Notes on  AVATAR 

[in Hindu mythology, the incarnation of a god]

1. Among people working on virtual reality and CYBERSPACE
interfaces, an avatar is an icon or representation of a user in a
shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on MUDs.

2. [CMU, Tektronix] ROOT, SUPERUSER. There are quite a few Unix
machines on which the name of the superuser account is `avatar'
rather than `root'. This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who
found the terms root and superuser unimaginative, and thought
`avatar' might better impress people with the responsibility they
were accepting.

J3N Research Labs

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