Month: December 2008

Pessimism!™

On the train home this afternoon, I avoided a seat with a puddle of water in it.  It’s not a particularly common occurrence, but it’s also never a good idea to sit down on the train before looking.  Several people at each stop performed the same dance: headed straight for the empty seat, then saw its contents and moved farther into the car.

Then came a young boy followed immediately by his mother.  The boy, anxious to pull himself into his own seat, reached up and stretched his hands across the chair, planting them right in the middle of the puddle — before his mother saw it, and before anybody had a chance to utter a word of warning.

His mother, disapproving but in good spirits, lamented while cleaning his hands, “See, you didn’t look before you leaped!  We don’t even know what’s in that water.”

The boy immediately announced,without missing a beat, and with a level of excitement normally reserved for new bicycles:

It might be pee!

Either he’s experienced this situation before, or this kid’s got a great future as a pessimist.

Away in a Toy Store

While I was shopping for Christmas presents at an excellent toy store called Magic Beans in Brookline today, I noticed a very small child — maybe a little over one year old — in front of me in line with her grandmother.

The child was clearly just beginning to speak, having perhaps mastered words like “no” and “da-da.”  And maybe “tape recorder,” which I’m told joined my own vocabulary right after “da-da” when my mother asked me to “say ‘da-da’ into the tape recorder.”  (Even then I had a sarcastic streak, apparently.)

This little girl was playing with some toys near the register, but when Grandma asked her to put them back, the child stomped right over to her (clearly exerting herself to walk upright at all, much less while holding toys), held up the playthings for Grandma to take, and then casually uttered two simple words, with near perfect pronunciation:

Buy it!

And that, boys and girls, is the story of how Christmas really began.

Found in a Hallway (Part 2)

Dear Neighbors,

Following are appropriate places to put half-eaten slices of pizza;

  • Your stomach
  • The garbage
  • Someone else’s plate (in specific circumstances only)

Following are inappropriate places to put half-eaten slices of pizza:

  • The middle of a hallway
  • An elevator

Please make a note of these guidelines immediately to avoid any recurrence of this problem

Sincerely,
Someone from civilized society

Validation is for Wimps

I recently helped a colleague research a problem with a domain he’d registered.  I tried searching for it on a site that shall remain anonymous.  This is what I got:

Is "com" Allowed?

Should someone tell the nice little hosting provider how domains work?

Once a Cheater…

My post about the anti-cheating device reminded me of my all-time favorite student in five years as a teaching assistant for Computer Programming I classes.

To preserve her anonymity, I’ll call her simply Lisa S.  No, that’s too obvious.  How about L. Simpson.  (Yes, that’s a direct quote from The Simpsons.)

In the third week of class, this student sent a sudden barrage of excuses for poor performance.  She hadn’t gotten the textbook yet, but would rush to the store immediately.  Her job was too time-consuming, so she’d quit straight away.  She couldn’t touch a computer while the sun was up.  (I may have made up that last one, but there were plenty more.)

This instructor was famously fair, and readily granted Ms. Simpson an extension: turn in the first three assignments together, for no lost credit.  She submitted them directly to me to grade.

The first didn’t even compile.  That earned a zero automatically, but I wrote (as I always did) extensive comments about why it didn’t compile to help her for next time.  The second also didn’t compile.  It again got a zero.  I again wrote extensive comments.

The third also didn’t compile.  This time, however, when I opened the code to document what went wrong, I found a veritable masterpiece.  The code was virtually flawless.  It was properly formatted, commented well, solved the problem with minimal logic, and even offered subtle enhancements to the user interface that most students never bothered using.

In fact, it reminded me a lot of my own code.  Ahem.  I say: it reminded me a lot of my own code.

Every week after I finished grading an assignment, I wrote my own version of the program, emphasizing areas a lot of students had struggled.  Many students loved studying these.  Ms. Simpson in particular loved that her extension let her submit her assignment after she’d had a chance to copy it from me.

Understand, she didn’t just study my code, or borrow a line or two that I’d written.  She literally downloaded my example and put her name at the top — it was identical, byte for byte.  I have to recommend that the number one rule in plagiarism be, “don’t copy your grader’s own creations.”

After recovering from the shock of seeing my own work with a student’s name on it, I had to revisit the fact that it didn’t compile.  What had she done to render inoperable a perfectly good program?  Let’s look at the top three lines.  They should have read:

/** Bobbo Jones
 *  Computer Programming I
 */

Instead, they read:

** Lisa Simpson
*  Computer Programming I
*/

She changed the name, yes, but she also removed a slash from the beginning.  With the slash there, the program will compile.  Without the slash, it will not, and the assignment earns a zero.

I’ll say that again for emphasis.  Not only did she try to replace my name with hers, but in the process she broke the program!  My entire feedback to her for the assignment read:

This program doesn’t compile, so it automatically gets a grade of zero.  Also, it’s probably not a good idea to submit my code with your name on it.

This triggered the best part of the experience.  (That’s right; we still haven’t gotten to the best part.)  Upset at getting a zero, she protested to the instructor.  When she confirmed my judgment that people who submit non-functional, plagiarized homework should get a zero, Ms. Simpson filed a formal complaint with the dean.

I would have paid good money to read that.  “I copied my grader’s own code and put my name on it, and I still got a zero!  It’s unfair!  I demand justice!”  Here’s another tip: when your actions merit summary expulsion from the University, you generally don’t want to call your dean’s attention to them.

We never heard from her again.

Commuters Flee Rampaging Taxi Drivers

Page A9 in this morning’s Boston Globe contains a very brief article, quoted here in its entirety (there is no byline):

Protest in South Africa

Minibus taxi drivers set fires yesterday during a march in Cape Town against the government’s proposed bus transit upgrade for the World Cup, which the taxi drivers say will cost them revenue.

I fully expected it to continue, “In other news, oil companies threatened to uproot train tracks and sabotage any cars used for carpools.  Electric company officials were also seen breaking into homes known to have installed energy-efficient florescent or LED lighting.”

A South African website called Independent Online covered the event more extensively yesterday, running an article with the absolutely awesome headline “Commuters flee rampaging taxi drivers.”

Taxi drivers blockaded roads and threw stones at Golden Arrow buses and private cars, allegedly in protest against the formation of the city’s new Bus Rapid Transit system, perceived permit inequalities and the taxi recapitalization process.

Then it just goes over the top in insanity:

[Commuter Thembakazi Bizana] said commuters ran for their lives when taxi drivers started throwing stones. “It was chaos out there… I took a cab and they started stoning the cabs also, saying we are not allowed to use any transport.”

This might be the worst protest plan in the history of protests.  First, they stoned cabs as part of their protest to encourage cab use.  Second, better mass transit is a good thing, but they’re opposing it for personal reasons (and that’s a hard sell).  Third, and most importantly, they’ve caused people serious harm.  I know I’d be a lot less inclined to take a cab in Boston if I knew the driver was prone to dragging people from buses and beating them up.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords

I had to interrupt a conversation with a colleague yesterday to ask why and when an alien spaceship and/or juicer had appeared on his desk, and whether we should consider it cause to evacuate the building.

Electroshock Therapy Device?

Electroshock Therapy Device?

The device, shown here, gives every impression that it could vaporize you with a laser beam, or change your molecular structure.  In reality, it’s a gadget from a company called Secure Software that’s supposed to curtail cheating in exams.  It records audio and a 360° view of the room, and requires thumbprint identification.

Before the advent of this technology, students could cheat effortlessly.  Now, they’ll need to think for at least 20 or 30 seconds first.

For example, instead of arraying her notes and index cards across her entire exam-taking surface, Alice might have to conceal her cheat sheet under the table, or even write lightly on the table surface itself.  The 360° camera can see the entire room, but it won’t be able to pick up that level of detail, surely.

Alice might also record some notes on an iPod Shuffle, leaving one ear-bud dangling from the ear facing away from the camera.  With the Shuffle controls inconspicuously hidden underneath the keyboard, who would ever know?

Of course, Alice might just not be smart enough to take the exam on her own, even with illegal references.  In the old days, she could ask her friend Trudy (an expert in the subject) to take the online exam for her, perhaps for some compensation.

Now, she’d have to give Trudy a copy of her thumbprint first, which Mythbusters confirmed is relatively easy to do.

Or, Alice could just run the USB cable for the Almighty Overseer device to a laptop Trudy’s using in another room.  She’d tap her thumb on the pad, and then pretend to take the exam while Trudy did all the real work.

High-tech cheaters could even configure a Remote Desktop client so that Trudy could control Alice’s actual computer.

According to an Associated Press article on MSNBC, the CEO is fully aware that the device is imperfect.  That won’t stop me from maniacally delighting in the futility, though.

Just Don’t Turn On the Lights

The University of Nebraska Medical Center published guidelines on holiday decorations for its employees.  Some of them are just good sense, such as:

Do not block the view of exits signs or the fire alarm strobes.

Then there’s this one, which I don’t even understand:

Candles are OK as long as the wicks are cut out of them.

Either I don’t understand how candles work, they don’t understand how candles work, or this is a euphemistic way of saying, “candles are okay to display, but don’t light them.”

These Are Not the Rows You’re Looking For

In April, I wondered why a simple COUNT(1) query took 30 seconds.  Now I know it could be a lot worse:

[bobbojones@test (none)] > SELECT COUNT(1) FROM r2;
+----------+
| COUNT(1) |
+----------+
|        0 |
+----------+
1 row in set (59.76 sec)

It just took nearly a minute to determine that the table is empty.

That’ll do, MySQL.  That’ll do.