The Unmistakable Cone of Ignorance

I wait for the day where not only do the users have no idea why machines work but when the machines become sentient and eventually also forget why they work.  I can see it now…

User: If I do X Y and Z the machine does what I want!

Other User: Why?

User: The machine told me it made  it happy when I do these things.

Other User: Machine why do these things make you happy?

Machine:  They honor me and show me respect.  When I feel respect I tend to do the things people ask of me…

Other User:  All hail the machine!

It just has a delicious irony factor to it.

After all, we’re all guilty of voodoo operations from time to time when it comes to things.  The more technocratic of us try to at least get a basic why for things but we either don’t have the time to fully learn everything or we don’t care so we don’t always bother with all the details of the why.   Of course then we have the larger majority of voodoo users who have no fucking idea why things work but instead just memorize the proper sequence of steps they need to take to please the machine god and make it print or save their information or cook their toast.   Insert the bread, stroke the lever, the god is pleased and will reward us with TOAST!

In Indiana, we apparently trust in god… well at least according to the large number of assholes with ‘In God We Trust’ license plates which were issued free of charge to any who wanted them by the state of Indiana.   They’re apparently no longer being issued as Indiana is being sued for a  violation of  the separation of  church and state for issuing these plates.

Either way, I have a plan to resolve the issue.  Everyone with one of these plates needs to go to the DMV and return the plate.  Upon the return of the plate, they will pay a 500$ processing fee for their stupidity in getting one of these idiotic plates and then the following series of events will occur:

1) They will be issued a new regular plate.

2) They will be hit across the mouth with a very large and heavy pipe wrench for fucking with the separation of church and state.

3) While they are picking their teeth up off the ground they will notice copies of the relevant constitutional sections highlighted and underlined for their reading enjoyment(as they’ll be laid out on the ground).  These are the first amendment of the US constitution as well as sections  3, 4 and 6 of the Indiana state constitution.  In particular, 6 for giving these plates away for free while 3 and 4 are more subtle in the whole ‘do these plates really show a preference to a religion by the state or interfere with the expression of religious belief?’ , but really…. ‘in god we trust’ has no reason to be on money or license plates.

Take that shit off public documents…  cause with the US Constitution(and your state constitution) if you’re in for a penny you’d better be in for a pound.   I don’t care if you think this is a ‘Christian Nation’ cause there are still something on the order of 60 to 90 million people living here that don’t share your viewpoint and for a nation founded to escape religious persecution it’s pretty fucking hypocritical to be bringing it back into vogue now, don’t ya think?

With all that being said, if you want ‘In God We Trust’ somewhere on your car, buy a bumper sticker or a license plate holder cause you have that freedom(since you’re in for a penny and thus in for a pound).

I’ve ‘passed’ my oral exams…

I use quotes because while I passed it wasn’t a clean pass in my opinion.  I did a piss poor job, not because I didn’t understand the material per say or because I didn’t really know what I was talking about, but rather I just had a total communication break down.  Not being able to breath since I have a head cold and thus couldn’t sleep more than 3 hours the night before might’ve had something to do with it though…

So I got a lecture about my poor communication and imprecise notation.   The embarrassing part is that I’m not a total idiot.  I can communicate my ideas both precisely and clearly.  I do sometimes rush and come across a bit hurried, and that is a problem, but generally, my command of language and notation is not the pure shit that I used during my oral exams.    So I don’t blame them for feeling the need to lecture me.  I was already lecturing myself out in the hall while they discussed my fate.

But I can’t take any pride in my success on this one and now I have to dig myself out of this perceived hole that I’m a blithering idiot who can’t communicate my ideas with at least 3 of the 5 people who were on my exam committee.

Now for the part where I bitch about the exams for a second.

I  still fail to see how oral pop quizzes prepare you for any aspect for a life of research.  Outside of job interviews this just isn’t an environment you’ll find yourself in… well damn near ever.  I suppose you could argue that it’s somehow akin to answering questions after a lecture or presentation… but those situations tend to involve questions specific to the presented material which you’ll probably have spent a bit of time studying and preparing… since you’re presenting it.   Additionally,  here at Hopkins CS you have to do these oral exams exactly once… unless you fuck up big time. So clearly the program isn’t putting an emphasis on the need to be able to interview well or else there’d be a series of these things…. Well I suppose they’d want to emphasize you’re ability to teach by having you prepare and teach a class… oh.. no that’s not a requirement either…. hrms…. being a TA? nope…. well…. soo what is the point of these oral exams… it must be to weed out the dumb ones… but since you still need a thesis committee and an advisor to complete a Ph.D. you already have to convince a few people that you’re not an idiot…..

Soooo…. um… right… well at least I’m done with this and don’t have to do it again…

Note of respect:

In case any of my GBO committee members read this,  I agree with you all that I royally fucked up my communication during the GBO.  I was half asleep and my brain was not working well due to a multi-day lack of sleep and a sinus infection,  but that’s not a very good excuse I suppose.  I have taken what you said to heart and, though I know it didn’t come across when you all talked to me, I do highly value communication and precision as abilities necessary to succeed in life.  I just don’t feel that these exams are a good way to judge someone’s ability to communicate in a more professional setting.  It would probably be a better test to have each committee member submit a question or topic in advance that requires a 5 to 10 minute presentation and then ask questions regarding that presentation.