On 21 Feb 2003 18:49:14 -0800
Justin Hopper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello zerotransfer,
>
> I've always enjoyed religious debates, but the list probably tires of
> them, and if we keep this up, one of the list admins will probably tell
> us to 'take it outside'. But as a final followup, there are sacred
> numbers in every religion, as far as I know, and if we in the IT sector,
> which is very number heavy, paid attention to what superstition somebody
> may hold with a certain number, our jobs would become ever more
> complicated.
In Japanese, the word shi ("she") means 4 and death. This is the basis for
the custom of never giving a gift of four things. Tea cup and sake cup
sets always come with five cups, so that the giver does not wish death
upon the recipient. I suppose that setting a file's permissions to
-rw-r--r- (644) gets a laugh when thought of as read-write kill kill;
reminds me of some USENET news group names. Except those prefered die-die,
and in Japanese dai means big.
Programmers often use certain patterns to indicate dummy data. I was
taught to use nines for that. In the handbook, I might have used
*default host=cvsup999.FreeBSD.org
It does not take a leap of faith to presume that the author uses 666 where
I would use 999, with no offense intended regardless of race, creed, or
color.
--
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_/ Gary Dunn _/
_/ Open Slate Project _/
_/ http://openslate.sourceforge.net/ _/
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_/ Honolulu _/
_/ registered Linux user #273809 _/
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_/ This tagline is umop apisdn. _/
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