While trying to clean PGP Desktop out of my Mac, I stumbled across a directory or file that was entitled F*** but without the asterisks to denote that 4-letter word for fornication. What?!? Was I reading my Mac Tiger directory listing right? I did delete one file but then stopped. What if…no, certainly not. It couldn’t be deliberate. I almost deleted all instances but then realized a lot of programs on my Mac might stop working.

I’d installed Google Desktop–having disabled Spotlight to get Quicksilver to work with command-space–and did a search on the 4-letter word I would hate to have appear on a work computer, much less my own Mac. Sure enough, over 90 instances of the word appeared, embedded in the coding. The violation looks like this:

/* This way doesn’t require any declaration for ANSI to f*** up. */

Note: Asterisks were inserted to protect delicate sensibilities…the actual word appears.

For a second there, I thought, “My Mac has been compromised, but how?” Of course I sent a tweet out and the reply came back quickly:

Thanks to Michael at http://www.edumacnation.com

Apparently, BFD Library began as a poor choice of words. What’s worse is that this word appears in the code for MAMP…

The acronym MAMP refers to a set of free software programs commonly used together to run dynamic web sites on servers running the Apple Macintosh operating system, Mac OS X. In general use, MAMP refers to a packaging of these technologies for development use by webEdition. This is a development environment, and not intended for general production use as a webserver.
Source: Wikipedia

So, be warned…when you install MAMP (and probably other open source stuff on your computer), you’re installing FILTH on your computer.

Ok, ok…I know I’m a prude but…what a surprise! On my way to find out if this appears on my windows and GNU/Linux installs, too!

Update: Now, what text editor would I use to do a mass find and replace on a Mac? Something like this but for the Mac.

2nd Update: Using TextWrangler, I updated F-word in MAMP application directory to the kindler “frack” from Battlestar Galactica. Everything appears to work fine. I’m a bit worried about running the same find and replace on the /opt directory. Thank goodness my Mac boots to UbuntuLinux, too!

var addthis_pub=”mguhlin”;

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