A Web Treasure Hunt
1. Can TeX Add Numbers? (Initially this makes sense.) If
you Look through you will find info. If you're lshort on
time, reading this will help you in the long run, no matter
which language you speak. Who is the main author here?
Tobias Oetiker. The web site is Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
(CTAN), the initial letters of the nonsense
question. "Look through" used to be the wording if you wanted
to search for files (CTAN adopted a much-improved interface midway
through the contest, and this wording is no longer there).
One of the file directories in the initial search is "info",
and one of the directories there was "lshort". This directory
contains Tobias Oetiker's A (Not So) Short Introduction to
LaTeX2e, translated into several languages.
2. A well-known scientist (whose name contains a Latin
lion) dropped the ball here. (It was a big day for
gravity.) Four centuries later a leaning lion will host a
meeting here on what date?
October 22, 2005. The clue refers to Galileo's famous
experiment where he dropped objects from the Tower of Pisa.
The Italian TeX Users Group will
host (hosted) a conference in Pisa
this fall. Their web site logo for the conference has a lion leaning
on the tower.
3. 
Some pictures can be pulled down. There you will find a
curious cabinet containing a mirror image of the site
owner's name. What is the date below?
1979. The pictogram refers to Don Knuth's Web
Site (1024 (K) +
'nut' + h). One of the links on his home page is
"Downloadable Graphics" (pictures that can be pulled down).
On this page is a link to "Don & Jill's Cabinet of
Curiosities" where you will find his name and the date 1979
below.
4. He wrote a divinely comedic book. The group which
uses his name holds local meetings for regulars (and beer
is served!). What are these gatherings called?
Stammtische. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy, and the
web site is German speaking - DANTE e.V.. Their home page can
be viewed in either German or English, and one of the links
there is Local TeX Meetings (``Stammtische'').
5. It's August without the gold. What's the name of the
lakeside resort where the annual meeting is held and where
this photo was taken?
(Extra credit: supply a caption for this photo.)
Bachotek. If you take the gold (Au) out of August, 'gust'
remains. The web site is Poland - GUST. Their
annual meeting is held at the Bachotek resort, which is part of
Nicolas Copernicus University.
Some captions:
Without a \glue. -- Klaus Hoeppner
Oh dear, where did we hide Jacko's guitar. -- Barbara
Beeton
You mean it wouldn't compile just because of the math symbols
in the section title? -- Joy Morris
6. This year is the 400th anniversary of a famous novel
about two wanderers in La Mancha. A modern-day group uses
the author's name, with a xmall alteration. Which
anniversary are they celebrating?
Fifth or sixth. Cervantes' famous novel was first
published in 1605, 400 years ago. The Spanish TeX Users,
CervanTeX, founded in 1999, are celebrating their sixth
anniversary this year. (Their web site announces that
they are celebrating their fifth anniversary, so either fifth
or sixth is OK.)
7. An untangled Chain is holding 
At the end of your Travel you may want to see some sites.
What is the One Soup here?
Any or all of the Wuhan, China sites. The web site is the
Chinese TeX Users Group ('Chain' is an anagram or 'tangle' of
'China'). On the conference home page, which features the
chinese characters shown, there is a link to 'Travel'. At the
bottom of this page is an invitation to visit three sites,
which the people of Wuhan call the 'two courses and one
soup'. (I figured, wrongly, that the soup was East Lake. It
turns out that in Chinese parlance the phrase 'two courses and one soup' means a
complete set.)
8. Ask our friend with one and a hundred zeros about
latex errors and he will suggest an artistic way of solving
your problem. What special character is at #5?
Dollar sign ($). The web site is Google. If you type in "latex errors"
the first match is the artofproblemsolving.com site. The
fifth common error they give is 'Missing $ inserted'.
Photo in clue #5 (c)Wojciech Myszka
