions.

As for RMS's talks and behavior. Sometimes I act just like him. And I also think that pre-made questions would help ease things.