What a {guru} does when you ask him or her to run a particular
program and type at it because it never works for anyone else; esp.
used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from
what J. Random Luser does. Compare {incantation}, {runes}, {examining
the entrails}; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight in Some AI Koans
(in Appendix A).
A correspondent from England tells us that one of ICL's most talented
systems designers used to be called out occasionally to service
machines which the {field circus} had given up on. Since he knew the
design inside out, he could often find faults simply by listening to
a quick outline of the symptoms. He used to play on this by going to
some site where the field circus had just spent the last two weeks
solid trying to find a fault, and spreading a diagram of the system
out on a table top. He'd then shake some chicken bones and cast them
over the diagram, peer at the bones intently for a minute, and then
tell them that a certain module needed replacing. The system would
start working again immediately upon the replacement.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {rain dance}{runes}{wave a dead chicken}]