Course message board

There is a homework due this morning.

The single most popular post on the course message board occurred last night.

1:10am: "do we have to finish the problem set even though Trump is winning? we have no will to continue."

Follow-up comments throughout the night:

• "please, I second."
• "Well with the way things are going, will there really be a GPA left for this to ruin anyway? "
• "fourth'd. why is this happening."
• "Murica is now NP Complete"
• "Please Lila"
• "make my GPA great again"
• "Not gpa that doesn't matter right now as much as general health and sanity"
• "not that wall street doesn't matter as much as minority citizens"
• "please reply, we're crying"

My reply upon waking: "It is very important to be educated, as this election highlights." We'll see if  I can remain as anodyne in my not-on-the-permanent-and-searchable-record aloud delivery of lecture this morning.

I'm considering scrapping my network flow lecture to discuss social choice theory and voting (lecture tentatively titled: "Arrow's impossibility theorem, or how math is the reason why we can't have nice things"). On the other hand, the problems we face in the real world are usually not theoretical problems of design and feasibility, but implementation detail problems (e.g., how to check election results) and issues arising from grandfathered-in historical systems which had no rational design to begin with.

This post's theme word is peripeteia (noun), "a sudden or unexpected change of fortune, especially in a literary work. A classic example is Oedipus learning about his parentage." Too crushed by peripeteia for cleverness, the characters shouted "I want out of this novel!" in a fourth-wall-breakingly desperate plea for clemency.

Six-word autobiographies

I take attendance by having the students answer a question complete a very brief creative writing assignment.

Today they wrote six-word autobiographies.

Many were school- or study-focused, to no one's great surprise:

• Majored in chem, not gonna chem.
• All the labs all the time.
• Too many interests, what I do?
• Work hard, algorithm harder. Word. Word.

Here we see the beginning of the recurring theme of "six, you say?"

• Naive ambition tempered to quiet hope. Rebel.
• Potato, banana.
• Went into math, forgot how to count.

And of course the silly:

• Thank gosh I'm the sane one.
• Thinking about this, unlearning network flow. (<-- lecture="" li="" of="" s="" today="" topic="">
• I tell lies all the time.
• Question: why is it a giraffe?
• Hello darkness, my old friend. [bum]

And the profound:

• Trying to do ok & stuff.
• Once upon a time, I was.
• What is the meaning of life?
• I am my own worst enemy.
• Six words is simply not enough.
• Regret for yesterday, hope for tomorrow.

I liked "Just passing this sheet along. Cool." for being six-words, self-reflective, and descriptive of the student's life without actually saying anything nontrivial. This is the kind of answer I attempt to head off at the pass on homeworks...

This post's theme word is nimiety (noun), "excess or redundancy." Homework solutions should be sufficient, and absent all nimiety.

More like MadLibs

I take attendance by having the students answer a question fill in MadLibs.

A ____________ walks into a bar. The bartender says, "___________________"

This one was a bit open-ended and I'm not sure it sparked the students' witty creative-writing skills optimally.

The traditionalist: A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Why the long face?"
The context-aware: A college student walks into a bar. The bartender says, "ID?"

The literalists: A man walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Ouch." Also appeared as "man/hello"
and "man/try the soup" and "really tall guy/that must have hurt" and "person/yo" and "man with an orange for a head/you have an orange for a head?!"

The animals that appeared were commented thusly: "dog/impressive" (not sure why; dogs walk normally), "bear/welcome", "parrot/This is it." (bartender with no patience left), "cat/hi", "puppy/This is the best day ever.", "caterpillar/You'll be a beautiful butterfly one day.", and the masterpiece of absurdism which is "very very very small horse/hello".

The jokey: A law student walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Walking into too many bars will not help you pass it."

This makes very little sense, but: A foo walks into a bar. The bartender says, "foo-bar."

The minds of mathematical bent:

• A graph walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Why so edgy?"
• A triangle walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Looking sharp."
• An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Got it --- 2 beers." (I'm guessing this is a joke about infinite sums with finite limits?)

Today's Pandering Prize goes to:

A theoretical computer scientist walks into a bar. The bartender says, "That's strange, most of our customers are travelling salesmen."

This post's theme word is clerihew (n), " humorous, pseudo-biographical verse of four lines of uneven length, with the rhyming scheme AABB, and the first line containing the name of the subject." I would like to see what my students create when prompted for a clerihew or a six-word autobiography, but creative writing attendance questions distract students from paying attention to the lecture.

What is your personal motto?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is your personal motto?

The earnest take several forms, the positive charge:

• always be the best version of yourself 
• channel negative emotions into something productive
• live happily
• live slow
• enjoy
• work smarter, not harder

... the negative (admonitions):

• don't be afraid of anything
• don't worry about things that don't matter
• don't leave yourself with any regret.
• don't disguise your fear as impracticality

... and the neutral mottos which are not commands:

• all life/sentience is sacred
• resilience
• truthfulness forbearance compassion
• time wasted doing something you enjoy isn't wasted
• non nobis domine

Then there are the cultural references:

• just keep swimming (<-- li="" popular="" response="" this="" was="">
• get schwifty

Then there were the stalwart replies, dependably occurring for every question. No matter what question I ask, someone answers with "sleep" (in this case, the motto "sleep is important".) Someone else always writes answers that center on the class (motto: "do algorithms"). At least one person goes for maximum psychological darkness (motto: "society sucks and everyone dies"). There's always at least one person who goes full-throttle academic (motto: "intuitions without concepts are blind"), who is counterbalanced by the jokers ("what's a motto with you?" and "Born too late to explore the seas, born too early to explore the stars, born right in time to browse DANK MEMES.")

I was amused to see both "moderation is boring" and "everything is good in moderation." This duo of answers wins the synergy award.

This post's theme word is triffid, "an out-of-control plant that overruns everything around it (also, anything that behaves in this manner)." The triffids' motto is, "go, go, go!"

What is your greatest victory in life (so far)?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is your greatest victory in life (so far)?

The physical accomplishments:

• made into a cup one time for pong but no one was watching
• learning to touch my nose with my tongue
• eating a large pizza by myself
• complimented by my high school rugby coach

The recurring theme of sleep marked many of these students' greatest victories in life (!):

• getting out of bed every morning
• waking up early
• I slept 18 hours once

Accomplishments that could be a line on a CV:

• finishing military service (<-- li="" wow="">
• published a first-author paper (<-- li="" wow="">
• got an hourly wage of $100 (<-- li="" nice="">

And then there are the others. Some people noted an interesting event that they really had no choice in ("being born" or "I won $50 in a scratch-off lottery"). Also, I find it very culturally revealing that many of these smart, academically-accomplished adults mark their greatest achievement as "maintaining a committed X-year relationship".

The dependable brown-nosing answer this time was "not getting lotteried out of [this class]".

The absolutely, utterly nerdiest award goes to the student whose greatest victory in life so far is "apperceptive unity."

This post's theme word is hayseed, "an unsophisticated person who comes from a rural area." The hayseed's victory over the urban gentleman was an utterly magnificent sight to behold --- you really should join debate team next year!

What is the worst account security question?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

One of my peeves is very, very stupid account security questions, and the fact that the questions are so ubiquitous that anyone who knows, for example, the street where I grew up (which is by no means secret information!) can get access to a plethora of information. (N.B. I give incorrect answers to such questions on purpose; if you truly are me, you know how I would have answered such drivel.)

What is the worst account security question?

There are many possible stupid questions. I liked and appreciated the students who went the extra distance to make the question truly execrable. My commentary below.

• What is your dream job?
  What number is Steve thinking of?
  What is the most forgettable thing you can think of?
  (I liked these because the answers will clearly change over time.)
• How old were you when your first pet died?
  (Not only have you forgotten your password, but now we will force you to remember a sad memory.)
• What is your password?
  What is your social security number?
  (Well, sure --- look how secure it is! Only someone with the password/SSN can use the security question to access the account!)
• What color is your soul?
• What is your favorite childhood memory?
  (I like to imagine that this one requires a full paragraph of answer. Yes, it is case-sensitive.)
• no account security question
  (Yep, that's pretty bad.)

My favorites ended up being the ones that went for really bad by asking yes/no questions. "Are you human?" ranks pretty highly, but the cake was taken by "Have you stopped drowning kittens yet?" which is not only a yes/no question but also suggests a horrible backstory of the account owner.

This post's theme word is opprobrium (n), "strong criticism" or "public disgrace." Only widespread opprobrium forced the company to modify its website and default account parameters.

Bubble soccer

This was a pretty ridiculous but lovely thing to see on my walk home across campus: students in giant inflatable bubbles running into each other like some sort of particle simulation, nominally playing "soccer".

This post's theme word is ensiform (adj), "shaped like a sword or sword blade." The defensive air bubbles were susceptible to ensiform attacks.

What is the worst food additive?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is the worst food additive?

• sugar
• salt
• coloring
• oil
• that thing in cheetoes that's killing orangutans
• "artificially flavored" anything
• MSG
• aspartame
• sugar alcohols
• creatine
• bacon
• mustard
• pepper
• carrots
• durian
• insects
• beetles
• maggots
• bricks
• cement
• cyanide

I have taken the liberty of sorting these from most likely to be added to a food to least likely. For some pairwise comparisons, I guessed.

I have no idea what the deal is with orangutans, but you can find out.

This post's theme word is olid, "foul-smelling." What olid horrors have you added to this soup stock?

What is the most fun thing you did during fall break?

I take attendance by having students answer a question. Sometimes I try to get to know them a bit better, so that I can distinguish them from the swarm.

What is the most fun thing you did during fall break?

The typical Swarthmore student:

• algorithms
• slept in
• sleeeeeeep zzzzzzz
• sleep
• sleep + sleep + sleep
• sleep!
• read Kleinberg + Tardos (our textbook)
• getting away from here
• sleep
• slep [stet]
• grad apps & Overwatch 💙
• divide & conquer

Something that sounds more "mainstream" fun:

• went to 
• NYC!
• Chicago
• visit friends
• Maid of the Mist @ Niagara Falls
• gardening
• climb a fortress
• disc golf
• collaged
• watched
• the trailer for PLANET EARTH II!!!!!!!
• Silicon Valley
• Evil Dead
• a movie
• played guitar
• visited my girlfriend's family
• tiddlywinks
• swam in a glacial lake
• ate good food
• hung with friends
• soccer game

"The most fun thing"? There were some... fun outliers:

• my car was surrounded by hundreds of sheep
• woken up by Armenian brute
• removed 4 teeth
• watched a kidney removal surgery
• bees?
• uncontrollable near explosive diarrhea

I have to ask --- "removed 4 teeth" makes it sound like you removed them from yourself, by yourself. That seems worrisome.

This post's theme word is 

Ithaca is gorgeous

By well-known folk wisdom, the gorges are gorgeous:

Seriously scenic hiking.

 We came in search of a geocache, which we needed rock-climbing rope and headlamps to find. Advanced level only.

View across and down the gorge towards the lake.

 We did actually end up climbing down/across/into a gorge and walking along the bottom for a little bit.

The view upstream, bridge in sight.

Gorges aside, Ithaca is full of lovely sights.

Nice fluffy trees and brightly-painted angular metal sculptures.

Sweeping expanses of greenery sloping down towards the lake.

Lots and lots of trees precariously growing on ledges.

I enjoy the special features of Ithaca; things I've only noticed now that I have experienced their absence in the rest of the world. For example, this sign:

"No skiing, sledding, or sliding"

The variegated trees lining the highways as I drove were also very nice.

This post's theme word is campanile (n), "a bell tower, especially one detached from a main building such as a church." Sledding is expressly forbidden on the slopes below the campanile, but students frequently use food trays to careen down the snowy expanse anyway.