mult.ifario.us

The first joke is a riddle:

Q: How can you tell an extroverted mathematician?

A: .sǝoɥs ɹnoʎ ʇɐ ʞooן ʎǝɥʇ 'noʎ oʇ ʞןɐʇ ʎǝɥʇ uǝɥʍ

The second joke is a classic mathematician/physicist/engineer tryptych:

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer meet up at their 20th college reunion. The physicist asks the engineer how life been, and the engineer says, "It's been great. I reached partner in the firm by 30, have a dozen patents, great kids, a spouse, and a lover. The spouse doesn't know about the lover, and the lover doesn't know about the spouse; so it's all good."

The physicist and the mathematician nod knowingly, and the engineer asks the physicist the reciprocal quesition. The physicist answers, "Life has been good to me, too. I have an endowed chair, a well-funeded lab, a couple of generations of strong graduate students, a spouse, and a lover. The spouse doesn't know about the lover, but the lover knows about the spouse and is OK with the arrangement; so it's all good."

The mathematician and the engineer nod knowingly, and the physicist asks the mathematician about life since college. The mathematician answers, "I've done well. I was hired with tenure right out of graduate school, have a dozen papers in the Annals, and don't have to teach calculus. I have a lover and a spouse, too, and the lover and the spouse know about each other; so it's all good.

The physicist and the engineer stare blankly at their old friend. "So, with the lover and spouse knowing about each other, how is that OK?"

The mathematician responds, "Well, when I'm not with the spouse, they assume I'm with the lover, and when I'm not with the lover, they assume I'm with the spouse. Between the two, I'm able to get a lot of work done."

Neither of these is originally mine. I heard them over conference dinners more than a decade ago, so I'm not sure who deserves credit.

Kid #1 is doing well enough that sometimes I forget that she's just a little over three years old, but then she'll whip out a malaprop or mangle an idiom to remind me. For example, while she was explaining to me that she was Lowly Worm and I was Huckle the Cat, she tripped and fell flat on her face, and the following conversation ensued:

Dad: Whoa! Are you alright?

Kid #1: No, Dad! [somewhat exasperated] I'm Lowly Worm...

As she's approaching her third birthday, the kid is showing signs of a sense of humor. We were in the car with the kid, discussing what to have for dinner, and my wife told her that we were going to have lamb, peas, and couscous.

kid: Dad, would you like some hotto-potaddo for dinner?

dad: [Decides to play along.] Sure; that sounds good.

kid: Would you like some hotto-potaddo for dinner, Mom?

mom: [Decides to play along, too.] OK.

kid: Hotto-potaddo for you, Dad, and hotto-potaddo for you, Mom. I will have lamb and peas myself.

I wonder where she learns this stuff.

This (seen via the Haskell cafe mailing list) nearly caused me to shoot coffee out my nose:

Another entry for my personal Devil's Dictionary:

heisenbug, n. A error in a software system that can only be observed in the absence of detailed logging and/or a debugger.

For what it's worth, there are situations where heisenbugs do exist, e.g., toString() implementations with side-effects that are called in logging statements and other such pathological silliness.

Another entry for my personal Devil's Dictionary:

kickboxing, n. A programming language idiom whereby a kick is converted to a Kick.