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=== 1120 =================================================================
Title: Internet Oracularities #1120
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 12:21:04 -0500 (EST)

To find out all about the Internet Oracle (TM), including how to
participate, send mail to oracle@cs.indiana.edu with the word "help"
in the subject line.  ("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 poor") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to this
message).  For example:
    1120
    2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

1115  70 votes 3jrj2 2hpn3 fijc6 3jxb4 5kpg4 bbmh9 agjh8 39sge 266qu 37itd
1115  3.2 mean  3.0   3.1   2.7   2.9   2.9   3.0   3.0   3.4   4.1   3.6

--- 1120-01 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Mike Nolan <nolan@celery.tssi.com>

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

> Oh Oracle most divine, who never has "snow on the mountains"...
>
> Are there any advantages in having a severe case of dandruff?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Y'know, supplicant, if there's anything I hate more than dandruff it's
} "top-10" lists. So without further ado...
}
} THE TOP TEN ADVANTAGES TO HAVING REALLY SEVERE DANDRUFF -- IN BASE 16!
} ----------------------------------------------------------------------
}
} (10) You can do a killer blizzard imitation.
}
} (0F) You can make your own pillow stuffing.
}
} (0E) You can get steady work as a "before" body double for "Head &
}      Shoulders".
}
} (0D) Without all those pesky dates, you can hone your skills as a lean,
}      mean canasta machine.
}
} (0C) You have no choice but to wear those snappy "Glad Garbage Bag guy"
}      white suits.
}
} (0B) Head-hunters will find you unappealing.
}
} (0A) That's one less thing you have in common with Harry Connick, Jr.
}
} (09) Blizzard imitation? Hell, you can imitate the Oort Cloud!
}
} (08) You have a ready-made Mafia nickname - ie. Johnny "The Snowman"
}      Pezzani.
}
} (07) After you've slain the Minotaur, you can find your way out of the
}      Labyrinth by follow the trail of white flakes.
}
} (06) In zero-gravity, you'll have your own system of rings - like
}      Saturn!
}
} (05) You can save the lives of dozens of bunnys, puppies and monkeys by
}      working as a lab animal for Proctor & Gamble.
}
} (04) Dermatologists will find you irresistible.
}
} (03) From Martha Stewart: "With only water and a newspaper, you can
}      make beautiful papier-mache objets d'art!"
}
} (02) You are providing a thriving eco-system for billions of
}      dust-mites.
}
} ... and finally, (we're all thankful for that) The Number One Advantage
} to Having Severe Dandruff (Base 16)...
}
} (01) You have a low-cost substitute for parmesan cheese.
}
} You owe the Oracle the one about the priest, the rabbi and the
} dermatologist.

--- 1120-02 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Forbes, Michael Scott (Scott)" <trans@lucent.com>

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

> ....*...............*.......................
>  .....................................*.........
>   ......*..............*.........................
>    ....+.........*........*.........+.....*.......
>   .................................................
>  ...+........*.......*.........*.............*......
> ...................................+................
>  ..........*....*.................................
>    ..................*.......+..................
>     ..................................*...........
>    ....+....*............+........*................
>  ...................*................................
>  ....+.........*.............*......................
>    ..................+......................*.....
>     ............................*................

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yes, I can sense your frustration.  You shelled out your hard earned
} money on brand new state-of-the-art dual SLI 128MB SGRAM bump-mapping
} bezier-belting polygon-pumping NURBS-blurbing texel-torturing
} phong-bonging texture-twisting pixel-puking super-pipelining
} super-parallelizing super-conducting super-colliding Video Blister512
} Platinum TV Pro Y2K Plus Millennium  AGP8x cards, only to find out
} that the driver for ASCII text games is buggy.
}
} Well, I am afraid there's little you can do but complain to the
} manufacturer and hope for timely updates to the drivers.  In the mean
} time, stop trying to play NetHack.  And get used to the fact that
} you'll be stuck playing Quake at 6400x4800 resolution with a measly
} 589 frames per second.
}
} You owe the Oracle 300 Zorkmids and the Amulet of Yendor.

--- 1120-03 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> Good morning, Oracle, how are you?
> Don't you know me, I'm your supplicant
> I'm the question they call the Annoying Filk
> And I'll have annoyed 500 incarnations before I'm done.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Hmm.  I send out a Roger Miller pastiche, and get an Arlo Guthrie
} one back.  OK, I can work with this.
}
} [chorus]
} This queue is your queue,
} This queue is my queue
} With woodchuck questions,
} And old lemur spue,
} We'll answer good ones,
} And ZOT the others,
} This queue was made for you and me.
}
} As I was trolling,
} That Usenet highway,
} I saw above me,
} The Oracle's byway,
} I asked a question,
} Laughed at the answer,
} This queue was made for you and me.
}
} [chorus]
}
} I spend two hours,
} Most every day now,
} A answerin' questions,
} What's that you say now?
} I do have a life,
} With Lisa and Zadoc,
} This queue was made for you and me.
}
} [chorus]
}
} So I must go now,
} For I have many
} Questions to answer,
} So one's digested,
} Hope you keep writing,
} Next time be funny,
} This queue was made for you and me.
}
} [chorus]

--- 1120-04 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Lawrence, Mark" <mlawrence@mchs.com>

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

>  The Oracle is wisdom, The Oracle is Knowledge Manifest. The Oracle
>  is truthful and kind and forgiving and fuzzy,
>
>  Why is love blind?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} <Rimshot>
} Because it has no i's.
} </Rimshot>
}
} You owe the Oracle a joke book written more recently than 1381.

--- 1120-05 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Tim Chew" <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Well-grown and well-compacted is the Oracle.  Long are his legs and
> sinewy, and deep and broad his chest; Most terrible his visage, and
> lordly is his gait.  All bow low before the Most Wise Oracle!
>
> What events will future Olympics have?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Ah-ha, you're probably referring to the 2005 Belgium Olympics, billed
} as the first "Peoples Olympics".  Disdaining the elitism that
} characterised previous Olympic games, these were designed so that every
} one would feel that they were on a par with the Olympiads.
} Events included the "200 metres stroll down to the shops for a packet
} of fags" (Wayne Johnson, Great Britain), the "3 hour television
} watching marathon" (Chuck Aldrin, United States), and of course not
} forgetting the infamous, and highly competitive "taking a long lunch
} break" (Rico Luigi, Italy).
}
} They were eventually cancelled, because...  Well, you work it out.
}
} You owe the Oracle a new pair of trainers.

--- 1120-06 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Tim Chew" <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Very well.  If the mighty Oracle objects to fluently artistic rhyme, I
> shall ask in simple, mundane prose.  How can I become an ent?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} [Scene: The smoking room of the Senior Toffs Club, Pall Mall, London.
} The withered remains of gouty country squires and decrepit peers of
} the realm lie almost buried in plush armchairs scattered at random
} around the room. Some of them may have been dead for days, but it is
} considered bad form to disturb their repose before they start emitting
} noxious odours and frightening the horses. Aubrey fforbes-ffortesque
} and his friend Pelham "Pongo" Grytpype-Thynne are seated by one of
} the room's bay windows, indulging in a pink gin. A third chair nearby
} is currently unoccupied]
}
} Aubrey:    Bottoms up, old fruit.
}
} Pongo:     Mud in your eye, my dear old face.
}
} [An Attendant materialises soundlessly in the immediate vicinity,
} carrying a piece of paper on a silver tray]
}
} Attendant: Forgive the intrusion, Sirs, but I am in receipt of a
}            cable for Mr. Oracle. I believe he was in your company
}            but a moment since.
}
} Aubrey:    So he was, my stout fellow, but he had to desh out for
}            a tick.
}
} Pongo:     When nature beckons, all must heed her call, what what?
}
} Aubrey:    I say, Pongo, that was demn poetic of you!
}
} Pongo:     Thenks, old chep. And a tad more refeined than saying he
}            popped out to the bog, wouldn't you say?
}
} Aubrey:    Rahther. We'll take that cable, sturdy yeoman.
}
} Attendant: Sir is too kind.
}
} [The Attendant shimmers off, leaving Aubrey to study the message]
}
} Pongo:     Don't keep us in suspense, Aubs old top. What's the gist?
}
} Aubrey:    It's one of those questions Orrie's always getting from
}            the great unwashed.
}
} Pongo:     One has always been of the opinion that such intimacy with
}            the hoi polloi on the part of a deity of good lineage
}            inclines to the vulgar.
}
} Aubrey:    Indeed. This chep says he wants to be an ent.
}
} Pongo:     What kind of ent? A correspondent? A jurisprudent? An
}            independent?
}
} Aubrey:    No, just an ent.
}
} Pongo:     Demn nonsense - there's no such word! The young scallawag
}            should be sent packing with a flea in his ear.
}
} Aubrey:    One rahther supposes he means ent as in the little cheppie
}            with six legs and entennas and all that. You know, those
}            little blighters entomologists study. Hence the name, one
}            would surmise.
}
} Pongo:     Ah, I'm with you now. As in the enimated feature at the
}            moving pictures theatre the other night.
}
} Aubrey:    Perhaps this chep wants to be that ector fellow - what the
}            devil's his name?
}
} Pongo:     Enthony Hopkins?
}
} Aubrey:    Woody Ellen.
}
} Pongo:     I say, dear boy! I tell you what would be a ripping wheeze.
}            Let's answer the question before Orrie gets back.
}
} Aubrey:    Steady on! Won't he be most freightfully ticked off when
}            he finds out?
}
} Pongo:     Not a bit of it - Orrie's a sport. Here, write this down:
}            "I say, I say, I say, my dear old chinstrap. You already
}            are an ent, don't y'know. A supplic-ent, what what? The
}            Oracle says cheerio, toodle-pip and all that rot. What-ho!"
}
} Aubrey:    I say, Pongo, that's simply spiffing, not to say boffo!
}
} Pongo:     One tries to please.
}
} [Aubrey summons the Attendant and instructs him to cable back the
} answer. No sooner has the man disappeared on his errand than the
} Oracle re-enters the smoking room]
}
} Oracle:    Phew, that's better! I knew it was a mistake to have
}            that third helping of devilled kidneys. What's up, guys?
}            You're looking very pleased with yourselves.
}
} Pongo:     What, us pleased? Good Lord, heaven forfend and all that,
}            old bean - not a bit of it. You must be thinking of two
}            other cheps.
}
} Aubrey:    Indeed, we're just sitting here chewing the old fat, as
}            one does, don't y'know, don't y'know.
}
} Oracle:    Just my suspicious nature, I guess. By the way, I couldn't
}            help noticing on my way in that Lord Cricklewood over there
}            is starting to decompose.
}
} Pongo:     Great Scott, man!
}
} Aubrey:    That's ebsolutely scandalous!
}
} Pongo:     Beyond the pale!
}
} Aubrey:    Not playing the game!
}
} Pongo:     I mean, really Orrie old chum, it's simply not done for
}            one gentleman to make personal remarks about another,
}            don't y'know.
}
} Aubrey:    We do try to make allowances, what with you being from
}            the colonies and what not. But I mean to say, there are
}            limits!
}
} Pongo:     Common decency and all that!
}
} Aubrey:    Keep the home fires burning!
}
} Pongo:     Noblesse oblige, what what?
}
} Oracle:    Sorry guys, it won't happen again.

--- 1120-07 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Mark Lawrence <lawrence.4@osu.edu>

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

> I have problems understanding Range and Domain in my math class can you
> help me understand it better?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Sure, Jimmy, I'd be glad to.  These concepts have changed somewhat over
} the past few years, and it's quite possible your teachers are still
} trying to use the old ideas.  That's probably why you're confused.
}
} In today's school environment, Range and Domain refer to the offensive
} capability of small arms.  Range is fairly well known, even to the
} layman: it is the distance or area over which a weapon can operate.  A
} knife, for instance, has a very short range - arm's length.  A handgun
} is a medium-range weapon; you've got to be a *really* good shot (or
} really lucky) to use one effectively beyond about 30 feet.  A good
} rifle has a range of hundreds of feet.
}
} Domain is a little more complex.  It is the area over which the weapon
} can operate.  For instance, a throwing knife and a hand grenade have
} approximately the same range, but their domains differ greatly.  The
} domain of the knife is only a single target, but the grenade's domain
} is a hemispherical volume about 50 feet in diameter, in the absence of
} structures which constrain or deflect the blast.
}
} The experts differ with respect to the domain of multiple-use weapons.
} Some authorities maintain that each action - e.g. each shot with a .45
} caliber handgun - should be considered individually in calculating the
} weapon's domain.  By this argument, a pistol's domain would be one
} target, much like the throwing knife I mentioned earlier.  But the
} other school of thought states that the weapon's entire capacity should
} be considered.  Proponents of this school point out that one does not
} fire each bullet of a machine gun individually, and it is more useful
} to be able to measure how many targets you can mow down with it before
} you have to reload.
}
} You owe the Oracle an apple and a Lexan shield.

--- 1120-08 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Dr. Noe <drnoe@primenet.com>

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

> Oracle, who sees all past, present, and future participle,
>
> Who will I marry?  Will it be Todd, Richard, or someone who I haven't
> even met?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} (I think it's safe to say that it will be someone you've met. You may
} not get on too well with your parents sometimes, but they're not going
} to put you through an arranged marriage :)
}
} I probably shouldn't tell you about your future husband... but what the
} heck. What's the point in being divine if you can't do people a little
} favour now and again?
}
} The one you marry will be sensitive, good-natured and a *very* good
} listener. He will be tall, with a luxurious mane of hair. He will have
} a strong, athletic build -- in fact he will be in peak physical
} condition, and will run many races (and win lots) as a professional
} athlete. He will earn good money but never be interested in material
} wealth. The two of you will spend long hours just looking tenderly into
} each other's eyes. He will always be faithful and honest, and will
} always treat you with respect and dignity.
}
} You may not fall for him when you first meet him, but over time his
} brave spirit and wise nature will win you over. Your heart will beat
} more quickly whenever he comes near. He will love to nuzzle gently into
} your shoulder, and you will stroke him and whisper sweet nothings. And
} yes, he will be a generous (and very well-endowed) lover too, always
} ready to please you.
}
} When you first tell your friends and family about him, they may be a
} little sceptical. Some people may not understand what it is you see in
} him, but it doesn't matter: your love will win through. When the time
} comes for you to get married, you may have to find a rather liberal
} priest to perform the service, but after some searching you will find
} the perfect one and have the best day of your life.
}
} And all through your wedding day, and the rest of your life, you will
} be in love with the happy neigh and scraping hooves of your beloved
} Shergar.
}
} Thanks for your question, Lady Godiva. You owe the Oracle some oats and
} a nosebag.

--- 1120-09 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: surfbaud@waverider.co.uk (Dave Hemming)

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

> Frabjous Oracle, I shout Calloo and Callay to honour you.
>
> I have been invited to hunt a snark. I understand that they can be
> recognised by their bathing machines, which they constantly carry
> about.
>
> Please tell me what are bathing machines, and how do they add to the
> beauty of scenes?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Supplicant, I should warn you about bathing machines: the belief that
} they add to the beauty of scenes is a sentiment open to doubt. The
} snark comsiders them a most pleasing addition to its surroundings, but
} from your perspective things are quite different.
}
} The humble bathing machine (machina lavare) has been the subject of
} much misunderstanding over the years. As a distant relative of the Loch
} Ness Monster, it takes its privacy very seriously, and has learned to
} adapt swiftly to its environment.
}
} During the Victorian age its natural habitat, the English seaside,
} became overrun with visitors. In an unusual and remarkably swift
} evolutionary move, some bathing machines developed the ability to blend
} in with their surroundings, like a chameleon but with texture and
} materials too, by looking and behaving just like a wooden changing room
} on wheels.
}
} The bathing machines were so well-disguised that many of the
} notoriously prudish middle-class Victorians took them to be inventions
} rather than a living species. To protect their modesty, they would
} attach a horse to the front of a machine and let it wade out to sea.
} Having changed away from peeping eyes into an unpleasant and
} excessively modest hessian swimming costume, the person would open the
} door into the sea and be able to bathe in privacy. (Sometimes the nags
} waded too far out and disappeared under the waves, when they would
} become sea horses.)
}
} The bathing machines' adaptation was in fact too successful in some
} ways. The constant salt water made the machines peckish, and they
} occasionally ate their occupants; although the large size of the
} typical Victorian family meant that even when the loss was noticed, it
} was usually with gratitude at the saving of the rail fare home.
}
} (A side note: after some time, some of the more modern-minded machines
} enjoyed their marine habitat more than the beach, and developed into
} diving chambers (cubiculum submergere) and early proto-submarines. It
} is not widely known that Jules Verne knew the secret of the bathing
} machine beasts, and his submarine was based on a particular machine
} named Cuthbert, whom he had befriended on a visit to Margate.)
}
} It was the taste for human flesh that led to the next stage of the
} bathing machines' history. The previously placid machines turned into
} vicious, ravenous creatures and took to roaming the streets of
} Britain's seaside resorts in search of stray tourists. Their ability to
} change shape rapidly, and constant need to disguise their identity, led
} to an apparent explosion in the number of organ-grinding monkeys, dirty
} ice-cream kiosks, graffitied amusement arcades and tired-looking
} donkeys which have come to be recognised as the hallmark of the British
} seaside experience.
}
} Some of the younger, more aggressive bathing machines began to tire of
} waiting for passing human prey to fall into their dastardly clutches.
} They found that by teaming up in a symbiotic relationship with an
} animal that often got into fights with people. After unsuccessfully
} teaming up with jabberwockies and bandersnatches, which lost their
} battles too often to yield victims for the machines' enjoyment, they
} began a fruitful alliance with a mysterious species known as the snark.
}
} The relationship was so successful that it is still in place today, and
} it works something like this: the bathing machine uses its many charms
} and wiles to convince the snark that it forms an aesthetically pleasing
} addition to any scene. It does this by changing its shape to whatever
} form enhances with the surrounding tableau: one day it assumes the
} shape of a merry picnicking family, the next an orchard of ripe cherry
} trees, and then perhaps a stretch of the M25 near Purley in rush hour
} (though this is one of the lesser-used mutations).
}
} The machine's reward comes when an ambitious hunter such as yourself
} goes after a snark. With snicker-snack of vorpal blade, you fancy your
} chances of bringing home snark steak for tea, but you did not reckon on
} the rapacious appetite of its parasitic bathing machine. While you are
} the snark are engaged in a heroic battle to the death, the machine
} opens its frumious jaws and clamps them shut, eight times, on the most
} vulnerable parts of your body. Each blow will make you writhe in the
} ultimate pain, until the final one puts you out of your misery and the
} bathing machine starts to feast on your still-warm flesh.
}
} This method of ensuring the hunter's demise is now so well-established
} that the snarks and bathing machines have given it a name: The agony in
} eight fits.
}
} You owe the Oracle your vorpal blade. You won't be needing it.

--- 1120-10 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Rich McGee <rmcgee@csusb.edu>

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

> Oh Oracle most wise,
>
> When will May die?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} When June sucks all the life out of her.
}
} You owe the Oracle a shower with April.