[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday 18 March 2019

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

[639 lines?  Really?]

> You still aren't paying attention to my previous replies.

Oh, I am.  I simply have very little patience for attempts to ignore and
distract attention from the substantive point I made.

> Currently and for the foreseeable future I have no smart phone thus no
> smartphone camera due to the paucity of funds experienced by most
> Social Security recipients.

No flipphone, either?  And Jim had neither a flipphone nor a smartphone?
_And neither of you had paper and pen_?  (See, that was that bit, again,
where you try to ignore and deflect something I said and hope nobody
noticed.)

And nobody sitting nearby was willing to take a digital photo and mail
it to you?  Because, it's only San Francisco in 2019, so hardly anyone
can do that, right?

I've made my point.  Sorry you don't like it.

> I am fairly adept at pen and paper but the messages I got on the
> problems were so terse that i could not make sense of them.

See, that's exactly where getting them to a technical community audience
who _could_ make sense of them would help.  But you know that.  You just
don't wish to acknowledge the point.

> Exactly put aside the non-working release and hope to find a
> interesting distribution about which you can say positive things.

So, no technical effort, just tourism.  Well, OK, Works for YOU.[tm]


> Some time back a new kernel was released and I installed it.  My
> computer could not boot with that kernel.

I greatly doubt that, but, again:  Show, don't tell.  

> You studiously ignore my points 

Cite, please.  (But I'm not impressed by dumb public posturing about
phony moral equivalence.)

And, no, I have already explained why the painstaking technical advice I
give is not at all 'gratuitous', even if you don't like it.  It's part
of parpetuating understanding of Linux, including diagnosis.

[snip because 639 lines was ridiculously excessive.]

> Well you know if you don't pay attention to the story you
> learn nothing.

I learn a _story_.  Stories are (if well done) entertaining, but are
pretty reliably unamenable to diagnosis.  (How do I know this?  Decades
of professional work and careful study.  Don't wish to believe that? 
Good luck with that.)

> And I tell a concise story about updating the LibreOffice suite a
> problem that arrises and how I solved it,

Oh, good.  Nice that you solved your problem, and stories are (if well
done) always welcome.  On the other hand, if you ever want _help_ going
forward, it's in your interest to provide accurate, contemporaneous
data, and not just stories.


>> Oh?  Show us.
>
>     Why!

Already detailed.  I'm not going to repeat that yet again.

>> Post the command session.
>
> It goes :

That's not a command session.   But, that aside:

If you hadn't stumbled across as solution to a problem, and were still
hoping for help, you'd still be up a creek, for lack of having failed to
show, not tell.


>     start LibreOffice Manager

Hey, imagine that!  You were able to solve the problem once you followed
my suggestion of using lomanager.  Who knew?

> *    I was not seeking assistance but relating how i resolved a problem,**

_Now_ you are.

Before, you were the person with a problem who wasn't likely to get any
because you insisted on telling stories rather than collecting accurate,
contemporaneous diagnostic information.  And so, you were left to find
the solution on your own.  I'm good that you were able to find your way
instead of continuing to do the dumb thing, but that doesn't make the
dumb thing any less dumb.


> **    Since it was not in terminal format you did not bother to
> read it apparently.*

Because I 'didn't read' the story you only _now_ posted?  True!  That's
the problem of not being able to visit the future and come back.  Next
time, lend me a TARDIS and I'll do that.

Moreover, given that your 'story' was about how you _solved_ your problem,
why would it make even a tiny amount of sense to criticise people for 
(allegedly) having failed to heed that story _before_ you did so?

> Oh if you lived in San Francisco you could attend the meeting more
> often one supposes but I had always wanted to visit the Menlo Park
> Install fests but sadly it is beyond my range.

Sorry to hear, but that doesn't mean you get free personal consulting,
either.  So, this bit about 'pity you can't come to SF-LUG meetings more
often so you can be convenient to me for in-person direct assistance' 
is unclear on how user groups work and how that differs from consulting.

I'm pretty sure you actually _are_ clear on the distinction, but just
were reaching for more rhetoric to toss.

> Actually when I am not busy with replying to someone who cannot read a
> story I usually take my problems to the internet to find prior
> occurrences and solutions.

It might have escaped your notice, but:  This _is_ the Internet.

> No but you are addressing your lectures to me.

And your point?


> Doubtless you are good teacher on such topics, *but the manner of your
> address to your putative students lacks a good deal.

If you were paying for my time, you would be entitled to be picky about
the manner of my expression in providing professional services -- which
of course, I'm not.  And, frankly, I have gotten extremely tired of the
ongoing passive-aggressive gamesmanship, and personal sniping &
attempted low-level character assassination when I attempt to help
people understand Linux.   You trying to top that off by playing some
sort of personal victimhood card is, in that context, really rich.


> Constantly amused by young men who feel the need to instruct
> the aged on matters of courtesy,

I enjoyed the chuckle over 'young'.  :->