Write Things: Two papers down and so am I!

Write Things: Two papers down and so am I!

Looks like I'm on a roll - this is yet another trackback. As always, go read the post first. Like most things Mihir, it's good for a laugh. This is a sort of point-by-point reply, so you might wanna keep it open in another window - or tab if you're a more enlightened individual.

2 papers in three days? Ha - our smallest gap between papers is 3 days! *Laughs uproariously*. Of course, that just means that you forget everything on the last day and have to study like crazy all over again.

Muggus: My class has the ultimate muggu - the living tape recorder without a fast-forward button. Knows the contents of every set of notes and most textbooks word for word. Has very little idea what they mean, but seems to survive on word-association alone. I know because he once explained something(branch prediction in the Pentium?) to a group of people, who didn't get a word. When asked to explain better, he proceeded to say the whole thing again, just more slowly...

Eventually I butted in and gave the unfortunate chaps a translation of what he said in simple English. Really simple English. He was quoting from an American author, so naturally the nitwits couldn't understand it. Sheesh. After at least 12 bloody years of education in English, they still can't understand the language. It's enough to make an atheist take up religion, because this sort of stupidity absolutely requires divine intervention...

And then the joke of the century - our muggu comes to me and says "What book did you get that from? Let me know because I haven't understood it either."

I would have told him the truth, but I was too busy ROTFL. Lost it a little more when I realised that there are actually people who consider conversation with me equivalent to reading a sensible textbook. The only guy who uses my kind of language is the one who doesn't know what it means. Go figure...

Scholarly type saying "Ok paper": Ladies(?) and gentlemen, please refer to my previous blog post on how writing a genetic algorithms framework netted me 10 marks without any particular studying on my part.

Well what do you know - I seem to be the real McCoy. And I'm modest, too. :)

*Red Alert - Sensors detect off topic disjointed Trekkie nonsense ahead*

The *real* Dr. McCoy, Star Trek : "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an engineer!"

More likely : "He's dead, Jim."

Now the Star Trek engineer was Scotty - the miracle worker. The typical conversation between him and Captain Kirk went something like this:

Kirk: "Mr. Scott, how long until you can get our engines operational, supercharge our phaser batteries, recalibrate the transporters, and invent a fancy weapon to defeat the Klingons?"

Scotty: "At least two weeks, sir."

Kirk: "You've got twenty minutes."

Scotty: "Aye sir."

Needless to say, he then proceeds to do all of the above, also cramming in a crawl in the maintenance tubes and some fancy jiggling with the controls of the transporter. Grumbles about it all the way through, and gets drunk on Scotch(a little cliched, eh?) at the end.

Every MU engineer understands this life, because we perform similar miracles at the end of every semester while submitting our term work files, during vivas, and finally during exams.

It seems entirely possible that Scotty is a graduate of MU's engineering program three centuries hence. All the signs seem to point that way. Mind you, I'm still a little wary of anyone who refers to a warp core as 'ma wee bairns'...

*Stand down Red Alert*

Girl saying 'Bad paper' whilst giggling and trying to look cute: We'd appreciate a few more of these around. Engineering is bad enough with all the babes off in less demanding streams. After four years of this crap, you begin to wonder if vacuous airheaded bimbos are more interesting than engineering females, who are often equally vacuous and rarely have the redeeming qualities of the former category. Plus they think they have some engineering skills...

Yeah, gender stereotyping. Mea culpa. Four years of MU engineering does that to you. Besides, it's not like most guys are any better. It's just that you tend to find techies among them more easily. For some reason, most girls in engineering lack true passion for the subject. Possible reason: they're only in engineering because it's the traditional punishment for scoring high marks in the 12th, and they didn't go into medicine.

Interesting definition of a muggu at the end of the post. Reminds me of one of my favourite insults - "Even if we doubled his IQ, he'd still be dumber than a flea with a learning disability."