Finals are almost done; if Janders naps this afternoon, I may even be able to finish all the grading I need to do!

As usual, I gave bonus questions on nearly all my finals. In my Discrete Math class, I reused an NPR puzzle from a couple of years ago - come up with ten different math expressions totalling 8. Each expression should use exactly one two, exactly one seven, and exactly one other digit. Furthermore, this extra digit must be different in each expression. You can use decimal points (to make .2), but you can't make multi-digit numbers (27 or 7.3 or 127). Allowable operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponentiation; use parentheses as much as you like. Thanks for the idea, Willz! None of the kids got all ten, by the way.

In two other classes, I asked them to list as many board/card/role-playing/party games as they could with each one having to begin with a different letter of the alphabet. The high score there was 17.

And here's my bonus from my AI class, which I haven't graded yet: [Edited to add: There are spoilers for this one in the comments. Beware!]

Each of the strings below represents a well-known work of fiction (book, film, or television series) that contains a robot or computer that could be said to be artificially intelligent. In each title, each vowel (a, e, i, o, u, and y) has been replaced with a v, each consonant has been replaced with a c, and each digit has been replaced with a #. Punctuation and capitalization have been preserved. So, for example, the classic short story collection (or not-so-classic Will Smith film) I, Robot would appear as V, Cvcvc. For each title you correctly decipher, you get one bonus point. If you solve them all, you get an additional ten bonus points (for a total of 25). To help, the list is in dictionary order. Have fun!

 

1.   ####: V Ccvcv Vcvccvv (book/movie)

2.   Vccvcvcvvc Vccvccvcvccv: V.V. (movie)

3.   Cvcccvccvc Cvcvccvcv (TV)

4.   Ccvcv Cvccvc (movie)

5.   Cvcc Cvcvcc vc ccv ##cc Cvccvcv (TV)

6.   Cvcvcvcv (TV)

7.   Ccvccc Cvcvc (TV)

8.   Ccvc Ccvc: Ccv Cvcc Cvcvcvcvvc (TV)

9.   Ccvc Cvcc Vcvcvcv VC: V Cvc Cvcv (movie)

10.                     Cvccvcvcvc #: Cvcccvcc Cvv (movie)

11.                     Ccv Cvccccvcvc’c Cvvcv cv ccv Cvcvcv (book/movie)

12.                     Ccv Cvccvcc (TV)

13.                     Ccv Cvccvc Cvcvcvcvvcc (movie)

14.                     Ccvc (movie)

15.                     CvcCvcvc (movie)

Tags: puzzles

Cecil decided to get me a larger present than usual for my birthday this year. FedEx delivered it today, and she was so excited she gave it to me right away - a Nintendo Wii. As soon as Janders goes to bed, I'm tearing it open.

But now the question is: what games should I get for it? Any suggestions? I'd also appreciate any advice on games Ragnar might like. They've played DDR in PE at school, so something like that would be good for him.

I just finished Terry Pratchett's latest novel as an audiobook (read by Discworld expert Stephen Briggs). I had reservations going in. It's not a Discworld story. Plus it's a "young adult" novel, and I hadn't been too keen on his other entries in the kidlit genre.

In the end, it turns out that it may be his best novel ever. The story is exciting, the humor is spot-on, and it explores very interesting philosophical themes on religion and culture clashes. I thought Briggs did a great job with the narration. If you've never read Pratchett before, and even if you have, go read this book.

Nearly every Wednesday, Ken Jennings posts a wordplay puzzle or two on his blog, similar in style to Willz's NPR challenge. Usually I have no idea of the answer.

So I was pretty excited this week when Ken posted the following:

Take an eight-letter word that’s central to the study of calculus. It can be anagrammed into another eight-letter word that’s central to the study of trigonometry.

Ha! I know this one. In fact, I discovered it independently last spring and contributed it to our department's 200-question puzzle contest to commemorate the Mount's bicentennial. So take that, Jenni... What? There's more?

It can also be anagrammed into a third word: a participle whose noun form is central to the study of set theory. What are the words?

Oh. That would be... Um....  Sigh.

For the few of you who read this blog who are not part of the NPL, I contributed a five-puzzle extravaganza to the November Enigma. It's the annual theme issue. The overall theme this year is music; my puzzles are specifically about novelty songs. If you want to see the puzzle, you can download it from my Google group. Enjoy!

OK, not really torture, and only the portion of America that listen to Will Shortz's NPR puzzle Sunday mornings. In any case, I sent Will a challenge (not one I've posted here) a month or so ago, and he used it this week. If you haven't heard it or seen it, just go here. I'm not sure how he butchered my hometown; we'll have to have words about that.

And speaking of puzzles, I'll have my usual miniganza in the Enigma's theme issue next month. Crax has sent his ideas for the layout, and it looks really nice. I'll post a link to it here when the magazine is published.

1. V for Vendetta - the movie. A fun rollercoaster ride with good acting by Natalie Portman, Stephen Rea, and Hugo Weaving (behind a mask, no less!) I'm curious to read the graphic novel now.

2. Enchanted - We watched that in one sitting, which showed how much we liked it. a great job by Amy Adams, making Giselle into, well, a 2.5-dimensional character at least. The romance between her and Patrick Dempsey's Robert is very sweet.

3. Crasswords, edited by Lunch Boy - I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to the subject matter (I felt I had to scrub my brain out with soap after some of the puzzles), but I have to admit to being impressed with this collection. There were plenty of clues that looked risque but weren't, and plenty that, well, were. I also was surprised by how hard...I mean, difficult!, Yeah, difficult...the puzzles were. I'm eagerly awaiting the second edition. [Two questions for LB: I'm pretty sure I know who Torpedo is, but who's the other pseudonymous author? I assume it's "Eli Dunbar", as I've never seen that byline before. And where are the female constructors?]

4. Jeopardy!'s new think music during Final Jeopardy! - Um, actually, I don't like it very much. The clunks in the middle make me think of the Chinese water torture. At least, I went 3 for 5 on finals this week.

Yes, life has been too busy again to spare for blog posts. I keep wanting to start again, and then I get overwhelmed with all the stuff I could have posted about. So I don't, and the backlog gets bigger. Sigh.

So I'm afraid the blog doesn't get to hear about the week of dead applicances, the trip to Knoebels' Grove, or the weekend down in Virginia. I will say the kids are fine if a bit exhausted. Ragnar is learning to play Hangman; he loves to guess wrong letters. ("Is there a Q? There's no Q in elephant!" he says gleefully.) Janders is learning to crawl on her back; it's like she's doing the backstroke.

I'm at the Honda dealers now. On our trip down to VA, we managed to drive 100 miles without the gas cap on. I figured the car would, you know, mention this to us. When I got here, the service guy said the lack of warning was expected. It turns out the car does two random checks for the gas cap - one when you're driving, and one when the car is off and cooled. You need to fail both tests before you get a warning. We had no chance to fail the second test as we were driving continuously since leaving the gas station. Go figure. Now you know if you ever have the same boneheaded thing happen to you. 

Our cat 'Cartes (short for Rene Descartes) had been sick for a while. He had lost a lot of weight over the last several years and was becoming more and more lethargic. This morning he started constantly spitting up. I took him to the emergency vet; he was down to six pounds (a loss of a pound and a half in two months) and his white blood count was quite elevated. He was clearly quite sick, and we decided the humane thing was to let him go.

Cartes was Cecil's first cat. She got him when he was born and going to U of MD at College Park. So he predates me. One of the things that clued Cecil in that maybe I was someone special was how quickly Cartes took to me. He was sitting on my lap the second or third time I came to visit, and he was not a people cat (and I was not a cat person, for that matter). He had the loudest purr of any cat I've ever known. We'd hear it every night when he snuggled us in bed.

All four of us - well, five of us, counting Tepi - will miss him a lot.  

Tonight we had Janders' baby naming. My parents and grandmother came down from NY yesterday. Cecil's parents, great-aunt, and sister (with her husband and step-son) all came out for the ceremony. We did it during a Tot Shabbat service. I was worried it would be my family and the rabbi due to the holiday and the torrential rain, but no, there were a couple of other families. 

The ceremony was very short. Rabbi Dan said a few blessings. Cecil and I talked about the origins of Janders' name. Janders' Hebrew name is Fredel Perel after my grandfather and great-aunt, so I spoke about them briefly. It was a very touching moment.