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Internet Oracularities #64

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64, 64-01, 64-02, 64-03, 64-04, 64-05, 64-06, 64-07, 64-08, 64-09, 64-10


Usenet Oracularities #64
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 22 Nov 89 19:53:49 GMT

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64-01
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Ho, where de plank road?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Ho, where the fucking plank road is,
}     Yo, ho, blow the squid down
} There my fucking escape from the muck is,
}     Yo, ho, the squid's gone to town.
} There will go tramp I all shoeless and bootless
}     Yo, ho, blow the squid down
} And so ye shall find me all stark and computeless,
}     Yo, ho, the squid's made me drown.
} And there will you catch me five crayons and bad tidings,
}     Yo, ho, blow the squid down,
} And we will all eat them with blackings and whitings,
}     Yo, sir, keep your squid off my gown!


64-02
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Why don't Touch-Tone phones play proper musical notes?  Is it to keep
> people from playing tunes on them?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Fal-la-la-la-la (533312)
} Fal-la-la-la-la (531212)
} The phone makes such sweet noise (723512)
} The phone makes sweet sweet sound (723521)
} Fal-La-La-La-La (533312)
} Oh listen to its sweet ring-a-ding (63984323)
} Its ring-a-ding-a-day (533312)
} Oh hear its sweet sharp bleeping (9237855)
} Each ring-y-ding-y-day (533312)


64-03
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> What famous person is quoted as saying, "I'll clean the lint out of your
> navel anytime!"

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} This was Madonna's response to Clint Eastwood's famous quote,
} "Go ahead, make my day."
}
} This was also Madonna's response when President Regan repeated
} this same quote.


64-04
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Can I have a net.goddess for Christmas? Huh? Can I? Huh? Just one?
> OpleaseOpleaseOpleaseOplease? I been good all year! pleasepleaseplease?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} My! Aren't we an eager one!
}
} Well I must say that you were very good this year.
}
} However, the records dept. has brought something to my
} attantion.  The following is an excerpt from the
} official Records Of Human Existance.
}
}       May 21, 1989
}       3:34 pm
}
}       Subject #RNH1245EX4711Z (That is you.) was driving
}       an auto, and blew the auto's horn to acknowledge
}       a friend passing in the other direction.  This noise
}       disturbed the white poodle Bitzy, belonging to
}       Subject #FHR2365RT3873H (Mrs. Elenore Jenkins),
}       when the dog was in the act of excretion.  Let the
}       record show that the Bitzy was never again able
}       to go out side, let alone take a crap.  The dog
}       died nine days later.
}
} As you can see, there may be some difficuly in sending you
} a net.goddess for Christmas.  But I'll try to pull some strings
} for you since you said please, and I despise poodles.


64-05
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> O knowledgeable one, which is better, length or width? And I am not
> referring to the size of a baseball bat either.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You are so grossly mistaken, my imagination fails to find words for my
} contempt.  The better one is of course depth.
}
} You owe the oracle 'The TeX book'.


64-06
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

>  Why are people constantly putting up messages saying:'Kill the Oracle!'
> Did you rape someone?Pillage a village?Rob a bank?Why do these angry
> mobs want you dead?Why?WHY?!?!?!Tell me!!You're hiding something from
> us,aren't you!?!?!?!?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oh questor of periphery knowledge:
}
} Ever read Greek plays?  Remember Cassandra?  She could tell the future,
} but no one would listen to her and eventually killed her.
} I would like to say that this is why I am hated, but, alas, such is not
} the case.
} The truth is this...
} Deep in the unprobed subconscious of every child is the knowledge that
} I, The Oracle, am responsible for ever one of those Malted Milk Balls
} (Whoppers too)  that have nothing in the middle but air.
} It is this secret knowledge that all children have that surfaces at the
} name of the oracle, and while they don't know why, they find hatred
} within themselves.
} Why do I sabotage innocent Malt Balls?
} Well, now that's another story...
}
}  In confession,
}                   The Oracle.


64-07
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Why O Oracle, is "Password:" capitalized, but "login:" not?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} A fascinating question.  I asked Ken Thompson, who is Lisa's current
} love slave, and he related the following story:
}
} He and Dennis were hacking away at the password code one night when a
} drunken, misguided college student staggered into the terminal room and
} said, "Dudes!  Where's the party?" Ken, who thought he'd heard "Where's
} the parity", handed over his last parity bit, which happened to be the
} one for the "p" in "password".  (It was naturally in lower case.) This
} changed it to a "P", and the rest is history.
}
} You owe the oracle a more interesting question.  Oh, and a beer.  I just
} had four boxes of chips (80386's), and they were SALTY.


64-08
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Is it true that sometimes, late a night, Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritche,
> Ken Thompson, and all those other guys, get together over a few beers
> and make sarcastic comments like "Unix?  Yeah, I guessss it's a good
> idea Dennis!" and generally sit around being incredibly smug about this
> whole Unix/C thing?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yes, but the smug remarks are just a cover.  When they get home, they
} work on the language D and the operating system Binix, which will make
} them millionaires by the end of 1992.  They're also hacking away at
} Y-windows (1995) and Fmacs (1997).


64-09
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Why do I so often forget on which side of the building I've parked my
> bike?  In about 75 % of the cases, I go out through the wrong exit, and
> have either to go back in and take the other exit (which feels
> ridiculous) or to go around the entire physics department (which *is*
> ridiculous).

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Fear not, and take comfort:  it is because you are destined to be a
} Great Scientist.  Only the truly great ones are this forgetful.  Bohr
} frequently forgot who his wife was.  Fermi used to fill his cup with hot
} coffee in the morning and wonder how it had gotten so cold so quickly
} when he remembered to take a sip in the afternoon.  Gauss kept
} forgetting how to have sex, and his wife had to show him again about one
} time in three.  Newton couldn't remember if he was heterosexual or
} homosexual, and kept buggering Colin Maclaurin, finding each time that
} he didn't really enjoy it very much and therefore must be straight.
}
} Forgetting about your bicycle indicates a talent high in the second rank
} of scientists -- Nobel Prize caliber, if you're lucky.  But actually you
} will be one of the greats, because of that little problem you haven't
} admitted -- you keep forgetting how to put on a condom.


64-10
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> O great Oracle, last night I had to replace the cranks on my bicycle.
> As you know, the left hand crank is held in place by a left-handed
> screw.  I couldn't find a matching left-hand screw so I used a
> right-handed one instead.  As I ride the bicycle now, will my left leg
> fall off?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} No, but be careful about all that left-handed screwing.  There's
} something sinister about it unless you are ambisexterous.


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