Sibyl

The sibyls were women that the ancient Greeks believed were oracles. The earliest sibyls, according to legend,prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity; originally at Delphi and Pessinos, the deities were chthonic deities. In later antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.

The English word sibyl (/ˈsɪbəl/ or /ˈsɪbɪl/) comes — via the Old French sibile and the Latin sibylla — from the ancient Greek σίβυλλα (sibulla, plural σίβυλλαι sibullai).Varro derived the name from theobule ("divine counsel"), but modern philologists mostly propose an Old Italic or alternatively a Semitic etymology.

History

The first known Greek writer to mention a sibyl is Heraclitus, in the 5th century BC:

Walter Burkert observes that "frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks" are recorded very much earlier in the Near East, as in Mari in the second millennium and in Assyria in the first millennium".

Oracle (workhouse)

The Oracle was a workhouse that produced cloth in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The Oracle shopping mall, which occupies a small part of the site, takes its name from the Oracle workhouse.

History

In the 17th century, clothiers in Reading were facing competition from the north of England, where taxes were lower. On 30 December 1624, John Kendrick a clothier died leaving £7,500 to the Reading and £4,000 to Newbury to help their cloth industries. John Kendrick's father and brother had a textile factory in Minster Street. The factory was sold to the Council for £2,000, and alterations were carried out to make it suitable for use as a workhouse. The new facility opened in 1628. It stretched from the top of Minster Street 30 m down along the Holy Brook. William Kendrick chose the name "Oracle" to honour his brother John, whose idea launched the facility.

The Oracle remained in use until the 19th century, and the building was demolished in 1850.

References

Oracle (software testing)

In computing, software testers and software engineers can use an oracle as a mechanism for determining whether a test has passed or failed. The use of oracles involves comparing the output(s) of the system under test, for a given test-case input, to the output(s) that the oracle determines that product should have. William E. Howden first defined and used the term in this sense in his article "Introduction to the Theory of Testing". Additional work on different kinds of oracles was explored by Elaine Weyuker.

Oracles often operate separately from the system under test. Method postconditions are commonly used as automated oracles in automated class testing. The oracle problem is often much harder than it seems, and involves solving problems related to controllability and observability.

Common oracles include:

The Oracle (The Matrix)

The Oracle is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. She was created by The Wachowskis, and portrayed by Gloria Foster in the first and second film and Mary Alice in the third film. The character also appears in the video game Enter the Matrix and the MMORPG The Matrix Online.

Overview

In the first film, she is a mysterious but powerful figure, incongruously depicted as a cheerful old lady who smokes cigarettes and bakes cookies. She possesses the power of foresight, which she uses to advise and guide the humans attempting to fight the Matrix. Later, she is revealed to be a sapient program who is integral to the very nature of the Matrix itself. Whether her power of prediction is deterministic or not is a concept given much treatment in all three films. She herself claims that she lacks the ability to see past her own choice, explaining that no one, including herself, can see past a choice they do not understand. It becomes clear in the films that her power cannot be used to predict the ultimate consequences of Neo, who possesses free will when he defies the Architect.