From moffitt@ix.netcom.com Mon Dec 19 10:07:31 1994 Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 06:59:37 -0800 Message-Id: <199412191459.GAA14811@ix2.ix.netcom.com> From: moffitt@ix.netcom.com (Larry Moffitt) Subject: The On Ramp - December 19, 1994 -------------------------- THE ON RAMP Copyright 1994, The Washington Times By Larry Moffitt The Washington Times December 19, 1994 SWAMI, HOW I LOVEYA HOW I LOVEYA It was a dark and stormy night -- but the room was wrapped in a cloak of silence, broken only by the rhythmic tapping on the keyboard. A reply from the Oracle had arrived in my email. The question put forth two days earlier was "Oh wise Oracle, tell me why I keep getting cravings for chocolate?" In the fullness of time, the reply scrolled up the screen: "The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. And in response, thus spake the Oracle: If you keep trading with the same craven crowd, don't be surprised if they keep trading you cravings for chocolate. "You need to work on your bartering technique. For example, if you go to your local video store, you can probably get, like, water for chocolate. Then go to any high-class china shop, where they're happy to take Waterford crystal. Then go to Superman, who specializes in crystal for tresses. For ideas on what to do with the tresses, consult O. Henry's treatise, 'The Gift of the Magi.'" "You owe the Oracle a seat on the Zurich Chocolate Exchange." What a guy. The Oracle gets 250 email questions per day and handles them all. No question is too trivial or absurd. It must be nice to know all. And He's close by on the Internet, which beats trekking through the Himalayas as seekers used to have to do. But it does take a couple days for the Oracle to reply, and while you wait, He (She? It?) will usually email a question for you to answer -- which you are happy to do with as much sagacity as you can muster. And therein lies the secret of the Oracle, behind whom is a conspiracy as elaborate as the one grownups have created about Santa Clause. The Oracle is you and me. Your query is distributed to other supplicants who also have posed questions. As you answer the question given you, someone is answering yours. That's why it takes a couple days. The "Chief Priest" is Steve Kinzler, a software engineer at Indiana University who distributes the questions among the supplicants. An important part of the mystique that has developed in the creation of "oracularities," as the questions and related answers are called -- is the grovel, which enables His Omniscience to tolerate the imbecilic questions He receives. A decent grovel might be: "Oh Oracle, the Omniscient, the Beneficent; the delight of my eyes and the song of my heart, whose wisdom flows like the waterfall and whose fountains of prosperity irrigate the Gardens of Prudence and Virtue." Attentive but without overdoing it. People who play the Oracle game get addicted to it. "Other planets?" And in response, thus spake the Oracle: "No thanks, I've had four already." Dorothy Parker said a person can fake anything, except wit. Don't be intimidated, but you will find yourself in the presence of some very talented humorists. This wonderfully cooperative effort to create quality humor is a cut above most things that try to be funny on the Internet. Suddenly a lifetime of unanswered questions came screaming upward from the depths of my navel like sunflowers pressing toward the sky. At last, answers to so many things I need to know. I grabbed the keyboard. Essential queries first: "If it is against the law to impersonate a lawyer, shouldn't there be a penalty for actually being an attorney?" Roadmap: Email your imponderables to the Oracle at oracle@cs.indiana.edu. The "Subject:" line must have the words "tell me" somewhere in it. Ask your question, any question, in the body of the message. If you want a history of the Oracle and how it works, email the same address and put only "help" as the subject. Leave the body of the message blank. Go to the Usenet newsgroup rec.humor.oracle where the questions and answers are posted and commented upon. SANTA'S WEB PAGE Check out Santa's home page on the World Wide Web. It's the "Cyberspace Christmas Campaign in which corporations adopt charities and pledge money. Each time you, the digital tourist, visit the page of one of Santa's advertisers -- Sun Microsystems for example -- the corporation donates an entire dime. But hey, it adds up, so go there. Be sure to ask about their "Santa on a Shingle" program. Roadmap: The Clause Family home page is accessible via your Web browser at http://north.pole.org/. Be an Internet soothsayer. Send the sooth, the whole sooth and nothing but the sooth. to moffitt@ix.netcom.com Best Wishes, Larry -- Larry Moffitt The Washington Times (but speaking for me only) 3600 New York Ave., NE -- 3rd Floor tel: (202) 636-4992 Washington, DC 20002 fax: (202) 636-8092 ------------ Live by an examined set of principles ------------