~ Riddles, challenges and elusive arrows ~
Published @ www.searchlores.org in Febuary 2004
(Version 0.01: February 2004)
A challenge for Richard Stallman
by fravia+
This will be transformed into a full-fledged essay when readers will provide some invaluable feedback.
Like-minded souls are encouraged to send further discoveries to the addresses of the responsibles, listed elsewhere on this site.
Yesterday my [friend]
Richard Stallman was wondering if "our" search techniques do really apply "on the field", when you really need something concrete.
I told him that, often enough, when I am challenged during a workshop to find something "concrete" on the fly, I miserably fail and bring discredit to
our seeking confraternity :-)
But I also told him that, given enough time (may the gods pardon my hubris) I would
indeed be able to find what he was looking for, provided that the "concrete" target itself could be digitized, duh.
He promptly asked me to find a old song of the 'seventies. He did not know who sang it (but he told me the singer was a woman), he
did not know but some snippets of the text, and he could not even be sure that those snippets were correct.
I'll give my readers the SAME elements I started with, not one more and not one less.
As I believe you will notice, and as I found out after one hour, this search is far from being a trivial one.
Of course a wizard seeker will now prove me wrong and show us all how to get quickly to
the elusive arrow that will nail this target and solve the quest.
1) "walk down the sidewalk"
RMS: "Could also be go instead of walk, uh"
2) "fade in" & "fade out"
RMS: "The words were... yes: fade in and fade out
3) "every time i think i know what it's all about"
RMS: "More or less... yes I think. It was it's and not it is, I am sure"
4) "crack"
RMS: "Definitely: the word crack was in there"
5) "it's me, no doubt"
RMS: "Yes, I think there was it's me, no doubt in the text as well, I am fairly sure"
6) The seventies (1970-1980)
7) A woman was singing
"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels"
Saint Ignucius explaining --yesterday evening -- the fundaments of the emacs religion to
a nice EU politician
(c) III Millennium: [fravia+], all rights
reserved