From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 13 14:03:32 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A6C916A4CE for ; Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:03:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from merke.itea.ntnu.no (merke.itea.ntnu.no [129.241.7.61]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B0AEE43D2D for ; Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:03:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from svein.h@lvor.halvorsen.cc) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by merke.itea.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5AF7B13C7CE for ; Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:03:27 +0100 (CET) Received: from maren.thelosingend.net (maren.math.ntnu.no [129.241.211.48]) by merke.itea.ntnu.no (Postfix) with SMTP for ; Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:03:27 +0100 (CET) Received: (qmail 68184 invoked by uid 1001); 13 Mar 2005 14:03:09 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 13 Mar 2005 14:03:09 -0000 Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:03:09 +0100 (CET) From: Svein Halvor Halvorsen X-X-Sender: sveinhal@maren.thelosingend.net To: Fafa Diliha Romanova In-Reply-To: <20050313104132.A5CA04BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <20050313142855.I67860@maren.thelosingend.net> References: <20050313104132.A5CA04BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Content-Scanned: with sophos and spamassassin at mailgw.ntnu.no. cc: "Loren M. Lang" cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stupid ASCII loader prompt X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:03:32 -0000 * Fafa Diliha Romanova [2005-03-13 05:41 -0500] > > It's not a demon, but a daemon. > > demon > n 1: one of the evil spirits of traditional Jewish and Christian > belief [syn: {devil}, {fiend}, {daemon}, {daimon}] Firstly, I'd like to say that you of course are free to remove the "devil" if it offends you. But that beeing said; the fact that the word "deamon" (or "demon" for that matter) is used in some contexts to mean something evil, does not necessarily make the word (or the image of it) evil too. It's all about what connotation you put on the word. E.g. to make a file world read-writable you would type "chmod 666 file". Even though the number 666 is the number of the devil, the number itself is not evil. Just as little as the command is evil, or someone who types it. It's just a number. Put whatever meaning into it you like! (If, on the other hand, you would put the number inside a pentagram written in blood on some dark stone alter, I would not think the number was meant to be harmless by the writer.) Originally "daemon" just meant something like "spirit". Then it became a certain kind (an evil one) of spirit in some religions. In other places and other contexts (i.e. the FreeBSD community, et.al) that transformation does however not hold true! This makes it irrelevant to bring up these dictionary "definitions", as they both are all equally true and false. The dictionary does not define a language, it describes it's use. If "deamon" in some groups is used to mean "evil spirit", while in others to mean spirit as in "servant", they are both true! However, noone can deny the fact that Beastie *could* be interpreted as an image of something evil, and that it often does. One should therefore be careful when using the Beastie before an audience you don't know. (That beeing said, one could never be guaranteed not to offend anyone. The apple could easily be thought of as a symbol of the original sin. And the window I'm sure could also be interpreted in some way that would offend someone. This is especially true for words and names, where a word could means something completely different in two languages.) Svein Halvor