3-30-06

Dave always carries a comb in his back pocket.

"Play fast and loose," "make a virtue of necessity," and "a foregone conclusion" are a few of the many idioms invented by Shakespeare.

3-29-06

Tigris & Euphrates, though an excellent game, depends deceptively on luck. Poor Dave, who can never draw any red tiles...

3-28-06

Perl isn't very convenient when it comes to handling big numbers. Oh well, I guess no language can be perfect :(

Ryan and I had to write a fairly simple program to do crypto homework, and we tried Perl and Lisp before we finally gave up and turned to C++. Other languages may be cool and snazzy, but none are as homey, as comfortable, as good ol' C++.

3-27-07

If you must fall asleep in class, do so in a position that ensures your head is stationary. You're still a jackass, but at least you don't have to deal with the embarrassment of flailing every fifteen seconds.

Sorry, CS professors. It's not your fault that you're bo--oh wait.

3-26-06

Steven: how the hell are you a computer science major?!
Steven: this stuff sucks!!!!

Folks, you don't know what "sucks" MEANS until you've had to program recursive binary search in assembly. Quit whining.

3-25-06

There is a card game called Bang! To shoot people, you play Bang! cards.

"I bang you!"
"You can't bang someone if they're out of reach."
"His gun has a long barrel, so he can bang you from far away."
"Can you get banged when you're in jail?"

Bang! jokes never get old, either.

3-24-06

"So dividing by 2 is easy, right? Dividing by 2 is like multiplying by 51." -- Professor Singer

Modular arithmetic jokes never get old.

3-23-06

The faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences called a Vote of No Confidence on the president of my university. Next September he's going to resign. That's what you get for creating a 40 million dollar deficit and not letting the English department hire any more professors, asshole!

3-22-06

My board games arrived in the mail today and Kevin and Dave and I played Tigris & Euphrates. It was awesome.

Cocaine produces three main effects:

1) It coats the brain with dopamine. This makes you happy.

2) It reduces the brain's ability to remove dopamine. This makes you even happier.

3) It reduces the brain's ability to make its own dopamine. This makes cocaine the only thing that makes you happy.

Conclusion: cocaine is awesome. Just like Tigris & Euphrates. And you thought these were unrelated, didn't you?

3-21-06

The whole semester that he was in Germany, Dave didn't get a haircut because he was too afraid of having to explain, in German, how he wanted his hair to be cut.

Two people can generate a secret key while talking over an open communication channel. It requires too much math to show here how it's done, but it can be done.

3-20-06

Semaphores are more than just shared memory objects made in Unix to breathe hell into my weekend. The word semaphore refers to a system of visual communication involving flags.

3-19-06

People Magazine has it wrong. This is really the sexiest man alive:

3-18-06

www.brainyplanet.com has a lot of nifty puzzles.

3-17-06

The phone in our study broke. It rings, but the line is dead when you pick it up. My dad replaced it with the Garfield phone that Andy gave me as a present over ten years ago.

3-16-06

Stuck for a gift idea? Go here to purchase the exciting game Shocking Roulette. Four players; four holes. One lucky finger gets a hefty zap of electricity. Who said board games were for pansies?

The profoundness of this game has been immortalized in haiku by a poster on the boardgamegeek forums:

My groin is aglow!
I should have used my finger,
and not my penis.

--Chad Krizan

3-15-06

When you place a harbor during the setup of Settlers of Catan, you sometimes have to choose which way to align it. As it turns out, this choice should NOT be random -- you should turn the harbor so that it is in line with the longer chain of land tiles.

3-14-06

No paraphrasing of mine can possibly do justice to Timur's dazzling insights, so I'll let him speak for himself:

Timur (1:32:17 AM): I really want to see the world, dude
Timur (1:33:17 AM): I like to get out of America
Timur (1:33:27 AM): and then tell people I’m Russian (but really good at English!!!)
Boris (1:35:51 AM): why?
Timur (1:35:06 AM): people just hate Americans
Timur (1:35:11 AM): and tend to be ambivalent to Russians
Timur (1:35:19 AM): although I guess there are some places Russians are hated more than Americans
Timur (1:35:36 AM): if it's a really serious situation, then I just choose a random European country that doesn’t do anything but is kinda famous
Timur (1:35:38 AM): like Holland
Timur (1:35:42 AM): that’s my backup, always
Boris (1:35:51 AM): what if the person speaks Dutch?
Boris (1:35:55 AM): you're in a pickle
Timur (1:36:01 AM): well this is usually toward Asian folk
Timur (1:36:10 AM): not cultured people

...

Timur (1:42:36 AM): also in Holland there are literally something like 20 different types of mayo
Timur (1:42:39 AM): and they put it into everything
Timur (1:42:47 AM): I’ve had French fries with mayo
Timur (1:42:51 AM): hot dogs with mayo
Timur (1:42:53 AM): people with mayo
Timur (1:42:58 AM): they have some good mayo, no joke

3-13-06

In fourth grade the teacher had us do a business simulation. Everyone received a hefty wad of paper money and brought in goods to sell; you had to sell your crap to other people and buy fun things yourself. Most people crafted nifty items and set up elaborate displays.

I was a lazy bastard. I brought in a package of paper cups and some Coke. Before class started I hastily scribbled "Coke 1 dollar" in pencil on a lined sheet of paper and propped it up on a textbook. The writing was invisible from three inches away. People saw that I was selling Coke but nobody had a clue how much it cost.

By sheer luck, I was the only beverage vendor. Many students brought in candy and home-baked items, however, so while I didn't make any money at first, the orders started rolling in once everybody had had their fill of cupcakes and cookies and pie. I sold tiny-ass cups of Coke for a dollar. I was raking it in. Then I ran out of Coke. My pathetic stand teemed with hordes of willing customers begging to be ripped off and I was out of Coke. It was heartbreaking. I could have been rich. I'll never forget the valuable lesson I learned that day: fourth grade sucks.

3-12-06

The difference between zoophilia and bestiality is that bestiality is forced, whereas zoophilia is human-animal mating conducted in an atmosphere of mutual love and understanding. Some people like to have sex with dolphins. Read more here.

Thanks to Andy for the highly entertaining link (whether or not it's true).

3-11-06

"I'm a whore, what can I say?" -- Sarah

One hundred dollar bills are currently the largest denomination being printed. From 1934 to 1946, however, the treasury did print $500, $1000, and even $10,000 dollar bills, some of which are still around today and can be legally used.

3-10-06

Nostalgia originated as a medical term in the 19th century for the homesickness felt by soldiers on the battlefield.

"The Wizard of Oz" was actually written as an allegorical defense of the gold standard. Frank L. Baum used extended metaphors to show why U.S. currency needed backing, and why gold was better for this purpose than silver or other metals. "Follow the yellow brick road," etc.

In Saskatchewan, voting centers are required by law to provide water for horses. Banks too.

3-9-06

In the morning today I was asked if I was a professor. A few hours later somebody confused me for a freshman. Is my age that difficult to pinpoint?

3-8-06

With the aid of a few libraries availabe online, it is not too difficult to write a Java program that lets you send emails from completely bogus addresses. Dave sent me an email from ridiculous_fake_address@case.edu.

3-7-06

"How did they name Canada? C, eh? N, eh?" -- Professor Emmons

"What sorts of puzzles are we unlocking?" -- Professor Emmons
Leave it to a linguistics professor to mix up her metaphors.

"Air is cheaper than polystyrene." -- Professor Blackwell

"But of course, back to the ancient Egyptians." -- Professor Blackwell

"Higgledy-piggledy." -- I swear, he said it.

3-6-06

Computer fonts are broken up into two types: serif and non-serif. Non-serif letters end in stubs, while serif letters trail off into thin lines or other designs. Times New Roman and Book Antiqua are serif fonts; Comic Sans and Arial are non-serif.

Non-serif fonts read faster, but that doesn't mean they're better: since serifs slow down the reader, they also make him better remember what he's reading. This is why Times New Roman is so popular while Comic Sans is considered "not serious."

The font this blog is written in, Verdana, is a non-serif font. That means you can read this entry in twenty seconds and forget it all in twenty more. Maybe I should switch.

3-5-06

If you think your spouse or significant other is cheating on you, head on over to www.cheaters.com. For a modest fee, private investigators will tail your boyfriend or girlfriend and obtain video proof of indiscretionary acts. There is a Cheaters reality TV show. The website also conveniently doubles as a dating service.

3-4-06

Fermat's Last Theorem wasn't actually Fermat's last theorem. It was only the last one to be proven.

3-3-06

Milk jugs and plastic bags are made out of the same material. The difference lies in how fast you cool it after melting it.

3-2-06

In Old English there was a prefix for- which intensified the verb that followed it. The influence of this prefix can be seen in some words today -- forbear, forgive -- but it isn't being used to make new ones.

I think for- deserves a comeback. And not just verbs: adjectives too.

"Board games are forawesome."

"Programming in C is a forhorrifying experience."

"Sing that song again and I'm going to formutilate your mother."

3-1-06

Last night Jim asked me to wake him up in the morning. I woke up and was about to go knock on his door when I realized that he never really asked me; I just dreamt it. Thinking it'd be sort of creepy to go knocking on his door I opted not to.

Turns out it really was a dream. But Jim did oversleep and miss all his classes.