*holds up _Voodoo Science_*
Oct. 15th, 2003 08:14 pmGot a copy of Voodoo Science from the library, so I can actually do my Chem paper. Yay.
PCS PPAO[3] 1 tomorrow. Eck...
But I finished panel 47, which is the highest that's going to be on the test.
On another topic completely...
BCA has something called "Projects". This is essentially a 2-hour class on Wednesdays only, which usually involves doing some sort of project, and at the end of the trimester you have to present it.
Every year Dr. Penev runs a project. The project is supposed to be about writing a distance-learning course in combinatorics. Strange, yes. But this is Dr. Penev.
Anyway, that's not what happens. What happens is, Dr. Penev teaches you basic - *very* basic - *very*, *very* basic - combinatorics, which you have to write about and write problems about. You finish this quickly and play games on the computer the rest of the time, while Dr. Penev remains oblivious. Dr. Nevard is also there, and he sees this, but he doesn't care.
Then, Dr. Penev, being Dr. Penev, gives you geometry problems to do, which very few people do. They go and play games on the computer.
The end result is that you have learned practically no combinatorics, or for that matter anything at all. And this is a full-year project, meaning if you take it for the first trimester, you are stuck with it for the remaining two.
Well, this year I am (thankfully) not in that project. Neither is Rajesh.
Apparently the book Generatingfunctionology (a combinatorics book) is available free online in PDF form. (At http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/gfology.pdf, to be specific.)
So, today, during Projects, we just happened to get access to computers (which we usually don't.) And so Rajesh opens up Generatingfunctionology and /prints/ it - all 231 pages of it - to Dr. Penev's room.
Dr. Penev threw it out.
I'm sure this goes to show something, but I have no clue what.
-Sniffnoy
[3]"PPAO" stands for "Personal Performance Assessment Opportunity", and is Dr. DeWitt's term for a "test". Apparently it dates back from when BCA (or rather, AAST) was just starting and they had to do everything differently to justify their existence.
--
Dwayne: Why do I feel like I'm being offered a pact with the devil?
Trent: But without the soul-selling and pesky brimstone!
-Jeff Darlington, General Protection Fault
PCS PPAO[3] 1 tomorrow. Eck...
But I finished panel 47, which is the highest that's going to be on the test.
On another topic completely...
BCA has something called "Projects". This is essentially a 2-hour class on Wednesdays only, which usually involves doing some sort of project, and at the end of the trimester you have to present it.
Every year Dr. Penev runs a project. The project is supposed to be about writing a distance-learning course in combinatorics. Strange, yes. But this is Dr. Penev.
Anyway, that's not what happens. What happens is, Dr. Penev teaches you basic - *very* basic - *very*, *very* basic - combinatorics, which you have to write about and write problems about. You finish this quickly and play games on the computer the rest of the time, while Dr. Penev remains oblivious. Dr. Nevard is also there, and he sees this, but he doesn't care.
Then, Dr. Penev, being Dr. Penev, gives you geometry problems to do, which very few people do. They go and play games on the computer.
The end result is that you have learned practically no combinatorics, or for that matter anything at all. And this is a full-year project, meaning if you take it for the first trimester, you are stuck with it for the remaining two.
Well, this year I am (thankfully) not in that project. Neither is Rajesh.
Apparently the book Generatingfunctionology (a combinatorics book) is available free online in PDF form. (At http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/gfology.pdf, to be specific.)
So, today, during Projects, we just happened to get access to computers (which we usually don't.) And so Rajesh opens up Generatingfunctionology and /prints/ it - all 231 pages of it - to Dr. Penev's room.
Dr. Penev threw it out.
I'm sure this goes to show something, but I have no clue what.
-Sniffnoy
[3]"PPAO" stands for "Personal Performance Assessment Opportunity", and is Dr. DeWitt's term for a "test". Apparently it dates back from when BCA (or rather, AAST) was just starting and they had to do everything differently to justify their existence.
--
Dwayne: Why do I feel like I'm being offered a pact with the devil?
Trent: But without the soul-selling and pesky brimstone!
-Jeff Darlington, General Protection Fault
