Every year I check out the ICFP problem statement to see if anyone can match the delightfulness of the ICFP 2006 Challenge (The "Cult of the Bounds Variable": http://www.boundvariable.org/).

It looks like they may have done it this year. Seeing the images of the cards with illustrations was when I really knew this year would be special.

The only thing this lacks compared to 2006 IMO is the replayability aspect. The 2006 format is a binary image that you download and explore, and when you solve puzzles it awards you points. This is an AI that pits you against fellow competition members, which is cool but doesn't have the same exploration/discovery aspect.

The S and K combinators are simply referred to here as S and K, but the pictures of them resemble a Starling and a Kestrel respectively. This is surely a reference to Raymond Smullyan's To Mock A Mockingbird, a ... unique ... book in which combinators are personified (avified?) as birds.

Although I had stumbled upon the S and K combinators with Unlambda (http://www.madore.org/~david/programs/unlambda/) I didn't know about Smullyan's book and this related paper by Keenan (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~cs655/readings/mockingbird.html)

Sure seems like an interesting contest this year even though I didn't people still cared about Magic: the Gathering.

raganwald has some nice thoughts and code devotes to our feathered friends.

https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2008-10-...

When I first glanced over this I read "ICP Programming Contest Started" and tried to imagine JuggaloCode.

  #include <magnets.howdotheywork>
  #include <hatchet>

  gettin ill{
     holla{"RAINBOWS N SHIT"}
  }

I died a little inside typing all of that.