An Unexpected Consequence of Porn?

Sometimes I click on a link and realize how out of touch I am. Case in point:

In the Self article, "Surgery where?", the author, Jennifer Wolff, speculates on an unexpected result of the availability of porn: "Hoping to pump up their sex life, women are having cosmetic surgery on their most private parts." With the ability to now compare their own "nether lips"* with those on view on the web, some women look to plastic surgery to improve their intimate appearance.

The article also discusses conditions where surgery is warranted because some women are in constant discomfort or experience pain during intercourse.

With increasing frequency, I find myself saying to myself, "Who knew?"

* I thought the term came from "Lady Chatterly's Lover", but it apparently goes way, way back to Chaucer.

Colon Cleansing, Ben Stein, & Selecting a Candidate Quiz

I get occasional forwarded e-mail from Harry Cobb, not his real name, but his e-mail persona. We are not very well aligned politically.

About a month ago I receiving both an e-mail from him containing spurious historical rebuttals to objections to Bush's war in Iraq and an offer to flush excess pounds from my colon. (Separate messages, but the pairing was fortuitous.)

How people know more about my colon than I do continues to mystify me, but their message turned out to be just what I needed, although not as they anticipated: The colonic cleansing message proved to be the solution to the persistent problem of replying to Harry's unwanted e-mail.

Now, when Harry sends me a message, actually most of his e-mail is forwarded messages , that I find a waste of my time, I forward the colonic cleansing message to him as a response. I change the subject so it appears that I'm responding to his message he forwarded to me. Harry was a Psych major as an undergraduate so I expect that he'll recognize (and respond) to classical conditioning. (The not so subtle implication that he's a dog is also there, but then he knows I 'm fond of dogs.)

To induce Harry to read, and not automatically delete my e-mail, I try to respond to those worthy of response in a positive fashion. (Psychologist can now weigh in about how my message sending is not classical conditioning, and can send a mixed message. They are welcome to contact me. I'll give them Harry's e-mail account so they can validate their opinions.) All of which brings me to:

Ben Stein

I read Ben Stein on economics. His involvement with "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is embarrassing to the point of being a failure of reason. Harry forwarded a CBS Sunday Morning Commentary: 12/18/2005 - Christmas by Ben Stein about religion which I felt glibly slid around school prayer, evolution, church state separation, etc. When I got to the part where Billy Graham's daughter explained why God let Katrina happen because among other things we don't have school prayer, I thought Ben Stein was being either extremely funny or in need of help. Being unable to help Ben Stein I opted instead to forward Harry the colonic cleansing missive.

Selecting a Candidate Quiz

On the other, hand, to give credit where credit is due, Harry sent me an 11 question Select a Candidate Quiz from radio station WQAD*. From my own experience I think the quiz is accurate. I was surprised to see that the score for my top two candidates was only near 60. (The value is dependent on the degree of importance selected for each response.)

I thanked Harry for the quiz, but, as is so typical of me, I couldn't resist chastising him for not citing the original quiz at Minesota Public Radio.

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*I looked up WQAD and was surprised to have to dig around their web site a bit to determine that the Quad Cities are Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline/East Moline and Rock Islands in Illinois.

Hello Worlf!/Brainf*ck

Students are training for an upcoming ACM programming contest by tackling problems from previous contests. One of the examples from the November 2005 ACM Regional Collegiate Programming Contest at Kean University was the "ungodly creation of Urban Muller", a computer programming language which, in the interest of propriety, is usually written "brainf*ck".

<digression>
First programs written in a new programming language are often referred to as "Hello World" programs in honor of the first program in the classic book, "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Richie. Hello World programs display the words "Hello World!" on the screen or computer console.

All the problems in ACM competitions are formatted the same way and each problem contains sample inputs and the corresponding program outputs so competitors can verify that their programs are working correctly.

It's been a while since I programmed, but I tackled the brainf*ck problem with a classic "top down" approach using the C programming language. (C is usually not the programming language of choice because the language let's programmers do horrible things, often without even a warning. Of course that's the attraction of the language, but I'll limit my digression.) If I were more current I'd be using C++ or Java with object-oriented techniques, but C, with it's cavalier treatment of characters and integers actually was an advantage in writing this particular program. (y ='b' +2; is a perfectly legal statement in C.)

Using top down programming I started with the big picture and worked down toward the actual nitty-gritty of creating the guts of the program. I was surprised at how smoothly things went. Of course, I had advantages over those in the actual competition: I was using Microsoft's Visual Studio with it's exceptional debugger, help just the press of a function key away, and, of course, I wasn't under time pressure. (This endorsement of an older development system has not been influenced by Microsoft, Microsoft partners or affiliates, or Steve Ballmer's threat to sue my pants off if I did not endorse a Microsoft product.)

In actual competition students are using vi for editing, the man pages for help/reference, and dbx on Linux for debugging, all in all a much more difficult environment. (vi is a text editor best described as Trivial Pursuit, Keyboard edition.)
</digression>

To give you an idea of how weird brainf*ck appears, the following program prints out the Roman alphabet in capital letters:

+ + + + + +++++++++++++++++++++> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +< [ >.+<- ] end

Because of my approach, I wouldn't be able to see how the program displayed results until the whole program was written. (This is not technically true, but in the interest of blogging, please accept the statement as true.) So imagine my delight as I got to see the first output of:

<-]>.<+++++[>++++++<-]>-.+++++++.. +++.<++++++++[>>++++<<-]>>.<<++++[> ------<-]>.<++++[>++++++<-]>.+++. ------.—------.>+. end

Using the debugger to step through the program I got 'H' followed by 'e', then 'l', another 'l'. I was thrilled. Throwing caution to the wind, I let it rip and got:

Hello Worlf!

Sigh. The other sample inputs worked fine though. I'll go back and see what I did wrong. It was so tantalizing to feel that the very first run through of program would work flawlessly.

I think I've taken my run-in with my fallibility in stride. I've started to refer to first programs as "Hello Worlf" programs.

Chatting with the Imam

I used to see the Imam on a regular basis a year or so ago. His main line of work is being a business prof, and in that capacity I'd help him out because he is not that adept with computers. Now that his classes use different software he doesn't require my assistance. Still, I liked to drop by for a chat.

Coming from Egypt, he recognizes and values what many native born Americans often take for granted: our attempts to follow our profession of equality and fairness under the law. He is as dismayed as anyone else at his co-religionists slaughtering each other in the Middle East.

He was happy to see me. And why not? I don't seem particularly arrogant or look down on people with less technological expertise. Any number of times I've said that much of what passes for technical expertise is transient knowledge, easily obviated by newer software or methods. The technical expertise is often just a tech edition of Trivial Pursuit.

Also, we just seem to get along

About a year ago, when it appeared that my position was in jeopardy he was one of the faculty who were prepared to go to the mat for me. I didn't fully realize it at the time, something that embarrasses me now, but now I get practically weepy remembering it. So when he asks, "How are things?" it is not a nicety - he's concerned.

I said it looks like I'm doing OK, how about you.

Not so well it turns out. He's not getting any younger and one friend, a friend since childhood recently "expired" in the hospital. We reflected on the term. It was as if his friend had lived too long. Another old friend had called him recently to inform the Imam that he had cancer which was now affecting his brain and the call would probably be his last.

I asked if, like some of his colleagues, he was going to take early retirement. He said no. He didn't have a talent like others who painted or played a musical instrument. He'd keep on teaching. (He's much more accepting than other professors whose chagrin at a decline in the quality of the students drove their acceptance of early retirement.)

With those portents of mortality, the Imam went out and bought a Mercedes SUV. Really? Yes, it's right over there. The tan one. I offered to scratch it for him so he wouldn't have to deal with the uncertainty of it getting scratched. He declined my offer. He said the Mercedes was a wonderful car. People treated him with more respect. The guys at the gas station now called him sir even though he doesn't spend any more money than before.

I told him about the time I was watching TV with my mother (always an experience) when I responded to an ad for a Porsche by saying, "I could never own a car like that." Quick to challenge my perceived inferiority complex, my mother shot back, "Why not?" Well mom, I'd worry about it getting scratched and, well it's a fine piece of machinery which deserves to be well taken care of - something which unfortunately isn't my style.

(I keep as a model of car ownership a wealthy distant relative who, along with his acquaintances of similar means, had a master mechanic on retainer. On one occasion, after brunch at my parent's house he discovered sap from a maple on his Porsche. He quickly came inside and called his mechanic to arrange for the car to be cleaned and re-waxed. This was in the days before cell phones.)

We parted. He to enjoy his SUV. Me to play with computers.