Internet Oracle
Encyclopedia
The Internet Oracle is an effort at collective humor in a pseudo-Socratic
question-and-answer format.
A user sends a question to the Oracle via e-mail
, or the Internet Oracle website, and it is sent to another user when he/she has asked a question, or requested one to answer. This second user may then answer the question (or not; if it is not answered within 24 hours it is put back into the queue to be given to another user to answer). Meanwhile, the original questioner is also sent a question which he/she may choose to answer. All exchanges are conducted through a central distribution system which also makes all users anonymous.
A completed question-and-answer pair is called an "Oracularity".
Many of the Oracularities contain Zen
references and witty wordplay. "Geek
" humor is also common, though less common than in the early years of the Oracle's existence, when fewer casual home computer users had Internet access. Most Oracularities are significantly longer than the above example, and they sometimes take the form of rambling narratives, poems, top-ten lists, spoofing of interactive fiction
games, or anything else that can be put into plain text.
A complex Oracle mythos has also evolved around the figure of an omniscient, anthropomorphic, geeky deity and a host of grovelling priests and attendants. Other staples in conversation with the oracle include:
An assorted mythos of recurring characters—or in-jokes—has accumulated over the years. These include the worthless High Priest Zadoc (sometimes with an assistant named Kendai), the Oracle's girlfriend Lisa the Net.Sex.Goddess, an assortment of deities, and the caveman
figure Og.
newsgroup
Now, the forum is basically about asking silly questions to get silly answers; consequently questions meant for libelous intent, questions of a sexual nature, and serious questions are not apt to this forum (although an exception may be made when a serious question is given a particularly silly or funny answer). An especially adept incarnation may occasionally deal with such questions in keeping with the forum—absurdly, perhaps masking the truth, perhaps framing the truth from an absurd viewpoint, or perhaps resorting to nothing but demanding an absurd tribute.
is credited with the initial idea for an Oracle program. In 1976, he wrote one which ran at the Harvard Science Center
's Unix
time-sharing system. He then distributed the program via the PSL Games Tape to Unix installations around the world until 1988.
In 1989, Lars Huttar was told about Langston's Oracle by a friend at college. Not knowing where to obtain a copy, he wrote his own version of the program, which only worked when users were logged in to the same computer. Huttar posted the source code
to the Usenet group alt.sources in August.
Steve Kinzler
, who was a graduate student and system administrator
at Indiana University, downloaded Huttar's code that same year. He deployed it as the Usenet Oracle on a university server and it became popular. Ray Moody, a graduate student at Purdue University, enhanced the program to allow access via e-mail. This allowed anyone on the Internet to use the Oracle. Kinzler installed this version on another Indiana University computer, where it became the Internet Oracle in March 1996.
Kinzler has since made further enhancements, the most prominent being the "priests" choosing Oracularities for irregularly published digests. Although he no longer works at Indiana University, the school has continued to provide a server to host the Oracle program, its web site, and archives.
exemplified by the Conversatron, and the now defunct Forum 2000, Forum3000 and TrueMeaningOfLife.com, among many others. These share the following characteristics:
Socratic method
The Socratic method , named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas...
question-and-answer format.
A user sends a question to the Oracle via e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, or the Internet Oracle website, and it is sent to another user when he/she has asked a question, or requested one to answer. This second user may then answer the question (or not; if it is not answered within 24 hours it is put back into the queue to be given to another user to answer). Meanwhile, the original questioner is also sent a question which he/she may choose to answer. All exchanges are conducted through a central distribution system which also makes all users anonymous.
A completed question-and-answer pair is called an "Oracularity".
Style
A representative (and famous) exchange is:- The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
- Your question was:
- > Why is a cow?
- And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
- } MuMu (negative)or Wu , is a word which has been translated variously as "not", "nothing", "without", "nothingness", "non existent", "non being", or evocatively simply as "no thing"...
.
Many of the Oracularities contain Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
references and witty wordplay. "Geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...
" humor is also common, though less common than in the early years of the Oracle's existence, when fewer casual home computer users had Internet access. Most Oracularities are significantly longer than the above example, and they sometimes take the form of rambling narratives, poems, top-ten lists, spoofing of interactive fiction
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
games, or anything else that can be put into plain text.
A complex Oracle mythos has also evolved around the figure of an omniscient, anthropomorphic, geeky deity and a host of grovelling priests and attendants. Other staples in conversation with the oracle include:
- A *ZOT* (administered with the Staff of Zot, see LART) is earned when the Oracle is irritated. *ZOT*s are something like lightning strikes and are usually fatal. Unscrupulous participants will sometimes administer undeserved *ZOT*s. (The particular word *ZOT* may be a reference to the comic strip B.C. Alternatively, it may be an allusion to Walter KarigWalter KarigWalter Karig, was a prolific author, who served as a U.S. naval captain. Karig authored a number of military history works on Allied naval operations during World War II. Karig wrote scripts for the television series Victory at Sea. Besides his works on naval history, Karig was a novelist,...
's 1947 novel entitled Zotz!Zotz!Zotz! is a 1962 fantasy/comedy film produced and directed by William Castle, about a man obtaining magical powers from a god of an ancient civilization. The film is based on the 1947 novel of the same name by Walter Karig.-Plot:...
, in which a person could point at anyone or anything, say "Zotz!" and make that thing or person instantly disintegrate.) - Woodchuck questions are a sure way to earn a *ZOT*. The Oracle will often censor the word "woodchuck" as "w..dch.ck" or simply refer to it obliquely ("rodent of unusual sizeThe Princess Bride (film)The Princess Bride is a 1987 American film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman, combining comedy, adventure, romance, and fantasy. The film was directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Goldman...
"). This is a reference to "The Woodchuck Question": "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?", which in the early days of the Usenet Oracle, was over-asked to the point of being a cliché. - Traditionally, questions to the Oracle open with a suitable grovel such as "High and Mighty Oracle, please answer my most humble question," although grovels are often very creative and can be very long, or even part of the question.
- Answers from the Oracle traditionally contain a request for payment such as "You owe the Oracle a rubber chickenRubber chickenA rubber chicken is a prop used in comedy. The phrase is also used as a description for food served at speeches, conventions, and other large meetings, and as a metaphor for speechmaking.-Comedy:...
and a Cadillac." This segment, often called the "YOTO (for "You owe the Oracle") line" or tribute, often references objects that are related, in a punnish way, to the answer they are a part of. - If you mention DMP, Dumpie, or "the cooler incident" you will receive a free e-mail with details on how to profit by helping with a transfer of a large sum of money from an account in NigeriaAdvance fee fraudAn advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain...
.
An assorted mythos of recurring characters—or in-jokes—has accumulated over the years. These include the worthless High Priest Zadoc (sometimes with an assistant named Kendai), the Oracle's girlfriend Lisa the Net.Sex.Goddess, an assortment of deities, and the caveman
Caveman
A caveman or troglodyte is a stock character based upon widespread concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans may have looked and behaved...
figure Og.
Administration, Digests, and the Priesthood
The Oracularities are compiled into periodic digests by a team of volunteer "priests", who read every Oracularity and select what they consider the best. These are posted to the UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup
rec.humor.oracle, the Oracle website, and also distributed via e-mailing list.Now, the forum is basically about asking silly questions to get silly answers; consequently questions meant for libelous intent, questions of a sexual nature, and serious questions are not apt to this forum (although an exception may be made when a serious question is given a particularly silly or funny answer). An especially adept incarnation may occasionally deal with such questions in keeping with the forum—absurdly, perhaps masking the truth, perhaps framing the truth from an absurd viewpoint, or perhaps resorting to nothing but demanding an absurd tribute.
Usenet discussion group
There is a usenet group, news:rec.humor.oracle.d, which is populated by a variety of participants in the Internet Oracle. The group is rife with TOIJs (tired old in-jokes), obscure references and dry humor. This is probably the only group on multicast e-mail systems of any sort where "OT:..." means on topic.Origins
Peter LangstonPeter Langston
Peter Langston is a computer programmer who wrote and distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s, including the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle" upon which the later net-wide Oracle was modeled. He is also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician.In...
is credited with the initial idea for an Oracle program. In 1976, he wrote one which ran at the Harvard Science Center
Harvard Science Center
The Harvard University Science Center is the major teaching venue on Harvard University campus for undergraduate science and mathematics.The Science Center was designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert, then dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and built in 1973...
's Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
time-sharing system. He then distributed the program via the PSL Games Tape to Unix installations around the world until 1988.
In 1989, Lars Huttar was told about Langston's Oracle by a friend at college. Not knowing where to obtain a copy, he wrote his own version of the program, which only worked when users were logged in to the same computer. Huttar posted the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
to the Usenet group alt.sources in August.
Steve Kinzler
Steve Kinzler
Steve Kinzler is the maintainer of the Internet Oracle, a socratic question-and-answer format humor project. He initiated the project in 1989.- External links :**...
, who was a graduate student and system administrator
System administrator
A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network...
at Indiana University, downloaded Huttar's code that same year. He deployed it as the Usenet Oracle on a university server and it became popular. Ray Moody, a graduate student at Purdue University, enhanced the program to allow access via e-mail. This allowed anyone on the Internet to use the Oracle. Kinzler installed this version on another Indiana University computer, where it became the Internet Oracle in March 1996.
Kinzler has since made further enhancements, the most prominent being the "priests" choosing Oracularities for irregularly published digests. Although he no longer works at Indiana University, the school has continued to provide a server to host the Oracle program, its web site, and archives.
Derivatives
The Internet Oracle has spawned a sub-breed of question-answer websiteQ&A website
A Q&A website is a website where the site creators use the images of pop culture icons to answer input from the site's visitors, usually in question/answer format. This format of website evolved from the much older Internet Oracle. The original progenitor of this type of site was the now-defunct...
exemplified by the Conversatron, and the now defunct Forum 2000, Forum3000 and TrueMeaningOfLife.com, among many others. These share the following characteristics:
- Answers are provided not by users, but by an individual or group of individuals.
- The group of responders stay largely behind the scenes, attributing responses to various characters or culture references.
- Multiple answers are frequently given to each question.
- Each answer is accompanied by a picture or icon of the character to which the answer is attributed.