@InfosecErnesto @yoz First 45 minutes or so, he didn’t recognize me and I pretended not to recognize him. I didn’t take out my laptop for fear of it serving as a conversation starter. So I sat that there and listened as he increasingly frequently complained to the flight attendant.
@InfosecErnesto @yoz Then he started getting louder and abusive. It was clear that the direction this was going would culminate in the plane returning to the terminal to have him removed, which would further delay us. So I took one for the team and said “are you Richard Stallman?”
@InfosecErnesto @yoz He took that has his invitation to berate me for having noise canceling headphones (something to do with them not being based on free software). He spent the whole time telling me about software freedom and how my headphones were a symbol of oppression or some such.
@InfosecErnesto @yoz I was not ready for the noise canceling headphones argument, but it was just as loud and angry as his complaints to the flight attendant. Except now everyone on the plane thought I was traveling with him.
@InfosecErnesto @yoz My fatal mistake was when I expressed mild disagreement (I thought my cans just had an external mic and an analog circuit to subtract the noise), which turned it into a mystery I didn’t care about but that he needed to get to to the bottom of.
@InfosecErnesto @yoz Note that my experience was just baseline RMS. This was merely the sort of stuff everyone routinely dismissed as simply the price of his eccentric genius. It was nothing compared with the toxic impact he had on women and other less powerful members of the community.
@InfosecErnesto @yoz For the record, I've since decided that those noise canceling headsets are too bulky for travel, and switched to noise isolating earbuds. So don't @ me.
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