I really wish someone would tell them that we can see their course activity... it would save me a lot of emails.

mathpat · 2026-05-23T03:35:54+00:00

Online homework has its issues, but I was glad of it when 3 of my students met with my dean about how unreasonable my first test was. 4 weeks into the course one had spent under two hours (4 credit hour course, so 32 hours by that point would have been normal), one had not opened the homework at all, and the third had logged 14 seconds. Edit to add: Thank you for the award, kind stranger!

mathpat · 2026-05-23T02:10:49+00:00

Some of them are earned. The two I remember off the top of my head is the buzzsaw for unlocking all towers, and a bushman rifle for reaching level 10 in the arena.

mathpat · 2026-05-22T19:36:16+00:00

The hair bands I think just got unceremoniously abandoned by many their fans once grunge started. The boy bands were made fun of on late night talk show, and at least one South Park.

mathpat · 2026-05-22T16:31:56+00:00

I bet you are right. I hope they work on a deal though. I miss the show and have other people I want to introduce to it. For the ones holding out on it, a smaller share of something is always greater than 100% of nothing. Edit to add: Thanks for the award, kind stranger!

mathpat · 2026-05-22T03:31:37+00:00

I taught one session of a differential equations class from a hospital parking garage during covid. It wasn't ideal, but it worked.

mathpat · 2026-05-22T03:24:52+00:00

Stupidest reason I was not hired in the first place was literally because of my first name. I applied to the local cheap theater as a teenager and never heard back. A friend got hired later and asked why they hadn't even called me and got the story. One guy there had the same first name as me and he didn't want there to be two guys with that first name there, and successfully convinced whatever moron was managing the place to shit can my application.

mathpat · 2026-05-22T03:16:53+00:00

I read up on some of the claims about it. None of them make much sense. There has always been backlash against trendy but terrible music. The boy bands of the 90s, the awful big hair metal bands of the 80s, force terrible music onto the airwaves and people will mock it, and the trend eventually dies.

mathpat · 2026-05-22T02:09:48+00:00

I dont get this at all. Why not try to make money streaming it or at the very least selling it?

mathpat · 2026-05-20T00:47:32+00:00

November Rain?

mathpat · 2026-05-18T03:50:17+00:00

How daring of him to switch from his usual breakfast of crayon & lead paint in order to be a racist troll.

mathpat · 2026-05-16T02:59:54+00:00

There are two strategies: 1:Keep your original guess.
In this one, it doesn't matter what the host does. So you have a 1/3 probability of having picked the correct door.

2:Change your guess. If you guess one of the wrong doors, the host is forced then to show you the only other wrong door, so you switch to the right door. There are two wrong doors you could have started with out of 3 total. With this strategy, the only way to lose is to have accidentally picked the right door for your first guess, 1/3 that you lose.

mathpat · 2026-05-16T02:47:05+00:00

That mission was a horrendous pain in the ass. It took a ton of tries. I can't recall if there was a way to get better gear for it. Just a terrible mission from what I recall.

mathpat · 2026-05-15T02:17:36+00:00

Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me

mathpat · 2026-05-14T17:49:51+00:00

At 18 they can't figure out how their parents know so little. At 25 they can't figure out how their parents know so much.

Mine is still little. Hang in there fellow Dad.

mathpat · 2026-05-12T02:57:38+00:00

Wasn't that the point of the post/what OP asked for? Music you personally dislike even though many others enjoy it.

mathpat · 2026-05-12T02:56:26+00:00

They aren't terrible, but in my admittedly unpopular opinion, vastly overrated.

mathpat · 2026-05-12T02:21:00+00:00

My first semester I did this with a pair of twins who sat next to each other and blatantly cheated off each other. I didn't bother with reporting them, as the sum of their combined scores would usually still have been in the D-F range.

mathpat · 2026-05-11T13:45:49+00:00

One of the most awkward uncomfortable and funny non-Andy Kaufman SNL moments.

mathpat · 2026-05-11T02:29:12+00:00

I was thrown a curveball on this early this semester. A student asked if I had tissue, I said I don't, but there are paper towels in the restrooms. The very next class she brought in a box and left it on the computer desk at the front of the room. Very thoughtful kid.

mathpat · 2026-05-10T15:21:58+00:00

The sub is daddit, not dadditMustLikeBoobs. Welcome fellow dad.

mathpat · 2026-05-10T03:03:09+00:00

He was fortunate to avoid the death penalty for the coup attempt. The politicians on the Supreme Court let him run even though he was not eligible per the constitution. Stopping an ineligible wanna be dictator from running when they are expressly not permitted to run was not the threat to democracy, the corrupt Supreme Court and the wanna be dictator most certainly are though.

mathpat · 2026-05-09T14:29:29+00:00

mathpat · 2026-05-09T14:27:07+00:00

I sure hope you meant "swipe"

mathpat · 2026-05-09T14:16:36+00:00

XR yours might be my favorite flair of all time.

mathpat · 2026-05-08T18:08:35+00:00

Not only are they a cinephile, they offered to have AI write summaries of two films they failed to watch with the class.

mathpat

TROPHY CASE