12 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
12 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>avatar</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../A.html" title="A"/><link rel="previous" href="automagically.html" title="automagically"/><link rel="next" href="awk.html" title="awk"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">avatar</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="automagically.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">A</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="awk.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="avatar"/><dt xmlns="" id="avatar"><b>avatar</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [in Hindu mythology, the incarnation of a god] </p></dd><dd><p> 1. Among people working on virtual reality and
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<a href="../C/cyberspace.html"><i class="glossterm">cyberspace</i></a> interfaces, an <span class="firstterm">avatar</span> is an icon or representation of a user
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in a shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on
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<a href="../M/MUD.html"><i class="glossterm">MUD</i></a>s. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. [CMU, Tektronix] <a href="../R/root.html"><i class="glossterm">root</i></a>,
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<a href="../S/superuser.html"><i class="glossterm">superuser</i></a>. There are quite a few Unix machines on
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which the name of the superuser account is ‘avatar’ rather than
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‘root’. This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who found
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the terms <span class="firstterm">root</span> and <span class="firstterm">superuser</span> unimaginative, and thought
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‘avatar’ might better impress people with the responsibility
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they were accepting.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="automagically.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../A.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="awk.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">automagically </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> awk</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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