User (To the tune of Beck's "Loser")

In the day of sysop nerds I was a flunkie
Jolt in my brains and body feeling chunky
With the plastic mouse balls spray paint the Commodore
System install with the hard drive on the floor

Kill the process and put it in /dev/null
Email flaming with the user hitting D-control
Shell's called Reno and it's written in C
Got a couple of xterms, keys set to repeat

Root came sayin' I'm insane to complain
About an online wedding and a stain on my screen
Don't believe everything that you make
You get a cracker from Europe and a login that's fake

So write your code in Perl in the dark
Saving all your hacks for working at a tech park
Yo - punch it

So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double dense floppy)
So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?

Forces of evil in a MUD/MOO nightmare
Ban all the members in a phony #chat channel 'cause
One's got a handle and the other's got a .plan
One online spammed the other and ran

With the FTP and the insane print job
The daytime crap of the alt.test slob
He hung himself with a call to ping
Twenty milliseconds and it's spitting out another string

RTFM if you can't relate
Trade the Sun for a car and the Web for a date
And MIME is a nifty hack for mailing to a newbie
That's choking on my MPEGs

So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Get crazy with the caps lock)
So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Drive-by BIFF post)

Yo, bring it on down
I'm a hacker, I'm a winner
Program's gonna work, I can feel it

So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I can't retrieve you)
So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(NULL)
So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Sprecken sie DOS, eh, baby)
So - dumping core
I'm a user, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Know what I'm typin'?)
The arch-nemesis of the Admin. Locked in eternal battle, the User fights the Admin by asking questions covered in the manual, on the Web, or otherwise readily available. The more inane the question, the better it serves in the fight. In addition, the User finds ever newer, more complex ways of breaking or thinking they broke the software.

Examples include, but are in no way limited to the following:
  • "Where can I find xxxx?"
  • "What is the {SMTP,POP,IMAP} server's address?"
  • "I just erased my mailbox, and every folder I have created since 1973. Can you undelete those?"
  • "Pine just gave me the error xxxx. What does it mean?"
  • "Um, yeah. I think the Internet is down. I just got a 'Can't contact server' error.'"
  • "Can I have more disk space for my por.. uh, data, please?"
  • "I just got this error message from ${rival_ISP}. Can you tell me what it means?"

As a first line of defense, the Admins created Tech Support. But many Users have found two ways of getting past this. They write root instead of Tech Support or call the admin. Second, they concentrate on breaking more software. (Microsoft is a big aid to the user, and their software has therefore been widely propagated) Because of this, the Admins created The Clue Stick, a spiritual 4x4 for User Education (AKA LART).

Although it may seem comical, make no mistake. This is an epic battle, on the lines of good versus evil. The Admin fights for disk space, memory, and, of course, enough CPU to quickly crack DES. The user, on the other hand, battles for the Admin's sanity.

For more information, see BOFH, and many Usenet newsgroups.
Usenet Death Penalty = U = user-friendly

user n.

1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. See real user. 2. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep. Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the documentation before bothering the maintainer.] See luser. 3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them.

The general theory behind this term is that there are two classes of people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers) and lusers. The users are looked down on by hackers to some extent because they don't understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory. (The few users who do are known as `real winners'.) The term is a relative one: a skilled hacker may be a user with respect to some program he himself does not hack. A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who uses LISP (but with the skill of a hacker). A LISP user is one who uses LISP, whether skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by context.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

User is a comic created by writer Devin Grayson. User follows the story of a woman, Meg, who has problems in her life. She works at a large company and still lives with her parents and younger sister, Annie. Her mother leaves them with her father, and Annie starts to be periodically raped by their father's friend Cal.

But Meg can't handle these problems, she doesn't know how to stand up to them. At work, they've recently put up a server with full internet access. Meg creates a new identity in the computer, and begins to play chatroom-based rpgs. Her character Sir Guiliamme de la Couer, a French paladin, is everything that she isn't: Brave, honourable, and upholds his code of conduct.

Meg starts to ignore her real life, and tries to become Guilliame. But outside her computer the bad things are still happening.. and she might have to face a rude awakening.

User is a creator-owned Vertigo three-part comic. The story is written by Devin Grayson, with John Bolton drawing the Meg's real world, and Sean Phillips drawing Meg's imaginary fantasy world. User is a very good comic describing the kind of people who play the chatroom RPGs and the sort of lives they may be trying to escape.

Us"er (?), n.

1.

One who uses.

Shak.

2. Law

Enjoyment of property; use.

Mozley & W.

 

© Webster 1913.

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