Word: unix
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that stream down my computer screen. The ASCII characters on my screen don't look nearly as cool as the ones created by Warner Brothers. Nor do these characters represent anything close to an elaborate human prison designed by intelligent robots gone sour. But Keanu's Matrix is my Unix, and like my stolid friend, I can see what people are up to. Sort...
Almost everyone familiar with Unix knows that typing "who" at the fas% prompt will bring up a list of users on a given login machine. Typing "w" will display that same list, but it will also display what each of those users is doing at that very moment. We've all done it at one point. Those who haven't will most likely run to their computers...
True, these lines of green text are not all that informative. For one thing, they only report the specific Unix operations that the particular users on your login are performing at that particular moment in time. In other words, you get a long list of unfamiliar user names, each usually followed by the word "pine." On some rare occasions you might even see something as interesting as "telnet hollis." Or, if you get really lucky, someone might be running "ytalk" or "finger...
...probably never know the real answers. But that doesn't stop me from interpreting these fuzzy snapshots of digital activity. Using the wonderful Unix tools at my fingertips, I shamelessly extrapolate beyond the virtual realm, weaving intricate stories about semi-fictional characters I will never meet. I create elaborate personae based on three-line ".plan" files. I conjecture wild theories based on the geographic information garnered from "ph." In my fictional world, login information from "last" becomes nothing less than a complete roadmap of someone's daily schedule. And slowly, these 4-8 character user names develop personalities and plots...
...such convenient locales as the second floor of Sever, the first floor of Boylston and the basement of Emerson. It's gotten so easy to check e-mail on campus that a group of students shopping in Boston this summer were distraught when they couldn't find a Unix pew at which to secularly kneel...