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Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:46 -0500
From: Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
Subject: Internet Oracularities Digest #1579

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:
1579
2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1

1574 11 votes 13610 02630 01622 02270 14240 03521 22331 04232 02450 01361
1574 3.2 mean 2.6 3.1 3.5 3.5 2.8 3.1 2.9 3.3 3.3 3.6

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:47 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-01

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

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

Do I date to go to work tomorrow?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The workforce enforcement policies at your company, International
} Ambiguity Corps(e)., are perfectly clear: "Employees who fail to show
} up for work tomorrow are terminated yesterday."
}
} Take careful note of the restrictions in sub-paragraph B.3.a.j
} regarding the International Dateline. If you are on the wrong side of
} it all rights are reversed.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:48 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-02

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

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

What's the way to let a girl down easy?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Surprisingly, the use of a parachute is totally incorrect. For the
} untrained, the parachute is not at all easy. Even if you stack
} mattresses and pillows at the drop site, it'll be really hard (thuddd!
} at about 15 miles per hour) if she misses the target.
}
} I'd recommend diversionary tactics. Buy her a horse. Yes, they are even
} more dangerous than parachutes, but they totally absorb the mind. She
} will think of nothing except her horse, and whatever you do next will
} go totally unnoticed.
}
} Additionally, the horse will protect her from future encounters with
} guys like you. Some self-centered fellow will say to himself, or even
} aloud to his friends, "After she marries me she's gonna get rid of them
} horses." Won't happen. Won't happen. Won't happen.
}
} Long term, the gal who dies with the most horses wins.
}
} You owe the Oracle a Triple Crown, or failing that, a case of Canadian
} Crown.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:49 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-03

Selected-By: Mark Lawrence <mtlrph@gmail.com>

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

I love poetry, so I wrote you a poem. Maybe you can write me one, two.
Here is my poem.

Putting words in rhyme is what makes someone a poet.
So I am making the words here rhyme and you can't say you don't know it.
One of the best things about poetry is how you can say anything.
It just has to rhyme and be something you might sorta sing.
I could say something fake like the Oracle is useless
But you would know my words have no bite and are toothless.
Once I tried to make a rhyme for the color purple
But all I could find was orange.
Or silver.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You think doing this is what makes you a bard?
} You can hardly believe it's not any more hard.
} This isn't a Mad Lib with blanks you fill in.
} Rhyming is basic, a pastime for children.
} What makes the poem is the idea or feeling
} or unique point of view the words are revealing.
} From your example, the gist we can glean
} is you think a poem is just words you don't mean.
} Perhaps you'd be suited to top 40 pop,
} rhyming "fly/sky/high" and some malaprop.
} Maybe try something a little less amateur:
} You owe me ten stanzas in trochaic octameter.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:50 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-04

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

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

Please explain unclear power. I think it has something to do with
atoms but I can't see how it works. You will know better. Because you
know more than double.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} That's because it's unclear how fission and fusion work - except to
} those unclear scientists. They always misplace their glasses.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:51 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-05

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

My wife sent me upstairs to get the blue thing. I couldn't find it. She yelled at me for being stupid.

Later she said, "I found it!"

It was downstairs, in the hall closet. It was green. I still don't
quite know what it is.

I'm sure that even Omniscient Oracles have days like that. What do you
do about the problem? Describe, perhaps, a typical day of Oracular
Discord and Confusion.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You're right, even Oracles have to turn off their omniscience
} occasionally. How could I find "You've been framed" funny when I knew
} exactly what was going to go wrong?
}
} Actually, I don't find "You've Been Framed" funny even when I've
} turned off my omniscience. If I wanted to laugh at people getting hurt
} I'd ask Zadoc to fetch my supply of minced beef from the freezer
} compartment in the shark tank.
}
} Anyway, last Tuesday, or was it last Tuesday, I'd finished a day of
} answering supplicants' questions, turned off my omniscience, and was
} settling down to watch the remake of Groundhog Day 2, when Lisa came
} to ask me a question. I immediately told her that I hadn't seen her
} lipstick since I'd suggested that Zadoc's attempts to improve his
} musical range by strangling a succession of cats in increasingly
} larger showers were as likely to succeed as putting lipstick on a pig.
} That evening, I'd been presented with a plate of vegan cheese and
} chick-pea couscous instead of my usual sausage and mash, and startled
} grunts and oinks were to be heard from the basement.
}
} Anyway, it turned out that lipstick was the least of Lisa's problems,
} as Kendai had been trying to make himself omniscient by taking all the
} labels off the tins in the kitchen cupboard and predicting what was in
} each of them by licking them. Lisa was annoyed that Kendai had served
} up fruit salad and cat food for dinner, followed by soup and
} alphabetti spaghetti for dessert.
}
} So, Lisa asked me if I could prepare dinner instead. I told her that
} would be rather difficult as I couldn't remember my
} Lidl/Sainsbury's/Waitrose online shopping password (delete as
} applicable, depending on what class you think the Oracle is), and
} neither Alexa nor Siri were talking to me since I'd installed Cortana
} on our fridge. Cortana wasn't talking to me because I'd not installed
} the latest update.
}
} Eventually, however, we sorted everything out by making Kendai and
} Zadoc eat everything that didn't constitute some form of sensible
} meal.
}
} Anyway, that evening, I found a slightly deranged looking pig
} wandering about on the landing, wearing a tutu and covered in lipstick
} from neck to toe. Zadoc swore blind that he didn't know where the pig
} could have come from. Lisa had to explain to him about the facts of
} life, and what happens when a mummy pig and a daddy pig love each
} other very much. Strange whimpering sounds can now be heard from
} Zadoc's bathroom, and I don't think it's the cats.
}
} Sorry, what was the question again?
}
} You owe the Oracle a reminder of why he tied a knot in his
} handkerchief this morning, and the notepad he keeps by his bedside. I
} think it has the Oracular omniscience control sequence on it.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:52 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-06

Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel Klein)<daniel.v.klein@gmail.com>

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

My teacher says science uses the Metric System with millilitters and millimeters. She says if something doesn't have them it isn't
scientific. No inches or pounds. I asked her if Newton was a scientist.
And she said of coarse.

So I quoted to her from Newton's Opticks:

Exper. 16. The Lens which I used in the second and eighth Experiments,
being placed six Feet and an Inch distant from any Object, collected
the Species of that Object by the mean refrangible Rays at the distance
of six Feet and an Inch from the Lens on the other side. And therefore
by the foregoing Rule, it ought to collect the Species of that Object
by the least refrangible Rays at the distance of six Feet and 3-2/3
Inches from the Lens, and by the most refrangible ones at the distance
of five Feet and 10-1/3 Inches from it: So that between the two Places,
where these least and most refrangible Rays collect the Species, there
may be the distance of about 5-1/3 Inches. For by that Rule, as six
Feet and an Inch (the distance of the Lens from the lucid Object) is to twelve Feet and two Inches (the distance of the lucid Object from the
Focus of the mean refrangible Rays) that is, as One is to Two; so is
the 27-1/2th Part of six Feet and an Inch (the distance between the
Lens and the same Focus) to the distance between the Focus of the most refrangible Rays and the Focus of the least refrangible ones, which is therefore 5-17/55 Inches, that is very nearly 5-1/3 Inches.

Her eyes became narrow slits and her breath rate increased. She said,
"What are you trying to do to me? I'll bet your father voted for Donald Trump, too. He doesn't know anything. Get out! Do not enter my
classroom again!"

Does this mean I don't have to go to school anymore? Oh, and my father
voted for Donald Duck.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Remember that Newton not only invented gravity, lenses, and the idea
} of being surprised by Granny Smith dropping suddenly from a tree. He
} was also an alchemist, a misogynist, a Christian heretic, and spent
} much of his spare time playing on a beach with pebbles.
}
} He also had two birthdays, one on Christmas Day, and one on 4th
} January the following year. In this respect he was much like the
} Queen. Like the Queen, he made use of imperial measures (such as the
} length of the Queen's favourite corgi, the length of time before
} Prince Philip makes a racist comment when meeting a foreign leader,
} and the volume of gin the late Queen Mother got through before
} breakfast).
}
} Newton was also Master of the Royal Mint. In later years, Prince
} Charles mastered the Polo.
}
} Isaac had an enduring interest in the Och-cult, a Scottish religion
} mostly interested in avoiding fruit.
}
} He was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, despite being an
} Anti-Trinitarian. Whether this meant that he had a nephew at Trinity,
} or was secretly a member of St John's College, we do not know.
}
} It is said that he dyed a virgin. For what purpose, or indeed what
} colour, we can only speculate. We do know, though, that he self
} identified as a Newtonian vicious gender-fluid.
}
} Anyway, your father voted for Donald Duck? I voted for Hilary Benn.
}
} You owe the Oracle a copy of Newton's Optical Lectures, a study of
} performing surgery by tickling the patient.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:53 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-07

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

If I think I'm understanding you correctly you said I have to talk the
walk and walk the talk.

Now that's not making any sense to me, but I'll just sort of wing it,
and believe that you know what you are saying. I sure don't.

Do you mean that I have to chew gum at the same time?

This is getting to be, well, you know, like something. Was I supposed
to drank the Kool-Aid?

What the hell was in it? I feel all funny. And not funny ha-ha,
neither.

Now I'm tiring to walk, and going everywhere. I mean trying not tiring.
Help me please while I collapse in a heap over there by the doorway
that says ORACULAR BOTTOMLESS BROOM CLOSET.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck
} wood.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:54 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-08

Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel Klein)<daniel.v.klein@gmail.com>

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

My job is to sell insurance to people who can't afford it. I am
terrible at it, always being kind and sympathetic, but never closing
any sales. My boss said I'll be fired if I don't grow a pear.

I know it doesn't seem to make sense, but apparently I will need advice
on planting fruit trees.

Thank you for understanding.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The problem isn't growing pears, but rather growing but one pear. Once
} a single pear has grown you will have to choose between fullfilling
} your quest to grow a single pear and growing a pair of pears, which
} simply wouldn't do. I suggest you grow a pear and tell your boss
} to get his own. After that maybe you can start a new career as an
} arborist.You owe the oracle a partridge

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:55 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-09

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

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

I just chose my own adventure. Now what should I do?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} And a good adventure it was. Modeled after a real cave by real cavers,
} the ADVENT program was written in (ghoddd help us) Fortran for
} portability. Look at the source code some day. It is exemplary use of a
} language otherwise not suited to the task.
}
} You owe the Oracle a magic word. No, no, not THAT magic word. The other
} one. And some orange smoke, too. I seem to be out of orange smoke.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 18 13:59:56 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1579-10

Selected-By: Mark Lawrence <mtlrph@gmail.com>

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

Okay, Artificial Intelligence I understand. No, that's wrong. I don't.

I have heard of it, but I don't believe it.

What would really impress me is artificial stupidity.

Where can I find examples? (Finding the real kind is trivial.)

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Artificial stupidity is most frequently encountered in politics and
} diplomacy, when there is some political advantage to be gained by
} denying an obvious truth or by adhering to an obvious falsehood.
} This is not to suggest that there are no politicians or diplomats
} who are conventionally stupid. Indeed the most intelligent and cagy
} individuals with a deep understanding of the issues are the ones most
} likely to present artificial stupidity when it is in their interest
} to do so.
}
} For example, imagine a large organization with many members which
} exists to promote and develop the use of a certain category of product.
} The product in question may be useful and enjoyable when used properly
} and have a number of legitimate applications. But it can be lethal
} when misused. Perhaps a child may get access to one, or someone with
} fell intent may deliberately misuse it.
}
} An intelligent person might realize that some form for safety
} regulation might be in order. Perhaps one might need to participate
} in a safety class before being allowed to purchase this product.
} Perhaps ownership might require registration and a certain level
} of insurance.
}
} The organization knows that these measures would reduce the incidence
} of injuries and fatalities, but they might also reduce the sales
} of the product and the attendant profits. Many of their leadership
} have some connection with manufacturers of the product. While they
} are nonprofit, they have quite a bit of money at their disposal.
} They use this money to support politicians who will oppose regulations
} they dislike.
}
} The politicians who receive these donations have access to the same
} science and analysis as anyone else. But that money is very tempting.
}
} So despite overwhelming consensus of experts who deal with the
} consequences of product use gone horribly wrong, the politicians
} will pretend that the problem cannot be solved by regulation,
} that regulation would be an undue burden on personal freedom, etc.
} This stupidity is entirely artificial. They know better. But they
} are paid to act dumb.
}
} And this is why it took so long to get seat belts in automobiles.

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End of Internet Oracularities Digest #1579 ******************************************

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