The obfuscated code in the advert is a tiny ETA interpreter wizarded by Stephen Sykes in 2004—it took him two years to refactor off the last 81 bytes!

Here’s the code nicely printed:

 i=*$<;_=a=$==-1;i[_].scan(/\w/){!p='htaoinse'=~$&or
 a<0?i<<eval(%w^,>0?i.slice!(a-p):i[p+a] ,,==0||(_=c-2;break), _+2
 ,utc(p), getc||a a=0, ,,-c ,,;i<<p/c;p%c^[p].gsub',',';c,p=p,i.pop
 p'):a=p>6?i<<a&&~0:a*7+p}until(_+=1)/$.!=0

Look for the ensuing flamewar over the wrongness of this all on ruby-talk. Obfuscation still pops up as a controversy. If you let stuff like obfuscated Ruby get under your bonnet, uh.. well.. why is it that you’re wearing a bonnet again?? (whoops, via ~matz.)