Saturday, September 14, 2013

Chalkboards in Agenstein

That last year at Western, there were two chalkboards I wish I could've gotten a picture of.

In Computer Graphics, either fall '99 or spring '00, my brother had a corner seat.  Chalkboards on three sides (front, side farthest from door, back.)  After about a week or two of the teacher using a particular catchphrase, Robert decided that he was going to keep a tally of it.  So, each time Mr. Pickett said "Now here's the deal", I heard the sound (because I was listening for it) of my brother marking a tally mark on the chalkboard by his seat.  No one in the other classes disturbed it, and by the end of the semester, there were quite a few tallies.  To anyone who cares, it was the same classroom that we discussed the finer points of baked and broiled possums in statistics.  Would've loved to get a picture of those tally marks.

The other chalkboard was in concurrent programming, last semester (Spring 2000).  My brother and I were two of about students in the advanced computer science class, and one of our classmates had taken time to draw a detailed (fictional diagram) about the way the brains of the Pratt Bros.™ worked.  I don't remember the finer points of it, but it did reasonably correctly mention how quickly we could come up with an answer...and how long it took for us to explain it in non-hyper-genius-Pratt-ese.  My wife's brother still jokes that my wife has to "interpretate" for me.

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