postann@cbosgd.UUCP (03/03/84)
Original-From: Jerry Schwarz <jerry@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 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 "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.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". 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 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 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.politics. 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