Probably the strangest exchange I've heard on the metro, between Farragut West and Foggy Bottom:
Dorky-looking guy "That's a nice crucifux"
Grizzled guy "Uh thanks."
DlG "What does it mean to you?"
GG "What?"
DlG "What does the crucifix mean to you?"
GG "It's just my chain, man, you know what I mean?"
DlG "Ah."
GG "Just my chain."
silence
DlG "I once met a Satanist. He was a pedophile too."
GG "Shit got real?"
DlG "I couldn't kill him and I couldn't put him in jail."
GG muffled
silence
DlG "Here. This is for you." Pulls something out of his pocket. Looks like a medallion of some sort.
GG "Uh thanks."
DlG "You better ask me what it is before you leave or you're never going to find out."
silence
DlG "Well it's the medal of St B...."
At that point the the conductor announced the stop, and the brakes prevented me from hearing the rest. If it were a movie, I know it would have been a super important clue, and I really felt uneasy at not having heard the end. So if anyone happens to have come across the patron saint of creepy metro wierdos and pedophile bashing, let me know. I'm pretty sure it was a 'B' but I could be wrong.
Update:
In the little bit of research I have done about 'B' saints, I have found that Saint Benedict is the patron saint of all of the following (ripped from Wikipedia, of course):
-Against poison
-Against witchcraft
-Agricultural workers
-Cavers
-Civil engineers
-Coppersmiths
-Dying people
-Erysipelas
-Europe
-Farmers
-Fever
-Gall stones
-Heerdt (Germany)
-Inflammatory diseases
-Italian architects
-Kidney disease
-Monks
-Nettle rash
-Norcia (Italy)
-People in religious orders
-Schoolchildren
-Servants who have broken their master's belongings
-Speliologists
-Spelunkers
-Temptations
Pretty awesome dude. Also, there are two patron saints of beekeeping.
Update 2:
I posted a version of this conversation on Reddit, which informed me that it was likely the Medal of Saint Benedict!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Tutoring
Modified e-mail that I sent the inestimable Christopher Micheal Young, with some parts removed to protect me from Google.
I've been tutoring to make some money while I look for more permanent employment.
Anyway, sometimes you have to tutor kids for really weird stuff. A couple weeks ago I had to tutor a six-year Chinese boy for his kindergarten entrance exam to some top notch elementary school. I ask him if he has any pets, and he responds that he has a fish. I tell him how boring that is and ask if he wants a cooler pet, like a snake or a tiger. He says no, he is quite happy with his goldfish. So I ask him "If you could have any animal ever, like a dinosaur or a dragon or a unicorn, what animal would you have." His response: "Maybe a bigger fish." It's going to be a long session
Since this is his first time at [redacted] I decide to just give him a varied run of subjects to see if there is anything he might struggle with. I hunt down some interdisciplinary packet "My Neighborhood" that seems long enough that I could ignore him for a while. When I tell him that he'll even get to draw a picture for me, he literally scowls and says that he won't. A six-year-old not wanting to color? That's effed up. So of course he aces all of the grammar and destroys the math and reads 80 grades above his reading level, but then he comes to a part in a worksheet where he is asked to come up with four words to describe his neighborhood. He looks up at me kind of lost and says that he doesn't understand. I tell him to write down any words that describe his neighborhood at all and turn my attention to some poor kid whose mother thinks that a 790 verbal is a disgrace to the family.
I come back about ten minutes later, and the poor kid has obviously written about twenty different word in the first blank and erased them. When I try to make out what they were, he suspiciously shields his paper from my eyes and tells me that he "doesn't have the answer yet". I try to convince him that there isn't really an answer, and that I haven't ever seen his neighborhood so he could just lie to me if he is having trouble, but he very firmly tells me no, he's going to get it. When I come back in another ten minutes, he has finally written something. And in twenty minutes, the only word at all that he managed to come up with that describes his neighborhood is "trees." Instead of telling him that I was really looking for an adjective, I decide not to overheat his poor brain and tell him to draw me a picture of his neighborhood. He tells me that he doesn't know what it looks like. Hmmm. Maybe, I think, maybe he is better at verbal communication than written or visual, so I flat out order him to tell me about his neighborhood. He says "It's boring." I ask him to be more specific. He says "It's just boring." Frustrated that I can't inquire if he has ever even been outdoors in his entire goddamn life, I say "Look. I don't care about your neighborhood. Just draw me any neighborhood. The best neighborhood. Draw me the place that you would like to live," and turn away again.
I come back to a long, orange rectangle protruding from an otherwise barren green horizon. I ask him what that is. He responds that it is a house. I ask him what is special about it, since this is presumably the best place in the world to live, and he proudly proclaims that it is "made of food." I figured that was a start, so I didn't ask him to explain what food had such amazing structural integrity, and by the time he left he had added a second, identical-except-in-color house that was "made of video games."
When I met with my boss, and she asked how it went, I told her that he was probably pretty far ahead of his peers in terms of the standard benchmarks, but that his creativity is startlingly undeveloped. I theorized that he would probably excel for a while in school until he was challenged to have and express his own, original, creative thoughts, at which point there was a good chance that he would fall short. He also, I told my boss, has already developed quite an ego, that he might end up isolated from his classmates, especially if the parents decided to try to bump him up a few grades. My boss nodded silently at all of this, and after I had finished expressing my concerns only added "Typical Chinese boy" and left it that.
Also, I was mercilessly mocked by a couple of Asian women who thought it was absolutely hilarious that I could possibly think that a red belt is a higher rank than a blue belt in martial arts. It's not.
I've been tutoring to make some money while I look for more permanent employment.
Anyway, sometimes you have to tutor kids for really weird stuff. A couple weeks ago I had to tutor a six-year Chinese boy for his kindergarten entrance exam to some top notch elementary school. I ask him if he has any pets, and he responds that he has a fish. I tell him how boring that is and ask if he wants a cooler pet, like a snake or a tiger. He says no, he is quite happy with his goldfish. So I ask him "If you could have any animal ever, like a dinosaur or a dragon or a unicorn, what animal would you have." His response: "Maybe a bigger fish." It's going to be a long session
Since this is his first time at [redacted] I decide to just give him a varied run of subjects to see if there is anything he might struggle with. I hunt down some interdisciplinary packet "My Neighborhood" that seems long enough that I could ignore him for a while. When I tell him that he'll even get to draw a picture for me, he literally scowls and says that he won't. A six-year-old not wanting to color? That's effed up. So of course he aces all of the grammar and destroys the math and reads 80 grades above his reading level, but then he comes to a part in a worksheet where he is asked to come up with four words to describe his neighborhood. He looks up at me kind of lost and says that he doesn't understand. I tell him to write down any words that describe his neighborhood at all and turn my attention to some poor kid whose mother thinks that a 790 verbal is a disgrace to the family.
I come back about ten minutes later, and the poor kid has obviously written about twenty different word in the first blank and erased them. When I try to make out what they were, he suspiciously shields his paper from my eyes and tells me that he "doesn't have the answer yet". I try to convince him that there isn't really an answer, and that I haven't ever seen his neighborhood so he could just lie to me if he is having trouble, but he very firmly tells me no, he's going to get it. When I come back in another ten minutes, he has finally written something. And in twenty minutes, the only word at all that he managed to come up with that describes his neighborhood is "trees." Instead of telling him that I was really looking for an adjective, I decide not to overheat his poor brain and tell him to draw me a picture of his neighborhood. He tells me that he doesn't know what it looks like. Hmmm. Maybe, I think, maybe he is better at verbal communication than written or visual, so I flat out order him to tell me about his neighborhood. He says "It's boring." I ask him to be more specific. He says "It's just boring." Frustrated that I can't inquire if he has ever even been outdoors in his entire goddamn life, I say "Look. I don't care about your neighborhood. Just draw me any neighborhood. The best neighborhood. Draw me the place that you would like to live," and turn away again.
I come back to a long, orange rectangle protruding from an otherwise barren green horizon. I ask him what that is. He responds that it is a house. I ask him what is special about it, since this is presumably the best place in the world to live, and he proudly proclaims that it is "made of food." I figured that was a start, so I didn't ask him to explain what food had such amazing structural integrity, and by the time he left he had added a second, identical-except-in-color house that was "made of video games."
When I met with my boss, and she asked how it went, I told her that he was probably pretty far ahead of his peers in terms of the standard benchmarks, but that his creativity is startlingly undeveloped. I theorized that he would probably excel for a while in school until he was challenged to have and express his own, original, creative thoughts, at which point there was a good chance that he would fall short. He also, I told my boss, has already developed quite an ego, that he might end up isolated from his classmates, especially if the parents decided to try to bump him up a few grades. My boss nodded silently at all of this, and after I had finished expressing my concerns only added "Typical Chinese boy" and left it that.
Also, I was mercilessly mocked by a couple of Asian women who thought it was absolutely hilarious that I could possibly think that a red belt is a higher rank than a blue belt in martial arts. It's not.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
An Open Letter to Microsoft
To Whom it may Concern,
Wow, so Microsoft finally got into the direct-to-PC gaming market. Congrats. I'm sure you are going to make a killing with all 18 games you have available. You launch right before the Christmas season, when thousands of kids will be getting games from their parents, and that's your library: eighteen games, half of which are casual and/or have been out for a year, and all of which you can get on Steam. Great business plan.
And it was really smart of you to sell all of your games at full price right off the bat, especially for the holidays. That's really going to encourage people to switch over to an unproven platform. I'm sure I have many reasons to buy the original Fallout 3 for $50 from you and then all the add-ons for another $30 when I can get the whole thing on Steam for $37.49, I just can't think of them yet.
Although I guess it's good that you only have eighteen games considering that you can't even search the library. You guys seriously launch an entire search engine, and you can't even include a search feature on your games browser. That's lovely. And then even as you so completely fail to provide any reason to use your client, you leave no way for people to suggest features or improvements. There is no e-mail support on the WindowsLive page, and Games for Windows is not listed under any of your support options. I had to Google "Windows Live Support" to even get a Microsoft address that even looks remotely helpful, and it's an invitation-only affair.
Good luck with this half-hearted venture, but I doubt you will make any money if this is your business plan.
-Reece
Wow, so Microsoft finally got into the direct-to-PC gaming market. Congrats. I'm sure you are going to make a killing with all 18 games you have available. You launch right before the Christmas season, when thousands of kids will be getting games from their parents, and that's your library: eighteen games, half of which are casual and/or have been out for a year, and all of which you can get on Steam. Great business plan.
And it was really smart of you to sell all of your games at full price right off the bat, especially for the holidays. That's really going to encourage people to switch over to an unproven platform. I'm sure I have many reasons to buy the original Fallout 3 for $50 from you and then all the add-ons for another $30 when I can get the whole thing on Steam for $37.49, I just can't think of them yet.
Although I guess it's good that you only have eighteen games considering that you can't even search the library. You guys seriously launch an entire search engine, and you can't even include a search feature on your games browser. That's lovely. And then even as you so completely fail to provide any reason to use your client, you leave no way for people to suggest features or improvements. There is no e-mail support on the WindowsLive page, and Games for Windows is not listed under any of your support options. I had to Google "Windows Live Support" to even get a Microsoft address that even looks remotely helpful, and it's an invitation-only affair.
Good luck with this half-hearted venture, but I doubt you will make any money if this is your business plan.
-Reece
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A lot of people will be surprised when I can't do some base calculations quickly in my head, and then will be equally surprised when I can do others almost instantly. The fact is that lots of mathy people aren't that much more skilled at... errr... numbers, than most, but rather are just more familiar with them. I know you're never supposed to reveal your tricks, but this is just a bit of insight into how certain problems have quick shortcuts.
Example:
15*39. On the surface this looks like any old two digit multiplication. But to a math major who is used to factoring and such, it instantly becomes 15*(40-1) = 4*15 *10 - 15 = 600 - 15 = 585. Each step is very simple and can be done very fast, but you don't necessarily see the shortcut if you don't work with expressions often.
Example:
16 * 48. Again, this becomes 16 * 16 *3, and any math major worth his salt knows his squares up to 25, just because he's done them so often. So 16 *16 * 3 = 256 * 2 = (250 +6) * 3 = 750 +18 = 768. Again, just three instantaneous steps, if you see them.
Counterexample:
32 * 37. This I would probably just do longform in my head, which I am bad at. No immediately obvious trick (to me at least) so I do the normal three multiplications and one addition.
Example:
Is x<100 prime? Well, I figured out a while ago that you only have to look for factors less than the root of x, so less than 10. This is because if z divides 100, and z is greater than 10, then z*10>100, so z's factor pair (that is, 100/z) must be less than 10. So to find z, you just have to find its pair.
Further, even x's are obvious not prime, and odd numbers are only even the product of two odds, so you only have to look for odd numbers under 10: 3,5,7,9. On top of that, the numbers divisible by 5 and 9 are immediately obvious. So all we have left is to check if a number is divisible by 3 or 7. Well. a number is divisible by 3 if and only if the sum of the digits is, so that is a quick test. That leaves as the only real test divisibility by 7. Thus the question, 'is 83 prime,' can be answered just by noticing that 8 is not divisible by 3, and 83 is 13 more than 70. So pretty much this entire paragraph is already coded into my thought process, which is why the answer will come pretty quickly. The same holds true for most numbers less than 200, you just have to test for 11 and 13 also, and beware of the dreaded 119, which should totally be prime.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Overheard in the hipster coffeeshop I'm in:
"Hey do [ridiculous sounding band] have a CD?"
"Yeah, they're in DC."
"No, a CD."
"Yeah, DC."
"Nonono, do they have a Ceeeee Deeeeee out?"
"Well I guess technically they're in Maryl.... oh. You mean an LP?"
"Yeah. A CD."
"Don't be so 90s."
Also, apparently hipsters have taken over plaid, so now I can't wear my flannel. I hate them so much.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Airport musings:
“My favorite color is every color in the world! What is yours?”
“Grey”
“Grey is not color!”
“Why not?”
“Because colors are pretty!”
“You know what makes me really scared?”
“What?”
“Airplanes.”
So as I was walking through the Seattle-Tacoma airport at 3am I realized that when I'm really tired, I start mumbling to myself like a crazy person. Upon further reflection, I remembered that even when I'm not that tired, I often mumble to myself like a crazy person. Then I realized that I was in fact mumbling to myself like a crazy person about mumbling to myself like a crazy person, and at that exact moment, in an otherwise empty terminal, I passed another guy who was mumbling to himself like a crazy person. We made brief eye contact, exchanged knowing glances, and went our separate ways.
Among the crazy-person thoughts that ran through my head during the 3 to 6am sleepless block:
“I wonder when Starbucks wakes up.”
“If I hit the newscaster in the mouth, will it mute all the tvs?”
“4 times 15 is.... is... is.... 45? Yeah! Yeah? Yeeeeeeah.”
“You can brush your teeth with soap, right?”
“No.”
“Well soap is clean.... and I want my teeth clean... I can totall... no that's a bad idea.”
So there was another potentially adorable little girl (I'm really not that creepy, I promise) in front of me on the way to Minneapolis. She had a pastel purple carry-on, and as she lifted it up to her mom, I craned my neck to see which Disney Princess she claimed allegiance to. Unfortunately the bitter truth revealed itself when I saw that it was not in fact a Disney bag, but a Bratz bag. Instantly, all potential for amusement was sucked out of my mind and every otherwise darnest thing she said was stupid and annoying.
“We can't take off because I don't have a carseat!”
“That's because you're on an airplane, dumbass.”
“I I I don't know why planes are so big and still can fly?!”
“Pressure differentials, airspeed, and wing loading. Look it up, little ingrate*.”
*There are lots of ingrates in The Count of Monte Cristo."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)