You owe the Oracle 20 years of Internet nostalgia

November 2, 2009 8:46 AM

O great and wise Oracle, whose wisdom is as vast as the sea, just who the heck are ya and what do you do?

Puny mortal,
I am the great Internet (nee Usenet) Oracle. My acolytes constructed my current temple 20 years ago. Need help with a problem? My omniscience knows exactly what you need to hear. Which may or may not help with your problem.
Further wisdom may be gained by carefully studying my collected Oracularities. If you foolishly believe you have better ways to spend your time, you may choose to only study the sagest of Oracularities, but be aware that such indevotion makes my Staff of Zot twitchy.
You know what, *ZOT* anyway for daring to suggest my wisdom is only as vast as the sea.

posted by kmz (19 comments total)

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
posted by Reverend John at 8:56 AM on November 2 [3 favorites]

about the only thing around older than this is the content of the first e/mail message (although it wasn't called that)...

anyone want to take a shot at that?
posted by HuronBob at 8:59 AM on November 2

lo
posted by cjorgensen at 9:01 AM on November 2

I was expecting a post about this Oracle. Then I got to the bit about "wisdom as vast as the sea" and realised that I couldn't possibly be right.
posted by Electric Dragon at 9:12 AM on November 2 [2 favorites]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

ZOT!
posted by cimbrog at 9:24 AM on November 2 [2 favorites]

cjorgensen... good work!
posted by HuronBob at 9:37 AM on November 2

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Simple. A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
posted by jonp72 at 9:46 AM on November 2

You owe the Oracle a favored post on Metafilter.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:32 AM on November 2 [2 favorites]

I was expecting a post about this Oracle.
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 11:03 AM on November 2

old-skool USENET represent! B1FF approves.
posted by GuyZero at 11:13 AM on November 2 [1 favorite]

Ahh, the good old usenet oracle. A venerable entity that we all should... venerate... Uh, yeah.

Although in later days I much preferred Forum2000... I think a version of that is still maintained here.
posted by splice at 11:24 AM on November 2

old-skool USENET represent!

Are you old enough school if you made the 1000 top USeNet .sig file?
posted by rough ashlar at 12:34 PM on November 2

about the only thing around older than this is the content of the first e/mail message (although it wasn't called that)...

anyone want to take a shot at that?

Ray Tomlinson, the guy who first implemented what eventually became what we know as email, said that he couldn't remember specifically, but it was probably something like "QWERTYUIOP" sent between two machines that were side by side in a lab. Please enjoy the story from the man himself.
posted by cmonkey at 12:39 PM on November 2

It kills me that the first email message was an aborted "lol."

(Also I love the Oracle page and how they go seven years between "What's New" updates. I guess the Bush administration had all the answers.)
posted by salishsea at 1:36 PM on November 2

I have played with (and for) the Oracle for years...
Yes, I have even been published in the Ocularities!
posted by Drasher at 4:13 PM on November 2

"For I myself once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a cage, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered 'I want to die.'"
posted by gimonca at 4:39 PM on November 2

As the Oracle itself might say, "Everything old is new again."
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:42 PM on November 2

Reminds me I need to renew my Compuserve subscription.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:14 AM on November 3 [1 favorite]

My universe was RUINED once I learned the True Provenance of Forum2000.

I had some other upsetting collapsing-world issue that year, as well. Hmm.
posted by that girl at 10:22 PM on November 9