What does the fox say?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What does the fox say? (previously: 2017, wikipedia)

Not very many onomatopoeias this time:

• woof!
• meow
• ka ki ka ki (x3)
• nya, ring ding
• yip
• Meow Meow Meow

Many people who gave the fox the ability to speak full sentences:

• How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?
• Elvis is alive in Chicago
• Cancel Futurama Again
• "I don't like Chrome"
• here we go again...
• "I am a fox."
• "I wish I wasn't a fox :("

And ... a third category of "other ones":

• run it through valgrind
• whatever sound fox make
• nothing
• noises

I appreciate the student who just wrote a long squiggle. Is it a noise? Is it an approximate signature? Is it just a symbol to register "I was here"?

This post's theme word is whigmaleerie / whigmaleery (n), "a whim" or "a fanciful contrivance." Foxes speaking? What whigmaleerie!

What is one of your hidden talents?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What is one of your hidden talents? (previously: 2017 2016)

A surprising number listed sleep-related talents. We are mid-semester, so perhaps students' minds are a bit focused on this now.

• sleeping through anything
• I can sleep
• I am good at stealing mattresses
• I nap very well
• I can sleep through 5 alarms
• Not sure if it's hidden but I can sleep all day long.

Others had performance skills:

• I am a great singer in the shower
• juggling
• I can sing??
• I can spin a book.
• oboe
• I play a mean kazoo
• I can climb trees real good
• playing guitar behind the back
• marching
• I can do a split
• bending my thumb backwards
• I am quite flexible
• I can write with both my hands
• I'm somewhat ambidexterous
• I can't get dizzy
• getting injured
• burping on command
• eating a lot
• drinking copious amounts of coffee
• procrastination
• 
  

Some were unusual:

• smelling fire
• hair!
• naming English monarchs
• crying silently

And others took the "hidden" quite strongly:

• wouldn't be hidden if I told
• N/A
• couldn't tell you

The phrase "a mean kazoo" will stick with me.

This post's theme word is trombenik / trombenick (n), "a lazy or boastful person." The trombenick never practiced trombone, but claimed to be a virtuoso.

If you had to organize a parade, the theme would be

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

If you had to organize a parade, the theme would be: ________. (previously)

Some sort of traditional or otherwise straightforward suggestions:

• floats
• pirates
• latinidad --- with lots of latinx artists
• sharks
• fantasy
• clouds
• candy
• happy
• guava
• turkey
• seasonal I guess?
• puppets
• [assorted suggestions of trademarked characters, by name]

Suggestions became increasingly wacky:

• astronaut penguins
• baby shark
• cheddar popcorn
• running (so it'd be a marathon)
• guava
• ME.
• apocalypse
• parade-themed parade
• weather
• awkwardness
• Turing Machine

Frankly these parades seem aggressively impossible:

• food allergies
• algorithms
• topological sort
• Agoraphobia Awareness

That last one... wow. I guess we might be able to schedule a parade indoors, like in an enclosed mall space? Agoraphobia does seem to be inherently at odds with parades, which take up a lot of space and are usually held outdoors.

The "most reasonable impromptu declared parade" award goes to the "People who are reasonably competent at walking" Parade, which ... could be happening right now! It's low-key, so you'd never know.


This post's theme word is bathophobia (n), "a fear of depths or falling from a great height." We should not have hired the bathophobia support group to steer the parade floats from the in-cockpit controls...

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? (previously 2017 2016)

Many people picked just a number. No units, or at least no helpful units.

• 3
• 5000
• 2
• 5
• 0
• 4 wood
• 7
• like 8 woods

One person said "1 lbs", which wins them the Accurate and Valid Answer Award.

Other people went with heuristic amounts:

• how many it wants
• many
• enough for the winter
• enough lol
• not enough to feed its family
• as much as it could throw
• go ask the woodchuck (on Google)

The Tautological Award for Those Awarded for Their Tautologies goes to:

• a wood chuck would chuck as much wood as a wood chuck could chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood

And the creativity awards go to this collection of replies:

• A woodchuck doesn't have time for your silly games
• Probably a couple trees but don't hold me to this
• segfault
• As much as Chuck Norris wants
• It wouldn't
• Honestly chuck should cut back...

This post's theme words are asyndeton (deliberately chopping out the conjunctions between successive clauses) and polysyndeton (adding more than necessary). The woodchuck's poetry featured many asyndetons, placing it opposite the purple Lovecraftian polysyndetons at the poetry symposium dinner.

What is your favorite kitchen implement?

I take attendance by having students answer a question.

What is your favorite kitchen implement? (previously)

Small implements: fork, whisk, spatula. Also some people listed food (?) as an implement: cucumber, carrot, rice.

Medium-sized implements: oven, kitchen stand, stove, stir fry pan, blender, rice cooker, microwave, dishwasher, lemon juicer.

Unreasonably large to call it an "implement": countertop.


This post's theme word is binnacle (n), "a container for housing instruments on a ship's deck, in a car dashboard, etc." My stand mixer deserves its own binnacle!

What plague do you wish on your enemies?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

What plague do you wish on your enemies? (previously 2016 2017)

Many people wished "kindness" or "none" or "peace" or "probably nothing, that's too mean for me :)". They were very nice with a potentially mean question. Kudos to them!

Some were traditional: "locusts", "the bubonic kind", "small plague", "big plague", "black plague", "Swat plague", "the worst kind".

Other people went more devious and unusual: "almost going to sneeze feeling", "inability to not forgive", "inability to be punctual", "balding", "chronic toe-stubbing", "no more printer ink", "constantly stepping on Legos", "saying everything they're thinking". The Most Sinister Award goes to "loss of hope :)". Yikes.


This post's theme word is eucrasia (n), "a normal state of health; physical well-being." Contrast eucrasia with dyscrasia to figure out if you've been cursed with a plague!

Fill in the blanks

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

A _________ walks into a bar. The bartender says, "________". (previously 2016 2017)

The basic was "A sad horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Why the long face?""

Many people said "A person walks into a bar." The follow-up bartender lines were:

• "you look like you need a drink"
• "hey"
• "woof"
• "hello"
• "what's up"

There were some unconventional ones: "fish/what's up", "bear/bear", "lemon/hi", "chicken/how'd you cross the road?", "duck/no", "mushroom/hey fun guy", "horse/hay".

I appreciated "A Turing Machine walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Am I also a TM?"" And I found this reasonable for our setting: "A university walks into a bar. The bartender say,s "you are an institution that perpetuates privilege".

Today's Professorial Raised Eyebrow Award goes to the several students who wrote each other, by name, in to the prompt.

This post' s theme word is flapdoodle (n), "nonsense". Sometimes the prompts elicit only flapdoodle.

What is the punchline of your favorite joke?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

What is the punchline of your favorite joke? (previously)

• everything was covered in "de-brie"
• "You're funny... funny looking"
• "Maybe next time you should estimate me!"
• drum noise
• laugh (hopefully at others)
• lmaoooo
• A grasshopper walks into a bar... find me for the rest
• "It's you guys, the audience"
• lol
• You are a joke
• Yo' mama
• dab
• fshhh
• porcupine
• gottem
• Don't leaf me I'm bushed!
• ketchup
• this suit is black not
• I don't remember
• uh... I forgot it
• that's what she said
• Stone Cold Steve Austin
• You're bad.
• gottee
• Deafening Silence
• I don't have any favorite joke
• Babanana
• "forcefully ejecting air out of my nose"
• that's it
• Told you so
• hole in one
• N/A
• 189

Some of those were mysterious.

This post's theme word is robustious (adj), "strong and sturdy; boisterous; coarse or crude." I suspect some robustious jokes are hiding in there.

Your supervillain/hero catchphrase

I take attendance by asking the students a question. Today's afternoon session was thematically linked to the morning, though I don't think anyone submitted answers that used that link.

If you were a superhero/villain, what would your catchphrase be? (previously)

Lots of noises:

• woo-hoo
• Oh no
• yo yo
• wee woo
• nothing
• Silence!
• *silence*
• none -- I would keep myself "mysterious"
• ummmm.
• badda bing badda baah
• HaHaHaHaHaHa

And then some, nefarious or virtuous depending on how you read them / how they are delivered:

• gonna hack em all.
• I'll be the God of the New World
• "seize the means of production"
• Here goes
• "the end"
• Aight I'm a head out
• Run it through valgrind
• Never fear, is here!
• Please don't fight back
• Gotta Catchem All
• Not on my watch
• Listen to my full monologue!
• I'm sleepy :(
• lol good luck guys
• Too much sauce
• Big O!

I definitely can see a sinister cackle following "Listen to my full monologue!"

This post's theme word is skail (verb intr.): "to scatter out, spill, or disperse." The assembled crowds skailed before the doomsday machine.

If you were a superhero, what power would you have?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

If you were a superhero, what power would you have? (previously)

Traditional:

• invisibility
• fly (x3)
• mind control
• telekinesis
• teleportation (x4)
• time travel (x2)
• painless and instant shapeshifting
• technically you can shapeshift into a version of yourself with every power ever, so is that cheating?
• all possible powers

Extremely traditional award goes to "water to wine". Less traditional but reasonably-scoped version of "time travel" is just "actual ability to use time management", which might be my favorite low-stakes superpower.

• power to defeat all LeetCode hard questions
• A in this class :)
• The Gardener - plant communication
• cloning
• to always have exactly as much money as I need
• food generation
• eating w/o negative effects fooood
• to teach PA drivers how not to be completely incompetent
• no sleep
• be good at math
• super cool breath

The Professor's Side-Eye award goes to "using hash maps in class" because we just talked about this and no, you absolutely may not.

This post's theme word is yentz (v tr), "to cheat." Shapeshifting to a "form" that has different powers seems like a wish-for-more-wishes sort of yentz.

What is the most useless technology ever invented?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What is the most useless technology ever invented?

Lots of disdain for Apple products:

• AirPods
• iPhones without headphone jacks
• iPod
• iPod shuffle

Some people listed general one-purpose or unnecessarily one-purpose-plus-SMART things:

• blenders
• hand-dryers (x2)
• carbonation machines -- just deal with drinking "flat" liquids
• glasses headphones, but they cool
• smart fridge
• an iron
• any unitasker -- see Alton Brown's Good Eats
• fidget spinners
• juice keurig
• toasters
• toaster-oven (inspired)
• juicers

Some people took issue with the question or tried to hedge:

• I don't know (x3)
• probably something I don't know about
• any answer I give would probably upset someone
• How do you define technology?
• all technology is useful

Other people seemed to have a grudge, and express it via this question:

• those rainbow chairs on buses
• eye massager
• gunpowder
• AI
• Yahoo
• the U.S. Senate
• cars

I'll award the "yep, definitely" prize to "eye massager", which is certainly useless and probably also unwanted.

This post's theme word is rowel (n), "a small spiked wheel at the end of a spur attached to the shoe of a horse rider; used to goad a horse" or (v tr), "to prick, to vex." The attendance questions seem to rowel certain students.

What do you know to be true that others would not believe is true?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What do you know to be true that others would not believe is true?

Some focused on stories/mythology:

• Santa Claus (x3)
• magic (x2)
• Mary Poppins
• Easter Bunny
• the  fae
• God
• Atlantis
• all the stories are true
• people with spiritual powers
• They walk among Us
• aliens
• The show Jessie is based on Angeline Jolie's kids.

There was a notably early-in-the-semester focus on sleep:

• those who sleep more live less [a later student added the annotation: "wrong"]
• sleep is for the rich
• sleep is boring
• I can pause and resume dreams.

Then there were people focusing on concrete ideas:

• tortoises can't swim
• Cares are inherently bad/unsustainable even if electric or self-driving, only a switch to a bike-centered infrastructure will work.
• I can bend my thumb backwards
• snakes are scarier than eagles
• I'm cool
• Marx was not Marxist
• P ≠ NP

And then a cohort of nihilists:

• Only the good die young.
• probably nothing
• everything will be fine
• good
• I just want to say "I was here" for this one
• literally nothing

This post's theme word is euhemerism (n), "a theory attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes." The mythology class discussion degenerated into euhemerism and grasping at historical anecdotes.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What is the sound of one hand clapping? (previously: 2017 2016)

• tap?
• skrrt
• snap
• ∅
• slap
• crakc!
• yes
• uwu
• whoosh
• a hand puppet
• nothingness
• the sound of silence
• emptiness
• category mistake
• nothing sadness (2 votes)
• no sound
• owo
• a snap?
• uwu

This post's theme word is potch (v tr), "to slap or spank," or (n) "a slap or spanking." A solo potch is silent patter?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

Why did the chicken cross the road? (previously: 2017 2016)

• idk
• no idea
• not sure
• I don't know
• I don't know
• why not?
• exercize!
• to cry
• the chicken saw a sale
• Because why wouldn't it?
• to find its friends
• can't I just say "to get to the other side"?
• to lay an egg
• to chase innocent children
• Colonel Sanders was in pursuit
• it wanted a Popeye's chicken sandwich on the other side
• to run away from the Chic-Fil-A
• you tell me
• or did it?
• because the chicken has no free will
• determinism
• because it wanted to
• to be part of The Beatles
• to solve algorithms problems

The "non sequitur" award goes to "cuz 7 is a prime".

This post's theme word is slue (v intr), "to turn, swing, or slide in a particular direction" or (n), "such a turn, swing or slide." The chicken sped across the road and slued into the neighbor's coop!

What is your quest?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

I previously asked them their names (so that I can identify them correctly). Today:

What is your quest? (previously: 2017 2016)

Many people gave pragmatic answers:

• to get a job (4 votes)
• to change stuff at world
• to find the holy grail best Sharples meal
• to prosper
• to retire
• to sleep
• to become an invaluable engineer
• I have too many to complete
• to graduate
• to be the very best
• happy ending
• to get 8 hrs of sleep
• to get through it all
• to live my life
• to try
• to enjoy my life
• to travel

I have follow-up questions for "to find something big" --- anything big? Like, a dinosaur skeleton? An aircraft hangar? A deep-sea gyre? A star system?

The trifecta of "Lila does not think these are compatible":

• financial stability
• happiness
• CS grad school

The closest we came to "to seek the holy grail" was a tie between:

• to catch 'em all
• to destroy the one ring

... so I award these the Cultural Reference Award for the day. Since zero people are grail-seekers, I'll skip the question about airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow and ask them something else next.


This post's theme word is dree (v tr), "to endure or suffer" or (adj), "tedious or dreary." Some quests are rather dree, but grand overall.

If you were transformed into an animal, you'd be a:

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

If you were transformed into an animal, you'd be a:

Many people picked mammals:

• polar bear
• flying squirrel
• dolphin (x2)
• wolf
• panda
• otter
• capybara
• sloth
• dog (x3)
• human (x3)
• bushbaby
• [own first name] (x3)

The surprising-to-me frontrunning category was birds. Birds!

• penguin (x3)
• bald eagle
• duck
• eagle
• owl
• bird (x2)
• Big Bird

Kudos for picking "birds", but the specificity of mammals was lacking here.

Then, as always, the outliers:

• shark (x2)
• stable matching
• meal
• dragon

I'm not sure that "stable matching" is an animal, so there's a type error there. Who wants to be a meal? At least one student in my class!

This post's theme word is infundibuliform (adj), "funnel-shaped." I'd be an infundibuliform sponge; it seems meditative.

What is your favorite number?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

What is your favorite number? (previously: 2017)

Everyone picked an integer, it was not a very interesting question for the first lab. I guess I should have primed their imaginations with weirder questions before giving them this one.


This post's theme word is ergophobia (n), "abnormal fear or aversion to work." Welcome to your laboratory session on Labor Day! I hope you don't have ergophobia.