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avatar: n. [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.
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