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Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:14 -0500
From: Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
Subject: Internet Oracularities Digest #1606

@@@ The Oracle's old original email address, oracle@cs.indiana.edu,
@@@ along with other Oracle-related email addresses @cs.indiana.edu
@@@ will cease to work at some point in the near future. Please update
@@@ any such addresses you may use or know of to use the current
@@@ @internetoracle.org domain, such as oracle@internetoracle.org.
@@@ The same applies to any web addresses (URLs) in web pages or
@@@ bookmarks where https://cs.indiana.edu/~oracle
@@@ should be updated to https://internetoracle.org

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:
1606
2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1

1601 13 votes 00175 03730 22423 04531 06520 12433 21541 10444 12361 12451
1601 3.3 mean 4.3 3.0 3.2 3.1 2.7 3.4 3.1 3.8 3.3 3.2

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:15 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-01

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

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

Have you been asked this question before?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Not recently, but you'll send it in 37 times over the next week.
}
} Impatient little bugger!

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:16 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-02

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

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

You wrote to me,

The Internet Oracle is poundering your question.

Expect an answer in a day or two.

It's been 14 months and still no answer. What are you doing with
your time? Can it be that difficult to make up some sort of answer,
no matter how illustruffulous?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} As a wise man once said, "Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so".
}
} So, let me tell you a little story.
}
} It starts about 14 months ago, and I'd just received your question
} which was, "Why do giraffes have long necks".
} Due to the fact that giraffes evolved before humans, and therefore
} the need for an Oracle, I didn't immediately know the answer, and
} would therefore have to look it up. So, I got off my throne, asked
} Zadoc to keep the cat fed while I popped down to the archives for a
} bit, and headed towards the lift. On my way there, I spotted a stray
} piece of paper that had clearly fallen off the trolley when Nathan
} (Zadoc's lackey) was bringing the financial records of his
} wood-shaving business for me to check over before giving him his
} monthly allowance. (Nathan will never make a profit.)
} However, the piece of paper clearly read, "Treebeard: owes $8 for one
} short back-and-sides". It was immediately clear to me that Nathan had
} completely misinterpreted "wood-shaving" and had set up a
} hair-dresser's for Ents.
} Putting that to one side, I continued towards the lift, and selected
} floor -17, being the floor dedicated to archives about evolution,
} poppadoms, and sightings of the lesser-spotted Ford Escort.
}
} Once the lift had ground into action (memo to self: must ask Zadoc to
} grease the lift-shaft with oil rather than butter), and my descent
} started, I decided to amuse myself by singing the words of the
} British National Anthem to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. And
} vice versa.
} Since I'm easily amused, this passed the 3 hours that the lift took
} to grind its way down to level -17.
} When I reached level -17, the doors sprang open and revealed a large
} emu that Grace (well-known as the subject of "Amazing Grace") had let
} loose in the archives. I hired Grace as head-archivist several years
} ago, but she insisted that meant she was only in charge of the
} collection of animal heads on level -12, and not the other 714 floors
} of material.
}
} Anyway, I eventually managed to distract the emu for long enough that
} I could get into the buggy that would take me to where the answer to
} your question was located. Since Grace had failed to recharge the
} buggy after using it to round up the herd of wildebeest I'd left
} there the previous week, I first had to plug it into an electrical
} socket.
}
} [ In the interests of time (which you seem to be rather specific
} about) I have omitted quite a lot of the rest of the story. ]
}
} So, I gave the emu a decent burial, unloaded Bernard (the
} woodworm-slaying sword of power) and all the jewels I'd won from
} Bethany (the Queen of Aisle 18) into the lift and pressed for the
} ground floor.
}
} After 5 hours, the lift ground its way up to the original floor,
} where I got off, and found Zadoc stuffing dog food into the hull of a
} catamaran. Stopping only to cover the dead body of Mittens with three
} layers of emeralds, I made my way back to the throne room, where I
} found your message berating me for being slow.
}
} Anyway, the answer to your question is: Because if they didn't, they
} wouldn't be able to see the sea.
}
} You owe the Oracle a replacement salad bowl. I think I left mine with
} Bethany.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:17 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-03

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

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

Hello! I am an intensent porpoise. All of us intensent porpoises get
upset when we are misrepresented as "intents and purposes" so please
tell me how we should correct the common error.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, dear intensent porpoise, you should swim up to those humans and
} say, "Excuse me, but I'm not here for intents and purposes, I'm
} here for fish and fun!"

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:18 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-04

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

What would you do with a supplicant who inexorably misflatulates one
word for another? My brother does that and I hope he gets a job as one
of your supplicants.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I would lasagna his noodle so bad it's not even flambe.
}
} You owe the Oracle dinner.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:19 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-05

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

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

Wanting is not enough. When I wrote to you in Chinese about my
problems with the Russian Orthodox Church I was hampered by my
astounding lack of knowledge of the Chinese language in addition
to my already insufficient information about Russia, the Orthodox
Churches of Russia, Greece and North Sentinel Island, and also the Not-Quite-Orthodox Church of Liechtenstein-in-Exile.

It also didn't help that I tried to spell "Church" as Cheese,
Churl, Chiropractic and Zadoc on several occasions.

So you can see by simply observing what has transpired--milk over
the damned, as it were--that I am not even fit to grovel in front
of you or behind you neither.

Butt I stilll have probblems. Whatt should I ddo?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} It also didn't help that when you say you "wrote in Chinese", you
} actually meant "in Mandarin", and by "Mandarin" you meant, "scrawled
} on a small piece of paper and hid it in some mandarin oranges".
} Nor, that when you mentioned the "RoC", I thought you meant a large
} mythological flightless bird.
}
} As to your current problems (not your currant problems - better known
} as Sultana problems, i.e. your ill-advised dalliance with the Sultan
} of Brunei's wife), I am somewhat stumped. As are you; sending a large
} crate of debris (or possibly deux Bries) to the Greek Patriarch cost
} you both an arm and a leg, so you don't have a leg to stand on.
}
} Your actual problems, of course, stem from taking anything I say
} seriously. The problem is that I've recently outsourced my responses
} to ChatGPT, whose aims are somewhat suspect.
}
} I strongly suggest that you take a long walk outside, away from any
} advice I or ChatGPT might give. A good location might be the Yokshire
} Dales, although given that President Putin has aimed a trebuchet
} loaded with a roc, a crate of mandarins, and the Sultan of Brunei,
} this might not be as safe as you might suppose.
}
} You owe the Oracle a photo of the Tim Peake District, shortly before
} the International Space Station is crash-landed there.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:20 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-06

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

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

I'm still trying to marry that beautiful English actress. Or is she
Canadian? You'll remember. You always do.

I'm writing a love poem so maybe she'll notice me. But I have poet's
block. Sort of like writer's block accept it rhymes.

When I'm looking for a rhyme for "heart" why does my busted brain give
me "fart"?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Nothing else rhymes with "heart", that's why.
}
} You should get a state-of-the-art rhyming dictionary to help start you
} off on your poems. It'll take part of the load off your shoulders, and
} help you look smart.
}
} You owe the Oracle a grovel, and a poster of Bart at the Kwik-E-Mart.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:21 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-07

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

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

What?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Precisely. Or actually partially precisely.
}
} The full set of questions that newswriters use are called 5WH: Who,
} What, Where, When, Why and How. Newswriters generally fancy themselves
} to be journalists, but we know that's just a dream.
}
} You owe the Oracle an appreciative biography of Dick Pothier,
} 1939-1995. Write it as an exciting feature story, and as Dick would
} say, "You have ten minutes." It should be totally riveting, starting
} with a punchy lede in the first graf.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:22 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-08

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

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

But why y?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The loss of the phoneme "hw" as it disappears into "w" (as, for
} example, where witch and which become identical in pronunciation)
} leads us to consider your question as "y y" or "y squared" and to
} the cornbread joke about "pie are square".
}
} You owe the Oracle (1) some better circular reasoning, (2) a brilliant
} proof by assumption, and (3) the restoration of the correct meaning of
} "begging the question."

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:23 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-09

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

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

Why does she come to me and say that she is alone, after so many years,
after she paid my love with pain? Why does she smile to me and look
deep in my eyes? Is she a vampire?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Sorry, bud. The "smile" of the bottlenose dolphin is merely how they
} are constructed.
}
} You may keep the nose, but you owe the Oracle the bottle.

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

Date: Wed, 03 Jan 24 11:09:24 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1606-10

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

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

What's the downside of not having sex? Scientifically, I mean. The
world won't come to and end if she doesn't have sex, right?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I know you think it is inconceivable, but to borrow the old aphorism,
} familiarity breeds.

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End of Internet Oracularities Digest #1606 ******************************************

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