Curiously, the perl.com Scriptome article you referenced was written by reformed golfer Amir Karger ... who was a significant contributor to perhaps the largest and most unreadable collection of Perl one liners ever created: the Terje/mtv pdf book of Perl Golf. ;-) You don't want to go there. No, really you don't ... but if you do, you might also be interested in cog's eskimo greeting and other secret operators. :-)