Anyway you'll never know the many ways I've tried

[austin_dern]

Two of the bodies buried in the Nicoll HIghway collapse were recovered over the day; one remains missing. That's believed to be a supervisor who went back in the tunnel when signs suggested there might be a collapse in order to make sure everyone was out. And a chunk of the Merdeka bridge is being sliced out so that the Crawford Underpass can be reopened safely, which will relieve some pressure on the roads.

My theories about students hoarding blue books in some exams and turning them back later took a hit today: the exam booklets for today's were all light orange. According to other invigilators the school has supplies of many different book colors, with the choice made by whoever gets the booklets; there's no established procedure(!). Yet the three exams given in the same venue today all had the same orange books.

My exam venue (both times) was several classrooms with the movable partition walls taken out, providing five long rows of 22 desks each, all numbered going down the long room. Since seats are assigned sequentially, this means each class takes up a long and narrow strip of space. This is done to make it harder to see anyone raising one's hand in back. The exams both days had many more students in one class than in mine; today's also had four students taking a third exam.

What throws me is the students from separate exams were assigned sequentially, so that the larger class had desks 1 through 50; then my class had seats 52 through 71; the other had 73 through 76. This split my class between two rows, though there were plenty of seats that each class could start at an individual row. They know the seat arrangements; this is the same venue seating as last term and the Registrar makes up the seat assignments, after all. I'd ask why they don't let classes start from the front of rows, but I'm sure there's a detailed explanation. I can't say it's goofier than the old exams in the RPI Armory Middle and Ends.

Trivia: Walt Kelly's famous rewriting of Captain Oliver Hazard Perry's quote for the environmental movement first appeared in 1953 as: ``There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward!'' Source: The Pogo Papers, Walt Kelly. (And how long will it be until Perry is thought to have modified Kelly?)

Currently Reading: The Silver Eggheads, Fritz Leiber. Wonderful late 50s/early 60s science fiction humor about automated novel-generating machines, wannabe writers, and of course the sex lives of government censor robotesses. Highly recommended.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

one remains missing. That's believed to be a supervisor who went back in the tunnel when signs suggested there might be a collapse in order to make sure everyone was out.

*sigh* It's probably much too much to hope for his survival. If (s)he had a family, I hope they'll be taken care of.

According to other invigilators the school has supplies of many different book colors, with the choice made by whoever gets the booklets; there's no established procedure(!).

I do feel Hermes Conrad (Futurama) would be in hog heaven in Singapore. ^_^ (How did you react to the series, btw? I can't help but feel, if they had to choose, that Fox ought to've waved farewell to the Simpsons, and carried on with Futurama. I'm not one for "jumping the shark" debates, but even I've felt the past season or two of said family just hasn't had the sparkle any longer. It's still amusing, at least from the few episodes I do catch here and there, but what might once have been little sly observations on society seem to be more promoted to a major story element, with commensurately subtle handling)

The exams both days had many more students in one class than in mine

Interesting. My exams were always one exam per room, from school through university.

automated novel-generating machines

Well, that would explain Stephen King and Terry Pratchett.. oh, I admit, I thoroughly enjoy most of the Discworld series, and I've enjoyed some of SK's works too (The Talisman particularly, where he was co-author), but good gods, their volume!

BTW, did you come across the little demo of Yamaha's rather nifty song synth, as mentioned in rabitguy's journal here (http://www.livejournal.com/~rabitguy/37752.html)? The audio file linked as a 700K mp3 sample is quite impressive - and this is simply the first public version. What does the future hold?

and of course the sex lives of government censor robotesses. Highly recommended.

O.o I may have to try seeking out a copy. I'd take a look for it electronically, but I doubt even Leiber's popular enough to've made it onto the P2P networks.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's probably much too much to hope for his survival. If (s)he had a family, I hope they'll be taken care of.

Unfortunately, they have given up. Compensation's not being talked about much yet, past the contractor's initial gift.

I do feel Hermes Conrad (Futurama) would be in hog heaven in Singapore. ^_^ (How did you react to the series, btw?

He probably would. I liked the series, although that night in the hotel with you represented a lot of the episodes I've seen. I've considered getting some of the VCDs; I haven't seen enough to decide that it's worth buying season DVDs.

[ Automated novel-writing machines ] would explain Stephen King and Terry Pratchett..

The novel gives it all a logical extrapolation -- in a story, every sentence needs to follow sensibly from what came before, and you could certainly predict the most sensible continuation of the story, so ... all you really need authors for is to write the first word and pose for jacket covers. The rest follows from that premise.

As for the song -- I'm impressed; it certainly sounded enough like real singing that I didn't know the difference, but see my past comments about my poor skills listening to music.

I may have to try seeking out a copy.

I recommend it. As with most science fiction humor it works pretty well as comedy or as straight science fiction. My edition was reprinted in about 1980, based on the US$1.75 cover price, so it's not hard to find in used book stores and such. It's got a healthy dose of robots in all sorts of professions -- though here the most relevant ones are writers and censors -- and their development of gender is quite good for the romantic couple sideline. The silver eggheads of the title are human brains in egg-shaped cases who figure in very importantly the day the -30- flags go flying.