Frequently Submitted Items, last changed Tue Nov 1 21:33:24 1983
je...@eagle.uucp
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 in Bell Labs at about the same time that
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 "fowled up beyond all recovery",
which is supposed to be a military term. (Various
forms of this exist. Fowled usually being replaced by
a stronger word.) "Fu", and "Bar" have the same
derivation.
3. Is a machine at "foo" on the net.
These questions belong in net.config if anywhere, but
in fact your best be 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".
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.
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.
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.) If your system doesn't have a program to encrypt
and decrypt these, you can quickly create a shell
script using "tr".
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.
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
handle's 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
fully 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. Some readers of net.women
think the subject belongs in net.poli-sci.
14. net.singles: What do MOTOS and MOTSS stand for?
Member of the opposite sex, and member of the same sex
respectively.
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.
Jerry Schwarz mh3bc1!jss