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Date:      Fri, 21 Feb 2003 23:00:39 -1000
From:      Gary Dunn <knowtree@aloha.com>
To:        Justin Hopper <jhopper@spry.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Cvsup Handbook Example
Message-ID:  <20030221230039.418fd71d.knowtree@aloha.com>
In-Reply-To: <1045882154.22999.730.camel@home.gusalmighty.com>
References:  <20030221211520.88E0A43FE9@mx1.FreeBSD.org> <1045882154.22999.730.camel@home.gusalmighty.com>

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On 21 Feb 2003 18:49:14 -0800
Justin Hopper <jhopper@spry.com> 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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