[13ren]

I've really got to learn to stop posting anything to HackerNews that in any way can be construed as an admission of weakness or vulnerability. I sensed that was the case here when I was writing, but didn't think it was necessary to hide it. I will be more careful in future to not reveal more than is absolutely necessary, and so avoid this typical, casually condescending reply. It's annoying because it's the "mistake" that gets seized on, instead of what I'm saying... as if there's more interest in correction than communication.

Maybe I am alone here in disliking unsolicited advice, but ironically, when I ask a question here, I usually don't get any help...

...so perhaps the secret is not to ask, but state something that incidentally reveals the lack of knowledge, so the scent of inexcusable ignorance rouses the instinctive hacker display of superior knowledge. I will try this.

Or maybe, I am just not a hacker. Although I love coding (especially to help other people) and I'm not a corporate type, I am coming to think this more and more; because behaviour like giving unsolicited advice seems to be totally acceptable and approved of on sites like this, but by my values is a form of trolling, and has never sat well with me.

EDIT I just checked the site mqt lists in his profile (http://mark.nirv.net/), and judging by his May 26, 2007 entries, he does troll at times ("What a f______ p___"; "Use a spell checker next time, a______." - to me, that's really abusive). Trolls have sometimes gotten under my radar by combining genuine knowledge and apparent helpfulness with their trolling. Oh well, you live and you learn; without risking mistakes and uncongeniality, one cannot learn.

[Jem]

I didn't think mqt's response was remotely condescending, and I'm the queen of "I'm just trying to help" bitchiness.

I think you need to be aware that not everyone who disagrees with you or fails to kiss your ass is trolling.

Or, in true trolling style: stop whining.

[13ren]

mqt didn't disagree with me, and I didn't say that he did.

Those are your thoughts.

[Jem]

> mqt didn't disagree with me, and I didn't say that he did.

Neither did I.

[13ren]

> I think you need to be aware that not everyone who disagrees with you or fails to kiss your ass is trolling.

?

EDIT I can't believe I've gotten drawn into this. Your use of loaded terms "bitchiness", "ass", "whining", giving your opinions as if they were truth, issuing commands, all in terms that didn't relate to the comment you were replying to, should have tipped me off. No more responses from me. Bye.

[icey]

I don't know what the rest of these guys are talking about. That guy sure was a jackass for trying to show you how to get the thing you were complaining about not existing.

And those other guys were total jerks for not waiting with baited breath for you to post your questions. And the guy with the blog where he said a dirty word? THE NERVE! I am totally with you, people who state opinions on their personal websites without being asked for them first are total trolls!

The internet SUCKS! Let's go to the real world where everyone is nice!

[Jem]

"not everyone" != mqt

[nihilocrat]

whoa whoa whoa

You're doing the "text communication has no sense of tone, body language, or other important indirect communication, so I'll just assume you're being a dick" thing.

It's all cool. Try and assume people aren't just being dicks.

[eb]

You mentioned that "units" wasn't part of your system and he pointed out that it's actually a Unix base program (i.e. part of BSD/Solaris/Darwin) that's installable separately for GNU-based systems.

What's the problem here? Did you really need to comb through his blog and call him out like that?

[sdurkin]

Giving you helpful information is not trolling.