...randomness
See the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
...you
Assuming you are not sitting by yourself.
...Whitehead:
For those of you who are easily persuaded, please don't take this paragraph too seriously.
...wild
Actually, I have no idea if it was wild or not, this is just a guess.
...line.
A couple of notes on notation here. The delete key varies from keyboard to keyboard. Your delete key may be labeled DEL, DELETE, BACKSPACE, RUB, or RUBOUT. Also, <ctrl-W> means holding down the <ctrl> key and pressing W. Control <ctrl> character commands are not case sensitive, i.e. <ctrl-w> is equivalent to <ctrl-W>.
...typing
Portions of commands that are in square brackets, [ ], are optional.
...apropos
Typing apropos or man -k do the same thing.
...forgery.
This sentence is especially interesting because the number of letters in each word make up the constant pi to eight significant digits.
...absolute.
If these words don't make sense to you, you are either not paying attention or aren't reading this in order. I don't have a problem if you aren't reading this sequentially if you are willing to deal with some of this terminology ambiguity, but if you are struggling with the first problem, go back and reread section [*].
...baboon.
If you are attempting to open a connection with a computer outside of the domain, you will need to include the entire internet address. In this case it would be baboon.ecn.purdue.edu.
...guy
Throughout this paper guy is assumed to be gender neutral unless otherwise stated.
...them:
By event I mean one command line. This may be a single command, or it may include a number of commands in a pipeline, or whatever.
...following:
That is, if you talk to your television.
...messages.
Send me mail at c.c.taylor@ieee.org for more information on this service.
...Vi
Short for visual, but in keeping with the Unix mentality that any command longer than five characters isn't worth using, the command has been truncated to the first two letters.
...modes
Technically, there are three modes, but I have chosen to treat the command and line editor modes as one mode. The line editor commands are a carry-over from the ex line editor.
...included.
If the file does not exist, it will be created.
...thing
For the pureist, :wq and ZZ are not exactly the same. :wq always saves, whereas ZZ saves only if changes have been made since the last save.
...unaltered.
Using ' in d'q begins deleting text at the beginning of the line that the q mark is on. Using ` instead, i.e. d`q begins deleting text at the exact location of the mark. This holds for the yank command as well.
...delete
This works because :d is a line mode command that deletes the current line.
...enter:
The same could be accomplished by typing dG.
...mode.
Heavily borrowed from Vi Reference by Maarten Litmaath.
...mode.[+]
Warning: some vi versions don't support the more esoteric features described in this document.
...ignored.
An exception to this is if the last command on the line is a map[!] or ab command or a shell escape, a trailing comment is not recognized, but considered part of the command.

c.c.taylor@ieee.org