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Diabolically Arcane

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Where It's @

8 March, 2016

This week marks a perfect storm for a certain Brainstorm theme. The tempest centres upon that curly-tailed monkey on your keyboard known as the at-symbol.

In case you missed the news, US networker and designer Ray Tomlinson (pictured) died on Sunday night. Ray is the maestro behind the beloved dingus, a key tool in online connections, not to mention grocery signs. Here's an excellent obituary of the creator.

Meanwhile, separate from punctuation news, our own SK crafted a clue for the weekly word in MUSKEG, opting for this tack: 

Smug eccentric admits filming Kate Moss here

Note the boundary-pushing in the wordplay, where an eccentric SMUG 'admits' K-at-E. That's right, in this @-rich world, MATE is another way of saying ME, while LOCATE translates as LOCE, and so on.

Question being, do you think the device is kosher? Love to hear your verdict.

Second question: who can make the best clue using this nifty tool? Choose any topic, though bonus points for focusing on computing culture. Though really, feel free to take as much l@itude as you wish. For example: 

HARDWARE - Computer and printer, say, had raw rate adjusted

LOWER - Observe water in sink

ROTOR - Rotator?!

Got the formul@ion? The game should make for a r@tling m@ch!

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Riddledom Rave

If you missed my riddle chat with Richard Fidler, then feel free to slurp the podcast at http://ab.co/1I9t1x5

Text-speak is creeping into Scrabble. Where do you sit?
OBVS I'm fine with it
Entrenched stuff - like LOL and OMG - but no more.
Words With Friends, maybe. Scrabble, no
Let the 'real' dictionaries decide first
Just the handy stuff, like FAQ and EUW
I mean, WTF?! No way
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