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Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:51 -0500
From: Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
Subject: Internet Oracularities Digest #1596

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:
1596
2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1

1591 10 votes 01144 11152 01531 12250 12511 13330 21412 31420 30241 02440
1591 3.2 mean 4.1 3.6 3.4 3.1 2.9 2.8 3.0 2.5 3.0 3.2

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:52 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-01

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

I have given up at trying to understand all the different measurement systems. "Bake in a 13 cm square pan at 350 degrees for half a
fortnight." What is that in Regulo numbers? Who cares? What's for
dinner?

So I plan to make a different system that is better. The Continental or
cgs system is totally unusable. I need something with more pounds to
the inch and fewer seconds to the Date of Easter, unless Passover is
early next year. More gallons per quart, too. Plus Lot's of Salt. Kilogrammes.

Your advice won't be neglected like last time. I might even get you a Sandwich.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Obviously for an ounce of salt what you need is what is know as Lots
} of Wives. Chuck behind shoulder and the devil take the hindmost.
}
} You are quite right the cgs makes no sense at all, you can blame the
} French for that. Take pan and boil to 80 Reaumur, then add Lot's Wife
} for fattening or shortening. Boil immersibly. On another pan, at 520
} Kelvin, take two eggs and discard promptly. Whoops. Take two more and
} crack openly. Split into pan, add Broccolie, cucumber and half a kilo
} of the best rice. Stir furiously.
}
} Now add small glass of red wine. Drink wine. Continue stirring.
} Discard pan. In the first pan, you need to add more wine (take sample
} for self, discarding cork). Stir mercilessly. Increase temp to
} something or other, check wine for consistency. In a bowl, add 500g
} flour, while singing to something by Liszt. Check list or Liszt. Check
} wine for consistency and flavour. Discard eggs, mix flour with 10
} grammes butter and stir occasionally. Put in oven for 45 minutes at
} gas mark 6 or 415 Fahrenheit. After 30 minutes remove pan from oven,
} check wine for flavour. Add currants raisins and sultanas return to
} oven for 15 minutes. Add small drop of wine, check once again for
} bouquet. After 15 minutes remove from oven leave to stand (if you
} still can) for about 10 minutes. Check wine for sulphides. If in doubt
} get second bottle. Discard cake, eggs, flour, pans etc in nearest
} recycling facility. Check bottle for emptiness. Then in a small pan at
} 60 Reaumur, 375 Fahrenheit or twenty pounds six shillings and
} ninepence three farthings, grab bottle, cup, pan, eggs, etc. Throw
} into the air. Check bottle for place of origin.
}
} You should now not care about what you are cooking. Discard all, check
} bottle for sell-by date. Cry another tup. If wine sufficiently
} broiled, remove cake from oven and defenestrate. Take from herb garden
} Oregon and Lyme Regis. Add to mix for piquancy. Check bottle. If
} bottle empty, lunch ready. Open bottle, serve-tu and a delicious Lyme
} Regis Pancake with a cheap tart awaits. Bon appetit!
}
} Tu la dette L'Oracle les freres Roux.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:53 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-02

Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

Some months ago I wrote to you about my uncle who died intestate. At
the time I thought it was "Interstate" like highway I-95 that goes from
Maine to Florida or I-5 that does not. You corrected me, in a manner of sneaking. You figured out that he must have died intesticular, that is missing his family jewels.

But that was not true either, as you can see in this photo.

His last words were "will be done on earth" and I think he left
everything too me. But where on earth is it?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Take the last train to Knoxville. I'll meet you at the station. You
} will find the safebox there (I shan't disclose the destination - no no
} no).
}
} In there you will find all your family jewels and indeed his Last
} Willly and Testicles. Addressed, as you would expect, to "Whom it May
} Concern". From there, take the six-five special coming down the line,
} six-five special right on time. Take a diversion around Nashville
} (generally known as the Parton shortcut). Then up to Idaho, home of
} the potato. From there quick right and I'll meet you in St Lous, Huey,
} Meet you at the square. Half to seven? I'll be wearing big carnations
} when you come. In the alternative, we could go the long way around via
} Oklahoma where the winds occasionally get a but out of control, and
} then go Onto to Toronto Pronto with Tonto, double back and we will be
} in New York before you can get a jerry-can or spring it open. Then the
} family jewels will be recovered. Take a diversion via Milan, do an
} Italian job with a New York Pizza, remember that even the piano in the
} parlour daddy bought for ten cents on the thaler so the interest on
} that for a hundred years, is, let me see now writtien in 1921 call it
} a straight 100 years and forget the odd nickel, $756.243-00 to be paid
} on demand to Oracle Towers. You leave Pennsylvania Station 'bout a
} quarter to four, supper in the diner then come to Baltimore and I'll
} meet you there with Carolina.
}
} You owe the Oracle a check or cheque, or preferably cash.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:54 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-03

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

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

Houston, we have a problem!

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} That'll be a Main B Bus Undervolt on the M21 Crosstown Bus (Houston
} Street), not to be mistaken for the 14th Street Crosstown. Instead,
} you'll Take the A Train, as depicted by Carl Lundgren. Return the
} dragon when you are finished.
}
} You owe the Oracle a MTA tunnel route connecting the Staten Island
} Railway with Manhattan.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:55 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-04

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

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

I wrote the attached program years ago, and now I need to update it.
As you can plainly see, it is hopelessly inscrutable. It would take
someone with the insight and wisdom of an Oracle to understand and
explain it. What does it do, and what was it supposed to do?

Please help?

PS: Sorry I cannot show it inline, owing to the limitations of
typography in this service, hence the attached version. I hope you
have a good way of rendering the arcane APL character set.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Ah, I see in APL. What you need first to get is an IBM 3270 terminal.
} Then you can properly tippy-tappy type. It is not surprising to any
} but the cognoscenti you don't understand your program, as APL was
} designed to be write-only. Let's try and work it out using simple
} matrix arithmetic.
}
} 2 -> 1 -> 'HELLO WORLD' sub minus dot print. (on your right hand). P
} shape to matrix multiply octal 432 517 gives OP as oh about a two
} 2/6' give or take an oz. Multiply the spare oz P <- Oz * P output to
} print P <- Oz, subtract Frank Oz, no hang on I forgot the carry... so
} that gives us R dot T <- K where K = F (rog), Let rog <- F, then
} take four trannies, cross-multpily 4(F x T) <- one semiconductor.
} Reduce [K F (rog)] in a pan. Let C = F and K, take K <- 273 so c
} <-0. Put in U^2261 multply by the number you first thought of,
} youshould now have the original program back,
}
} You owe the Oracle 6502,

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:56 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-05

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

Tell me about why there is no evidence that the Invisigoths were ever
in Spain. (This is a better question for repeating than the one about misnamed marmots.)

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, that is fairly simple. They were in Spain, in particular in what
} was known at the time as Iberia Inferior or in Arabic (since the Moors
} got as far as, ohh, quite a long way but never quite hacked the Pair
} of Knees Mountains, what with Hannibal and his Elephants coming in -
} he should have taken a shortcut across an alp but anyway. Would you
} like me to do it for you in Catalan or are you going to go with
} English?
}
} The Invisigoths, a strange breed of goths from, well, who knows, as
} they are by defiition invisible, invaded the major inland of the
} Iberian peninsula in about 1750. Having then got as far as Gibraltar
} and strait across to Morocco, they flooded North Africa with their
} invisible gothishness. Leaving churches in the, er, gothic style all
} across the southern mediterannean plain, and venturing as far as
} England, where they built various triumphal arches including Marble
} Arch, which used to be in Surrey. Built in the triumphal style by
} Nash, who also did er something to do with the Houses of Parliament
} together with Augustus Pugin, in a romanesque style this invisigoth
} built the invisible arch, which was modelled after the Arc de Triomphe
} (French: "We lost as usual") in somewhere near Sevres, I forget, some
} little place not far from Dunkirk or Dunquerque. The Eiffel Tower was
} built by a chap named... no hang on I am drifting... who built the
} Eiffel Tower? Some chap Eiffel I think. Anyway Marble Arch is not
} actually made of marble but of westmorland stone from Portland and
} Plymouth, and used to be in Surrey, but they moved it to, er, Marble
} Arch. You could if you wanted try to play marbles through it but you
} would need very big marbles.
}
} Coming back to Spain, the alhambra in Grenada, Andalucia is well worth
} a look. Christopher Columbus had a quick shuftie around there on his
} way not to discover America by completely missing the boat. A
} beautiful mosque made of red sandstone, this proud mosque and chapel
} is governed by the Emirate of Grenada.
}
} Coming back to the fortesque, no grotesque, no where were we, oh yes
} John Nash, no hang on that is a different one he did the silent "4
} minutes and 17 seconds" not to be confused with John Nash the
} mathematician, nor indeed Ogden Nash, whose poetry is trash. I mean
} John Nash the british architect, who together with Pugin did quite a
} lot of fiddly bits in London. Having built Marble Arch he went on to
} design the Lutyens Lions in trafalgar square, no hang on, that was
} done by some other chap called, er, Lutyens. Crazy name crazy guy.
} Nash designed Buck House in about 1823, but forgot to put the flagpole
} on top, anyway the flag is always that of the sovereign not of the
} united kingdom, and it is well-known that she tends to leave it up
} even if she is not present, to fool the burglars.
}
} That is about all you need to know about Nash architecture in London.
} Oh, he also designed Regent Street.
}
} You owe the Oracle a monopoly board.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:57 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-06

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

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

Dear Oracle, a navigator
Bestest sail an no piscator
Missus asks me fish and chips
Since Friday is and that't the biz

I got the spuds on, no avail
But then a group came wine wasail
my fish and chips will burn unless
They decrease noise. Nevertheless

I shall continue with the batter
Can you stop their constant natter?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} A supplicant writing some poetry
} Climbed up a ladder--no, a tree.
} His rhymes were as bad as McHorrigal
} And there isn't any good way to end this one.
}
} You owe the Oracle a recitation of your verse in sign language without
} resorting to finger-spelling. Ask your wasail group to do the same.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:58 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-07

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

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

Last time when I wrote to you about my previous question I referred to
my "pervious" question. I just wan't you to know that I am not now and
never have been pervious. It's just not like me to be that sort of
person, at least on Tuesdays. Htank you for you're careful
understanding.

What should have been the right answer? And why are my fingers wroking
like they are on the wrong hnad?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} A sinister bent you have taken
} In that you are truly mistaken
} Left-handed you are
} so your keying thus far
} Is cutting no mustard, nor bacon
}
} F and J you will find on indices
} You find have have taps. Then suffices
} To leave them right there
} And the KB's all square
} and your little ones do all the splices
}
} And thus it is shown you may type
} Even though what you write may be tripe
} Do not look at the board
} But, dear me, Oh my lord!
} The screen, OK? Don't make me hype
}
} As touch-typing's a gift you can learn
} Without a grim visage or gurn
} Just don't look at the keys
} And you'll find your disease
} Will be cured and you copy-type, earn
}
} From a newspaper needing a sub
} It is perfect good first starter job
} But your typos, you stencil
} (usu in blue pencil)
} To make your career at the hub
}
} Then sub-editor you can thus be
} And it's easy, now sure you must see
} That stencilling copy
} Is now not your hobby
} But your new career. Q. E. D.
}
} You owe the Oracle three Hungarumlauts, a cedilla, four French acutes
} (forget the brave ones) and oh, I dunno, I Czech ague for luck.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:46:59 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-08

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

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

Oracle ur, magyarul i'r nekem, de en egyaltalan nem tudok magyarul,
csakhogy a "magyar" kiejtik "mudyear" -nak. Teljesen a Google Translate
kell hagyatkoznom.

Why is Google Translate, usually good at French, German and Russian,
so horrible at translating in and out of Latin?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You may recall that one of my earliest manifestations was the Delphic
} Oracle. This was neither related to a Pascal-like programming language
} for accessing a weird database, nor a suggestion that Derek Trotter is
} a bit stupid. It was, in fact, because I was Greek.
}
} Interestingly, I was also known as Pythia, which is odd because my
} answers were always fairly rambling and long-winded (although shorter
} than those of the Discursive Oracle at the next-door Temple - she
} always slated copperplate handwriting).
}
} Anyway, my point is that I have a complete hatred of the Romans. In
} answer to the question, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" my
} answer is, "conquered us and caused the non-Greek Nero to win at every
} event in the Olympics except, for some reason, the coffee-making
} round".
}
} So, when Page and Brin founded Google, I exerted my influence on them
} by filtering all my email messages through a GMail account. Any
} messages praising the Romans was quickly flagged as spam. Their
} machine learning algorithm quickly learned that Latin was an
} untrustworthy language and that Greek was the way to go.
}
} Thus, Google Translate has no interest in Latin and considers it
} worthless and beneath it.
}
} You owe the Oracle a subscription to its online animated images
} website. Slogan, "Beware of Greeks bearing GIFs".

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:47:00 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-09

Selected-By: David Hemming <lightinchains@gmail.com>

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

Whom is the Oracle.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Soeties, a issing letter akes the eanings of essages ipossible to
} fatho.
}
} You owe the Oracle a question ark.

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

Date: Wed, 05 May 21 19:47:01 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1596-10

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

Dear Oracle superlative, who knows the gen and ablative
Who can explain as Molesworth does
Why Latin is just quite so much fuss

To nouns that cannot be declined the neuter gender is assigned
Examples. Fas and Nefas give. And the verb-noun infinitive

But since I have long years ago eaten my Shortbread Eating Primer, no
I mean Shorter Latin Primer, I am going a bit short on the ink to fill
in the holes in the Book of Revelations. Therefore a simple guide to,
well, any Romance language would be handy, for example French,
Romanian, Spinach or Italian...

Mi as a bravas palinkas... please by return of post tell me a gneralish repondu.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yes, Latin is very important, and you'll need to understand how to
} decline a cup of cocoa. Although it ends with A, it does so with the
} sound of O. Perhaps the best way is simply to say, "No thank you," very
} quickly, getting your declining in first. First declension is easier
} than third.
}
} Where would we be without Latin? We would all be speaking Greek, which
} almost nobody understands. Or maybe Etruscan. Or Linear B. Or even
} Linear A.
}
} You owe the Oracle a dissertation in Wendish or East Gothic.

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

End of Internet Oracularities Digest #1596 ******************************************

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