tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5682087028925806002024-03-16T23:01:26.234-04:00Lila PrimeNearly every blog post is written months later and then backdated. Living in the past is so... NOW!Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.comBlogger1106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-66228394275231402682024-03-07T12:10:00.004-05:002024-03-07T12:10:52.146-05:00What is your dream vacation for spring break?<p> I take attendance by having students answer a question.</p><p>What is your dream vacation for spring break?</p><p>Actual places that are reachable with a 1-week break from classes:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ireland</li><li>Bahamas</li><li>Ibiza</li><li>Italy</li><li>Greece</li><li>Japan</li><li>Tahiti</li><li>Hawaii</li><li>Brazil</li><li>Switzerland</li><li>Europe</li><li>London</li><li>Barcelona</li></ul><div>Trips that sound cool:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>cool hike</li><li>home</li><li>Death Valley, where I'm going :)</li><li>bed</li></ul><div>Infeasible:</div></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>travel to Uranus</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>This post's theme word is anfractuous (adj), "full of twists and turns". <i>May your travel wanderings be full of anfractuous adventure.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-39798286746595212902024-02-27T12:18:00.007-05:002024-03-14T13:19:36.093-04:00What is your greatest victory in life so far?<p> I take attendance by asking the students a question (previously <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-is-your-greatest-victory-in-life.html">2019</a>, <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-is-your-greatest-victory-in-life.html">2016</a>).</p><p>What is your greatest victory in life so far?</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>chilling</li><li>sleeping</li><li>being here today</li><li>surviving this far</li><li>seeing another day in this beautiful world</li><li>waking up :)</li><li>^ so real!!!!</li><li>going to college</li><li>nothing</li><li>happiness</li><li>eating breakfast</li><li>being awake right now</li><li>getting up early today</li><li>living</li><li>my friends</li><li>slaying yass</li><li>being an older brother</li><li>loving other people</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is antelucan (adj), "before dawn". <i>Based on student testimony, one might believe that I have an antelucan lecture.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-12544435452151455552024-02-22T21:41:00.006-05:002024-03-16T23:00:30.636-04:00What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?<p> I take attendance by having the students answer a question. (Previously <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2017/02/what-is-longest-amount-of-time-you-have.html">2017</a>, <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-is-longest-amount-of-time-you-have.html">2019</a>.)</p><p>What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?</p><p>Answers varied:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>not long</li><li>10 minutes</li><li>few hours (x2)</li><li>12 hours</li><li>1 day</li><li>2 days (x3)</li><li>3 days</li><li>5 days</li><li>days</li><li>1 week (x5)</li><li>a week in nature</li><li>2 weeks</li><li>month</li><li>9 months</li><li>6 years</li><li>no clue</li><li>my childhood</li><li>first couple years of my life</li><li>first 2 years of my life</li><li>first 5 years of my life</li><li>first 7 years of my life</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is testudinal (adj), "slow; old." <i>Reminiscing about years of school pre-internet makes one feel testudinal and ornery.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-39732877881682702552024-02-20T13:07:00.005-05:002024-02-20T13:07:57.847-05:00What is the first word you spoke aloud?<p> I take attendance by having students answer a question (<a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-is-first-word-you-spoke-aloud.html">previously</a>).</p><p>What is the first word you spoke aloud?</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>MAMA / mom (very popular)</li><li>Dad (also popular)</li><li>Yeah / no / yes / Hi (makes sense)</li><li>goat</li><li>duck</li><li>cow</li><li>ball</li><li>apple</li></ul><div>Kudos to the student whose first word was "0" (the number).</div><div><br /></div><div>Bizarre side-eye to the following students who wrote:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>student A: "[student B's name]"</li><li>student B: "I love [student C's name]"</li><li>student C: "yeah"</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><p></p><p>This post's theme word is umbriferous (adj), "casting a shadow." <i>Luckily a child's first word is not an umbriferous portent of their entire life!</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-45547217905792513422024-02-13T13:53:00.046-05:002024-03-11T16:51:03.987-04:00What is the sound of one hand clapping?<p> I take attendance by having the students answer a question (previously <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2016/09/what-is-sound-of-one-hand-clapping.html">2016</a>, <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-is-sound-of-one-hand-clapping.html">2017</a>, <a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2019/09/what-is-sound-of-one-hand-clapping.html">2019</a>).</p><p>What is the sound of one hand clapping? Students mostly picked some popular onomatopoeias (or no): </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>clap (10)</li><li>snap (6)</li><li>no sound (3)</li></ul><div>Then a lot of singletons:</div><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>faint clap (1)</li><li>snup (1)</li><li>plap (1)</li><li>tap (1)</li><li>*pop* (1)</li><li>plup (1)</li><li>plap (1)</li><li>hit (1)</li><li>not possible (1)</li><li>finger snap (1)</li></ul><p></p><div>Two people <i>were present in class </i>but chose, as a way of expressing themselves, to checkmark next to their name on the sign-in sheet but leave the space for answering the question blank.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This post's theme word is gowpen (n), "two hands cupped together." <i>Give me one gowpen of thoughtful questions, please.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-74663940701021908402024-01-31T15:45:00.001-05:002024-03-14T12:17:56.217-04:00Winter quotes<p>"It's a machine learning paper, it can't be <i>that</i> hard."</p><p>"She just seemed totally unhinged, like a swivel-eyed loon." </p><p>"You picked the same avatar as me!"<br />"It assigned me a gray-haired lady in glasses automatically!"</p><p>"I'm invisible!"<br />"Zoom has started to blur you into the couch in the background."</p><p>"Wow, four people and one kitchen? This is... this is better than we had in Soviet Union, seven families and one kitchen."</p><p>"We're the same age! I always thought that you were so much older when we were kids."</p><p>"One more, since you were having a bit of a cock-festival earlier: there's a book called 'Fifty Ways to Eat Cock' and it's recipes for cooking chicken."</p><p>"Oh, this looks good... wait, that's dog food."</p><p>"Basically you put a cookie in soup and put it in the oven."</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is grangousier (n), "a big eater" or "a gullible person, who will swallow anything." <i>This holiday season, bake cookies for your neighborhood grangousier!</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-31552614457130910752023-12-23T18:31:00.002-05:002023-12-23T18:32:24.966-05:00Final exam<p>The exam was printed in color. Partly this was to make the diagrams pretty, partly this was as a hint that students should be thinking about colors. Adjacent to some colored text, a student wrote "LOVED THIS HINT, THANK YOU!" which is a very positive piece of exam-writing feedback to me. In a proof for this problem, another student wrote "The hint of coloring the 4 houses the different colors further solidifies [claim they were making]."</p><p>Down the margins of the final, one student entered a philosophical reverie: "What is 'correct'? Can approx algs ever even get there"</p><p>When asked to give an example, one student wrote "I can't fight the urge to say ∅". This was, in fact, a correct example.</p><p>I offered students the opportunity to write a joke. I am not sure these all make sense?</p><p></p><ul><li>Solving NP-complete algorithms is like finding a CS prof that doesn't wear khakis. Theoretically possible, but in practice it's too hard.</li><li>The biggest dream for an NPC is to become P(layable).</li><li>Why did the NP-complete problem become a therapist?<br />It thought it had a lot of experience with unsolvable isues.</li><li>"That's NPC behavior."<br />Normal person interpretation: someone is acting funky like a Non-Player Character.<br />Theoretical Computer Scientist interpretation: How did they figure out how to live non-deterministically?</li><li>Why buy cereal from the NP-hard aisle of NP store?<br />It's part of an NP-complete breakfast.</li><li>I went to the doctor for my (N)ose (P)ain Problem. He took way too long to find a solution.</li><li>This joke is NP-complete, reducible to everyone else's, hard to understand, and has a polytime verifier. Verifier: print("HAHAHAHAHAHA")</li><li>Why did NP not cross the road?<br />Because it wasn't efficient to do so.</li><li>What did NP-complete say to NP-hard?<br />Don't worry, your polynomial time is coming!</li><li>What did Vertex Cover say to Independent Set?<br />You NP-complete me <3</li><li>Why did the NP-complete problem go to the party?<br />It thought it would be a clique-free environment.</li><li>Once NP-complete is verified on tiktok, it has its own verifier.</li><li>A: Did you hear Neal Patrick Harris found his long lost brother, of the same name, Neil Patrick Harris?<br />B: Oh wow, how nice!<br />A: I know, right! They said now that they found each other, they both feel <u>N</u>eil <u>P</u>atrick-complete!</li><li>Why was Lila late for the CS41 final (theoretically)?<br />Because she was stuck in traffic and navigating it was NP-complete!</li><li>Teacher: Prove this problem is NP-complete.<br />Student: I just "completed" a solution, so it must be NP-complete.</li><li>Q: What do you call a math-inspired, environmentally-minded tap-dancing group?"<br />A: "Al Gore Rhythms: An Inconvenient Troupe"</li><li>Q: Why did the programmer break up with NP-completeness?<br />A: Because NP-completeness took too long to solve their relationship problems; she wasn't efficient enough.</li><li>It is verifiable that I will complete my homeworks for ALGO but it can not be done in polynomial time. ALGO TO SCHEDULE ALGO Homework is NP-complete.</li><li>Why did the algorithms problem not talk?<br />It was NPC(omplete).<br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">idk if this makes sense, i don't play video games</span></li></ul><p></p><div>I take issue with</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>P=NP only if N=1</li></ul><div>And indeed, another (more pedantic) student wrote:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>P=NP<br />(N-1)P = 0<br />N=1 or P=0</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>I was offered some non-jokes:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I like to imagine that all of the NP-complete problems are friends with one another, because they can't feel complete without being reducible to one another.</li><li>I am Not Proud of this exam, but it is Completed.</li><li>I'm NP-complete with this test.</li><li>Ironic for it to be NP-complete but we don't know if P=NP.</li><li>I wish you were NP-complete so that all of our problems could be reduced to you.</li><li>I can decide in polynomial time whether a graph is 3-colorable.</li></ul><div>That last student is powerful in a troubling way.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>When prompted, "Write a joke about NP-completeness." the most wry student in the class wrote:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I would tell you one, but once you've heard one you've heard them all.</li><li>I would write a joke about NP-completeness, but once you've heard one you've hard them all!</li><li>I once heard an NP-complete joke but once you've heard one, you've heard them all.</li><li>My verifier could assess a good joke if it saw one, but <u>I</u> don't think this problem can be done in deterministic polynomial time. :)</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>This post's theme word is lexiphanic (adj), "using pretentious words and language." <i>Very few students attempted lexiphanic answers to test questions.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-8426922477395795602023-11-20T16:12:00.003-05:002023-11-20T16:12:51.974-05:00What social convention baffles you?<p> I take attendance by having students answer a question.</p><p>What social convention baffles you? (<a href="https://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-social-convention-baffles-you.html">previously</a>)</p><p>Some people chose physical customs:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>handshakes</li><li>giving someone a hug</li><li>any convention with physical touch</li></ul><div>... but overall many people chose social conventions that persist even in a pandemic era:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>small talk</li><li>introductions</li><li>ice breakers</li><li>hi to strangers</li><li>salutations on emails</li><li>texting greetings before th emessage</li></ul><div>Some people chose known-to-be-irritating social conventions:</div></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>bachelor/bachelorette parties</li><li>gender reveal parties</li><li>working 5 days a week</li><li>the 9-5 work day</li></ul><div>My favorite is the choice to criticize conventions in favor of absolute chaos:</div></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>waking up in the morning</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>This post's theme word is diachrony (n), "change occurring over a period of time." <i>The social convention diachrony means that handshakes might shift to elbow bumps, or subtle head nods, or nothing at all.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-37042513766250243792023-08-07T16:19:00.000-04:002023-08-07T16:19:09.344-04:00If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Book_Exists,_You%27re_in_the_Wrong_Universe">If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe</a> is a fantasy (?) horror (?) comedy novel by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Pargin">Jason Pargin</a>, who also wrote John Dies at the End.</p><p>Like <i>John Dies at the End</i> -- as well as Pargin's other self-descriptive novels titled <i>This Book is Full of Spiders</i>, and <i>What the Hell Did I Just Read</i> -- this novel's title completely gives away the tone and contents of the book, while still preserving enough wacky mystery that the book can surprise. In this case, I vaguely remembered that <i>John Dies at the End</i> was sort of gonzo-humor and so my surprise came mostly from the graphic horror elements of <i>If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe.</i> I wasn't expecting those, didn't want them, and don't usually seek out that particular genre for my pleasure reading.</p><p>The comedy was suitably wacky, the mystery of the book was indeed clued variously throughout the book but readers would not ever have guessed the actual way it would resolve, and as the title declares, the book does attempt to describe its own provenance and the issues that it causes.</p><p>Overall this was a fine book --- a quick read at 432 pages, although I had to stop reading it before bed because the graphic horror scenes were not good pre-sleep brain fodder for dreams. The cover is an electric green-yellow and the cover art is great; the color, art, and title probably mostly explain why I picked this up and read it. It also was a good brain puzzle.</p><p>Recommended if you like horror or ghastly comedy. Pretty gorey and dark, plus I'm pretty sure almost every character is described in the depths of depression and various other mental illnesses, as well as everyone suffering under wretched capitalism and societal decline.</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is <i>penultimatum </i>(n), "the demand made before an ultimatum." <i>Climactic scenes should feature an explicitly-identified penultimatum, so that all readers can appropriately ratchet their anticipation.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-71440658640683082402023-06-26T11:24:00.003-04:002023-06-26T11:24:47.278-04:00SIROCCO 2023<p>Some quotes from <a href="https://sirocco2023.networks.imdea.org/">SIROCCO 2023</a>, a CS conference earlier this month.</p><p>"Everything's computation. Any process evolving and solving problems over time is computation." - Yuval Emek. An expression of the "computation is a metaphor for everything" that I hadn't heard framed this way before.</p><p>"Artificial neural nets use all kinds of swanky functions." - Frederik Mallman-Trenn</p><p>"... so first we need to understand what a human is. I'm oversimplifying a lot, but a human has a head and a body..." - Frederik Mallman-Trenn taking the physicists' approach to framing a problem</p><p>"This is the tapas version of the talk... I'm going to be going over a lot of topics to give you a taste of them." - Joshua Daymude</p><p>"There's so many dimensions here that we have not yet found one algorithm to rule them all." - Joshua Daymude, expressing an unscripted pervasiveness of Tolkien in popular culture</p><p>"This is a crowd that lies proofs, so I don't want to show off my simulations and offend anybody." - Joshua Daymude</p><p>"Roger is going to be talking about 'swarm intelligence', if that even exists." - Andréa Richa, introducing the next speaker's talk about swarm intelligence with a devastating level of objectivity</p><p>"I don't know how to solve this and I'm afraid to go back and tell them this, so you should help me! I want to hear your ideas." - Roger Wattenhofer, with an earnest appeal to the crowd that I can only imagine comes from unassailable tenure-granted confidence and seniority</p><p>[many inscrutable self-notes about the legibility of different presenters' slides, diagrams, and presentation styles]</p><p>The mildest possible theory praise: "I think you're touching upon the challenges of this area." - Michael Schapira</p><p>"Deep learning is voodoo. We can't debug it, we don't know how it works..." - Michael Schapira</p><p>"How do I know in real time that my decisions are no longer sound?" - Michael Schapira, expressing a CS question but also a question which suits intoxicated people</p><p>"The nice thing about this algorithm is... but the very horrible thing is, it uses infinite memory." - Bernadette Charron-Bost, expressing a truly beautiful "theory person has found a tradeoff" provable fact</p><p>The phrase "we need to use more elbow oil" was mentioned and my brain took a minute to figure out that the non-native English-speaking presenter probably meant the idiom "elbow <i>grease</i>", which on further inspection is a bizarre and faintly disgusting idiom.</p><p>Discussing the topic of algorithmic recommendation systems: "It's maybe something questionable from the moral point of view. But it's certainly interesting and I will not talk about it." - Boaz Patt-Shamir</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is: craic (n), "good times involving pleasant company, enjoyable conversation, etc." <i>Many speakers reminded us that SIROCCO is the 'fun' conference and is full of craic and jollity.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-85088302159281723932022-12-29T16:59:00.003-05:002022-12-29T16:59:47.338-05:00Cryptid Club<p><a href="https://sarahcandersenshop.com/collections/cryptid-club-featured-products/products/cryptid-club">Cryptid Club</a> is a book collection of <a href="https://sarahcandersen.com/">Sarah Andersen</a>'s <a href="https://cryptidclubcomic.com/">series of comics</a> about fictional/mythical creatures. The art style is cute but with a sarcastic twinge, and the humor leaves a lot of space for beats and reading between the lines (and glances) on the page. Overall this was a delight and a quick read, since it's a short comic series, and I loved it. Recommended.</p><p><br /></p><p>Plus, the cover <i>glows in the dark!</i></p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is peritext (n), "the material surrounding the main text of the book, such as covers, preface, bibliography, colophon, etc." <i>The Cryptic Club peritext is delightful and includes an author-bio-style glossary in the back with pictures and descriptions of all starring cryptids.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-26386610308400974812022-11-22T12:02:00.001-05:002022-11-30T12:06:57.433-05:00What are you thankful for?<p>I take attendance by having the students answer a question.</p><p>What are you thankful for?</p><p>Many common thanks went out to:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>friends</li><li>family</li><li>individual specific siblings</li></ul><div>And more general thanks for:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>visual studio code</li><li>being alive</li><li>forgiveness</li><li>the indomitable human spirit</li><li>everyone that ever offers me help</li><li>pass/fail</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>Overall it was a very positive group, everyone found something very nice to be thankful for!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This post's theme word is grumbletonian (n), "a habitual complainer." <i>The grumbletonian antagonist season is upon us!</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-8395987241965868182022-09-13T14:49:00.001-04:002022-09-21T15:40:20.386-04:00Why did the chicken cross the road?<p> I take attendance by having the students answer a question.</p><p>Why did the chicken cross the road?</p><p>Chicken-based answers:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>to talk to the hen</li><li>trynna find somewhere to lay the egg</li><li>on its way to KFC</li><li>to run away from the slaughter house and pursue its dreams</li><li>the road was built over its habitat</li></ul><div>Other answers:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>good exercise! / #cardio</li><li>to meet his friend</li><li>to learn C++</li><li>because roads exist</li><li>they were based</li><li>because it was there</li><li>to get to the McDonald's on the other side</li><li>for fun</li><li>to obtain a sense of morality</li><li>I don't know</li></ul><div>And of course there were 10 responses "to get to the other side."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This post's theme word is chevachee (n), "an expedition, raid, or campaign." <i>The chicken chevashee descended in a flurry of feathers and surprise.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-45732707050058198862022-09-12T16:51:00.001-04:002022-09-12T16:51:11.480-04:00What is your quest?<p>New semester, new students. In response to the prompt "What is your quest?" they said</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>to seek the Holy Grail (most popular response, 5)</li><li>pass this class / to complete all my assignments / master C++ / achieve all the knowledge</li><li>find riches / find El Dorado</li><li>vengeance</li><li>sleep (x3)</li><li>to have a good day / be happy / live my best life</li><li>Je veux apprendre le français.</li><li>to follow that star</li><li>survive</li><li>self-actualization</li></ul><div>This is a good variety of goals and I'm glad the students are thinking at such a wide range of timescales and achievement levels. Hopefully everyone got good sleep over the weekend and is ready to jump into some math tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This post's theme word is obtrude (v), "to impose one's ideas/opinions", or "to thrust forward or intrude." <i>The process of teaching is one of a series of obtruding lectures and enticing examples.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-57643446090524607832022-07-24T11:28:00.000-04:002022-07-24T11:28:42.012-04:00Wolfwalkers<p> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfwalkers">Wolfwalkers</a> is an animated film from the same director as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Kells">The Secret of Kells</a>. It has a similar sort of art and line style, with movements easily flowing across the screen in a way I found very aesthetically pleasing. You can read the plot summary on Wikipedia, so I'll just give some viewing notes:</p><p>If possible, you should view this on a bedsheet in a neighbor's backyard.</p><p>Cover your delicious blood with skin, and cover that with clothing, then bugspray. (You will still be bitten on the <i>face</i>, and hands, and through your socks. This is the destiny of the delicious. Your itchy discomfort will be offset by the bug-free experience of neighbor kids.)</p><p>At the appropriate time --- and trust me, you will <i>know</i> the appropriate time --- you should absolutely howl along with the onscreen wolves. Everyone else, on their lawn chairs and picnic blankets, will absolutely do this, especially if < 7 years old.</p><p>Five stars, highly recommended. Not entirely historically-accurate.</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is eidolon (n), "an idealized form" or "a phantom". <i>The animation smoothly showed transition between physical humans, eidolon scents and spirits, and wolves.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-29883472865502367992022-04-03T16:54:00.005-04:002022-04-03T16:54:53.767-04:002021 quotes<p> I: "Every online lecture is like a seance: Steve, can you hear me? --- give me a sign!"</p><p>Z: "This two-minute hazard distraction video is sponsored by Michael Bay."</p><p>re: students: "Let's not traumatize them more than is necessary... it's important to keep our goals realistic."</p><p>L: "I sent you the recipe for this sweater."</p><p>D: "You're usually an Eagles fan, right?"<br />M: "I'm an easy and willing turncoat."</p><p>F: "What happened? Did you take a pill of youth? You look amazing! Did you shave your beard?"<br />E: "Four years ago."</p><p>L: "I was so tired when I was done that I had to take a nap for two days."</p><p>H (regarding his rash): "Did I tell you, they took an autopsy?"</p><p>G (petting Ika): "Even [Z] doesn't look at me this deeply."</p><p>L (on omicron): "This is great. This is, like, nostalgia for the first part of the pandemic when I ordered groceries all the time."</p><p>C (Saturday, 3pm): "I think I can do this whole thing without a trip to Home Depot <i>or</i> Lowe's!" [and actually that came true!]</p><p>K: "I mean, who can say which direction the Earth spins in?"<br />D: "North-to-south. Prove me wrong."</p><p>A: "We can't follow every path, because in any kind of interesting code, there are infinitely many paths."</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is revet (v), "to recheck or reexamine." <i>Revetting my quote board and I do not remember the context of some of these.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-10384797539754722062021-12-06T19:00:00.005-05:002022-05-14T16:36:53.933-04:00Fluffy puppy on a textured lawn<p> Every part of this photo seems to invite fingers to run across it.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5fRBav7J_0zmKYRo2XzCbkz2oro3dGfEMXOTnqC6LS5zGCokiw23uDIYYBku4ZMZIVQ5BsJx8b2cqUa9xx1AunGQcsKoiRbBiIWgQFf6Clmjhkf4rn0P_feVBfcpXYF2VzSL668mdlo4KB4IaM7Qt-Yh3s8pTA8D7kOwtsZktX8i_2I8rXakbL5vM" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5fRBav7J_0zmKYRo2XzCbkz2oro3dGfEMXOTnqC6LS5zGCokiw23uDIYYBku4ZMZIVQ5BsJx8b2cqUa9xx1AunGQcsKoiRbBiIWgQFf6Clmjhkf4rn0P_feVBfcpXYF2VzSL668mdlo4KB4IaM7Qt-Yh3s8pTA8D7kOwtsZktX8i_2I8rXakbL5vM=w420-h315" width="420" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ika on Parrish Beach.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />This post's theme word is talpa (n), either "a mole (the animal)" or "a cyst". <i>The dog is sniffing for talpa in the lawn.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-62737174678935629772021-09-23T22:00:00.003-04:002021-09-26T10:17:54.583-04:00The water table<p> This pedestrian tunnel beneath the train tracks is, apparently, below the level of the water table post-rainfall.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxI6Y7RVtnlh3oanpqcGj7uuhA19ZUIHMUWaOwy-wikyeF3Pp82Z2HPqUgB13-tIp6ePGISurw4fARhv6NmXA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p>Huzzah for water pressure!</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is spuddle (v intr), "to work feebly". <i>Through gradual work, the water will spuddle until it is level.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-61367773805179913372021-07-08T20:48:00.005-04:002021-07-08T20:48:42.158-04:00The Miracles of the Namiya General Store<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keigo_Higashino">Keigo Higashino</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_of_the_Namiya_General_Store">The Miracles of the Namiya General Store</a> is an odd novel, and one that came recommended by a friend and without any other context (I think I was told "it's very famous and popular in Japan" and "I think you'll like it"). I would not have found it on my own, but it is a perfect little self-contained dumpling of a novel.</p><p>The novel centers on the titular general store, whose proprietor accepts letters asking for advice; some replies are posted in the front window, and some are left for private pickup and review in the back of the store. The letters start as lighthearted pranks from local schoolkids but in the course of the novel we see a wide variety of people, in moments of vulnerability, turn to a stranger for advice. And the advice is mixed! Sometimes good, sometimes bad, always trying to meet them where they are.</p><p>What struck me reading this book was the subtle ways that it became clear that the cultural expectations were not what I expected. Whether because of the author's background, the setting, or the writing style, people kept being set up for climactic scenes or decisions and then... juddering to a different point. Sometimes I thought one path was clearly signaled and the characters (and narration!) didn't even seem to think it was possible; other times, something momentous happened out of nowhere. Conversations careened in ways I didn't understand; characters made silent assumptions about each other that I didn't have access to. It was a curious experience.</p><p>Overall the book was good, quite varied in its stories and never predictable. Is this modern fiction? Fantasy? Magical realism? I didn't know what to expect, the plot didn't follow any threads for too long so no one person was actually the focus, and incidental characters were shifted into and out of the spotlight all the time. It was tied up in a tidy way, but not a happy ending.</p><p>I liked it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is alterity (n), "otherness; the quality or state of being other or different." <i>The stories were interwoven with each other in a style that highlighted their similarities explicitly and left the overall alterity for the reader to find.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-66582398552667685612021-06-06T17:26:00.001-04:002022-05-14T17:29:32.446-04:00Uninhabited<p> It's a pandemic and we've sent away the few students who were here. This is campus but looks as empty as a golf course.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="a905903a677fc" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br />This post's theme word is kapu (n), "taboo" (Hawaiian root). <i>Even hanging out on the lawn is kapu in pandemic summer.</i><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-90727123465210775662021-05-31T17:18:00.001-04:002021-06-04T15:12:02.666-04:00Spring 2021 quotes<p> I forgot to write attributions so here are some more-scrambled-than-usual quotes:</p><p>"Thank you! You've been sucked into the trap alongside me."<br />"I like being sucked into the trap."</p><p>"Are you going to issue some futures on that party?"</p><p>"There's two people in the house, so 'who ate it?' has an air of mystery."</p><p>"... the robot spy in your house who you just yell at."</p><p>D: "Nine times out of ten, if I have banged my head against it, it turns out the reverse triangle inequality does it."</p><p>Z: "That's a good question and I should have asked it, but I was a little flustered."<br />K: "The title of your memoir!"</p><p>D: "Um... this is when I need to have two copies of this book open, to flip back and forth."</p><p>"All curly-haired girls have an opinion of which founding father their ponytail looks like."</p><p>Z: "I like the policy of 'visitors should be neither seen nor heard.'"</p><p>S: "I think these [meetings] will be better in person."<br />J: "They can't be worse!"</p><p>Z: "X and I get into arguments about how to pronounce things. I'm like, I don't know if this is because <b>you</b> are 4 or because <b>I</b> came from a weird place."</p><p>G: "Why is that cat looking at the thermostat?"<br />Z: "I have <i>no</i> idea."</p><p>"pull request: check yourself before you wreck yourself, [username1]"</p><p>D: "Which is why, when your dog asks you a question, you say, 'That will be answered in the next paper.'"</p><p>L: ""My toenails are sore from being inside my socks yesterday."</p><p>K: "I'm five minutes into butts."</p><p>I: "At some point you can drive this probability high enough that your computer will spontaneously *crumble* with higher probability [than that this will fail]."</p><p>D: "I have to say that, until this morning, I was convinced that the three musketeers were mice."</p><p>Q: "The kid's clearly a knucklehead."</p><p>O: "If I need to, I can buy another computer, which will increase the number of computers in this house by... 1%?"</p><p>Z: "Python is the language that has unlimited late days."</p><p>Q: "I meant to put myself on mute but I turned off my video because I have no idea how Zoom works anymore."</p><p>Y: "I'm [X]'s niece, we won't get into how."</p><p>C: "Scraping the hair off your face every day is messing with nature."</p><p>Z: "Geocaching --- that's where you bury a server in your backyard."</p><p>I: "Beautiful. I did a probability."</p><p>J: "Hey, let's completely change everything at once and then try to cope with the ensuing disaster."</p><p>G: "Friends and the internet are about the same level of uselessness." </p><p>Z: "Students will misunderstand, no matter what we do."</p><p>L: "That was Dad! I never used the word 'dynamite'. I prefer 'plastique'."</p><p>M: "You know these kids with college educations --- they can read!"</p><p>I: "Alright, what else is new, besides bad weather and rain and your illegal activities?"</p><p>K: "How about malaria?"<br />L: "Malaria is just... very inconvenient."</p><p>Z: "I think the idea of food and drink is insane."</p><p>Q: "They join the major late and are like, 'I picked up CS35 <i>on the street</i>.'"</p><p>I: "This hypercube is reaching the limits of my artistic sophistication."</p><p>Z: "Your department seems comparatively... cohesive. You all agree on stuff..."</p><p>I: "Knock yourself out on Complexity Zoo. But don't do it for the next half hour, we're in class."</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is autokinesy (n), "self-propelled or self-directed motion or energy." <i>The instinct to write down out-of-context quotes for my later self is a bit of psychic autokinesy; it goes back in my notes for more than twenty years.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-55566408449621133742021-05-10T20:00:00.003-04:002022-05-14T16:33:25.297-04:00Great texture<p> The curb-to-sidewalk verge has a fantastic texture!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiR-V7OYrIDUsdakeL4-LGWdZSXELk6iW_ZIW0ZhaMWZiWkfcIkDF37_NYFyLbD9LIXpfO6Z473f_OBzdbv7K6DD7wlk48mUQDEzRV1FaOQaIKoqkEZoR6ZtiebVHvP8Hr8ZoE8Iseo1QgamQG2key0Zv4TzjWumgYe3B8U7yPvN51MAmaYxqiNP8pk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiR-V7OYrIDUsdakeL4-LGWdZSXELk6iW_ZIW0ZhaMWZiWkfcIkDF37_NYFyLbD9LIXpfO6Z473f_OBzdbv7K6DD7wlk48mUQDEzRV1FaOQaIKoqkEZoR6ZtiebVHvP8Hr8ZoE8Iseo1QgamQG2key0Zv4TzjWumgYe3B8U7yPvN51MAmaYxqiNP8pk" width="180" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>This post's theme word is marsescence (n), "the retention of dead leaves, etc., instead of shedding." <i>Some weeds favor marsescence but it's not evidenced in springtime photos of fresh growth.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-31699301599427208452021-03-05T18:58:00.002-05:002021-03-08T19:36:51.606-05:00Winter 2020 quotes<p>These have accumulated for awhile and I might've missed some as there is currently a "scratch notebook" infestation throughout the rooms of my house.</p><p>Out-of-context semi-anonymized quotes for your enjoyment!</p><p><br /></p><p>I: "Evidence is really piling up for us living in a weird simulation. Let's have their teeth fall out, try that!"</p><p>M: "What's the official wine pairing for bacon-wrapped chicken?"<br />L: "Bacon-wrapped wine."</p><p>Z: "There's more red flags than potential here."</p><p>G: "I'm discovering things about people I never knew."<br />L: "By looking at their backgrounds?"<br />G: "By listening to what they say!"</p><p>N: "I like that JavaScript is being described as low-level here."</p><p>Z: "You accidentally muted yourself."<br />I: "No, I did it on purpose, but at the wrong time."</p><p>M: "I was such a good writer back then. That was before I went to grad school, I can tell."</p><p>F: "The problem with legacy code is, they did a lot of stuff in the past, and they keep doing it!"</p><p>Z: "Do you have a job, or is this, like, private daycare?"</p><p>D: "He died of syphilis because he had all these... incubis... you know?"</p><p>Z+D (simultaneously, uncoordinated): "Maybe don't do your taxes today."<br />M: "I think it'll work out in our favor!"</p><p>D: "Julius Caesar was not another Groundhog's Day."</p><p>L: "Isn't it being livestreamed on the IRS Facebook page?"<br />K: "That is a <i>cursed sentence.</i>"</p><p>I: "I don't trust the government. I don't trust anyone! I don't trust myself! I do trust Paypal."</p><p>A: "Tomato grove?"<br />B: "Tomato thicket."</p><p>I, on the topic of grad school: "It was actually quite useful, but not directly."</p><p>F: "You know, I'm in a perfect position here to rob the bank."</p><p>R: "Can I <i>promise </i>that the results of this won't be used for evil, anywhere, ever? No."</p><p>I: "We're all just in a sorry state."</p><p>Z: "surveil and digitize" (which I suggested would be a good evil catchphrase)</p><p>L: "The problem with buying a fanny pack is..."</p><p>Z: "No, I don't want a duck-face filter, I want a duck filter. I want to look like a duck."</p><p>D: "When I look at the scores, I think... we shouldn't have explained to her how the points work."</p><p>L: "I like to say a long goodbye and get cut off so that my children feel an obligation to talk to me again soon."<br />D: "Mom, I don't think you should reveal the secrets of how you maintain the social contract!"</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is meech (v), "to whine" or "to move in a furtive manner" or "to loiter." <i>Stop meeching about the park, meeching to each other, I see you meeching over there!</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-13160684438893371752021-02-15T15:46:00.006-05:002021-02-15T15:46:51.695-05:00Artificial Condition<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murderbot_Diaries#Artificial_Condition">Artificial Condition</a> is the second in <a href="https://marthawells.com/">Martha Wells</a>' <a href="https://marthawells.com/murderbot.htm">"The Murderbot Diaries"</a> series; it won a Hugo award in 2019. It continues the first-person account of a now-rogue human-robot construct which used to be an armed security agent but is now free(ish) to pursue its own interests --- but notably still constrained by the weird hodgepodge of spacefaring human societies and their various legal and social restrictions, the most relevant of which is that Murderbot is not considered a full, independent person and is regarded as something closer to property or a slave.</p><p>This book continued the tone and themes of <a href="http://lilaprime.blogspot.com/2021/02/all-systems-red.html">the previous one</a>, central among them the Murderbot's increasing self-awareness of things like emotional state, body language, facial expression, and social relationships. But in an extremely sardonic and analytical tone, of course --- this leads to some delightful things like "pouting" by powering down or the classic description of the murderbot development cycle: "But you can't put something as dumb as a hauler bot in charge of security... So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects." (chapter 2, 9%) It also hit some poignant storytelling beats that land particularly hard given the narrator: in discussing TV dramas, it says, "But there weren't any depictions of [murderbots] in books, either. I guess you can't tell a story from the point of view of something that you don't think has a point of view." (chapter 2, 17%)</p><p>In addition to casting aspersions on all humans for their idiotic/bigoted attitudes towards non-humans, the book does a fair amount of oblique emotional growth for Murderbot --- for example "I shouldn't have asked myself that question. I felt a wave of non-caring about to come over me, and I knew I couldn't let it." (chapter 3, 19%) Murderbot's one true passion is watching teledramas, which often get referenced "in an effort to figure out what the hell was going on with humans. It hadn't helped." (chapter 7, 73%) Nevertheless Murderbot has some self-realizations like "And now I knew why I hadn't wanted to do this. It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person." (chapter 4, 32%, delightfully reversing many decades of "robots <i>want</i> to pass as human" tropes in fiction!) and the final portion of the book, which included a lot of introspection like "I wish being a construct made me less irrational than the average human but you may have noticed this is not the case." (chapter 7, 78%)</p><p>I liked this book --- it was again very quick and enjoyable. I am curious what future adventures Murderbot can get up to, since book 1 was "liberation" and book 2 was "uncovering past secrets" so the future can only hold new wrinkles. We readers got a taste of what is going on in the broader human civilization and it seems like an omnishambles. Given the <i>extremely high</i> number of times that bots/constructs casually edit security logs, footage, and human databases, my estimate of this human civilization is that its documents are swiss cheese and completely unreliable, and it only limps along because all of the non-human intelligences basically tolerate the humans because life would be boring without them --- but the humans have no idea! I'm curious if this will be explored more.</p><p><br /></p><p>This post's theme word is Gallionic (adj), "indifferent or uncaring." <i>The intelligences running ships are neither rule-bound nor Gallionic regarding their human passengers.</i></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568208702892580600.post-68475123731489689582021-02-14T21:48:00.000-05:002021-02-14T21:48:02.336-05:00All Systems Red<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Systems_Red">All Systems Red</a> is the first in <a href="https://marthawells.com/">Martha Wells</a>' <a href="https://marthawells.com/murderbot.htm">"The Murderbot Diaries"</a> series; it won a Hugo award in 2018. It is a first-person account of a human-robot construct which is tasked with corporate security on an exploration mission to a new planet. It's quick and short, and the fun parts are:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>the story is told in the first person from a point of view which includes interfacing with drone cameras and so is much broader and more comprehensive than a usual human, BUT which also occasionally glitches or shuts down</li><li>the internal monologue voice is dry and a little sarcastic, but the vocalized speech is all pretty straightforward --- this contrast was very satisfying</li><li>on the second read, I noticed that the narration was <i>impeccable</i> about the Murderbot both not having a name <i>and</i> not having a gender; this was done so smoothly that on first read I had mentally pictured Murderbot as a woman (I guess because it was first person and that's how I perceive myself)</li></ul><div>There's a ton of delight to be had in closely examining the story in retrospect --- it is essentially an entire narrative centered on the narrator's feelings, emotional state, expression of sentiment, and social cues like body language, but in a "doth protest too much, methinks" way, the narrator's main focus is persistently to avoid feeling or engaging with any emotion. (Multiple scenes include the lowering of an opaque visor or the narrator moving to stand facing the corner mid-conversation.) It's very well-crafted, to be a sneaky story about feelings which constantly mentions how feelings aren't there and shouldn't be acknowledged and could we please just focus on not all getting killed?</div><div><br /></div><div>I picked it up again as a palate cleanser and enjoyed it; there are many more in this series, all queued up in my library.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This post's theme word is pensum (n), "a task, especially given as punishment." <i>The ability to self-edit and control administrative privileges removes the threat of pensums.</i></div><p></p>Lila is a complex system.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14752526309727572379noreply@blogger.com0