Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (Last changed: 6 November 1985)
use...@gatech.csnet
[Most recent change: 6 November 1985 by spaf]
Frequently Submitted Items
This document discusses some items that occur repeatedly on Usenet.
They frequently are submitted by new users, and result in many
followups, sometimes swamping groups for weeks. The purpose of this
note is to head off these annoying events by answering some questions
and warning about the inevitable consequence of asking others. If you
don't like my answers let me know and I may include revisions in future
versions of this note.
1. What does UNIX stand for?
It is not an acronym, but is a pun on "MULTICS". MULTICS is a
large operating system that was being developed shortly before
UNIX was created.
2. What is the derivation of "foo" as a filler word?
The favorite story is that it comes from "fubar" which is an
acronym for "fouled up beyond all recognition", which is supposed
to be a military term. (Various forms of this exist, "fouled"
usually being replaced by a stronger word.) "Foo" and "Bar" have
the same derivation.
3. Is a machine at "foo" on the net?
These questions belong in net.news.config if anywhere, but in fact
your best bet is usually to phone somebody at "foo" to find out.
If you don't know anybody at "foo" you can always try calling and
asking for the "comp center." Also, see the newsgroup
mod.map where maps of Usenet and the uucp network are posted
regularly.
4. What does "rc" at the end of files like .newsrc mean?
I'm not sure of the exact history. It seems to be related to the
phrase "run command". It is used for any file that contains
startup information for a command. One belief is that the "rc"
stands for "ReConfiguration" which is what the file does.
5. What does "- (nf)" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notefiles," an alternative
netnews interface that many people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. This interface is also
the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
6. What does :-) mean?
This is the net convention for a "smiley face". It means that
something is being said in jest. If it doesn't look like a smiley
face to you, flop your head over to the left and look again.
7. How do I decrypt jokes in net.jokes?
The standard cypher used in net.jokes in called "rot13." Each
letter is replaced by the letter 13 farther along in the alphabet
(cycling around at the end). Most systems have a built in command
to decrypt such articles; readnews has the "D" command, rn has the
"X" or "^X" commands, notes has "%" or "R". If your system doesn't
have a program to encrypt and decrypt these, you can quickly create
a shell script using "tr":
tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m
On some versions of Unix, the "tr" command should be written as:
tr "[a-m][n-z][A-M][N-Z]" "[n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]"
8. net.general: Is John Doe out there anywhere?
I suspect that these items are people looking for Freshman room-
mates that they haven't seen in ten years. If you have some idea
where the person is you are usually better off calling the
organization. For example, if you call any Bell Labs location and
request John Doe's number they can give it to you even if he works
at a different location. If you must try the net, use newsgroup
net.net-people *NOT* net.general.
9. net.math: Proofs that 1=0.
Almost everyone has seen one or more of these in high school.
They are almost always based on either division by 0 or taking the
square root of a negative number.
10. net.games: Where can I get the source for empire or
rogue?
You can't. The authors of these games, as is their right, have
chosen not to make the sources available.
11. net.unix-wizards: How do I remove files with non-ascii
characters in their names?
You can try to find a pattern that uniquely identifies the file.
This sometimes fails because a peculiarity of some shells is that
they strip off the highorder bit of characters in command lines.
Next, you can try an rm -i, or rm -r. Finally, you can mess around
with i-node numbers and "find".
12. net.unix-wizards: There is a bug in the way UNIX handles
protection for programs that run suid.
There are indeed problems with the treatment of protection in
setuid programs. When this is brought up, suggestions for changes
range from implementing a full capability list arrangement to new
kernel calls for allowing more control over when the effective id
is used and when the real id is used to control accesses. Sooner
or later you can expect this to be improved. For now you just
have to live with it.
13. net.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
net.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. Since the newsgroup net.abortion has been created, all
abortion-related discussion should take place there.
14. net.singles: What do MOTOS, MOTSS, and MOTAS stand for?
Member of the opposite sex, member of the same sex, and member of
the appropriate sex, respectively.
SO stands for "significant other".
15. net.columbia: Shouldn't this name be changed?
The name was devised to honor the first space shuttle. It was
realized at the time the group began that the name would quickly
become out of date. The intent was to create a bit of instant
nostalgia.
16. net.columbia: Shouldn't this group be merged with net.space?
No. Net.columbia is for timely news bulletins. net.space is for
discussions.
17. How do I use the "Distribution" feature?
When postnews prompts you for a distribution, it's asking how
widely distributed you want your article. The set of possible
replies is different, depending on where you are, but at Bell Labs
in Murray Hill, New Jersey, possibilities include:
mh3bc1 local to this machine
mh Bell Labs, Murray Hill Branch
nj all sites in New Jersey
btl All Bell Labs machines
att All AT&T machines
usa Everywhere in the USA
na Everywhere in North America
net Everywhere on Usenet in the world (same as "world")
If you hit return, you'll get the default, which is the first part
of the newsgroup name. This default is often not appropriate --
PLEASE take a moment to think about how far away people are likely
to be interested in what you have to say. Used car ads, housing
wanted ads, and things for sale other than specialized equipment
like computers certainly shouldn't be distributed to Europe and
Korea, or even to the next state.
The newsgroup "na.forsale" exists for postings of sale
announcements. Its distribution is limited to North America;
posters should restrict this distribution even further, if
possible and appropriate.
18. Why do some people put funny lines ("bug killers") at the beginning
of their articles?
Some earlier versions of news had a bug which would drop the first
512 or 1024 bytes of text of certain articles. The bug was
triggered whenever the article started with whitespace (a blank or
a tab). A fix many people adopted was to begin their articles
with a line containing a character other than white space. This
gradually evolved into the habit of including amusing first
lines.
The original bug has since been fixed in newer version of news,
and sites running older versions of news have applied a patch to
prevent articles from losing text. The "bug-killer" lines are
therefore probably no longer needed, but they linger on.
HOWEVER, new sites just installing the news from 4.2 BSD tapes
are likely installing a version of news with the bug; the 4.2
distribution had a buggy version of news. If you know anyone
running an unmodified news from the 4.2 BSD tape, have them
obtain a more up-to-date version from someone else on the net.
19. What is the address or phone number of the "foo" company?
Try the white and yellow pages of your phone directory, first; a
sales representative will surely know, and if you're a potential
customer they will be who you're looking for. Phone books for
other cities are usually available in libraries of any size.
Whoever buys or recommends things for your company will probably
have some buyer's guides or national company directories. Call or
visit the reference desk of your library; they have several
company and organization directories and many will answer
questions like this over the phone. Remember if you only know the
city where the company is, you can telephone to find out their
full address or a dealer. The network is NOT a free resource,
although it may look like that to some people. It is far better
to spend a few minutes of your own time researching an answer
rather than broadcast your laziness and/or ineptitude to the net.