From oracle-request@cs.indiana.edu Wed May 20 09:01:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by sunos.cs.indiana.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7/IUCS_2.18) id JAA05181; Wed, 20 May 1998 09:01:35 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 09:01:35 -0500 (EST) From: Internet Oracle Message-Id: <199805201401.JAA05181@sunos.cs.indiana.edu> To: oracle-list@cs.indiana.edu Subject: Internet Oracularities #1020 Reply-To: oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu X-Face: )/f9dPAX/dU$1Z!U(/?A PiIJvIOtcN@L.>6,2OKd."T#S7b*{feRf.Kns23^P9.Ak{GdWWv]0*1E}RJ)_idU:(5VkN*_+bB kyrnLfC12B>V/q=z32:05`EcAd.!z#3k]h)O!ZU^E"f`@),(2WT X-Planation: X-Face can be viewed with ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces. === 1020 ================================================================= Title: Internet Oracularities #1020 Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 09:01:35 -0500 (EST) To find out all about the Internet Oracle, including how to participate, send mail to oracle@cs.indiana.edu with the word "help" in the subject line. 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 1015 91 votes ckwi9 7helw 9vtg6 68ovm bnplb 4boso 77nsq ckAh6 8rtk7 8gykd 1015 3.2 mean 2.9 3.6 2.8 3.6 3.0 3.6 3.6 2.8 2.9 3.2 --- 1020-01 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" 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 ... } } ... 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Rich McGee 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Christophe 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Mike Nolan 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Carole S. Fungaroli" 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Mark Lawrence 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.