Mandrake disappointment 1763

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What you have experienced has been, at least in part, invited upon yourself by your own actions. Contempt breeds contempt. Act comtemptibly and be greeted with contempt.

I didn't say it would address all needs. In fact, I wasn't addressing whether or not it would serve *any* needs. I was addressing your reaction to the ways linux works, and how you handle things when they don't suit your preconceived notion of "right". Please try to stay with the subject at hand.

Either something fits your needs or it fails to fit your needs. If it doesn't, move along. But don't get your nose out of joint with the way things work. Accept them or not.

I'm impressed that you've spent so much time with things. Perhaps you should spend a little less time dancing from flame to flame and spend a little more time getting warm near one of the fires instead of complaining how none of them do anything to take the chill out of your bones in the fraction of a second you spend with each.

If you want ease-of-use, go get Windross or stick with OS X. If you want maximum configurability and control, you've been toying (note I didn't use the word "using") it. Since it seems you aren't interested in control, I suggest you are toying (see above) with the wrong object and complaining about it not being one of the other two.

Your statement shows a profound lack of understanding. To wit:

a) I have no concern for your "needs", but I take extreme exception with the dissatisfaction song and dance you're involved in performing.

b) I believe your "needs" aren't the things you express as being "needs". I believe your "needs" are the attention you're getting. Period.

Unrelated to the topic at hand, and a bad case of projection to boot. See above.

That has nothing to do with the price of butter in China.

You're playing make believe. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at first, despite the gnawing doubt in the back of my head. As time has pbutted that gnawing feeling was borne out by your own actions.

Either you're an idiot or you don't want to learn. You may be many things, but I don't think "idiot" is one of them. That leaves only one other option. See if you can guess which one that is.

I'll give you the last word before I dispatch you to -9999. But first, an anecdote.

I used to subscribe to the Redhat mailing list before they turned hardcore commercial and branched off Fedora. Several years ago, there was this guy much like you. I think he's still around, though not using Redhat. I won't give his entire name, but anyone subscribing to the list at that time will remember him if I tell the story and just give his first name: Benjamin.

Benjamin started posting questions to the group. Like you, he didn't research things. He'd ask, and when he didn't understand, he'd ask some more. Unlike you, Benjamin seemed capable of learning. That was about his only redeeming quality, though, as his refusal to grasp concepts well enough to carry them into other avenues wore thin. He *could* learn, but it only seemed to apply to a given task.

Well, many people (yours truly included) spent an awful lot of time holding Benjamin's hand, helping with a lot of minutia. Several even took things to private mail when the list was being inundated with trying to buttist Benjamin to grasp linux. I was one of those several.

The problem was, there never seemed to be an end to Benjamin's questions. He had to ask each and every thing that could needed to be done. He even had another bad, annoying habit, one that I won't be surprised if you also have: HE HAD TO RECAP AND SUMMARIZE EVERYTHING THAT DEVELOPED FOR EACH AND EVERY TASK HE WAS HELPED IN ACCOMPLISHING!

Help Benjamin get his printer going? Good, now read Benjamin's recap of every step needed to add the printer. Help Benjamin get both of his processors recognized and working? Good, now read about every step that was required, from start to finish, to get both processors accessed by the software. Help Benjamin compile his kernel? Good, now wade through a 40 page summation of what had to be done for Benjamin to compile his kernel.

The final straw was with XFCE. The older versions used to have some color buttons in the settings. You pushed one, changed it and watched it change some color for one of the items on the desktop. It was nothing more, and nothing less, than a way to configure the color scheme. Well, Benjamin discovered that if you clicked on them a color wheel popped up and you could adjust the color. What Benjamin did *not* do was try them to see what they did. It wasn't difficult, but Benjamin was going to let someone else do the work for him and then explain it. Then Benjamin was going to try it for himself. Then Benjamin was going to explain it to us so we all knew wat Benjamin had learned, and he could be good and teach us back.

Months had pbutted since Benjamin burst upon the scene. I didn't see much dissent, but I'd already had it a few weeks back and stopped helping. When this one popped up I took it upon myself to help Benjamin one final time. I posted a really smart-butted post, detailing each little tiny step for Benjamin to follow so he couldn't possibly make a mistake.

Ol' Benny-boy wasn't too pleased, needless to say. He blew up at me about it. Then I vented, explaining the tedium he'd put the entire mailing list through for months, detailing the atrocious behavior he'd exhibited and the disregard for the things other people needed that were getting short shrift so we could all babysit Benjamin and do his research for him and explain every little step he needed to move one foot in front of the other.

That's when the dam broke. Most of the list had finally had enough, but they were being polite and were letting him go on with his crap. Once I started it, there was no stopping. Damned near everybody let loose.

I saw him over a year later on another list. At first I didn't realize who he was. Then I saw the questions he was asking, and it all came back to me. I vented again, and others mentioned both publicly and privately that they remembered him from the Redhat list and that they didn't take fondly to the idea of dealing with him again. Some had already had enough in the current situation, but like the Redhat list, they weren't going to let it all out until someone else did.

There were some this second time who came to his defense, much like I'm seeing here. I simply warned them what they were inviting. I told them they were more than welcome to enable him to be a pest, but I filled them in on what they could expect. I then unsubscribed from the list.

I only know one person that continued to play his game that later regretted it. I met them on another list. I'd warned them about what Benjamin was like and they refused to listen. They told me they were sorry for doubting what I told them because he was actually far worse. I'm guessing there were probably others in the same boat. But I can't say that with any certainty.

THE END

Your turn, Ben. Then you can make yourself comfortable at the bottom of the killfile with Bailo, Relf, DooFu$ and the KKKRabAppleMan KKKids.

-- Sinister Midget: Saying adios to Benjamin-Snit in all of his persona since 1997.