He looks up as soon
as I enter the room, giving me a full blast of his
200-watt gaze. When he offers a soothing "Hello," I
offer a return greeting. Before the words come out,
however, his eyes have already shifted back to the
laptop screen.
"I'm just finishing an article on the spirit of
hacking," Stallman says, fingers still tapping. "Take a look."
I take a look. The room is dimly lit, and the text
appears as greenish-white letters on a black
background, a reversal of the color scheme used by most
desktop word-processing programs, so it takes my eyes a
moment to adjust. When they do, I find myself reading
Stallman's account of a recent meal at a Korean
restaurant. Before the meal, Stallman makes an
interesting discovery: the person setting the table has
left six chopsticks instead of the usual two in front
of Stallman's place setting. Where most restaurant
goers would have ignored the redundant pairs, Stallman
takes it as challenge: find a way to use all six
chopsticks at once. Like many software hacks, the
successful solution is both clever and silly at the
same time.
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