From: James Davis
Subject: Life is now being served downstairs
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 10:06:01 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: jdavis@cs.umass.edu
To: monday-morning-coffee@cs.umass.edu, jdavis@cs.umass.edu, ash@cs.umass.edu
Coffee's on in 5.
So this week, to save time, I'm just going to repeat this message 4 times
within a single email, as opposed to generating 4 emails each with the same
message. The greatest tragedy was that the same random seed was used to
generate those 4 automatically generated messages. I looked at the next
random number in the progression--it would have generated a message comparing
coffee to TV's Eric Estrada. That would have been good.
The take home lesson, I guess, is not to assume your seed will be drawn only
once per week. Always seed from the most highly granular part of the date
structure!
I was going to think of a bunch of other take-home lessons, but I can't. I
guess they're already home. Hmmmm. I'm going to the well here and coming
up with nothing. I guess that's the end of my run of 4 (non-consecutive) terms
as message meister. It's finally drained me. And to come up empty on the
very last day no less. Oh sure, the messages have been going steadily
downhill, no one questions that, but at least there was something. Now
there's just . . . nothing (reference anyone?) Damn the finite!
Oh, make sure and congratulate the latest veterans (and the several 2x
veterans) of 683. Many of them came through in a non-vegetative state, though
I imagine it will be hard to tell them from the others tomorrow. If you
see any shell-shocked grad students, you might lead them out of snow and
towards the coffee. At least point them away from walls/traffic etc. That
could be you day's good deed.
I just thought of something. I imagine the people on the MMC list are
roughly divided into two camps. Those who really need coffee right *now*,
and those who don't. I realize that it's probably a spectrum, but my
intuition tells me that, at the end of a CS semester, it's heavily weighted
toward the extremes. What with projects, finals, grading projects and
finals and prostrating oneself in front of various money granting
government entities, I'd say that a nice cross-section of
grads/faculty/staff are in the "need coffee" camp. The other cluster,
the non-coffee-needing cluster, are, well I don't know who they are, but
I already don't like them. Now here's the cruel irony (actually, I have
no idea if it's irony or not. Irony never seems ironical to me, and most
of what I call irony is, according to latte sipping lit. types, not):
The people who really need coffee only ever read the first line of my
message. Then, stimulus response kicks in and they grab a coffee cup, or
shoe, or whatever passes as a coffee carrying vessel, and go to the atrium.
Only the smug, well-rested punks who are drinking decaf ever
read this far into the message. So my audience is actually only people who
don't need to read the message in the first place. It's too bad I didn't
think of this 3 years ago--I would have had alot more time to surf the web.
Doooh, it burns me up to think that I've been providing entertainment for
the non-zombies! I quit.
First repetition (right?, I mean, the first time's not a repetition. I'll
have to ask my personal trainer about this one. He may have been wrong all
these years):
Coffee's on in 5.
So this week, to save time, I'm just going to repeat this message 4 times
within a single email, as opposed to generating 4 emails each with the same
message. The greatest tragedy was that the same random seed was used to
generate those 4 automatically generated messages. I looked at the next
random number in the progression--it would have generated a message comparing
coffee to TV's Eric Estrada. That would have been good.
The take home lesson, I guess, is not to assume your seed will be drawn only
once per week. Always seed from the most highly granular part of the date
structure!
I was going to think of a bunch of other take-home lessons, but I can't. I
guess they're already home. Hmmmm. I'm going to the well here and coming
up with nothing. I guess that's the end of my run of 4 (non-consecutive) terms
as message meister. It's finally drained me. And to come up empty on the
very last day no less. Oh sure, the messages have been going steadily
downhill, no one questions that, but at least there was something. Now
there's just . . . nothing (reference anyone?) Damn the finite!
Oh, make sure and congratulate the latest veterans (and the several 2x
veterans) of 683. Many of them came through in a non-vegetative state, though
I imagine it will be hard to tell them from the others tomorrow. If you
see any shell-shocked grad students, you might lead them out of snow and
towards the coffee. At least point them away from walls/traffic etc. That
could be you day's good deed.
I just thought of something. I imagine the people on the MMC list are
roughly divided into two camps. Those who really need coffee right *now*,
and those who don't. I realize that it's probably a spectrum, but my
intuition tells me that, at the end of a CS semester, it's heavily weighted
toward the extremes. What with projects, finals, grading projects and
finals and prostrating oneself in front of various money granting
government entities, I'd say that a nice cross-section of
grads/faculty/staff are in the "need coffee" camp. The other cluster,
the non-coffee-needing cluster, are, well I don't know who they are, but
I already don't like them. Now here's the cruel irony (actually, I have
no idea if it's irony or not. Irony never seems ironical to me, and most
of what I call irony is, according to latte sipping lit. types, not):
The people who really need coffee only ever read the first line of my
message. Then, stimulus response kicks in and they grab a coffee cup, or
shoe, or whatever passes as a coffee carrying vessel, and go to the atrium.
Only the smug, well-rested punks who are drinking decaf ever
read this far into the message. So my audience is actually only people who
don't need to read the message in the first place. It's too bad I didn't
think of this 3 years ago--I would have had alot more time to surf the web.
Doooh, it burns me up to think that I've been providing entertainment for
the non-zombies! I quit.
Second Repetition: It really is the same every time, why are you still
reading?
Coffee's on in 5.
So this week, to save time, I'm just going to repeat this message 4 times
within a single email, as opposed to generating 4 emails each with the same
message. The greatest tragedy was that the same random seed was used to
generate those 4 automatically generated messages. I looked at the next
random number in the progression--it would have generated a message comparing
coffee to TV's Eric Estrada. That would have been good.
The take home lesson, I guess, is not to assume your seed will be drawn only
once per week. Always seed from the most highly granular part of the date
structure!
I was going to think of a bunch of other take-home lessons, but I can't. I
guess they're already home. Hmmmm. I'm going to the well here and coming
up with nothing. I guess that's the end of my run of 4 (non-consecutive) terms
as message meister. It's finally drained me. And to come up empty on the
very last day no less. Oh sure, the messages have been going steadily
downhill, no one questions that, but at least there was something. Now
there's just . . . nothing (reference anyone?) Damn the finite!
Oh, make sure and congratulate the latest veterans (and the several 2x
veterans) of 683. Many of them came through in a non-vegetative state, though
I imagine it will be hard to tell them from the others tomorrow. If you
see any shell-shocked grad students, you might lead them out of snow and
towards the coffee. At least point them away from walls/traffic etc. That
could be you day's good deed.
I just thought of something. I imagine the people on the MMC list are
roughly divided into two camps. Those who really need coffee right *now*,
and those who don't. I realize that it's probably a spectrum, but my
intuition tells me that, at the end of a CS semester, it's heavily weighted
toward the extremes. What with projects, finals, grading projects and
finals and prostrating oneself in front of various money granting
government entities, I'd say that a nice cross-section of
grads/faculty/staff are in the "need coffee" camp. The other cluster,
the non-coffee-needing cluster, are, well I don't know who they are, but
I already don't like them. Now here's the cruel irony (actually, I have
no idea if it's irony or not. Irony never seems ironical to me, and most
of what I call irony is, according to latte sipping lit. types, not):
The people who really need coffee only ever read the first line of my
message. Then, stimulus response kicks in and they grab a coffee cup, or
shoe, or whatever passes as a coffee carrying vessel, and go to the atrium.
Only the smug, well-rested punks who are drinking decaf ever
read this far into the message. So my audience is actually only people who
don't need to read the message in the first place. It's too bad I didn't
think of this 3 years ago--I would have had alot more time to surf the web.
Doooh, it burns me up to think that I've been providing entertainment for
the non-zombies! I quit.
Third and Final repetition: What the hell are you doing? It's the same,
promise!
Coffee's on in 5.
So this week, to save time, I'm just going to repeat this message 4 times
within a single email, as opposed to generating 4 emails each with the same
message. The greatest tragedy was that the same random seed was used to
generate those 4 automatically generated messages. I looked at the next
random number in the progression--it would have generated a message comparing
coffee to TV's Eric Estrada. That would have been good.
The take home lesson, I guess, is not to assume your seed will be drawn only
once per week. Always seed from the most highly granular part of the date
structure!
I was going to think of a bunch of other take-home lessons, but I can't. I
guess they're already home. Hmmmm. I'm going to the well here and coming
up with nothing. I guess that's the end of my run of 4 (non-consecutive) terms
as message meister. It's finally drained me. And to come up empty on the
very last day no less. Oh sure, the messages have been going steadily
downhill, no one questions that, but at least there was something. Now
there's just . . . nothing (reference anyone?) Damn the finite!
Oh, make sure and congratulate the latest veterans (and the several 2x
veterans) of 683. Many of them came through in a non-vegetative state, though
I imagine it will be hard to tell them from the others tomorrow. If you
see any shell-shocked grad students, you might lead them out of snow and
towards the coffee. At least point them away from walls/traffic etc. That
could be you day's good deed.
I just thought of something. I imagine the people on the MMC list are
roughly divided into two camps. Those who really need coffee right *now*,
and those who don't. I realize that it's probably a spectrum, but my
intuition tells me that, at the end of a CS semester, it's heavily weighted
toward the extremes. What with projects, finals, grading projects and
finals and prostrating oneself in front of various money granting
government entities, I'd say that a nice cross-section of
grads/faculty/staff are in the "need coffee" camp. The other cluster,
the non-coffee-needing cluster, are, well I don't know who they are, but
I already don't like them. Now here's the cruel irony (actually, I have
no idea if it's irony or not. Irony never seems ironical to me, and most
of what I call irony is, according to latte sipping lit. types, not):
The people who really need coffee only ever read the first line of my
message. Then, stimulus response kicks in and they grab a coffee cup, or
shoe, or whatever passes as a coffee carrying vessel, and go to the atrium.
Only the smug, well-rested punks who are drinking decaf ever
read this far into the message. So my audience is actually only people who
don't need to read the message in the first place. It's too bad I didn't
think of this 3 years ago--I would have had alot more time to surf the web.
Doooh, it burns me up to think that I've been providing entertainment for
the non-zombies! I quit.
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