More Youtubes

So there's this guy from Iceland, Birgirpall, who makes hilarious vids. They're all gaming-related, but I don't think you have to be a gamer to appreciate them. Check it out. This one is a GTA mod.

Completely Unprompted

I think I might just shed a tear.

On realism

Everyone knows what a relief it can be, and how good it feels, to take a big dump you've just been yearning to evacuate from your bowels.

What bothers me is when people say, "Dude. That was the best dump ever!"

Really?

Best ever?

Unless you've got some other memories and an epic tale to go along with your dump, I bet it wasn't the best. Probably wasn't even top twenty.

Be reasonable.

That was a 98th percentile dump.

quiz results

Well, there you have it.

Just over one-quarter of my students failed.  Roughly one in ten got a "D."  About one-fifth received a "B."  I'm satisfied with the number of students that got an "A" on the quiz.

It should be mentioned that if we add the categories for those receiving an "A" and "B," we find that a majority of the class actually did well.

I know this is pretty sick of me to get entertainment out of this.  But on more than one quiz I noticed that students had clearly erased answers and decided to choose "false" instead of "true" (or vice versa).  It was quite obvious that they answered the questions, realized all five answers were the same, and then went back and changed some answers they were "unsure" of.  Am I horrible or what?!

I really can't wait to see how the rest of this semester goes.  It should be stressed that I do have some really exceptionally bright students.  There are two in particular that if I could just sit down and chat with them I would love to get them (already) thinking about grad school.  I have one gentleman in my class that is from the-middle-of-nowhere (we're talking even more rural than the typical small town in this godforsaken state) and I am continually in awe of how articulate he conveys his critiques of what we learn.  His abstract thinking is probably more impressive than mine.  Students like him make me have hope in the upcoming generations.

All in all, this was a fun little experiment.  I probably won't do this again this semester, but if I come up with any more evil/sadistic plots, I'll be sure to share them.

they have no idea

I am proud to now consider myself the king of douchebaggery. 

Recently on reddit I stumbled upon a student who posted a midterm his professor created.  I believe the midterm consisted of 50 questions – all of which were true or false.  The answers to the test?  All 50 were true.

The redditor just titled the post something along the lines of “Mindfuck level = 100.”

Well, I gained some inspiration from this post.  As our one loyal reader is aware, I teach an introductory course here at my fine university.  I’ve noticed the occasional wandering eye during pop quizzes.  Also, I’ve noticed that my students aren’t the brightest.  So I decided to take the mess-with-your-mind approach to a whole new level.

In approximately 2 hours my students will be taking a very important quiz.  It makes up a fairly significant portion of their grades.  Unbeknownst to them, I created two quizzes.  Both appear to be identical.  However, if one were to receive both quizzes (which one will not) one would notice that there are very minute differences between the two.  For example, the word “no” will be strategically placed in front of one word on Quiz A but will be left out in Quiz B.  “Never” may be replaced with “always.”  (Antonyms have always been my best friend.)

Each quiz consists of five questions and five questions only.  I stacked the quizzes in such a way that the pile I hand them out in alternates between one quiz and the other.  Every correct answer to Quiz A is “true.”  Every correct answer to Quiz B is “false.”

By alternating how I stack the quizzes, this ensures that each student sitting next to each other will receive a different quiz.  The result?  Say for example a student doesn’t know the answer to a question.  So the student proceeds to have “wandering eyes” and look at the answer the neighbor on the right put down.  Then the student chooses to verify the answer the neighbor on the right put down by looking to the neighbor on the left.  Both the neighbor on the right and the neighbor on the left will be putting down the same answer.  That answer, however, will be different than the correct answer for the quiz that the student in the middle is taking.

By using this process I ensure the following:

      A)     Cheaters get what they deserve. 

      B)     All students will start to question if they somehow screwed up.  “All answers are true?  This can’t be right, one of these must be false.”

      C)     After class they will talk with one another.  They will ask “What was the correct answer to question 4?  The one about Gerda Lerner’s ideological contribution to feminist rhetoric?”  For all students, question 4 will indeed have been about Gerda Lerner.  Half of the students will respond that the answer was “false” and the other half will say it was “true.”  This will create genuine confusion among all and will put the fear of God in them over the weekend that they utterly failed a quiz worth a significant percentage of their final grade.

I know I am a horrible human being, but if you ask me: this is totally gonna be worth it.

Kind of politic-y

Fantasy Football Update

I've been following Ahmed's lead by not posting anywhere near enough. Usually by this point in the season, we've each put out a couple of fantasy updates in addition to other "real-life" postings.

The Family League
I'm sitting at 3-2 (6th place of 12) and 8th in points for. C.J. Spiller was amazing for the first 3 weeks. As luck would have it, he got injured and now I guess I get to wait and see if he ever reaches that level of performance again, now that Fred Jackson is back. Willis McGahee is looking like a pretty smart pick. With the exception of Fred Davis sucking a big one, and C.J. blowing up for a few weeks, none of my picks are really over- or underachieving. Which is a bummer, because you need guys to overachieve if you're going to win. I don't know if this is gonna be my year. Larry Fitzgerald and I would also appreciate it if Arizona could figure out where to find a decent quarterback.

The GC League
Again, at 3-2, I'm sitting in 5th place out of 10 and 5th in points for. Michael Vick has been incredibly underwhelming. Meanwhile, Ben Roethlisberger has been performing quite well most weeks... on my bench. At the same time, my running backs (AP, McCoy, McGahee) are doing good but not great and I've got the top TE in the league in Tony Gonzalez.

Yes, that's right Tony Gonzalez, Father Time himself, is leading all TEs in fantasy points through 5 weeks. He's making everyone who took Jimmy Graham or Gronk in the 2nd (or even in the first) look like a bunch of dumbasses. Speaking of making people look like dumbasses, Victor Cruz proving my bust call wrong by once again putting up crazy numbers. Maybe he is good.

Maybe it's because it's Friday afternoon. Maybe it's because I just got the official "no thanks. You were a great candidate, but we had a lot of great candidates" email from a potential employer. Maybe it's because I feel like some of my responses were really underwhelming in the phone interview I had yesterday for a job that I really, really want, but right now, my motivation levels are at an all-time low.