October 23, 2003

Salt Lake 2002

A sampling of our photos from the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games is available in the new blogNation example Photo Album.

Posted by Bill at 01:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 06, 2003

Charlie Root

Someone asked why root is named "Charlie" in FreeBSD. Hope this helps.

From: "Kevin Oberman" 
Subject: Re: Why is root named "Charlie"? 
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 14:06:50 -0700  
To: Greg Lehey 
Cc: Dennis Jun , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 20 23:08:14 2001  

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 11:35:09 +0930
> From: Greg Lehey 
> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> 
> On Thursday, 19 July 2001 at 11:51:07 -0700, Dennis Jun wrote:
> > Just outta curiosity, anyone know why root is
> > named "Charlie"? I hope it's not in reference
> > to the BSD Daemon which some people incorrectly
> > refer to as "Chuckie." ;)
> 
> The most plausible thing I've heard is that it's a reference to a
> baseball player called Charlie Root.  I don't know if he really
> existed, but if he did, it would seem to fit.

Getting way too far off topic...

Not bad for someone not from the US! (Though I have no idea if Greg
may have lived in the US at some time.)

Charlie Root was a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs from about 1925
through about 1940. Career ERA of 3.59 and a lifetime record of 201
wins and 160 losses.

He was a steady, very durable performer for many years. Sadly, his
greatest claim to fame was giving up the "called shot" home run to
Babe Ruth in the 1932 World Series. He was also named the Cubs all
time right-handed pitcher in 1969 (and I'm not sure that any Cub since
69 has been better).

I assume that whoever came up with the name on the root account had
probably heard of the name from somewhere and used it as the name of
the root user. How many famous "Root"s are there, after all.

For those with any interest in baseball, here is more information about Babe's "called shot"...

The 1932 World Series is best remembered for Babe Ruth's "called shot".

In Game 3 of the Series, Ruth pointed his bat at Cub's pitcher Charlie Root and then belted a home run to center field. Debate has raged ever since about whether he actually "called" the homer, but the Ruthian legend has endured.

When asked about the called shot Ruth said. "Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ol' Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, but right now I want to settle all agruments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride out the park anywhere."

Posted by Bill at 10:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBack