usenet@gatech.CSNET (07/01/86)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 19 June 1986 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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
The source for empire is available from John Buck provided you have
the necessary Unix license. Contact him at ...philabs!polyf!john
for details.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."usenet@gatech.CSNET (09/01/86)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 30 August 1986 by weemba@brahms.berkeley.edu]
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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
The source to empire is not currently available, either.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."usenet@gatech.EDU (11/02/86)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 31 October 1986 by weemba@brahms.berkeley.edu]
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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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. misc.misc or misc.wanted: 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
soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted.
9. sci.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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
The source to empire is not currently available, either.
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. soc.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. Since the newsgroup talk.abortion has been created, all
abortion-related discussion should take place there.
14. soc.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. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space?
No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.space is for
discussions.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."
20. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.?
See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10
(October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The
table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The
appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in
mod.map.
21. Didn't Indiana once pass a law saying pi == 3 ?
Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897,
referred to the Committee on Canals 'midst general cheerfulness'.
It is so mathematically incomprehensible that no single value of
pi is determinable from its text. It was passed by the state
House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled by the state Senate,
thanks to the fortuitious presense of a Purdue professor of
mathematics who was there on other business.
For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the
article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7
#2, pp 69-72.usenet@gatech.EDU (12/01/86)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 29 November 1986 by weemba@brahms.berkeley.edu]
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 these answers let spaf@gatech.edu know.
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 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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 rec.humor?
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. misc.misc or misc.wanted: 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
soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted.
9. sci.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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
The source to empire is not currently available, either.
11. comp.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. comp.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. soc.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the
newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen
not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post
articles about abortion at all.
14. soc.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. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for?
Nobody knows. HASA apparently stands for Hedonistic Asti-Spumante
Alliance. There are renegades, not to be believed under any
circumstances, who claim it actually stands for the Heathen and
Atheistic SCUM Alliance. It can also mean a few other fanciful and
amusing things, any of which should be judged in context.
16. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space?
No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.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 (for example):
local 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
world Everywhere on Usenet in the 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.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."
21. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.?
See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10
(October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The
table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The
appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in
mod.map.
22. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ?
Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897, and
referred to the Committee on Canals "midst general cheerfulness."
The text states, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is
as five-fourths to four", which makes pi 3.2 (not 3), but there
are internal contradictions in the bill as well as contradictions
with reality. The author was a mathematical crank. The bill was
passed by the state House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled
by the state Senate, in part thanks to the fortuitious presence
on other business of a Purdue professor of mathematics.
For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the
article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7
#2, pp 69-72.usenet@gatech.UUCP (01/01/87)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 9 December 1986 by rs@mirror.tmc.com]
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 these answers let spaf@gatech.edu know.
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 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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 rec.humor?
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. misc.misc or misc.wanted: 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
soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted.
9. sci.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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
You can obtain the source to a version of empire if you provide
a tape and SASE *plus* a photocopy of your Unix source license.
To obtain further info, contact mcnc!rti-sel!polyof!john.
You can also call John at +1 516 454-5191 (9am-9pm EST only).
11. comp.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. comp.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. soc.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the
newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen
not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post
articles about abortion at all.
14. soc.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. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for?
Nobody knows. HASA apparently stands for Hedonistic Asti-Spumante
Alliance. There are renegades, not to be believed under any
circumstances, who claim it actually stands for the Heathen and
Atheistic SCUM Alliance. It can also mean a few other fanciful and
amusing things, any of which should be judged in context.
16. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space?
No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.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 (for example):
local 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
world Everywhere on Usenet in the 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.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."
21. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.?
See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10
(October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The
table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The
appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in
mod.map.
22. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ?
Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897, and
referred to the Committee on Canals "midst general cheerfulness."
The text states, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is
as five-fourths to four", which makes pi 3.2 (not 3), but there
are internal contradictions in the bill as well as contradictions
with reality. The author was a mathematical crank. The bill was
passed by the state House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled
by the state Senate, in part thanks to the fortuitious presence
on other business of a Purdue professor of mathematics.
For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the
article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7
#2, pp 69-72.
23. Where can I get the necessary software to get a "smart"
mail system running on my machine that will take advantage
of the postings in mod.map? (E.g., pathalias, smail, etc.)
There are a couple of packages available through the supporters of
the mod.sources archives. If sites next to you don't have what
you want, contact your nearest mod.sources archive, or the
moderator. Information on archive sites, and indices of
mod.sources back issues are posted regularly in mod.sources and
comp.sources.d.usenet@gatech.UUCP (02/01/87)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 31 January 1987 by spaf@gatech.edu]
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 these answers let spaf@gatech.edu know.
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 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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 rec.humor?
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. misc.misc or misc.wanted: 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
soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted.
9. sci.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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
You can obtain the source to a version of empire if you provide
a tape and SASE *plus* a photocopy of your Unix source license.
To obtain further info, contact mcnc!rti-sel!polyof!john.
You can also call John at +1 516 454-5191 (9am-9pm EST only).
11. comp.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. comp.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. soc.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the
newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen
not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post
articles about abortion at all.
14. soc.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. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for?
The acronym HASA originated with the Heathen and Atheistic SCUM
Alliance; the Hedonistic Asti-Spumante Alliance, Heroes Against
Spaghetti Altering, the Society for Creative Atheism (SCATHE),
SASA, SALSA, PASTA, and many others too numerous to mention all
followed. HASA started in talk.religion.misc and also turns up in
soc.singles, talk.bizarre, et al. because members post there too.
16. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space?
No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.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 (for example):
local 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
world Everywhere on Usenet in the 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.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."
21. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.?
See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10
(October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The
table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The
appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in
mod.map.
22. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ?
Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897, and
referred to the Committee on Canals "midst general cheerfulness."
The text states, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is
as five-fourths to four", which makes pi 3.2 (not 3), but there
are internal contradictions in the bill as well as contradictions
with reality. The author was a mathematical crank. The bill was
passed by the state House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled
by the state Senate, in part thanks to the fortuitious presence
on other business of a Purdue professor of mathematics.
For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the
article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7
#2, pp 69-72.
23. Where can I get the necessary software to get a "smart"
mail system running on my machine that will take advantage
of the postings in mod.map? (E.g., pathalias, smail, etc.)
There are a couple of packages available through the supporters of
the mod.sources archives. If sites next to you don't have what
you want, contact your nearest mod.sources archive, or the
moderator. Information on archive sites, and indices of
mod.sources back issues are posted regularly in mod.sources and
comp.sources.d.usenet@gatech.UUCP (04/01/87)
Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
[Most recent change: 11 February 1987 by spaf@gatech.edu]
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 these answers let spaf@gatech.edu know.
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 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 do "- (nf)" and "Orphaned Response" in an item's title mean?
It means that the item was created by "notesfiles," an alternative
netnews interface that some people prefer. If you want to find
out more you can contact uiucdcs!essick. The "(nf)" indicates that
the article was gatewayed into the regular news system by an old
version of news software; newer versions create header lines
showing the "notes" information rather than putting the "(nf)"
flag in the subject line.
This interface is also the source of "Orphaned Response" items.
The actual meaning of Orphaned Response has to do with the fact
that the "notesfiles" system groups messages by subject and only
stores one copy of the subject. Because of the way messages move
around on the net, sometimes they get out of order and "notes"
loses track of the subject. When this happens it fills in
"Orphaned Response" as a default subject. This is fixed in recent
versions of "notes" but not every site is running up-to-date
code (unfortunately).
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 rec.humor?
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. misc.misc or misc.wanted: 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
soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted.
9. sci.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 get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is
their right, have chosen not to make the sources available.
You can obtain the source to a version of empire if you provide
a tape and SASE *plus* a photocopy of your Unix source license.
To obtain further info, contact mcnc!rti-sel!polyof!john.
You can also call John at +1 516 454-5191 (9am-9pm EST only).
11. comp.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. comp.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. soc.women: What do you think about abortion?
Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for
soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought
up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the
newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen
not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post
articles about abortion at all.
14. soc.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. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for?
The acronym HASA originated with the Heathen and Atheistic SCUM
Alliance; the Hedonistic Asti-Spumante Alliance, Heroes Against
Spaghetti Altering, the Society for Creative Atheism (SCATHE),
SASA, SALSA, PASTA, and many others too numerous to mention all
followed. HASA started in talk.religion.misc and also turns up in
soc.singles, talk.bizarre, et al. because members post there too.
16. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space?
No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.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 (for example):
local 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
world Everywhere on Usenet in the world
If you hit return, you'll get the default, which is usually
"world.". 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.
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.
20. What is the origin of the name "grep"?
The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of
prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command
g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it
was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep."
According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it
stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print."
21. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.?
See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10
(October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The
table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The
appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in
mod.map.
22. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ?
Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897, and
referred to the Committee on Canals "midst general cheerfulness."
The text states, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is
as five-fourths to four", which makes pi 3.2 (not 3), but there
are internal contradictions in the bill as well as contradictions
with reality. The author was a mathematical crank. The bill was
passed by the state House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled
by the state Senate, in part thanks to the fortuitious presence
on other business of a Purdue professor of mathematics.
For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the
article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7
#2, pp 69-72.
23. Where can I get the necessary software to get a "smart"
mail system running on my machine that will take advantage
of the postings in mod.map? (E.g., pathalias, smail, etc.)
There are a couple of packages available through the supporters of
the mod.sources archives. If sites next to you don't have what
you want, contact your nearest mod.sources archive, or the
moderator. Information on archive sites, and indices of
mod.sources back issues are posted regularly in mod.sources and
comp.sources.d.