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. disclaimer : Disclaimer texts found on products and advertisements. Work well after corporate mandated login banners. 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