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Internet Oracularities #1336

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Internet Oracularities #1336    (52 votes, 3.2 mean)
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 12:27:20 -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 bad") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to
this message).  For example:
   1336
   2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

1336  52 votes 4bkd4 3fdi3 6deb8 16chg 2fid4 1cje6 0bdk8 16pi2 75el5 69ie5
1336  3.2 mean  3.0   3.1   3.0   3.8   3.0   3.2   3.5   3.3   3.2   3.1


1336-01    (4bkd4 dist, 3.0 mean)
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel V Klein) <dvk@lonewolf.com>

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

> Mr. Oracle,
> Good to see you.
>
> I notice you haven't been in my class the last few days.  Naturally,
> I'll want a note from your doctor excusing your absences.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} To whom it may concern,
}
} Please excuse T. Oracle from any job/class/other obligations for
} the previous seven days.  He has been recovering from the following
} illnesses:
}   + Severe migraine headache, caused by excessive cognition.
}   + Sprained, er, privates, caused by excessive "conjugation".
}   + Carpal tunnel syndrome (he'll be wearing a wrist brace for
}     the foreseeable future).
}   + Scratched cornea in his third eye (thus the eye patch).
}   + Severe indigestion (why on earth did he eat that candied yak?!)
}   + Delusions of grandeur (claims to be omniscient!), treated
}     with appropriate medications and ample rest in a serene
}     environment.
}   + Borderline nervous breakdown, caused by being asked too
}     many questions involving small furry creatures.
}
} While my opinion is that he should be able to resume his normal
} routine, I do recommend a little compassion if he is a little
} slower than usual for the next three days.
}
} Sincerely,
}   (illegible scribble)


1336-02    (3fdi3 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: MVSOPEN@aol.com

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

> Dear Master of all Culinary Secrets,
>
> please tell me: how did the last Dodo taste?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Like chicken.
}
} Seriously, what else were you expecting?
}
} You owe the Oracle a brontosaurus-egg omelet.


1336-03    (6deb8 dist, 3.0 mean)
Selected-By: Dave Hemming <dhemming@blueyonder.co.uk>

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

> Use an unacceptable colour

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, very well, chap.  I say, this is a bit unusual though, isn't it?
} But if it'll make you glow, I'll bloody well do it, I suppose...
} "Color."  There now.  That truly was totally unacceptable, I must say.
} Now, shall we take the lorry over to the pub and knock back a couple of
} pints?


1336-04    (16chg dist, 3.8 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> How does one choose what to do with his time, when choosing between
> the bountiful pleasures and disciplines that this world has to offer?
> Does he study Socrates, or Snowboarding?  Figure skating, or Feng Shui?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} A LIFE, IN RETROSPECT:
}
} Age 0: You can't walk.  You can't talk.  You have no real say in what
} you do.  Therefore, you make no decisions and are just thankful that
} you weren't born to cultist parents that believe in feeding babies
} nothing but watermelon.
}
} Age 2: You can walk.  You can talk.  By now, however, your parents are
} used to it and are beginning to wish you'd stop.  You still can't make
} decisions, but are nonetheless vocal on the issue of whether or not you
} should get another cookie (you are in favor of the proposal).
}
} Age 6: You can walk.  You can talk.  Depending on your parents, you may
} even be able to go outside and make a few independent decisions.
} However, you still don't have a clue who Socrates is or what Feng Shui
} is all about.  From watching Olympics on TV, you have minimal exposure
} to snowboarding and figure skating.  You aspire to becoming one of
} these yourself, and have told your parents this.  In response, they put
} you in preschool.
}
} Age 13: You can walk.  You can talk.  However, you try to refrain from
} doing either whenever possible.  Your parents alternatively berate you
} from lying around all day and for lying to them about what you're
} doing, when you speak to them at all.  Meanwhile, your school is
} requiring that you study Socrates and a friend is trying to show you
} the wonders of Feng Shui.  You choose to boycott watching the Olympics
} in a patriotic display of unilateralism, and thus forget all about your
} desire to participate in either snowboarding or figure skating.
}
} Age 18: You can walk.  You can talk.  Your parents observe this and
} suggest you walk over to your counselor and talk about college.  Due to
} fiscal restraints, you don't get to make a decision about where to
} attend and end up in the college nearest to you.
}
} Age 21: You can walk.  You can talk (in Greek too, now).  You are
} pursuing a degree in Classical Antiquity with a major in the writings
} of Socrates.  In your spare time, you are clashing with the
} administration over your proposal to knock out one of the walls in your
} dorm in order to improve the flow of positive energy.
}
} Age 24: You can walk.  You can talk.  But you're told not to do either
} except when indicated as you prepare for your graduation ceremony.
} It's been an arduous path, but you've now got a Masters from the
} Classics department.
}
} Age 26: You can walk.  You can talk.  You're back living with your
} parents after finding that your two main marketable skills
} (interpreting Socrates and Feng Shui) aren't as marketable as you would
} have hoped. You complain bitterly that this all happened because your
} parents made you start preschool instead of snowboarding lessons.
}
} Age 32: During designated break times, you're allowed to walk and to
} talk.  The rest of the time you're stuck working on an assembly line
} building snowboards.  Due to your study of Sophocles, the irony is not
} lost on you.
}
} Age 40: You run off with some girl and sweet talk her.  You also buy a
} fancy car.  In other words, a standard mid-life crisis.  After leaving
} your old job, you buy some figure skates and decide to take the world
} by storm.
}
} Age 41: You give up trying to find an instructor willing to take a
} forty year old on as a serious figure skating student.  As you walk
} around, you talk to anyone nearby about how unfair life is.
}
} Age 50: You get a tenure track position back at your old university.
} You become one of the best professors in the Classics department, due
} to your impassioned lectures in which you walk around madly and talk
} with fervor.  You begin to realize that learning to walk and talk were
} the two most important achievements of your life.  You reject Feng Shui
} as a false science.
}
} Age 72: You spend most of your day walking around the mall with a cane
} and talking at young people about the virtue of choosing what you do in
} your life.  They ignore you and instead get pushed into things by their
} parents until it's too late to change.  And thus the cycle repeats.


1336-05    (2fid4 dist, 3.0 mean)
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel V Klein) <dvk@lonewolf.com>

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

> Dear great Oracle who goes way back and nows all the old basic
> programs,
>
> where does the wumpus hide?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Most times the wumpus hides in a random place. If you would stop making
} noise it would stay there and you would be able to catch it.
}
} Remember, wumpus isn't your average DOOM-like monster. Don't use your
} Plasmathrower or your Zap-O-Kill.
}
} You owe me nothing for this advice, since for the sake of fairness i
} had to inform the wumpus that you're trying to cheat.


1336-06    (1cje6 dist, 3.2 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> Oh Great and Powerful Oracle, pre-eminent, always at the
> next level, and new and improved.  Please tell me, what
> was the first corporate re-organization ever orchestrated by
> humankind?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The first corporate re-organization ever orchestrated by humankind took
} place when the most senior caveman decided that it would be far more
} productive if there was one group collecting flintstones while a second
} group chiselled the collected flintstones into tools.
} This resulted in cavemen being good at chiselling ending up walking
} through the rain and the mud looking for flintstones in the wrong
} places and in cavemen who knew where to find flintstones trying to
} shape what flintstones they still had with wood.
} After six month the community ran out of flintstone tools. The
} procurement group then blamed the manufacturing group for not
} delivering any products and the manufacturing group blamed the
} procurement group for not supplying the base materials the
} manufacturing group needed. In what is known as the second corporate
} re-organization both process where outsourced by the CEO or
} caveman-expecting-obedience and relocated to adjacent valleys.
} Both spin-off's immediately diversified, the procurement group now
} producing wooden tools and the manufacturing group discovering fire
} when working with much too crude flintstone tools.
} Everything would have been fine had it not been for the bad
} infrastructure and a communication problem. By the time the most senior
} caveman remembered that you need tools to kill and skin a mammoth he
} was to weak to travel to either valley and subsequently died. At about
} the same time both outsourced groups found out independently that none
} of them knew *where* mammoth were usually found, and, a little while
} later, that the one person who knew now was dead.
} Both groups managed to survive the winter by living on wild berries;
} came spring both left their valleys and each found a new group of
} cavemen into which they quickly assimilated, thus slowly spreading the
} disease over the whole planet.
}
} You owe the Oracle a medium sized company he can test some theories of
} his with.


1336-07    (0bdk8 dist, 3.5 mean)
Selected-By: "Joshua R. Poulson" <jrp@pun.org>

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

> Oracle most wise,
> Why do fuels fall in love?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} They may be old fossils, but they can't help it, they're burning with
} passion.
}
} You owe the Oracle a zeppelin.


1336-08    (16pi2 dist, 3.3 mean)
Selected-By: "Joshua R. Poulson" <jrp@pun.org>

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

> Oracle most smart, what exactly is a hyperbolic sign?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} If you were thinking of the hyperbolic sine, it would be
}
}                  z    -z
}   sinh z = 1/2 (e  - e  )
}
} Just in case you have trouble reading my ASCII-fied equation,
} it reads "one-half the quantity e to the z, minus e to the
} negative z".
}
} Would that were what you wanted to know!  But you wanted the
} hyperbolic SIGN.  Take a road sign, the descriptive kind, like
} SLIPPERY WHEN WET, or SOFT SHOULDER, the kind that are fun to
} use when answering someone who asks, "What's your sign?"  Get
} it to a local sheet-metal shop, and roll and hammer it until
} it has a hyperbolic shape.  If the metal rings loudly, you
} have a bell curve instead of an hyperbola, and you'll have to
} start all over.
}
} When you are done, you are finished.  I have no idea what you
} would want one of these for.
}
} You owe the Oracle a waterproof asymptote.


1336-09    (75el5 dist, 3.2 mean)
Selected-By: Dr. Noe <drnoe@adelphia.net>

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

> As California does it self-inflicted death spiral which state
> will emerge to be the new Cool Trend Setter state?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} California.
}
} Every other state will follow California's trend and initiate their own
} self-inflicted death spiral.


1336-10    (69ie5 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

>  Oracle most ins^Htelligent,
>
>  Can your modems dance a baudy jig?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Modems?  Modems.  Modems...   I used to know what those were.
} Just a second...  Oh, right.  Modulator-demodulators.  Used
} to use them with analog phone lines, before we installed this
} quantum-teleportation connection to the internet.
}
} Yes, they used to dance a very bawdy jig.  Oh, wait, you
} said "baudy".  No, it wasn't very baudy as I recall; something
} like 880 baud, with 64 bits encoded in each transition, maybe?
} It was around 56kbps anyway.  Hard to remember that far back
} today, for some reason.
}
} But it was definitely bawdy!  I do remember that!  Whoo-whee!
} I'm tellin' ya!  Quite the lewd dance!  But now the jig is up,
} and we just don't use any mo' o' dem.


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