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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

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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!

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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.
}
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