This is a list of the data files included with this distribution, and
what they contain.
In an ideal world, someone would maintain the fortune databases, having
an email address and a web page where new fortunes could be submitted.
I'd do it myself, except that I'm going to lose this account, and the
account doesn't permit CGI scripts. If you want to set up such a
service, have CGI access, but don't have the skills to set up an HTML
form for submissions, drop me a line and maybe I can work something up
for you.
Offensive fortunes are installed by default. To *not* install them,
change the "OFFENSIVE" variable in the makefile from 1 to 0 (or delete
the directory of offensive fortunes, if you wish.
At the end of this file is another listing of the filenames, without
descriptions, in order of size as size is understood by the fortune
program--that is, number of text strings (as reported by strfile on
October 19, 1995, just before tarring this mess for upload--sizes may be
slightly off, since I'll try to check for duplicates at least once more).
./datfiles/ : the directory for inoffensive fortunes
art : Broadly construed; it includes television and celebrities.
ascii-art : each one worth a thousand words, I guess.
computers : various fortunes that are computer-related. This includes
the 'joke' fortunes that are supposed to emulate system
error messages, as well as some neat stuff.
cookie : Cookie file from Karl Lehenbauer's postings to alt.sources
definitions : It ought to be all the 'definitions,' but what it really
is, is all the definitions that have a first line ending
with a colon.
drugs : Alcohol and cigarettes, mostly. Legal chemicals.
education : Schools, teachers, and scholarship, mostly not complimentary.
ethnic : Jokes that are about groups of people, but aren't making
fun of them. Laughing with instead of at.
food : Recipes, diets, and more about food.
fortunes : Yes, the old file name, but this contains predictions,
evaluations of character, and the kind of stuff that you
actually expect to get when you want to know your fortune.
goedel : Meta-fortunes. Incomplete, of course. :-)
humorists : Stand-up comedians, and people like Dave Barry. Especially
stuff that doesn't fit into another category (almost anything
that Steven Wright says doesn't fit a category).
kids : Real advice and cynical observations on children, parenting,
and family life.
law : Stupid laws, stupider lawyers. *No* joke about a lawyer
is *ever* offensive (except to lawyers, and who cares?).
linuxcookie : From the collection at ftp.icce.rug.nl. Linux-related.
It probably ought to go in with 'computers,' but it's
archived separately, so I'm keeping it separate.
literature : Mostly classic authors; a few newbies. And Bulwer-Lytton.
It should contain more on writing and by writers, but a lot
of that somehow got into art.
love : What no one gets enough of, I guess.
magic : Abracadabra.
medicine : Doctors and cures. And other contradictory juxtapositions.
Exercise.
men-women : And the relations between them.
miscellaneous : Whatever's left over.
news : On journalism, and the unintentionally amusing bits of
journalism.
people : You know, humans. Personality, appearance, relationships,
and all the other evilness of which humans are capable.
It should probably be several smaller files (personality,
appearance, relationships ...)
pets : Mostly cats and dogs, with some goldfish. And penguins.
And a rubber duck.
platitudes : The meaning of life, and of other things, including all those
stupid little sayings, and variants on them.
politics : Comments on man as a political animal. Also police,
soldiers, and other criminals.
riddles : Not really riddles, necessarily, but mostly Q: A:
science : Largely math and engineering, but some other interesting
and amusing sorts of science-related apothegms. Also
technology.
songs-poems : Stuff with meter, at least, and usually with rhymes.
sports : You know. Like on television. ;-)
startrek : Apparently quotes from Star Trek Classic. Plus a bit.
translate-me : A small file containing non-English quotes without
translations.
wisdom : Zen, the True Meaning of Life, and other stupid lies.
work : Really about the business world, and the pains of being a
part of it. The desperate problems of the wealthy. Like
that.
zippy : Quotes from the comic Zippy the Pinhead.
./datfiles/off/ : the directory for offensive fortunes, already rot13'd.
they aren't distributed. All the offensive fortunes,
unrotated, are found in the subdirectory:
./datfiles/off/unrotated/ : unrotated, offensive fortunes*
atheism : Wayne Aiken's atheism cookie file, from:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~aiken/
astrology : Like in the daily newspapers, except nastier. More would
be nice. A few comments *about* astrology.
black-humor : Death, violence-as-humor, and the like. Really sick stuff.
definitions : Like the inoffensive; first line ends with a colon and
it looks sorta like a definition.
drugs : Various references to illegal herbs and chemicals.
ethnic : Nasty slams at particular ethnic groups. 'Ethnic' actually
includes regionalist jokes in America.
hphobia : Slams at gays and lesbians.
limerick : There once was a file named limerick, / the contents of
which were pretty slick. / Each fortune five lines, /
with execrable rhymes, / And contents t'offend the fanatick.
misandry : Anti-man stuff. Smaller than 'misogyny.' Wotta surprise.
miscellaneous : It has everything that doesn't fit in other categories.
misogyny : Jokes that women encounter as real attitudes daily. Real
attitudes that women have to pretend are jokes daily.
politics : The great wonder about the offensive political file is
that it mostly contains direct quotes by politicians
who *weren't* trying to be funny.
privates : No, not promoted recruits. The naughty bits, that people
aren't supposed to talk about. Body parts and functions.
(Note that "size" has nothing to do with sex, so size
jokes are all in here).
racism : Racism. I suppose it's funny to *someone*. I hope I
never meet him.
religion : Stuff that might offend religious people, mostly Christians.
riddles : Not really riddles, but usually the question format,
some Q&A and some just leading/rhetorical questions.
sex : Uhh. Well, you see, son, there are, umm, birds, and bees...
This ranges from outrageously frank to moderately suggestive.
songs-poems : Filthy, bawdy, naughty songs and poems! Licentious, I tell
tell you! The programmer must be spanked! First the
spanking ....
vulgarity : Jokes in which the 'humor' is bad language, plus some
genuinely funny things that happen to contain bad language.
./datfiles/html/ : the directory for fortune files with HTML tags.
Currently empty, but I'll get a round tuit.
The intention throughout has been to create something a bit more
manageable and maintainable, without notable success in most cases. A
more rational division of the fortunes would be preferred, but you do
what comes naturally.
If you prefer to have all the fortunes in one humongous file, that's fine:
cat 'em all together and run strfile. That's easy; breaking them apart
again isn't. Keep in mind that the "-o" infix format is not supported in
this version of fortune, so keep the offensive files in a separate
directory.
*If any of these files are not to your taste, do the easy thing: rm
filename.dat. That leaves the fortunes there, but without the pointer
file, inaccessible. Or rm filename, which gets rid of the text strings.
There are over 15,000 'fortunes' here, in the various files. Here's the
breakdown, by file and directory.
Total 16422
--------------------
Inoffensive 12209
-----------
people 1231
definitions 1105
computers 1021
songs-poems 719
politics 692
miscellaneous 643
work 630
science 622
men-women 582
zippy 548
platitudes 497
art 460
fortunes 433
wisdom 402
literature 256
startrek 225
drugs 208
education 203
law 202
food 198
humorists 196
ethnic 163
love 151
kids 150
sports 147
riddles 135
linuxcookie 102
medicine 72
goedel 54
news 53
pets 51
magic 29
translate-me 19
ascii-art 10
Offensive 4213
---------
limerick 1001
sex 805
politics 349
definitions 332
black-humor 270
riddles 267
religion 226
songs-poems 206
vulgarity 194
privates 132
ethnic 126
drugs 73
miscellaneous 64
misogyny 60
astrology 42
hphobia 40
misandry 23
racism 3
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