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avatar
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avatar /n./ Syn. 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 disliked the term
`superuser', and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at
Tektronix.
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