Enter solution:
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1. ENIGMATIC REBUS (5, 4 9)
D R/T
I'm a pretty ugly guy,
Rather sluggish, dull and shy.
Quite a contrast with my wife:
She's attractive, full of life.
How did such a nerd like me
Marry such a DRT?
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
Relies on your knowing about a certain windowing system and the
programs it comes with.
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2. REVERSED METATHESIS (*2. *3, 5) (neither MW)
Hey TWO THREE, I've a program just for you:
No, not for TV, like the kind you do--
It's software by the folks from MIT
That's easier to use than A-B-C:
It emulates a VT102
And comes complete with all the fonts you see.
Now, how much would you pay? But wait, there's more...
FIVE also does a great 4014!
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
The pictures in the rubric are simply linked to the Web pages where I
found them, and they serve merely to provide some context for solvers.
And the link in the verse is also just meant to be helpful, not rubricious.
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3. ENIGMATIC REBUS (^2 ^2 ^5, ^6, 3 ^5)
Is fun,
But FOLKS I FOUND SURFING THE NET
Is better yet.
=XEMU Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
*1*1*1*1*1 (whose capitalization varies--this is how it appears in
The New Hacker's Dictionary, a good reference for many of
these puzzles, and available on-line as the
Jargon File) might be unfamiliar to PC / Mac types.
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4. PALINDROME (*1*1*1*1*1 4) (*1*1*1*1*1 not MW)
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
This rubric is something from the ugly world of MS-DOS.
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5. ENIGMATIC REBUS (4 4 3) (with apologies to Ernest Thayer)
C:\NAV\NAV C:\
LH /L:1,40384 C:\SCSI\MSCDEX.EXE /M:12
LH /L:0 C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE
set mouse=C:\Mouse
C:\Mouse\mouse
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
C:\DOS\DOSKEY
SET VIPERPATH=C:\VIPER
C:\VIPER\VPRMODE VESA
set ROOTDIR=c:
set TMPDIR=c:/tmp
c:\pctcp\ethdrv.exe
REM c:\pctcp\idrive
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H1 P300 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S
C:\SB16\SB16SET /P /Q
PATH C:\DOS;C:\BIN;C:;C:\MOUSE;C:\WINDOWS;
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Motown nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Gordy died at first, and Archer did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Iacocca had a chance to swing!
We'd put up even money, if they'd only let that THING."
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
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6. ENIGMATIC REBUS (5, *4 4) (*4 not MW)
U
My program just printed "Bus Error (core dumped)."
An ominous message, indeed.
But I am not wise, Mr. Ritchie, like you--
Enlighten me--what does this READ?
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
A completely true account
of my graduate student days. The Carnegie Mellon University Computer
Science Department has a legendary Coke machine on the third floor of
Wean Hall next to the old terminal room. It was one of the first
non-computer thingies anywhere to be hooked up to the Internet--you
could query its status (tell how many Cokes were inside and how cold
they were) by
"fingering"
coke+@cs.cmu.edu. Nowadays there's also a fancy (but
flaky) graphical
Web-based interface for it, not to mention quite a few other
Internet-accessible Coke machines. Anyway, Kernighan and Pike are
the authors of a classic book on programming under a certain
much-hated operating system, and you won't understand the rubric here
unless you have at least a smattering of C.
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7. ENIGMATIC REBUS (^8 ^7) (non-MW brand name)
/*
#define BUFSIZ 1024
*/
You may talk o' sippin' tea,
When you're writin' code in C
(Like Darjeeling, Lemon Lift, and HAVE YOU GOT IT),
But when pullin' an all-nighter
Every blister-fingered blighter
Needs a drink that packs a punch, and tea is not it.
Now in Pittsburgh's cloudy clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-hackin' in my office down in Wean,
The place I always went
When my energy was spent
Oh, machine, -chine, -chine!
Vendin' nectar full o' sugar and caffeine!
Every Kernighan and Piker,
Has your liquor as his ichor.
You're the hacker-picker-upper, Coke machine!
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
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8. REBUS (*4 ^3) (not MW)
Now surpassed by the X- and the Y-MP,
The world's costliest loveseat was surely the E.
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
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9. INTERLOCK (*8) (not MW; ONE, TWO not MW usage)
If you're using Windows *O*N*E
And you think that it's no fun,
Just press "TWO."
Then this page will go away.
Come again another day.
(Love that THROUGH.)
=QED, Boulder CO
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Enter solution:
For this one, you'll definitely need to know some C, or rather,
be familiar with the culture of C programming.
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10. PHONETIC REBUS (5, 5)
OHL
My very first program in C
Was void main() { printf("KEY!"); }
=QED, Boulder CO
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Enter solution:
10C doesn't quite believe the phonetics here, so try pronouncing the reading
with a Russian accent. You might want to read the verse that way, too.
And turning off link underlining in your browser might improve the effect.
At least this one doesn't have anything to do with computers...
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11. PHONIGMATIC REBUS (8)
.
Da, comrade, rubric here is small--I'm doubting you can read it.
But there is way to blow it up (please use it if you need it).
Is microprinting trick from Cold-War era when we Russians
Were forced to hide religious or political discussions.
Compared to situation then, our freedoms now are myriad;
We couldn't publish what we thought (except of course, by PERIOD).
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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Enter solution:
... but this one sure does.
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12. ENIGMATIC REBUS (8 4)
2
My laser printer seems possessed--
The symptoms are complex:
It spews out pages covered with
Obscenities in hex.
The printer daemon's running wild;
Now, what am I to do?
Should I put in a service call,
Or should I call a TWO?
=XEMU, Bridgewater NJ
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