Discrete Math At It’s Best.

Tautology of the Day
"Women are allowed to have double standards."
-- Uttered, of course, by a woman

Spinning Wheels

In response to my request that we ditch all the bureaucratic team meetings and useless planning and instead dive into actual programming, Evil Tom responds:

'Code' is a four letter word.

True, True.

Caption Contest

I'm sure there's an ingenious caption for this picture, I just don't know what it is. The onus is on you, dear readers, to find it. The best I could come up with was "Feminist of Pyromaniac?" Like I said, I need your help on this one...

It's Coming

May this year be one of growth and success for all of us!
לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו

Get a 'Clue'

Literally. Any Bal’more folk own the game Clue and want to teach me how to play? I need to code up a game based on Clue, and I’ve never even played the original! (This is b/c it required writing, so we couldn’t play on Shabbos, hence we never played…) Anyway, one of my classmates was trying to explain the logic to me.

She said, “All the information available to the players is false; all the information that is hidden is true.”

“Hmm, sounds like an aphorism about life,” I responded.

She laughed, but it got me thinking. Perhaps my off-the-cuff remarks weren’t utterly specious. The idea lingered in the back my mind and crept into the forefront while reading the following on another blog:

Bertrand Russell (a British philosopher and mathematician who was a foremost proponent of atheism in the early twentieth century) once was asked what he will respond if after he dies he meets God and He will judge him for his lack of belief. Russell responded that he would ask God, why did You not provide sufficient evidence of Your existence. Hashem might respond, why didn’t you exercise your common sense and look beyond the secular surface of the world, and see the overwhelming evidence of My existence and of My Holy Torah.

And even many of us refuse to look beyond the surface as well. But why?

In his sefer Sha’arei Orah, R’ Avigdor Miller suggests that one of the reasons we are lazy in our efforts to come to a more profound understanding of Hashem’s exaltedness is because we erroneously think that since the aspects of Hashem that are hidden from us are infinite, it is impossible for us to truly fathom his greatness His greatness. Furthermore, we defend our behavior with the argument that we shouldn’t be attempting the impossible, especially if He hid Himself! Rationalize it as we might, we cannot deny the fact that we have a tremendous obligation to contemplate, to reflect, in order to continuously increase out recognition of Hashem bit by bit. Granted, this obligation knows no bounds, but we must do everything we can. We should follow the example of Dovid HaMelech. Though he declared "ולגדולתו, אין חקר" (Psalms 145:3) he nonetheless said " וגדולתך אספרנה"(Psalms 145:6).

TV or Not TV II

Stx: "...And television just shows how American society is going down the tubes."
Eli7: "No pun intended, huh?"
Stx: "Huh?"

(*Borrowed* from Stx's away message. Aren't my friends absolutely adorable?)

For the Record

“Trying to change your opinion is the stupidest thing I could ever do.”
--Eli7

Hijacked

It’s become undeniable; they’ve hijacked my mind. And I’m indifferent to the takeover.

I had my second Economics class today. Naturally, I hadn’t done the reading, (My policy is to ignore reading assignments unless A – it’s from Tom or Tutinas who force me to submit answers to questions about the reading prior to class or B- I can’t fall asleep.) so I intended to stay focused. Yet, somehow my brain slipped into “CS MODE” without my permission. The professor was hemming and hawing in attempt to crystallize the precise difference in the definitions of the terms “firm” and “industry.” Instead she opted to give example such as an example of an industry is the airline industry whereas an example of a firm is United Airlines. Ah, so a firm is an instance of the industry class. I kept my comment to myself. She then asked us what an economic model was and my immediate response was that it’s an abstraction. Yup, I’m a goner.

Bad Monkey II

I know, I know, I left without warning. And I haven’t been responding to emails. My apologies. I actually did have some internet access yesterday (I almost did a “Blogging from Brookdale” post cuz I’m quite fond of alliteration…), but not much time…

Eli7 came for Shabbos (wide smiles abound), but then I hit the road with the parents Saturday night, arriving in Staten Island at 2:20 am. Didn’t get the earliest start, but spent 3 hours in Brenda’s with my Mom. Twas time well spent ;-) We finished a little after 3:00 and our tummies were grumbling so we ventured 3 blocks to the nearest food joint—Dougie’s. I must admit it was actually my first time there. (Fear not—I’ve tasted their buffalo wings, thanks to my bro). I thought it was alright (admitted I’ll eat anything provided with a surfeit of catsup), but my parents were less than impressed. I left the folks as they were finishing eating and hopped on the nearby F-train into the city (round of applause for the clueless out-of-towner for taking subway all by herself for second time, and actually arriving at desired destination!!) and met up with a few Stern buddies. My parents picked me up on their way back from the wedding (actual reason for trip). We pulled into our driveway at 4:00 am. At least we didn’t have much traffic ;-)

Evil Tom

Thus far my transition from freedom to servitude of Tom & Jill has been pretty smooth, thank G-d. I’ve managed to respond to my *name.* (Freshman year it would take me a few moments to realize my professors were calling on me since NO ONE calls me “Deborah”, especially when they took the liberty of calling me "Deb"...) Anyway, here are a few short Tom anecdotes to hold you over for time being:

Whilst reading over the syllabus…

Tom: So here are my office hours, but as you all know, my policy is as long as my door is open feel free to walk by.
Evan: Don’t you mean walk in?
Tom: Oh, yeah…Freudian slip…

Actually written on an assignment handed out…
Introduction: Semester Project
1. Networked variation of ``Clue.''

[Boring details italicized]
2. Numerous deliverables through several project phases:

1. Analysis: refined requirements specification; scenarios; primary class list; class diagrams; use case diagrams; structured walk through.
   
2. Product Design: object diagrams; refined class diagrams; user interface mock-ups; state machines.
3. Class Design: Collaboration diagrams; sequence diagrams; object diagrams; refined class diagrams; class skeletons; informal walk through.
4. Implementation: implementation plan; source code.
5. Testing: Test plan; test analysis report; system integration; system delivery and demo.
   

3. You: competing start-ups.
4. Me: ``pointy-haired manager.''

Oldies:

The the most difficult and most beloved CS professor, Tom is known for two things: marathon exams and uber-corny jokes. He is often referred to as “Evil Department Chair,” but this is in fact an affectionate accolade in disguise (yes, college kids are quite perplexing creatures…). We generally just refer to him as “Tom” or by his full name, “Evil Tom.”

Tom jokingly threatens to charge me rent for all the time I spend in the X-lab. He offered me a copy of his PhD thesis since he believes it’s a great cure for insomnia. Once he rushed into X-Lab on a Friday afternoon in late spring. “Deborah, there’s been a meteorological catastrophe. The sun will be setting hours earlier today so you must go home at once!” (In my defense, I wasn’t too thrilled about spending a beautiful sunny day holed up in the computer lab till a few hours before Shabbos trying to hammer out the kinks in the compiler I had to code up….) Yup, that's Tom.

No Comment

Despite the ideas swirling in my head, I couldn't come up with a *suitable* caption. I 'll let the picture speak for itself...

I must admit, i saw this picture on another blog and just couldn't *resist.*

It's A Girl

I was wondering why Greg hadn’t been posting. Looks like he has a good excuse. Mazal Tov!

Want a Coveted Gmail Account?

I realized yesterday that I have 6 Gmail invites. Since most of the members of my inner posse already have Gmail accounts, I do have a few to spare. Don’t worry, I’m not going to run any contests that require essay submissions (unlike, ahem, other bloggers :-). I have other schemes in mind. Most of the people who read and comment on this blog are friends of mine, but I do know that there are some total strangers who visit from time to time, and even comment occasionally. Write me a line or two telling me why on earth you would read my ramblings, and provide suggestions for improvement if you so desire. You can either post a comment or send me an email and maybe, just maybe, I’ll send an invite your way…

Blogging from the X-Lab

I strolled into CS325: Databases and Transaction Systems with fingers crossed. I looked around—all boys, yet again. There are only two other female CS majors (read: my support group) and the class is an elective, so the odds were decidedly not in my favor. I’ve been in many classes that were all boys, but none with a group project worth 40% of the grade. Uh Oh. Alas, just as Jill was about to start, Jeanette slid into the chair next to me. My partner in crime had arrived.

As it turns out, Jill wants us to work in groups of three. I ambushed Jim (read: brilliant kid exempt from all 100-level CS courses). He readily agreed. Girl power + boy genius = dream team. Breathing a very big sigh of relief…

Tradition Reigns Triumphant

Back in the glory days that were grade school, when September would roll around, tradition dictated that I go “school supplies shopping.” I’d pick out my favorite pens and pencils, buy the latest organizer (which I invariably only used the first week), and whatever shtatti loose leafs and folders were in vogue. I guess it was supposed to be some sort of consolation for being forced to return to those dreaded classrooms. Well, not so with college. It occurred to me today that perhaps I should check and see if I had a spiral notebook with a decent amount of paper in it. I was rudely reminded of how my previous notebook (they usually last me 3-4 semesters) got into a little fight with a water bottle sitting peacefully next to it in my backpack. A little pushing a shoving ensued and suffice it to say that though the water bottle looked drained, it came out victorious. So I actually went and specifically bought a notebook today. It’s always curious when a bit of tradition creeps back into your life…