Chocolate nightmares, ginger immersion

Little sleep. Nightmares about chocolate. Lent. Wandering around the kitchen, not hungry, looking for something that I do not have. (This year, no dining hall, no ever-present temptation.) Ginger ice cream is sweet and tangy, but no substitute. Ice cream, soap, tea, lotion: ginger everywhere. Also, food. Contributes to the synesthesia of sleep deprivation: I smell it, taste it, feel it. Now, having slept 13 hours, the feeling of disembodiment has faded away.

This post's theme half of the population: women. It's "Women's Week" at Harvard. Later this week, I'm attending a conference for computer science women.

Lightswitch puzzle

There are three switches on the wall outside a room. (Four, for the more ambitious.) Exactly one of them controls a lightbulb inside the room. You are allowed to change the switches as much as you want, after which you may enter the room only once and see the lightbulb. Then you must say which switch controls the light.

This puzzle is not probabilistic. There is a solution that gives the correct answer 100% of the time.


This post's theme card game: Bang! I, the sheriff, was killed this evening by one of my misguided deputies in the hurried speed-round we did as we were being kicked out of a closing building. So the outlaws won. In retribution, I left them all befuddled by this puzzle.