Date: Mon, 07 Jul 03 12:34:37 -0500
From: Internet Oracle 
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1326-01


Selected-By: "Alyce Wilson" 


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


> Oracle most wise,
>
> Is it true people use the Internet for other things besides porn?


And in response, thus spake the Oracle:


} Absolutely! You can also spread viruses with the internet. Steal books,
} music and videos. And lets not forget the endless supply of "free"
} games out there waiting to be downloaded.
}
} There is a dark side to the internet. Some people put _information_
} on their web sites. No nude chicks or pirated music. Actual useful
} information about cars, the weather, what's on TV tonight, etc.
} I can't tell you how much those freaks creep me out. Stay away from
} them or next thing you know you might find yourself doing unspeakable
} things like studying and research. Imagine what you mom will think when
} she finds out you know WAY too much about 18th century Romanian art.
}
} You owe the Oracle some links to sites about naval warfare in the
} late 1500's. Not for me mind you, its... uh... for a friend.


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

Newsgroups: rec.humor.oracle
Subject: Internet Oracularities Digest #1326
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 18:03:59 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: 
Reply-To: oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: moose.cs.indiana.edu
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 18:03:59 +0000 (UTC)
Originator: daemon@cs.indiana.edu ()

Speaking of which:

10:01:24 PM    comment []

The Apple Store is offering an “Apple Store Pro Card.” Sigh. I don’t know how much, but the one day of ten percent off on software is looking attractive, especially with my Adobe suite (of which I only use Illustrator and Photoshop regularly) still stuck in the flakily emulated OS 9, and other software I really really want. But then there’s the G5 coming up soon.

Sigh. Must resist urge to translate dissatisfaction into purchases.
10:17:45 PM    comment []

Anyway, came across some old New Teen Titans issues, the stuff from which the Teen Titans cartoon series will be based. I had forgotten how risque Koriandr’s outfit was; the cartoon tones it down into a teenybopper tube top it seems. Kid Flash doesn’t seem to feature in the promos. The cartoon also seems to put them at a much younger age than the comic book, making the Robin/Nightwing-Starfire romance plotline unlikely. It seems to play up a Robin-Cyborg rivalry I don’t remember from the book.

Also came upon the twisted The Lost, recounting Captain Hook’s search for the vampiric Lost Boys. Only two issues of a projected four came out, both of which I have. Pity.
10:07:52 PM    comment []

CECILY. I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them.

MISS PRISM. Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Wilde on three-volume novel, plaguing us even then:

CECILY. Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.

MISS PRISM. Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.

CECILY. Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

Wilde on what fiction means:

MISS PRISM. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

11:22:51 PM    comment []

DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.

—New York Times, November 26, 1991

[by way of inluminent]
12:22:52 AM    comment []

Nossis’s first epigram:

I

Ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος · ἃ δ’ ὄλβια, δεύτερα πάντα
ἐστίν · ἀπὸ στόματος δ’ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ μέλι.
τοῠτο λέγει Νοσσίς · τίνα δ’ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλασεν.
οὐκ οἴδεν κήνα γ' ἅνθεα ποῐα ῥόδα.

—Νοσσις

I have not yet clapped eyes on an off-the-web Greek Anthology, but this Locrian site (by way of this site) has kindly put several of Nossis’s epigrams from the Anthology in picture form. I tried using the Macintosh’s support for foreign keyboards to type it in Greek, but it’s for modern Greek, so I used the Perseus Greek word study tool and its little language (a=alpha; h=eta; etc.) to compose the lines, save them to RTF Unicode-16, then used sed or awk to delete extras. Then to unicode.org to fill in some holes, some of which are not done yet.

If anyone knows a better way to do this on a Mac OS X, please tell me!
8:52:32 PM    comment []

The whale biologist, Bender’s adventure, and Fry’s caffeine-induced apotheosis make up somewhat for what is a mostly scattershot episode. My real disappointment, though, was the failure to follow up the last several episodes’ development of Fry and Leela’s deepening relationship.
10:49:43 PM    comment []

Selection seems to be less than the Clark store’s, at least the topics I’m interested in.
8:20:19 PM    comment []

Well, that one, and this:

Everything else will be icing on the cake. Whew. Glad I got those out of my blood.
11:11:25 PM    comment []

Then Mike got a better one.

I of course had to get the latest model.

Nyah!
10:35:19 PM    comment []

Kenny Chesney (why do I keep wanting to pronounce that chay-ney?) was touchingly touched by his award.

Alan Jackson’s video for “Drive” I liked that video too, but then I’m easily swayed by that family continuity stuff.

Toby Keith was voted Entertainer of Year. Was “How do you like me now?” only last year? Phew.

The Dixie Chicks did not get a warm reception, and Alan Jackson enjoyed every moment of the hissing. Not that I think they’re traitors or disloyal or anything; that would impute a sort of high-mindedness to the kinds of things they think, like principle or something. No.

I myself reserve the right to despise any person at all, most especially politicians.

Of all the words painted on their bods in the recent EW, I didn’t see “Weasel” on them. They make their statement when they thought it would not get back to their listening audience. It did, and when their sales threatened to drop, when people were so angry they decided to boycott the band’s music, they made more waffling statements about their position.

I hope that they will realize that there’s no pleasing everyone, shut up, and sing.

It seems much along the same lines that Evanescence tried to dodge their Christian rock branding after heavily marketing to that audience, and seems to me to speak to a kind of lack of integrity on their parts. Do they, don’t they? To this they may now say, “We would rather you not concentrate on our opinions.” Well, sorry. They should have thought of that before they opened their mouths.
9:03:25 PM    comment []

Afraid that the TiVo would delete the Series Finale of Farscape, I watched it. Wow, what a bummer of a cliffhanger to end upon, but the episode does tie up all the Ktratsi plotlines.

My suspicions concerning .hack//SIGN seem to be bearing out, and I think I see the way that the rest of the 26-show series will shape up.

I was hoping to get some more typing done, but.
12:24:18 AM    comment []