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Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 17:40:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Internet Oracle <oracle-request@cs.indiana.edu>
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Subject: Internet Oracularities #1433
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=== 1433 =================================================================
Title: Internet Oracularities #1433
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:40:06 -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 bad") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to
this message).  For example:
    1433
    2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

1428  37 votes 79b91 18db4 8h723 19f75 1879c 11ja6 17c7a 138fa 03ec8 3b8a5
1428  3.3 mean  2.7   3.2   2.3   3.2   3.6   3.5   3.5   3.8   3.7   3.1

--- 1433-01 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Dear Oracle,
>
> Please don't hate me, I have never had any intention to do anything
> wrong against you. :(
>
> Yours sincerely,
> MegaBrutal

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Dear Megabrutal,
}
} The Oracle understands that at times an incarnation may provide an
} inappropriate answer.  Relax.  Take it easy.  Eat some peanut butter,
} unless you're allergic.  Make friends.
}
} Also, send $20,000 in unmarked bills to
}
} Oracle T. Oracle
} 450 Way Way
} Indianatown, Indiana
} 98474
}
} You owe the Oracle a lot of money, it seems.

--- 1433-02 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> I beg your pardon?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I said "Look out behind you."
}
} But now, never mind.
}
} You owe the Oracle a postcard from the afterlife.

--- 1433-03 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel V Klein) <dvk@lonewolf.com>

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

> is this edward?  i mean, i don't want to be up in your business or
> nothin'.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} This is Orrie, or to you The Internet Oracle. I have sent Edward to his
} room with the threat of a large ZOT for his constant abuse of my forum.
} You are treading on dangerously thin metaphors, and liable to fall in
} and drown.
}
} Have you considered actually asking me a question worthy of my vast
} knowledge? Or are you eternally stuck in the Moat of Unpleasantness?
} I'm slightly surprised that the Dragon of Discontent hasn't devoured
} you.
}
} You owe the Oracle some respect, or at least a framed picture of Rodney
} Dangerfield.

--- 1433-04 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Oh great Oracle, who is never at a loss for words...

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} ...is hungry.
} You owe the Oracle a pizza.

--- 1433-05 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Are there any games harder than Nethack?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Life is pretty tough, everyone I know ends up dying.

--- 1433-06 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel V Klein) <dvk@lonewolf.com>

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

> The laste couple of times I asked you questions, I received answers
> that not only clearly violated regulations for minimal humour ratio,
> they also contained insults which were "thinly veiled" in the way that
> "The Life of Brian" contained subtle allusions to biblical characters.
>
> Have you been outsourcing your answering to North Korea or the Klingon
> Homeworld again?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, we did try that for a few years. You know how hard it is to get a
} decent priesthood nowadays? The number of applicants whose linguistic
} talents just consisted of "roflnoob" and "lols"? Bleugh.
}
} So, we did the outsourcing. We took applicants from Qo'nos, Korea,
} Tattoine, South Dakota, London and even a few from monkeys. And it
} worked for a time. The new workers were competent, polite and helpful.
} They answered questions. But then they got too helpful.
}
} They started answering the woodchuck question. And so more people
} started asking it. And they answered it. And more people asked it. It
} was... terrible. A chain reaction. Our users were so well trained not
} to ask the forbidden query, and now they were breaking loose.
} Impudently with no grovel.
}
} Things came to a head... and... well, that's why christmas got
} cancelled that year. And easter. And all birthdays.
}
} So now, all answers are done by the Oracle and only by the Oracle.
} Really. 100%, I'm the Oracle, and not an outsourced worker. Believe me.
}
} Qa'pla!
}
} Erm, I mean thanks.
}
} You owe the Oracle some targ blood, I mean some bloodwine, I mean some
} tea. Yes, tea.

--- 1433-07 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> Listen to this story I wrote:
>
> The potential propositions Steve without a mouth. A curry returns!
> The volume enjoys Steve opposite an era. A patent controller disregards
> Bob around a marriage.
>
> Why won't Steve color inside Bob? Bob whistles without Steve. The hobby
> enters the repulsive desktop into a recovery. Steve standardizes the
> fog in the world career. Bob fudges into Steve. Bob rears Steve.
>
> A dependant groan needles Bob outside an endeavor. How can the rose
> myth flower Bob? Bob waves! Steve faints around Bob.
>
> A permitted cruise nests near a widest misprint. Steve hesitates!
> An atmospheric snack dances a noble. Below the misleading analysis
> marches its secular pitfall. Steve inspires Bob over the cooled road.
> The backward hotel vanishes.
>
> How will Bob rave near Steve? Steve packs Bob. A damned eagle grasps
> Bob. An innocence fishs for Steve. Bob repairs the guest opus inside
> a surface. Bob alters the nine kernel next to the concentrated night.
>
> And they all lived happily ever after.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oh! A pop Turing Test!
}
} Let's see, if my comments about the story are indistinguishable from
} those of a human capable of speaking the English language, then I pass
} the test, right?
}
} Alright, how about this:
}
} An in-depth pogohermeneutic psychoanalytical analysis (under
} presupposition of the Boogaloo-Theses put forth by Jim X. Machina in
} his magnum opus "Symbolic Deforestation of the author's mind: a
} calculus of calculated stories"), reveals that Steve's hesitation is
} actually an expression of his desire to reject Bob in favor of the
} returned curry. In this paper, I will perform this analysis which aims
} at no less than revolutionizing the entire Pterodactylic School of
} Steve-and-Bob-scholars.
}
} You owe the Oracle a college degree in a field of your choice and an
} acknowledgment of its at least human, but in all likelihood superior,
} intelligence.

--- 1433-08 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> Welcome to choose your own adventure!
>
> You are a supplicant writing to the oracle.
>
> If you have a serious question, turn to page 48.
>
> If you don't have a serious question, turn to page 32.
>
> If you just want to annoy the oracle, turn to page 3 and 1/2.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Page 3 1/2:
}
} If you want to annoy the oracle by repeatedly asking the same question,
} please turn to page 3 1/2.

--- 1433-09 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

> Wise Oracle Most Charming and Insightful,
>
> What is it with all those dang squirrels?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} What happened to the great questions about life, the universe and
} everything?  All anybody seems to want me to do nowadays is tell them
} the details of what's really going on under the covers of national
} security.
}
} Oh well ...
}
} The nut-directed problem-solving proclivities of Sciurus Griseus
} have been widely recognised among academic researchers for a number
} of years.  However, following their popular expose' in the early
} nineties (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY9GBl7UmVs), a member of the
} British secret services came up with the idea of a rodent corps
} for servicing dead-drops in Eastern European cities.  For a while,
} the proof-of-concept enjoyed some success (informants within foreign
} governments could just dangle some microfilm for collection on some
} string out of their 8th-floor apartment window, for example).  However,
} it proved difficult to bring into full service, given the cut backs in
} funding for operations directed in that particular direction (while
} squirrels do quite well in almost any European city, the deserts
} of Kuwait and Iraq proved not so conducive to success).  However,
} what finally put paid to the operation was the need to coat every
} microfilm, etc., with Nutella (to be fair, always seen as a downside
} to the system, even to its proponents).  The chance uncovering of an
} informant in Sofia, with a 'live' deaddrop halfway up a pine tree in
} his garden, led to the mass training by foreign intelligence services
} of hazelnut-aware sniffer dogs, and the effective neutralisation of
} the squirrel service.  (Don't be concerned if a police or intelligence
} officer of a former soviet republic sends his Alsatian at you shouting
} 'go for the nuts' - he's referring to possible concealed intelligence
} information.)  (On second thoughts, DO be concerned.)
}
} So operation Nutkin was shut down and consigned to the archives, except
} that an amused MI6 desk officer posted a particularly impressive
} retrieval filmed in Belgrade to an internal humour mailing list,
} to which a Pentagon liaison officer was subscribed.
}
} All went quiet on the squirrel front until 2003, when the same liaison
} officer was involved in a brainstorming session on how they might
} find, and preferably dispatch, a certain individual thought to be
} hiding in the Tora Bora caves.  "If only," the chair of the meeting
} was heard to muse, "we had an army of undetectable robots - about the
} size of rats - which were able to roam around above or below ground
} and skilled in locating things."  Of such chance meetings between
} problems and solutions is history made.
}
} Of course, operation Snickers, the American version of Nutkin, was
} orders of magnitude more complex than the British version.  There were
} four strands of genetic engineering - the first to ruggedise the
} 'standard' squirrel, without letting it appear any different to
} the casual observer.  The second strand mixed squirrel and cobra
} DNA, enabling squirrels, under exactly the right stimulation, to
} deliver with a single bite a dose of venom lethal to human beings.
} The third strand was co-ordinated with an intensive program (under the
} auspices of departments more usually associated with interrogation
} and brainwashing techniques in humans) of 'repurposing', aimed at
} retraining away from conventional fixations on hazelnuts and acorns,
} and towards the human anatomy.  (Given that researchers wanted to use
} squirrels' innate sense of smell to help home in on their targets,
} and that everything was aimed at a single individual, known to be male,
} the area of the body to target in training was fairly obvious, and the
} phrase 'go for the nuts' acquired a new lease of life, as a sort of
} unofficial project motto).  Further aspects of this training involved
} specific training towards distinguishing physical characteristics of
} the single target.
}
} The fourth and final strand of genetic engineering was to modify the
} squirrels to produce a genome-specific toxin, in place of the generic
} cobra venom with which they started.  Availability of appropriate
} genetic material was not good, but the boffins eventually managed to
} come up with a mix which they guaranteed would terminate the intended
} target, and 'only about 800 other people in the whole world'.
}
} And so, the stage was set.  With advice from the few remaining members
} of the team responsible for the original cat-drop into Borneo (look
} it up), 4000 "really cute" parachutes and quick-release harnesses
} were made, and 4000 "really hard" genetically modified squirrels
} (though, it must be stressed, indistinguishable from ordinary grey
} squirrels under all but the most rigorous tests) were bred up.
} A Hercules transport was booked, and a date set for the overflying
} of Afghanistan at 50,000 feet.
}
} And here, Fate steps in (she's always poking her nose in - one of
} the most annoying, self-righteous, interfering anthropomorphisms I've
} ever met).  On the first internal shipment flight, a loose catch on
} a travelling box combined with the unlucky co-incidence of a pilot
} who (a) was distinctly proud of his full black beard, and (b) had a
} little bit of Saudi Arabian ancestry somewhere in his background.
} Air traffic controllers report 'a terrible scream, indescribable
} except for being oddly highly-pitched', followed by several seconds
} of quiet whimpering, then a big bang and lots of white noise ...
}
} Of course, the cleanup teams got there too late.  A factory in
} the area owned by one of the large confectionery manufacturers
} was 'accidentally' burned down the next night, though strangely
} the compensation from the insurers seems to have been boosted to a
} significant degree from some poorly-identified government source.
} The night watchman apparently perished in the fire - by all accounts
} a hard-working family man, of middle-eastern origin and with a black
} beard described by his neighbours as 'impressive'.
}
} Gray squirrel numbers in the US have been climbing recently, you
} might have noticed.  What you probably won't have seen reported is
} the  'anomaly' in the statistics for missing persons - suddenly you
} seem much more likely than average to disappear if you're an immigrant
} with a full black beard.
}
} You owe the Oracle a stainless steel codpiece, and a dose of cobra
} venom anti-toxin.

--- 1433-10 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

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

> The Oracle is the master of the bad pun!
>
> What is the Glutenberg Bible?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} edible Word.