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Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:29 -0500
From: Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
Subject: Internet Oracularities Digest #1609

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:
1609
2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1

1604 11 votes 13250 16310 11513 22340 03431 13232 22223 01433 02423 13340
1604 3.1 mean 3.0 2.4 3.4 2.8 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.7 3.5 2.9

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:30 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-01

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

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

Oh great Oracle, who knows how many licks it takes to get to the center
of a Tootsie Pop,

what time is it in London?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You're thinking of New London, which is in Connecticut, not Lost London
} which is in Disconnecticut which is why nobody's ever heard of it.
} Regardless, it's too late and you should be asleep. You owe the Oracle
} a new antique Rolex.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:31 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-02

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

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

Do you ever just get tired of stuff? Like the dishes. You do the dishes
then you gotta do them again and on and on and on. It's Sisyphean. not syphilian though that's something different. Although it would be very
easy to get tired of syphilis too i suppose. Anyway my question is
what would happen if goldfish grew legs

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Go and observe your goldfish. If you wait long enough you'll see that
} they are growing legs.
}
} Oh, oh, look! There's one sprouting legs right now.
}
} Sorry, that's not a goldfish, it's a tadpole. It'll soon be a frog,
} awaiting the kiss of a voluptuous girl.
}
} NOT YOU, STUPID! DO NOT KISS THAT FROG!!
}
} ( * (SPROING!) )
}
} Dammit, now you've done it. You've turned a beautiful but slimy green
} frog into an ugly toad. You owe the Oracle an invitation to the
} wedding, which I shall happily decline.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:32 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-03

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

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

Our pastor has just renamed our church (he says it's HIS church). It is
now The Churchh of the Appoplectic Revivial. Should I simply change to
being Catholic? Or Jewish? Or something else? What would be best?
Sunday approaches and I really don't want to be there.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You should start your own religion; it's what all the best people do
} (many of the worst as well).
}
} Some suggestions for making your new cult successful:
}
} 1) Make sure the rules are very specific. Nothing as general as "Do
} unto others as you have them do unto you". Try, "Give small ceramic
} frogs to people with whom you've had a minor falling out on the
} anniversary of your first meeting."
}
} 2) Introduce some penalty for non-adherents. Preferably something that
} will convince enough gullible, confirmation-bias-susceptible people
} there's something in it: If you do not follow me with enough fervour,
} you will occasionally be attacked by gulls.
}
} 3) Ensure your followers can identify themselves and anyone not inside
} the cult: Our followers always carry a ball of lavender soaked in the
} sap of three stick-insects.
}
} 4) Discover some miracles that can't be disproved easily. Anything as
} obvious as "Wanlockhead was saved from flooding by divine providence"
} when we know perfectly well that Wanlockhead is 467m above sea-level
} and had no chance of flooding in a month of Mondays is not good. Try,
} "The plague of foxes was poised to invade Borth when a
} divinely-inspired sheep dropped from a tree onto the fox-chief's
} head."
}
} 5) Surround yourself with a few close adherents: Pick the friends who
} don't know you that well. Your closest friends will just point out
} that it's Trevor spouting rubbish again. Others will be so glad to see
} you again after all these years that they'll go along with whatever
} you say for a laugh. Once you induce guilt in them, they'll stay for a
} lifetime.
}
} 5b) While we're at it, change your name. No divinely inspired leader
} was called Trevor. Find a name from a distant country (or the past)
} that sounds a bit mystic and royal and use that. Try "Ethelred Khan
} the Crown Prince of Upper Hand"
}
} 6) Create some form of ritual: Say you meet up on Tuesdays after
} pub-closing time (if the pubs don't shut before your bedtime, petition
} the council until they do), where you all don beach shorts on your
} hands and walk around on all fours reciting the last three verses of
} The Hunting of The Snark.
}
} 7) Prepare for succession. When you die (or at least stop moving),
} your followers will become disillusioned and drift away. If you want
} the cult/guilt to survive after your death, claim that the most
} fervent adherent of the inner circle will inherit the beach shorts of
} superiority and your personal copy of Alice In Wonderland. Leave each
} of these to a different person in your will and let them fight it out
} later. If you're lucky, one of them will claim to have been given
} metaphorical beach shorts, at which point we're in the realms of the
} supernatural (or at least super-disturbing naturism) and the cult is
} ripe for expansion.
}
} You owe the Oracle two ceramic frogs for not coming to Snark practice
} for the last two Tuesdays. If you don't, may you forever be losing
} pens and small change to Barry, my pet gull.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:33 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-04

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

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

You read my report on the Hoover Damn, which I didn't understand at
all, as I thought it was a cursed vacuum cleaner. Now I just found out
it has water in it. The Rainbow brand vacuum has water in it, but the
Hoover does not. Please help me learn selective memory rewriting so I
can be slightly less wrong.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You can fine tune your memory as follows:
}
} 1) Bring a topic to the forefront of your mind.
} 2) Very gently hit yourself on the forefront of your mind to destroy
} the memory.
} 3) Try to remember why you hit yourself on the head in the first place.
}
} This is a technique that Zadoc has used several times, and as a result
} he no longer remembers the names of the kings and queens of England,
} the correct way to address a Duke, or exactly what spats are.
}
} You owe the Oracle a Hubert Cecil Booth, a kind of closet for people
} who wish to be forgotten.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:34 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-05

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

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

What is at stake here?

What is the purpose of this hearing?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You're at stake, tied to it. You are hearing the peasants approaching
} with their torches and their hogsheads of very inflammable beef tallow.
} They are yelling that you forgot to grovel before me and will pay the
} price.
}
} I'll call off the peasants if you agree to owe me some good grovelling
} and four dozen new supplicants.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:35 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-06

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

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

I've been thinking about these new "driverless car" plans.

In particular, I've been considering how they mesh with the
manner of driving that has been used, traditionally, in Boston, Massachusetts, since before there were automobiles. That'll be "driving
by intimidation" in which the rules of engagement are not unlike the
activity of bluffing in poker. (And yes, as great-grampa told me,
people drove their horse carriages the same way!)

Some of the nuances include:
- The big vehicle has the right of way over the smaller.
- The faster vehicle has the right of way.
- The uglier vehicle doesn't care what happens to it, and grabs the
right of way.
- Backing up into the car behind results in a successful claim for
"following too closely".
- The vehicle going the wrong way on a one-way street requires the rest
of the traffic to back up.
- Right-turn on red can be taken at any time.
- Left-turn on red and straight-ahead on red similarly.
- When waiting at a stoplight, the "oncoming traffic" lane may be used
to get ahead of the nincompoop in front of you.
- A red light is merely pink until five seconds after it turns red.
- Anything done to cause a semi-trailer to take evasive action is
socially acceptable.
- Everyone behind you is a maniac, and everyone in front of you is a
nincompoop.

Some of these rules obviously conflict with others. In particular, some
of them require mind-reading.

How does the software in the driverless car manage such situations?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} .begin;.disregard(rules);.target(person.last.on.earth);
} .pedal.accelerate(fast);..end(human.race);.begin(a.whole.new.world);

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:36 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-07

Selected-By: Ian Davis

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

Please set me on the True Path of the Sepulveda of the Church of the
Holy Epithet. With your astonishing help there will be no way I can
avoid winning, even if I stop for lunch.

Where do I go first?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I usually go to the loo before starting out. Saves embarrassing
} accidents later.
}
} Anyway, you young people are all the same these days, always wanting
} your hand holding. In my day our spiritual advisors would push us out
} of the door with a compass and an A-Z of London. If we made it out of
} Milton Keynes before being set upon by witches, we were doing well.
}
} So, let's check you've got everything you need.
}
} 1) Crucifix (a Screwfix loyalty card is *not* the same thing, although
} being stabbed through the throat by the business end of a Black &
} Decker Hammer Drill will slow down even the most blood-thirsty
} vampire).
}
} 2) Holy water (still, not sparkling - if Our Lord's personality was
} ever described, "effervescent" is not an appropriate word).
}
} 3) Money (I know St Pauline (of the Pauline epistles) said something
} about it being the root of all evil, but you try buying food with
} just a winning personality and a smile, and you'll find yourself
} feeding the fishes, and I don't mean at Jack McHardy's Discount Pet
} Store).
}
} 4) Map (preferably not the Mappa Mundi; its attention to detail could
} best be described as "distracted". A 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Survey
} will suffice).
}
} If you've got all that, then just go out of the door, and turn
} widdershins.
}
} Left, you idiot! Left!
}
} You owe the Oracle a version of Google Maps that marks dens of
} iniquity (so that I can avoid them, obviously).

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:37 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-08

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

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

I have a couple of maybe-serious questions about God, the Big-G God,
who as we have heard is even more omniscient than you the Omniscient
Oracle.

First, does God kneel when He prays? To whom? In which direction does
he possibly kneel?

Also, according to Bishop Berkeley we are merely thought in the Mind of
God. What are the best ways for reading His Ineffable Mind?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I appreciate the grovel, but although I am extraordinarily wise, I am
} not quite omniscient. God, however, is omniscient, except on alternate
} Tuesdays.
}
} When God preys, he kneels before his prey to reach it better. Facing
} the prey, of course.
}
} Bishop Berkeley - or that old Berk, as I like to call him - didn't know
} what he was talking about. How can we be mere thought in the mind of
} God? God's mind, as you noted, is ineffable, whereas lots of us are
} effed all the time. (Not you, Supplicant, I know; but your day will
} come.) So we must have existence outside of God's mind.
}
} You owe the Oracle a god of your own making.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:38 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-09

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

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

My paper on the founder of thermodynamics Sadi Carnot and his so-called Carnot Cycle suffered greatly from the corrections that my inept
brother applied. I just wanted him to check my spelling and grammar,
but he thought he was a know-it-all and he tried to improve everything.

Instead of thermodynamics, the paper I allowed my brother to hand in
for me was all about the impossibility of bicycling, and was titled,
"Sadly Cannot Cycle".

This is yet another in the series of complaints I have made to you on
the difficulties I have with grammar, spelling, the English language,
the French language, French people, computers, lack of computers,
oxymorons, time travel, Mexican jails, over-stretched puns, Donald
Knuth, poor Oracular answers, Perl programming, Evita Peron, database inconsistencies, typographical errors, idiots, and my brother. You have occasionally taken to ZOTting me, as if that would solve the problem.

Please instead give me a general solution to ALL problems. You came
close to a good solution nearly a year ago, when you recommended a
solution of about 40 percent ethanol in water, plus enough French
flavoring to qualify as slightly genuine cognac. Unfortunately I used
it up over a month ago.

While you are busy putting together an answer, send more cognac,
please.

And if you don't get me more cognac I'll drink bathtub gin and start
asking you whether "cannot" or "can not" is the correct usage. Do not
take this as a threat, even if it is.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} This incarnation of the Oracle notes with pleasure that although you
} have difficulties with both the French language and its people, you
} only have problems with English as a language.
}
} The general solution is therefore simple:
}
} Construct your own reality, then either retreat into it, or impose it
} on everyone else.
}
} The English have of course been doing this for years. After having
} created the English myth of King Arthur defeating the Welsh at
} Agincourt by building Hard Ian's wall across Watford Gap, they all
} retreated into the Home and Away Counties, as well as the various
} Shires (horses, books, and what Sean Connery used to call knights).
} Having rewritten the history books in their favour (started by the
} disgustingly Venereal Bead), they started to run out of space and
} imagination, and wondered what might lie beyond the English Chanel No.
} 4 (slightly less fragrant than Chanel No. 5 due to the existence of
} French fishing vessels).
}
} The English therefore started sailing the Seven Seas (they tried
} selling them at first but couldn't find anyone willing to buy several
} billion pints of salty fishy water that the French had been sailing
} in). They roamed far and wide and graciously imposed their version of
} reality on the inhabitants of the far-off lands they discovered
} (ignoring the fact that the people living there didn't want to be
} discovered, thank you very much).
}
} Skipping quickly over some of the English's more questionable
} practices such as looking after other countries' ancient artefacts for
} them, we come to the present day, where the English myth is starting
} to lose its grip on reality, in spite of (or possibly because of) its
} efforts via the World Service and Giles Brandreth's appearances on
} Just a Minute.
}
} The only way that the English can claim to have retained their current
} grip on reality is by drinking themselves into oblivion (not the one
} at Alton Towers). Given that the English cannot buy Champagne (either
} the drink or the French region) easily, they turn to Bucks-Fizz (which
} underwent rebranding following the resignation of the Revd Dr Spooner
} from the Board of Directors).
}
} It should be noted that bathtub gin is a bad idea if someone takes the
} plug out. With Thames Water's current record, the gin will reach the
} Channel and beer-battered cod will become gin-flavoured mackerel,
} which nobody wants.
}
} So, the solution is simple: ferment your own English wine and start
} drinking every day before the sun is over the yardarm.
}
} You owe the Oracle one for the Great North Road.

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

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 24 07:33:39 -0500
From: Internet Oracle <vote@internetoracle.org>
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1609-10

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

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

How are we to understand or misinterpret the words "vowels" and
"wolves" when neither is a palindrome of the other? When will the
truth (or at least the half-truth) reappear, but without yesterday's
"wise guy" remarks?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Wolves: Evolutionarily well-adapted predators that add a certain
} je-ne-sais-quoi to any solo trip through a dark forest.
} Vowels: Evolved to help humans pronounce words without drowning in
} their own spit.
}
} Counterpoint:
} Humans: Evolutionarily sophisticated predators capable of producing
} the Works of Shakespeare and Bach's Mass in B Minor.
} Consonants: Add interest and complexity to language. Make the
} difference between vowel and bowel.
}
} The conjunctions of these are very insidious, though:
} Werewolves: Are they human, are they a wolf? Changes according to the
} phase of the moon. Capable of appearing suave and genteel one moment,
} then disembowelling you 10 seconds later.
}
} The letter Y: Is it a vowel, is it a consonant? No-one knows.
} According to the word "syzygy" it must be a vowel. According to the
} word "yeti" it must be a consonant. Also well known for being
} annoying from small children: "Why can't I have another biscuit?,
} "Why is the sky green", "Why won't you answer my questions?"
}
} So, beware "Y" and werewolves with equal vigour, lest you be taken
} unawares.
}
} You owe the Oracle some rhythm.

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

End of Internet Oracularities Digest #1609 ******************************************

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