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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!TROI.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU!DSEW
- X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
- Message-ID: <9209011905.AA11981@troi.cc.rochester.edu>
- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 15:05:05 EDT
- Sender: Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@TAUNIVM>
- From: David Sewell <dsew@TROI.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU>
- Subject: the Oracle on NB4
- Comments: To: Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@taunivm.tau.ac.il>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.notabene
- Lines: 67
-
- Since I believe in the therapeutic value of humor, I sent a question
- about NB4 to the Usenet Oracle. (The Oracle is in reality a mail server
- at Indiana U. to which you send questions that are forwarded to
- anonymous Incranations of the Oracle who answer them. Together the
- question and answer makes an Oracularity, the best of which are posted
- to the Usenet group rec.humor.oracle.)
-
- The response is not encouraging, but then the Oracle is fallible once
- every Great Year or so...
- =====
-
- From oracle@moose.cs.indiana.edu Tue Sep 1 12:17:23 1992
- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 11:17:20 -0500
- From: "The Usenet Oracle" <oracle@moose.cs.indiana.edu>
- Subject: The Oracle replies!
-
- The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
- Your question was:
-
- > Oh great Usenet Oracle, I am but a drudge among drudges, an untenured
- > assistant professor of history who is ordinarily too shy to lift
- > her head above shoe level when confronted by an eligible male, much
- > less dare to address the Platonic Idea of male power and wisdom, but my
- > need is desperate and my question urgent.
- >
- > My Department is voting on my tenure this fall, and I have to complete
- > my book manuscript, a revision of my dissertation on barn-raising
- > rituals in the Susquehanna Valley from 1860-1880. I have been using
- > Nota Bene as my word processor since graduate school, and I was planning
- > to write my completed ms. using Nota Bene 4, which was promised for
- > release several months ago, or maybe years ago, it's hard to remember.
- > (All I know is I sent NB my $100 upgrade fee a year ago.) But the
- > release date keeps getting pushed back and back and back, until I feel
- > like I'm in a Stephen King novel or something, and I'll NEVER get 4.0,
- > and I'll be too depressed to finish my book, and I won't get tenure, and
- > no one will ever want to marry me, and my mother will keep saying "I
- > told you to go to med school"... Sorry, O Oracle, I'll try to get a
- > grip. My question, of course, is: will NB 4 ever be released, and
- > what's with those Nota Bene folk, anyway?
-
- And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
-
- } Ah, humble supplicant, this is indeed a question of great import and
- } complexity, for even I, The Usenet Oracle, have a difficult time deciphering
- } the ways of software companies. First, let me allay your fears: NB 4 *will*
- } be released, however, it will not be for another 40-50 years, in which case
- } no one will care and you will be living a life of utter destitution amongst
- } the very squalor of the city streets, unable to do anything except mutter
- } rambling dialogues about barns to imaginary puffins, if in fact you live that
- } long. Sorry. It is a cosmic law that the release date of any software is
- } always delayed by a factor equal to the cube of its urgency and necessity.
- } Useless programs are written all the time all around the world -- countless
- } Computer Science students have written countless incarnations of the dreaded
- } "Hello World" program for example -- and yet it is the _useful_ software that
- } takes the longest. My advice to you is to encourage all your friends to
- } try and believe that NB 4 is dreadfully _useless_, that you Really Don't Need
- } Tenure or Any Sort of Financial Stability, and that you were actually glad
- } to get rid of that 100 bucks. By countering the Cosmic Law of Inevitable
- } Software Release Delays with a little down-home negative thinking, you may in
- } fact reverse the effects and cause the program to be complete, oh say, right
- } before the university fires you. But don't count on it.
- }
- } As for your man troubles, try lifting your head above shoe-level. It'll
- } improve your posture, and every man appreciates really good posture. Just
- } ask your mother.
- }
- } You owe the Oracle a signed copy of "Carrie."
-