avatar n. Syn.
[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.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
(Sanskrit avatāra, literally: "descent", usually translated as "incarnation")
In hindu mythology, the appearance of a deity on Earth in human or animal form. This is not a reincarnation; rather, it is the voluntary assumption by the deity of physical form.
The phenomenon is particularly associated with the god Vishnu. Most famous of his avatars are Rama, the protagonist of the great epic Ramayana, and Krishna, one of the most popular deities of the hindu pantheon.
In the religious/philosophical didactic poem Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna explains the concept thus:
"Every time justice wanes and injustice waxes, I create myself anew. In each age, I am born again to protect the good, to destroy the wicked and to restore justice."
In Ultima series, the player's very own character's title.
There's some clashing information in the canon Ultima games who the Avatar actually is. The introduction of Ultima IV clearly implies that Avatar is just some random guy from the Earth and has no idea about the previous games. However, later parts of the series imply that the Stranger from the stats (the player in the previous three games) and the Avatar are, in fact, the same person. Which is pretty unusual because U1-3 also had non-Human races...
The Avatar lives on Earth, and apparently has fairly normal ways of spending free time, as can be seen in the intros to Ultima VI, Ultima VII, and Ultima IX (aside of the fact that the Avatar isn't even supposed to be on Earth in the beginning of U9)... and gets to the world of Britannia through moongates that appear when the world needs their hero again.
The Avatar, by appearance, is customizable so the character more or less looks like what you look like - this in the games that had good enough graphics to represent it, that is, Ultima VI, VII and SI, and Ultima Underworld 1 and 2. Basically, you can choose the sex and hair color. (In previous parts, you could only choose the sex.)
In the games, the style of Avatar's character is always the same: Usually chain mail (you can, of course, pick other armoring) with white coat over it, with yellow Ankh symbol on front and back. I think he got this cool outfit after truly becoming the Avatar, embodiment of the Eight Virtues, after Ultima IV...
However, this changed in Ultima VIII. In the game, Avatar was always male (IIRC also black-haired). This didn't matter much because you was always in armor and had a fully closed helmet, so Mario Avatar was not "emotionally attachable". This was one of the reasons why U8 wasn't that hot.
In Ultima IX, Origin used what's often affectionately called "Aryan Avatar" (white blond male). In this game, it was not possible to choose the sex or hair color either, even when the game was, according to those who played it, just a tiny bit bit better Ultima-wise than U8.
Avatar is a screenplay by James Cameron.
Earth is dying. Plagued by more than 20 billion humans who have destroyed its ecosystem, the Earth will cease oxygenating the atmosphere in less than three centuries. The oceans are dead - made lifeless and toxic by centuries of abuse. Mankind survives through technology alone: genetically engineered plants and fungi keep us on the brink of starvation and extinction.
Hoping for miracles, a group known as the Consortium, backed by manufacturing heavyweights, operates an ambitious long-distance colony project to our neighbour solar system, Alpha Centauri. There, orbiting the gas giant Prometheus, is Pandora, an M class alien world ripe for the plundering.
A strange metal energised by the magnetic feilds of Prometheus is the principal object of the Consortium's foray into deep space mining: this superconductor promises to revolutionise computing and space travel (while netting their backers trillions, of course.)
The problem is the planet. Its atmosphere is toxic hydrogen cyanide, for a start. But the plant an animal life is totally alien, and highly dangerous. A native pathogen has killed off the human cold and flu strains that the colonists have brought with them, and this 'cure' is currently being pushed through the FDA for approval in a year - a wonder drug like this is a tasty spin-off for the Consortium. But the forest is full of very nasty critters: plants and animals that could kill a human in an instant: each of them is beautiful, but deadly.
There is an aboriginal population as well: the Na'avi, a peaceful, nomadic society of catlike humanoids. They have an advanced spoken language and posess a great deal of knowlege about the world and its animal and vegetable inhabitants. They're vital to the Consortium as well, as they will be the slave labour that will build their factories. (It costs a lot to run the colony, and the Consortium doesnt want to fork out to send thousands of workers and tons of equipment).
Fortunately for everyone, the Na'avi happen to be genetically compatible with humans. Human genetic engineers combine their genome with our own, creating a hybrid. Here's the interesting part: they take the genes of a living person (called a Controller) and combine them with Na'avi genetics to create the hybrid, which is called an Avatar. The hybrids are implanted with some kind of biological control chip. Then, the Controller 'rides' the Avatar's body from a distance via a Psionic link. It is hoped that the Avatars will serve as the means for the Consortium to turn the Na'avi into a slave society to build their factories.
Set within this richly detailed world, James Cameron's story follows the tale of a paralysed, ex-Marine Controller who is thrown into the mix as he hasnt been training for years - he is picked up in a mix-up between him and his twin brother. Josh treats his real life as a dream and his life as his Avatar becomes his waking existence. As he grows closer to the forest and the Na'avi he forgets his human life, and the ineveitable confrontation between him, his Na'avi family and the Consortium looms just out of view...
James Cameron has talked about Avatar in numerous interviews. He envisages it using CGI actors, Gollum-style - and says he needs $300 million to make it a reality.
An enhanced version of ANSI screen codes.
Back in the old days of text-based bulletin board systems (BBSs), most of them used ANSI codes to change text colour, do basic animations and of the like. However, these increased the amount of data to transfer quite significantly.
Avatar was an alternative set of codes that could be used to do the same thing. However, the codes themselves were shorter, and it also included some basic codes to handle run length encoding of character streams - so rather than having, say, 40 As in the text (ie 40 bytes), you'd have a short code which says "repeat this 40 times" followed by the "A".
There were many programs (such as TheDraw) which could save screens in both ANSI and Avatar format, and also utilities to convert between the two. Of course, you needed to use terminal software that would recognise the codes... ANSI was pretty well universal, Avatar less so. I believe that some BBSs could store copies of all your graphical files in both formats, deduce what your client supported and send the appropriate ones.
Av`a*tar" (?), n. [Skr. avatara descent; ava from + root t to cross, pass over.]
1. Hindoo Myth.
The descent of a deity to earth, and his incarnation as a man or an animal; -- chiefly associated with the incarnations of Vishnu.
2.
Incarnation; manifestation as an object of worship or admiration.
© Webster 1913.
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