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Internet Oracularities #1020

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1020, 1020-01, 1020-02, 1020-03, 1020-04, 1020-05, 1020-06, 1020-07, 1020-08, 1020-09, 1020-10


Internet Oracularities #1020    (88 votes, 3.0 mean)
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 09:01:35 -0500 (EST)

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Let us know what you like!  Send your ratings of these 10 Oracularities
on an integer scale of 1 ("very poor") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to this
message).  For example:
   1020
   2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

1020  88 votes gosc8 aAkj3 5jvp8 icrn8 aGn67 5fwqa 9hjud 4dtse 2ptma dmir8
1020  3.0 mean  2.7   2.6   3.1   2.9   2.5   3.2   3.2   3.4   3.1   2.9


1020-01    (gosc8 dist, 2.7 mean)
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

>      Orrie, baby! How's it hangin'?
>
>      Lissen, Orrie, got me a problem, thought "hey, who's best at
>      problems -- Orrie, right? Yeah! I'll ask Orrie!" So, have your
>      people call my people, lemme know what y'think. Here's the deal,
>      m'man: this Titanic flick was great, so now, guess what, big
>      surprise, they want a sequel.  And it's got to have that Lenny
>      Deprecio whatshisname, the kid from the first one, in it.
>
>      So he snuffed it in the first one, no problemo, guys come back
>      from the dead all the time. What I need to know, and you're the
>      guy who knows, is what kinda disaster can I do to top all this
>      other stuff?  Volcanos have been done, asteroids and comets are
>      all gonna be done, so what kinda big effects should I be looking
>      for, and how should Theo Radiccio whatshisname bite it this time?
>
>      Ciao, baby! Luvya.
>
>      Jim C

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Simple. Have the picture produced by Kevin Costner.
}
} You owe the Oracle a rubber raft.


1020-02    (aAkj3 dist, 2.6 mean)
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

> Oh, Oracle Mostly Wise, please answer this humble supplicant and
> enlighten me on a very important matter (if I can judge it myself).
>
> I was reading the Selfish Gene book from Richard Dawkins and got
> increasingly scared. Is it true that we are no more than just machines
> built by our genes so that they can reproduce? If so, what are they up
> to now?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oracle: Well, as near as our 'recon' department can tell
}       us, we believe that they are-
}
} (crashed, bombs exploding, screams.)
}
} Strange Voice: Resting. Doing absolutly nothing. Honest.
}       By the way... have you thought about maybe
}       starting a hostile takeover bid-I mean Marriage?
}
} You owe the "Oracle" some more cookies, for these
} selfish fat-genes! Mwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!!


1020-03    (5jvp8 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

>   Oracle, you are innovative and cutting edge! You contain general
>   background information on joyous activities! You are just like
>   thoughts emerging from a void into a non-void! Please answer my
>   humble question that I address to you from the floor before you;
>
>   What shape is time? Is it a line that starts at one point and
>   ends at another? Or does it start at a point and go on forever?
>   Or is it a circle? Or what?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Actually, time has shape in much the same way that a point has volume,
} only the other way around.  This may sound lame, but I'm reduced to
} metaphors here, much the same way you would be in trying to explain
} color to a person blind from birth.  And the universe is stranger than
} you can see.
}
} Well, because I like your grovel, I'll try again.  If the extant of
} time were perceived as a shape by someone with mortal senses, it would
} "look" like ...  <squints>
}
} ... a cream-filled doughnut.  With sprinklies on top.
}
} You owe the Oracle a signed copy of a book by Douglas Hofstadter
} explaining Feynman Integrals in terms that Homer Simpson can
} understand.


1020-04    (icrn8 dist, 2.9 mean)
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

> Oracle, you are like a paradise without snakes or their eyes...
>
> I heard they have totally re-designed Purgatory... is this so?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yes, but since it is now a Microsoft product, you can expect some
} considerable delays in getting a release.


1020-05    (aGn67 dist, 2.5 mean)
Selected-By: Rich McGee <rmcgee@wiley.csusb.edu>

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

> Oh Oracle, I hope you will see fit to enter into my limited mortal
> knowledge base, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and
> embrace Truth, I seek answers Oracle Most Wise, from you.
>
> Jockeys -and- boxers?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} With a question like that, I don't know why you need to be inebriated.
} You obviously already are.  Not even a decent grovel. *SIGH*  Oh well.
} Here goes.
}
} Just because jockey shorts are called jockey shorts, that doesn't mean
} jockeys can't wear boxers.  Therefore, it's completely feasable to find
} jockeys and boxers existing peacefully.  I mean even short guys who
} ride horses like a little freedom, if you know what I mean.
}
} You owe the Oracle a decent grovel and a 1.75 liter bottle of good
} irish whiskey..


1020-06    (5fwqa dist, 3.2 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> O Oracle who is wiser than Owl and Eeyore combined, who knows where the
> North Pole is located in the Hundred Acre Wood, and knows how to catch
> Heffalumps.  This supplicant of very little brain has a question:
>
> Why did Disney do that to A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard's work, and what
> divine punishment is being wrought on him even as I ask this question?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Bad news, Supplicant.  Since Walt is in cryonic suspension, he's not
} dead yet, technically-- and thus his case has yet to come up before
} the Judge of the Dead.  Milne himself is hopping mad, but all the
} Trinity can do is point out that the Disney corporation IS defending
} the copyright aggressively.
}
} This will have unusual effects down the road.  Around 2050, ten years
} after immunology work finally defeats HIV and the various hemorrhagic
} fevers, Western culture experiences one of its periodic shifts towards
} widespread sexual activity.  Unfortunately, only a few years pass
} before casual oral sex becomes a vector for a new spongiform
} encephalopathy prion.  The CDC responds with its usual public
} education blitz, licensing the Pooh character from Disney for a series
} of ads built around the slogan, "Eat honey, not honey pots."  Around
} 2100, Pooh becomes a kitsch sex figure-- similar to Bettie Page's
} current status-- and festishists go so far as to have semipermanent
} elective surgery to LOOK like Pooh.
}
} Disney gives up and drops the copyright around 2110; by then, the
} popular image of Pooh and his friends bears as little resemblence to
} Milne's original as vampire Goths currently bear to Stoker's original
} Dracula.  By 2165, Pooh is remembered only in history archives and on
} fans' grid pages.  When Walt Disney is finally revived in November, he
} takes one look at how the common people of Europe, Japan, and the
} Americas live under the iron rule of DisneyCorp, and commits suicide.
} Since that's a mortal sin, he's reincorporated in the form of a
} spreading chestnut tree in the Wood of Suicides.  Taking pity on him,
} the Trinity allows Milne and Shepard to spend one day out of every
} century visiting.
}
} You owe the Oracle a stuffed Bettie Page.


1020-07    (9hjud dist, 3.2 mean)
Selected-By: Mike Nolan <nolan@celery.tssi.com>

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

> Oh effluvious Oracle, whose glawanism shines brighter than a wurkle -
>
> how can I live forever?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
}
} You owe the Oracle a paradox.


1020-08    (4dtse dist, 3.4 mean)
Selected-By: "Carole S. Fungaroli" <fungaroc@gusun.georgetown.edu>

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

>

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Dear "Too embarrassed to ask" of Moose Lick,
}
} Yes, I do know what you were going to ask. Yes, I can help. Your
} problem can be broken into three main questions; to avoid further
} embarrassment, I'll simply supply the answers.
}
} 1) Yes, Trojan make them that small, but you have to order them direct.
}
} 2) Some of the recent advances in decontamination techniques may offer
}    some hope, since you say you've tried every type of deodorant. Look
}    in the White Pages for your nearest Nuclear Waste Extraction
}    Facility.
}
} 3) It's not uncommon for young men going through the changes of puberty
}    to experience this type of feeling. For a forty-two-year-old still
}    living at home, it's pretty screwed up, though.
}
} I hope this shines a ray of hope into your otherwise bleak existence.
}
} Yours helpfully,
}
}            "Ask Orrie"
}
} PS. The neighbors are becoming suspicious about their missing pets.
}     Best to lie low for a while.


1020-09    (2ptma dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

> Oracle most wise;
>
> Why do cigarette companies still grow tobacco in the USA? Couldn't
> they escape all the legal problems by moving their operations to, say
> Columbia or Liberia, where their deep pockets would allow them to
> buy the government outright? Then they could do anything they wanted.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oh, that's a good idea.  There's all that space in the Sahara
} desert that isn't being used for anything.  Why don't they just move
} their operation there?  (Pregnant pause.)  BECAUSE IT'S THE DESERT!
} BECAUSE NOTHING WILL GROW THERE!
}
} All right, all right, the Oracle knows you weren't referring to the
} desert, but the Oracle had to stick in a joke before giving you a
} serious answer, which doesn't happen often.  First off, most crops
} won't grow any old place, they thrive better in specific climates.
} But even assuming a suitable climate could be found, the tobacco
} farmers of America would be extremely ticked off if the cigarette
} companies moved their operations elsewhere, which the cigarette
} companies wouldn't want, since the tobacco farmers are their
} all-purpose excuse against tobacco being outlawed or even regulated,
} to wit:
}
} Sen. Schmo: "You can't regulate tobacco, because it'll put tobacco
} farmers from my state out of work."
}
} If farming operations were moved out of the country, he would have
} to tell the truth, namely:
}
} Sen. Schmo: "You can't regulate tobacco, because R.J. Reynolds has
} paid me 2 million dollars _this week_ alone."
}
} You Owe the Oracle a gas mask to wear to his neighborhood restaurants.


1020-10    (dmir8 dist, 2.9 mean)
Selected-By: Mark Lawrence <lawrence.4@osu.edu>

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

> How can I find true happiness?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Since happiness is a warm gun, you should be able to find true
} happiness by emptying another three or four clips.
}
} Just be careful where you point that thing.
}
} You owe the Oracle one hour's advanced notice of you achieving
} your goal.


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