Computers, once the privelege of an elite few, have become a sight in almost every house - all in a span of a few years. This rapid explosion has lead to the emergence of a subculture with its own beliefs, jargon and protocols. This is a small glimpse of it. And you thought we were all just nerds...

"Do you endeavor with a difficult dilemma, or ponder a posed problem you cannot perspicaciously pursue? Angling anxiously for advice? The Internet Oracle can help! Like all famous oracles, the Internet Oracle is omniscient, and will provide some answer to your question. In return, the Oracle may require that you perform a small service ..."

The Internet Oracle has been answering questions since the early 90's. A Usenet phenomenan, it has seen some very funny question-answer exhanges (also called Oracularities). The idea is simple. A user poses a question, which is sent to a random user to answer within 24 hours. If unanswered, it is forwarded to another user. The net result... something like this:

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Why is a cow?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Mu.

Another:

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Oh most superbly poetic Oracle Who could teach Erato a thing or two,
>> For the life of me I can't seem to come up with a limerick that uses
> the words "parthenogenesis", "Hoover" and "mudpuppy". Is there any
> chance that You could be of help?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} That was quite a trick, but I've got one...
}} There once was a mudpuppy from Hoover,
} (in Alabama, not in Vancouver).
} He found an old Rhesus
} Who said "Parthenogenesis
} Requires no copulating maneuver."
}} You owe the Oracle a haiku with the word} "floccinaucinihilipilification."

The questions range from deeply philosophical to plain stupid, and they are all answered by people. Anonymity is of course maintained, with all credit and blame going to the Oracle. The Oracle is widely recognized as one of the first virtual personalities to emerge on the internet - and a collaborative one at that! What really drew me to this was the word 'spake'... but you might enjoy it for something else. Get more here.

Sometime in the early 90's, the Japanese game 'Zero Wing' made its way to the west after some success in Japan. A cutscene from this game had the line: 'All your base are belong to us' (get the entire transcript here). This error lead to an internet phenomenan, with websites filling up with pictures and videos edited to insert that very caption. Videos and flash animations, lyrics of songs, and loads of parodies can be found on the web. Linux users and hackers have adapted this slogan for loads of t-shirt designs and the sort. As always, look around on the web for more information. I'll refrain from telling you which phrase to search for.

Found this while browing the portage tree of Gentoo. A program called cowsay. True to it's name, it makes an ASCII cow say whatever you want it to.

For instance, you type (on the Linux command prompt):

$cowsay err... moo?

And you'll get this very apt output:

 ____________
< err.. moo? >
 ------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/                ||----w |
                ||     ||

For a brief moment I wondered what people in the good people at Gentoo drank while on the job to include this as one of its available packages, but Google told me otherwise. Apparently this program has been around for quite a while, informing people about their overfull disk quotas, their new mail and the sort... in the days of the text console. It's now found a place in hacker circles as joke. The author has been creative enough to include several features which can make the cow appear dead, tired, asleep, and even in a state of paranoia. The most interesting thing is that it's even in the Linux Kernel!

Hmm... perhaps we really ARE just nerds!