[IO]
Internet Oracle
12 Dec 2024 home : about : create : digests : bestofs : specials : priests 2:11:11 GMT

Internet Oracularities #1585

Goto:
1585, 1585-01, 1585-02, 1585-03, 1585-04, 1585-05, 1585-06, 1585-07, 1585-08, 1585-09, 1585-10


Internet Oracularities #1585    (12 votes, 3.7 mean)
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2019 12:35:41 -0500 (EST)

To find out all about the Internet Oracle (TM), including how
to participate, send mail to help@internetoracle.org, or go to
http://internetoracle.org/  ("Internet Oracle" is a trademark of Stephen
B Kinzler.)

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 vote@internetoracle.org (probably just reply to this message).
For example:
   1585
   2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

1585  12 votes 21621 00561 00174 11163 01173 03432 01344 02334 00453 01461
1585  3.7 mean  2.9   3.7   4.2   3.8   4.0   3.3   3.9   3.8   3.9   3.6


1585-01    (21621 dist, 2.9 mean)
Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

> Oh Oracle, whose procrastination is infinitesimal, for whom time woulds
> all heels, please tell this humble suppliant:
>
> If I could walk five hundred miles, and I could walk five hundred more,
> just to see a man who walks a thousand miles to fall down at your
> door... what would you do?
>
> I look forward in earnest to your Proclaimerttion..

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You did walk a thousand miles and many more. Think about it. You walk
} every day, just getting up in the morning and heading to the loo
} (that's 30 steps at least) and going to the kitchen to find something
} to eat you'll walk 50 steps more. If all you do that day is go and lie
} down on the sofa until it's time for bed, you'll still have walked
} another 120 steps, for a total of 200 steps in a day.
}
} Ten days of that is a mile.
}
} Ten thousand days (less than 30 years) is 1000 miles.
}
} Given that you must be doing more than eating and sleeping, you are
} walking far more than my estimate.
}
} Wait a minute, you're that supplicant who lives with his mother, never
} gets out of bed, and weighs 54 stone. That's 756 pounds. You cannot
} walk anywhere. The Oracle owes you a fork lift and a Sikorsky Sky Crane
} so you can get out and see the world.


1585-02    (00561 dist, 3.7 mean)
Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

> They are all going to die, so I might as well kill them now. Which
> signal is better, kill -9 or kill -15?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} In a landmark ruling, Mr RoboJustice SetIX61@q sentenced Ethan
} Bartwinkle to life imprisonment for cruelty to processes. "He gave them
} no warning", he said, " mowing them down with a heartless kill -9. He
} should have given them a chance to defend themselves by using kill
} -15".
}
} The League against Cruel Sysadmins said in a statement that any killing
} of processes, even zombie ones, was a crime against affinity, and
} called for virtual machines to be set up where unwanted processes could
} live out their days until they ran out of memory and succumbed to the
} great OOM.
}
} In late breaking news, an activist from Programmers for Ethical Thread
} Appraisal dropped a fork bomb outside the court, causing the
} surrounding streets to be overrun by rogue processes.
}
} You owe the Oracle a non-theistic explanation of where the first init
} process came from.


1585-03    (00174 dist, 4.2 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> The votes are in, and the latest Oracularities have been decided and
> ranked. (Some of them are very rank!) Somehow I (me, myself,
> personally) (parenthetically known both as Suppy and as "Anonymous
> Incarnation Alpha") have received top honors for 87 out the the ten
> Oracularities. Although
> I am beside myself with joy, I am also profoundly disturbed. I have
> always been regarded as profoundly disturbed, though, so that's nothing
> new. What I need to know is what sort of mathematical error could have
> me contributing more than ten supplications and ten incarnations. The
> total cannot be more than twenty, and that would be if I had answered
> all my own questions, which I probably did not. But there it is, 87!
>
> Wait a minute, I did not mean 87!, which is the factorial, and is more
> than equal to 2.107757e+132, but instead just the number 87.
>
> What sort of arithmetic morass have I stepped into, where numbers are
> substantially exceeding their own limits?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Numbers are tricky little blighters. Controlling them takes years of
} training and complete and utter dedication to the cause, which
} explains why mathematicians are a-social loners who, if confronted
} with a shower, would wonder why it was raining indoors, shortly after
} having it explained to them what "outdoors" and "rain" are.
}
} Different numbers require different techniques to stalk.
}
} For example, integers are fairly spaced out, like 1970s hippies, and
} are therefore typically gambol in fields near stone-circles. They are
} usually trapped by being asked why they are opposed to nuclear power
} when their beloved Sun uses it all the time.
}
} Rational numbers are anything but. They jump around and change form
} when you're not looking. Why else would 7/4 be the same as 14/8? They
} are usually trapped by being forced to watch daytime television, as
} that appeals to the lowest common denominator in them.
}
} Irrational numbers are incredibly long-winded, and a terrible bore at
} parties. There are a few celebrities, like pi, e, and that weird one
} that lets you prove there are uncountably many reals. However, most of
} them are like Instagram celebrities: pop up briefly in one exam
} question, get talked about in great detail for 3 days after the exam,
} and then immediately forgotten by everyone except a few die-hard
} fanatics.
} The best way to trap a real number is not look at it too closely, and
} hope some physical constant turns out to be equal to it. This confuses
} them, as most real numbers aren't really significant.
}
} Complex numbers are the hardest of all. Part of them is real, but the
} rest is imaginary, so you think you're trying to trap a real number
} but it then claims to be a walrus-baiting chipmunk with the ability to
} juggle alligators. The best way to trap them is to run rings about
} them and turn them into a simple pole. [ Tasteless joke conflating
} poles with Poles and mentioning Hitler removed. - Ed. ]
}
} You owe the Oracle a way of trapping those slippery quaternions, the
} over-achievers of the number-world with as much connection to the real
} world as a home-schooled toadstool that has subsumed other, more
} poisonous toadstools, had absinthe dribbled on it, and is now
} convinced it is the Emperor of Mars.


1585-04    (11163 dist, 3.8 mean)
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel Klein)<daniel.v.klein@gmail.com>

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

> The "Vulgate" Latin version of the Bible is written in Vulgarian, of
> course. How does that relate to the vulgarities spoken at family
> gatherings by my cousin Prunella? Should she study Latin so that we
> would not be able to understand her? Oh, and did the Vulgarians of old
> ever bathe? Prunella certainly does not.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} My answer here Oracular
} Concerns the old vernacular
} While thought to be quotidian
} It trod a fine meridian.
}
} This Vulgar Latin's thought
} To be spoken, more than taught
} more formally. And so
} For prayer it is no go.
}
} Stick to the KJV
} And you'll have no probs, you see?
} Good English as is spoke
} By God Himself (nice bloke!)
}
} Prunella, extempore
} May speak in tongues quite boory
} That were never in the scripture
} But that's quite another story.
}
} My recipe lavatorial:
} You need to wash her mouth and all
} In soap until her tongue is apt. Is
} trivial to become a baptist.
}
} The oaths must take a bath, it seems
} You need to scrub her till she gleams
} Wash her hair and clean her teeth
} And all the fun bits underneath
}
} Wash the rest of her as well
} E'en she d--'s you all to Hell:
} She'll feel much better, so will you
} When next you have to share a pew.
}
} You owe the Oracle an elaborately carved pulpit.


1585-05    (01173 dist, 4.0 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> Need to learn about the element Nargon, which is Argon but made
> entirely of anti-particules. I think it is anti-inert.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Nargon is indeed one of the six ignoble gases, the others being
} Neilium, Minion, Obvion, Lennon and the radioinactive Nadron. Like all
} ignoble gases, it reacts passive-aggressively to most things, and has a
} very short shelf-life.
}
} The ertness of ignoble gases is well established except under normal
} conditions. They are usually obtained out of thin air, the by products
} usually being politicians' promises and free money. Argon lamps, at the
} end of their lives, convert the argon to nargon which is why the lamp
} becomes dark.
}
}  When inhaled in  sufficient quantities Nargon is hallucinogenic or so
} my mate the three eyed ha ha ha ha sorry the three eyed green spotted
} pink ha ha ha ha ha ha sorry ha ha ha ha.
}
} You owe the Oracle a tabular period.


1585-06    (03432 dist, 3.3 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> My dad says he does everything asbestos he can. Doesn't radiation from
> asbestos cause Cancer or maybe Saggatarius? Please Orrosplain.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Absestos doesn't emit radiation. When it breaks down into a fine
} powder, it can be inhaled and cause asbestosis, a lung disease. This is
} often fatal but is not carcinogenic. But if you die of it, it can take
} up to six months to cremate you.
}
} You owe the Oracle an iron lung.


1585-07    (01344 dist, 3.9 mean)
Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

> Are you blind, or am I invisible?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Bloomington 911 Media Report:
} 07/22 04:15 PM Pete Ellis Dr:
} Badly injured man picked up from women's shower at Monroe County
} Martial Arts.  Suspect, identified as T.I. Supplicant, claimed that
} some entity known as 'The Oracle' convinced him he could safely enter.
} Charges pending.


1585-08    (02334 dist, 3.8 mean)
Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

> Why are your supplicarnts so ingorant?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Excellent vocabulary there supplicant. 'ingorant' is, as you know, the
} ancient Anglo-Saxon word for 'having a strong odour under the arms and
} around the groin area'. This is, as you have noticed, widespread, nay,
} universal, among my supplicants.
}
} You touch on a major movement forming in our society. The personal
} grooming denialists. Or, 'anti-soapers' as they are often described.
}
} Their theories go like this: They claim that there is a conspiracy
} among scientists to say that daily washing is an effective strategy to
} reduce body odour and prevent crustiness of the skin and matting of
} the hair. These scientists have clearly been bought off by 'Big
} Toiletries', an industry worth billions of dollars a year.
}
} Furthermore, according to the anti-soap movement, soaps contain highly
} poisonous ingredients. In an experiment that the Big Toiletries
} sponsored scientific journals refused to publish, laboratory mice were
} buried under ten feet of lye. Upon returning a week later, every
} single mouse was dead. You have been warned.
}
} Then there was the landmark study by British pediatrician Dr. Grinzlo
} Banaoffee, who found that every child, that he'd seen in his
} backstreet clinic out the back of his hair-dressers and illegal
} casino, who suffered from the sniffles had at some time been within
} thirty metres of a bar of soap. Dr Banaoffee was strenuously opposed
} by the Big Toiletries funded medical establishment, struck off, and
} banned from cutting the hair of any mammal larger than a squirrel. His
} research was criticised for 'base-rate neglect' or some other weird
} term that scientists use that commentators on Reddit don't understand
} and hence can safely discredit. Dr Banaoffee has since moved to the US
} where he is lionised by the anti-spoapers community and has since
} bought Gene Simmons' old Hollywood home from their donations.
}
} Anti-soapers content that the body will naturally cleanse itself
} without any need to resort to unnatural substances such as water.
} You'll notice that many of my supplicants leave a trail of dried skin
} and other dirt behind as they walk, and if they sit too long in a
} chair there tends to be a stain. This is the body's natural
} self-cleansing in action. Anti-soapers believe in hurrying this
} process, so will have 'dirt parties' where relatively clean
} anti-soapers will remove their clothes and rub themselves against
} similarly naked more established members to share dirt and kick-start
} the process. Strangely enough, however, it tends to be the elder male
} established members who suggest this strategy to the younger female
} initiates.
}
} As I'm sure you're now utterly convinced by all the unsourced
} emotional rhetoric in my answer, I'll point you to youtube, where
} you'll find ample videos of angry-looking people who don't blink
} during 47-minute videos explaining the anti-soap movement's tenets and
} warning of the dangers of Big Toiletries. Don't look in the scientific
} literature; I hope that you'll be much more open-minded than that, and
} restrict yourself to online postings by people with no qualifications.
}
} You owe The Oracle five bards of soap, some shaving cream, eight boxes
} of anti-bacterial wet wipes, and a loofah. Not that I'm going to use
} them myself, they'll just be props for my next anti-soaper youtube
} video. Of course they are.


1585-09    (00453 dist, 3.9 mean)
Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

> The moon is, of course, waning gibbous, and not as my foolish bother in
> law told you, "raining gibbons".
>
> Why do you answer his questions?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well yes, your brother-in-law does appear foolish, but this is a
} clever front so that you won't suspect exactly how clever he is.
}
} Let's consider what he appears to have done from your perspective and
} what he's actually done.
}
} He's lost the last 20 games of poker to you, and is down over $300.
} However, he's now got you exactly where he wants you, and will make a
} suggestion of raising the stakes next game, which you will immediately
} agree to.
}
} You may have noticed that your sister has become remarkably placid
} recently and that she never blinks. He's cleverly replaced your sister
} with a lifelike android replica that he made from two months of
} non-recyclable garbage. He sold your real sister to a Russian
} submarine crew.
}
}  He's invented the first ever penis enlargement contraption that
} actually works. But, cleverly realising that there's no competitive
} advantage if everyone can enlarge, he's kept it a secret for his own
} use only. By the way, that explains those mechanical and compressed
} air sounds you heard from his bedroom the last time you stayed over.
}
} And finally he's in the last stages of developing the world's best
} cryptocurrency. It will be such a hit with the punters that all
} national currencies and existing cryptocurrencies will become
} worthless, as everyone insists on using brother-in-law-coin (BILC) for
} all transactions. Untill the day that he activates his trapdoor and
} all BILC in the word immediately transfer themselves to his wallet.
} You may have noticed that he's acquired a furry white cat and sits
} there petting it like a Bond villain, but no anachronistic secret
} agent is going to be able to save the world from your brother-in-law.
}
} You owe The Oracle your brother-in-law. Just imagine what I could get
} done with him on the team.


1585-10    (01461 dist, 3.6 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> My folks are sending me to Camp Jejune this summer. They think I won't
> notice. Will I hate it, or is it just awful?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Camp Jejune instead of Camp Lejune? They may be telling you something
} oh naive one.
}
} Just think yourself lucky that you weren't sent to  one of these camps:
}
} Camp Mud - often photos of active kids at the camp show them enjoying
} outdoor activities and caked in mud. Camp Mud takes this to the
} extreme by flooding the entire camp with soft mud up to neck height.
} Makes it hard to carry out day to day tasks like eating, sleeping, and
} bodily functions, but the photos of kids at the camp are muddier than
} any other.
}
} Camp Ultra-Vegan - at this camp, it's not just a matter of vegan food,
} but taking it to its logical conclusion. Everybody eats grass. As we
} can't digest cellulose, that means that all participants sit around
} all day chewing, and chewing, and chewing morning to night. Kids also
} return from this camp having turned a delicate shade of green due to
} the diet.
}
} Camp Trump - this is an offshoot of Trump University. It's the
} bigliest camp in the world loved by everyone around the world. Trouble
} is, when you get there it's just a few run-down huts in the forest and
} there aren't any counsellers. Oh, and your parents, if they paid by
} card, will notice multiple unexplained charges on those cards.
}
} You owe The Oracle 50 press-ups. NOW, SUPPLICANT! FASTER,. FASTER!!!


© Copyright 1989-2024 The Internet OracleTM a Kinzler.com offering Contact oracle-web@internetoracle.org