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- Warning:
- The fortunes contained in the fortune database have been
- collected haphazardly from a cacophony of sources, in number so
- huge it boggles the mind. It is impossible to do any
- meaningful quality control on attributions, or lack thereof, or
- exactness of the quote. Since this database is not used for
- profit, and since entire works are not published, it falls
- under fair use, as we understand it. However, if any
- half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of this, they
- will need to double check it all, and nobody not involved of
- such an effort makes any warranty that anything in the database
- bears any relation to the real world of literature, law, or
- other bizzarrity.
-
- This file describes the format for fortunes in the database. This is
- done in detail to make it easier to keep track of things. Any rule
- given here may be broken to make a better joke.
-
- [All examples are indented by one tab stop -- KCRCA]
-
- Numbers should be given in parentheses, e.g.,
-
- (1) Everything depends.
- (2) Nothing is always.
- (3) Everything is sometimes.
-
- Attributions are two tab stops, followed by two hyphens, followed by a
- space, followed by the attribution, and are *not* preceded by blank
- lines. Book, journal, movie, and all other titles are in quotes, e.g.,
-
- $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
- which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
-
- Attributions which do not fit on one (72 char) line should be continued
- on a line which lines up below the first text of the attribution, e.g.,
-
- -- A very long attribution which might not fit on one
- line, "Ken Arnold's Stupid Sayings"
-
- Single paragraph fortunes are in left justified (non-indented)
- paragraphs unless they fall into another category listed below (see
- example above). Longer fortunes should also be in left justified
- paragraphs, but if this makes it too long, try indented paragraphs,
- with indentations of either one tab stop or 5 chars. Indentations of
- less than 5 are too hard to read.
-
- Laws have the title left justified and capitalized, followed by a
- colon, with all the text of the law itself indented one tab stop,
- initially capitalized, e.g.,
-
- A Law of Computer Programming:
- Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
- will find the programmers cannot write in English.
-
- Limericks are indented as follows, all lines capitalized:
-
- A computer, to print out a fact,
- Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
- But this output can be
- No more than debris,
- If the input was short of exact.
-
- Accents precede the letter they are over, e.g., "`^He" for e with a
- grave accent. Underlining is done on a word-by-word basis, with the
- underlines preceding the word, e.g., "__^H^Hhi ____^H^H^H^Hthere".
-
- No fortune should run beyond 72 characters on a single line without
- good justification (er, no pun intended). And no right margin
- justification, either. Sorry. For BSD people, there is a program
- called "fmt" which can make this kind of formatting easier.
-
- Definitions are given with the word or phrase left justified, followed
- by the part of speech (if appropriate) and a colon. The definition
- starts indented by one tab stop, with subsequent lines left justified,
- e.g.,
-
- Afternoon, n.:
- That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
- morning.
-
- Quotes are sometimes put around statements which are funnier or make
- more sense if they are understood as being spoken, rather than written,
- communication, e.g.,
-
- "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us
- sane."
-
- Ellipses are always surrounded by spaces, except when next to
- punctuation, and are three dots long.
-
- "... all the modern inconveniences ..."
- -- Mark Twain
-
- Human initials always have spaces after the periods, e.g, "P. T.
- Barnum", not "P.T. Barnum". However, "P.T.A.", not "P. T. A.".
-
- All fortunes should be attributed, but if and only if they are original
- with somebody. Many people have said things that are folk sayings
- (i.e., are common among the folk (i.e., us common slobs)). There is
- nothing wrong with this, of course, but such statements should not be
- attributed to individuals who did not invent them.
-
- Horoscopes should have the sign indented by one tab stop, followed by
- the dates of the sign, with the text left justified below it, e.g.,
-
- AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
- You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie
- a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and
- impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over
- again. People think you are stupid.
-
- Single quotes should not be used except as quotes within quotes. Not
- even single quotes masquerading as double quotes are to be used, e.g.,
- don't say ``hi there'' or `hi there' or 'hi there', but "hi there".
- However, you *can* say "I said, `hi there'".
-
- A long poem or song can be ordered as follows in order to make it fit
- on a screen (fortunes should be 19 lines or less if at all possible)
- (numbers here are stanza numbers):
-
- 11111111111111111111
- 11111111111111111111
- 11111111111111111111 22222222222222222222
- 11111111111111111111 22222222222222222222
- 22222222222222222222
- 33333333333333333333 22222222222222222222
- 33333333333333333333
- 33333333333333333333 44444444444444444444
- 33333333333333333333 44444444444444444444
- 44444444444444444444
- 44444444444444444444
-
- Fortunes are split into potentially offensive and not potentially
- offensive, into the files "obscene" and "scene", respectively.
- Anything which would not make it onto network prime time programming
- should *not* go into "scene". Also, anything which would only get on
- if some discredited kind of guy said it should *not* go in scene.
- Fortunes containing "shit", "fuck", "cock" (not the male version of a
- chicken, obviously, but the slang for penis), "cunt", "pussy", and such
- like are "obscene". Political opinions are supposed to be in
- "obscene", too. Anything which assumes as a world view blatantly
- racist, mysogynist, or homophobic ideas should not be in either, since
- they are not really funny unless *you* are racist, mysogynist, or
- homophobic.
-
- The point of this is that people have should have a reasonable
- expectation that, should they just run "fortune", they will not be
- offended. We know that some people take offense at anything, but
- normal people do have opinions, too, and have a right not to have their
- sensibilities offended by a program which is supposed to be
- entertaining. People who run "fortune -o" or "fortune -a" are saying,
- in effect, that they are willing to have their sensibilities tweaked.
- However, they should not have their personal worth seriously (i.e., not
- in jest) assaulted. Jokes which depend for their humor on racist,
- mysogynist (sexist), or homophobic stereotypes *do* seriously assault
- individual personal worth, and in an general entertainment medium we
- should be able to get by without it.
-