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haunter
>As of November 2017, the quotations (with the exception of tips relevant to system operation) have been removed from FreeBSD entirely after user complaints regarding quotations from Adolf Hitler being contained in some of the files

http://fortunes.cat-v.org/freebsd/offensive

twic
I have fortunes in a text file, one per line, and a simple python script which picks a random one and puts it into my signature file. I never understood why fortune needed a binary format with a preparation step. Because machines had far less memory back in the old days?
kevincox
Fairly picking a line out of a text file isn't constant time. It depends on the length of the file.

You can pick a random byte offset and find the next line but this prefers longer lines.

Preprocessing to basically make a table of line offsets allows constant time access.

Probably mattered more when storage was slower.

wolletd
I somehow forgot about fortune over the years.

Guess I know what will be set up on my severs over the weekend.

readingnews
I am missing something, right? His page does not have any fortune files. The links just point to docs. Is this just a page of links to manpages of fortunes? It literally says: "Here you can find the fortune files from various operating systems." Thought that meant there would at least be links to the locations of the text databases.

I still use fortune on a lot of workstations. It usually takes the students a while before they even realize that when they login a short fortune was given (when they have to ssh into a box for example).

kk_cz
> I am missing something, right?

right.

Try clicking links in the menu. Although I admit that link labeled "fortune files" leading to a definition of what fortune files are rather than to the fortune files themselves is a bit misleading.

readingnews
Huh, I am now officially too damn logical and not brave enough. I saw them and thought, that is a menu for the site, not the actual jar files, why would I click on them?

I did not know cat-v was such a curator of fortunes. I like this one but I modded it (and fixed spelling of retrieval. Ok, I did not, Firefox did)

using ubuntu is like deciding you want your computer to be run by the [Ministry of Information Retrieval] in the movie Brazil -- kfx

m463
This is the one I remember (it was lots funnier when I was younger):

  Police: Good evening, are you the host?
  Host: No.
  Police: We've been getting complaints about this party.
  Host: About the drugs?
  Police: No.
  Host: About the guns, then?  Is somebody complaining about the guns?
  Police: No, the noise.
  Host: Oh, the noise.  Well that makes sense because there are no guns
      or drugs here.  (An enormous explosion is heard in the
      background.) Or fireworks.  Who's complaining about the noise?
      The neighbors?
  Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago.  Most of the recent
      complaints have come from Pittsburgh.  Do you think you could
      ask the host to quiet things down?
  Host: No Problem.  (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive
      religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living
      room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the
      lawn, where it smashes into a tree.  Eight guests tumble out
      onto the grass, moaning.) See?  Things are starting to wind
      down.
readingnews
Ha, love his last entry on cat-v jar:

(#cat-v) khm → occasionally someone on hacker news will link to an article so they can all misunderstand it together

westhom
Was nostalgic recently for fortune spitting out at the top of my old slackware shell. So I added it to my Ubuntu VPS shell. Let's just say, my sense of humor has changed a lot since I was 16. But 25% of the time I find them amusing.