casting the runes

casting the runes n.  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 "{AI Koans}"
   (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.