If I don’t believe that I’m the prime cause of my life being the way it is, I’m doomed to a joyless existence in the victim position. Any prescription for peace of mind has got to include owning your own shit. Read more →
Overheard: “As a . . .”
“As a member of the queer community and a trans woman of color . . .” “Are you the official spokesperson for the queer community and/or trans women of color? If not, that’s not a good lead-in to whatever you’re going to say.” It’s going to get ponderous if we all have to begin sentences by announcing all of the labels we’re currently assigning to ourselves. “As a white male heterosexual . . .” “As a Gen-X Albanian bisexual . . .” “As an LGBT with PTSD . . .” “As a differently-abled libertarian woman with AIDS . . .” Just say your piece! Some people would say at this point that queer trans women of color should be recognized and celebrated. Would they say the same about a guy wearing a MAGA hat and an NRA t-shirt? Would they want to make sure that he feels safe and… Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 2455 – Secret Milking Machine
Description Farmer John is constructing a new milking machine and wishes to keep it secret as long as possible. He has hidden in it deep within his farm and needs to be able to get to the machine without being detected. He must make a total of T (1 <= T <= 200) trips to the machine during its construction. He has a secret tunnel that he uses only for the return trips. The farm comprises N (2 <= N <= 200) landmarks (numbered 1..N) connected by P (1 <= P <= 40,000) bidirectional trails (numbered 1..P) and with a positive length that does not exceed 1,000,000. Multiple trails might join a pair of landmarks. To minimize his chances of detection, FJ knows he cannot use any trail on the farm more than once and that he should try to use the shortest trails. Help FJ get from the barn… Read more →
Thomas Jefferson Explains Family Separations
My fellow Americans — The reason families are separated at the border is that the United States, like many countries, has laws governing border crossings by non-residents. When an adult is apprehended crossing our border illegally, they go into the criminal justice system and are placed in a detention center. Keep in mind that an American citizen apprehended in the commission of a crime is not processed any differently. If you are placed in a detention center, I assure you that your children will not be in there with you. A note on rhetoric: A strong line of argument should not require violent metaphors and manufactured hysteria — families “ripped apart,” children “torn from their mother’s arms” — to be persuasive. Read the Declaration of Independence, for example. Read more →
Exactly the Same?
Decisions Are Not “Right” or “Wrong”
Decisions are bets on the future, and they aren’t “right” or “wrong” based on whether they turn out well on any particular iteration. An unwanted result doesn’t make our decision wrong if we thought about the alternatives and probabilities in advance and allocated our resources accordingly. . . . It would be absurd for me, after making a big bet on the best possible starting hand (a pair of aces) and losing, to spend a lot of time thinking I was wrong to make the decision to play the hand in the first place. . . . When we think probabilistically, we are less likely to use adverse results alone as proof that we made a decision error, because we recognize the possibility that the decision might have been good but luck and/or incomplete information (and a sample size of one) intervened. Maybe we made the best decision from a… Read more →
You Can’t Tell the Nazis Without a Scorecard
If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. — Maxine Waters And they should be made to wear armbands so they’re easier to identify! It’s getting to where you can’t tell the Nazis without a scorecard. Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 2195 – Going Home
Description On a grid map there are n little men and n houses. In each unit time, every little man can move one unit step, either horizontally, or vertically, to an adjacent point. For each little man, you need to pay a $1 travel fee for every step he moves, until he enters a house. The task is complicated with the restriction that each house can accommodate only one little man. Your task is to compute the minimum amount of money you need to pay in order to send these n little men into those n different houses. The input is a map of the scenario, a ‘.’ means an empty space, an ‘H’ represents a house on that point, and am ‘m’ indicates there is a little man on that point. You can think of each point on the grid map as a quite large square, so it can… Read more →
Separation of Families Considered Harmful?
Here’s a photo showing two girls in a “cage” watching a World Cup match, amongst dozens of other kids who are for some reason wrapped in foil. I’ve seen this photo and others widely circulated online recently as evidence of the Trumpenfuhrer’s crimes against humanity. But guess what? The photos were taken in 2014, when some other guy was president. Many people have a single standard for evaluating political activity: Is it being carried out by Team Red or Team Blue. Nothing is good or bad on its own merits. I don’t remember anyone on Team Blue being outraged about kids in “cages” in 2014, but in 2018 it’s a humanitarian crisis that has to be denounced mercilessly, even if the evidence has to be faked. I haven’t heard anyone propose a viable alternative to separating parents and children at the border. I’m not sure Team Blue wants to find… Read more →
You Think I’m Inept?
“You think I’m inept? You think I’m inadequate? If I’m inadequate, where are you going to get people who are adequate . . . if I’m . . . do you understand what I’m saying? What am I supposed to be? What are other people if I am inadequate?” — Philip Roth, American Pastoral Read more →
Sorrow Without Limits
The whole order of things fills me with a sense of anguish, from the gnat to the mysteries of incarnation; all is entirely unintelligible to me, and particularly my own person. Great is my sorrow, without limits. None knows of it, except God in Heaven, and He cannot have pity. — Sören Kierkegaard Read more →
Philistinism
Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial — Kierkegaard — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 17, 2018 Read more →
It Is Just Too Shaking and Wearing
We are just not strong enough to endure more! It is just too shaking and wearing. So often people in . . . ecstatic moments say, “It’s too much,” or “I can’t stand it,” or “I could die” . . . Delirious happiness cannot be borne for long. Our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness. — Abraham Maslow Read more →
Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere. (Not to laugh, not to curse, not to lament, but to understand.) — Spinoza
Competitive Programming: POJ 3169 – Layout
Description Like everyone else, cows like to stand close to their friends when queuing for feed. FJ has N (2 <= N <= 1,000) cows numbered 1..N standing along a straight line waiting for feed. The cows are standing in the same order as they are numbered, and since they can be rather pushy, it is possible that two or more cows can line up at exactly the same location (that is, if we think of each cow as being located at some coordinate on a number line, then it is possible for two or more cows to share the same coordinate). Some cows like each other and want to be within a certain distance of each other in line. Some really dislike each other and want to be separated by at least a certain distance. A list of ML (1 <= ML <= 10,000) constraints describes which cows like… Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 1125 – Stockbroker Grapevine
Description Stockbrokers are known to overreact to rumors. You have been contracted to develop a method of spreading disinformation amongst the stockbrokers to give your employer the tactical edge in the stock market. For maximum effect, you have to spread the rumors in the fastest possible way. Unfortunately for you, stockbrokers only trust information coming from their “Trusted sources” This means you have to take into account the structure of their contacts when starting a rumor. It takes a certain amount of time for a specific stockbroker to pass the rumor on to each of his colleagues. Your task will be to write a program that tells you which stockbroker to choose as your starting point for the rumor, as well as the time it will take for the rumor to spread throughout the stockbroker community. This duration is measured as the time needed for the last person to receive… Read more →
USC’s Unreal Finish to Win Track and Field Championship
I’ve never seen a come-from-behind finish like this! The male announcer says twice in the home stretch that Purdue is going to win the race. Female announcer: “Here comes USC.” Male announcer: “Not gonna catch Purdue . . . oh my god . . .” The @usc_track_field Women of Troy had to win the 4x400m to win the national championship. WATCH WHAT #FIGHTON LOOKS LIKE! pic.twitter.com/BOrISxUXXq — USC Trojans (@USC_Athletics) June 10, 2018 Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Grads
Why is it always “Dads and Grads”? Mothers get the whole month of May to themselves — despite the fact that a lot of graduations take place in May — but June is always Dads and Grads. Granted, Moms and Grads doesn’t rhyme like Dads and Grads or Highways and Byways . . . but why not Moms and Proms? Flowers for everyone! Anyway, Happy Fathers Day, guys. Read more →
Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018
I think of Anthony Bourdain as the guy who started the whole “bad-boy chef” industry, which has been, in my view, bad for society. Or maybe it was Gordon Ramsay. Is Gordon Ramsay still alive? RIP Anthony Bourdain Read more →
I Feared That the Dam Might Break So I Loosed the River
I can never remake the thing I have destroyed; I brushed the golden dust from the moth’s bright wing, I called down wind to shatter the cherry-blossoms, I did a terrible thing. I feared that the cup might fall, so I flung it from me; I feared that the bird might fly, so I set it free; I feared that the dam might break, so I loosed the river: May its waters cover me. — Aline Murray Kilmer, “Shards” Read more →