Happy Halloween

Twice?

From the standpoint of the capacity model, the notion that transfer requires both strong comprehension and a mental representation that is not overly contextualized might appear to produce an inherent contradiction. The model posits that one of the key characterstics that can promote comprehension is a small distance between narrative and educational content, which occurs when the educational content is highly contextualized in the narrative presented in the program. From the standpoint of theoretical models of transfer, however, deep contextualization could actually impede, rather than enhance, transfer. How, then, can this seeming contradiction be resolved? The answer may lie in presenting the same educational concept more than once.

From the standpoint of the capacity model, the notion that transfer requires both strong comprehension and a mental representation that is not overly contextualized might appear to produce an inherent contradiction. The model posits that one of the key characterstics that can promote comprehension is a small distance between narrative and educational content, which occurs when the educational content is highly contextualized in the narrative presented in the program. From the standpoint of theoretical models of transfer, however, deep contextualization could actually impede, rather than enhance, transfer. How, then, can this seeming contradiction be resolved? The answer may lie in presenting the same educational concept more than once.

Friday Math Problem

Lockers in a row are numbered 1,2,3, . . . ,1000. At first, all the lockers are closed. A person walks by, and opens every other locker, starting with locker #2. Thus lockers 2,4,6, . . . ,998,1000 are open. Another person walks by, and changes the state of every third locker, starting with locker #3. Then another person changes the state of every fourth locker, starting with #4, etc. This process continues until no more lockers can be altered. Which lockers will be closed?

Friday Math Solution

Solution to last week's problem: 10.

Formal solution by induction, as follows:

For each positive integer n, define P(n) to be - If the host invites n couples, and if no one shakes hands with his or her partner, and if each of the 2n+1 people interrogated by the host shook a different number of hands, then the hostess shook n hands.

First, check that P(1) is true by drawing a diagram and working out the only logical possibility. Next show that P(n) implies P(n+1).

So assume that P(n) is true. Now consider a party with n+1 couples (other than host and hostess) satisfying the hypotheses (no one shakes with partner; all handshake numbers are different). Then all handshake numbers from 0 to 2(n+1) = 2n+2 inclusive will occur among the 2n+3 people questioned by the host. Consider the person X, who shook the maximum number of 2n+2 hands. This person shook hands with all but two of the 2n+4 people at the party. Since no one shakes hands with themselves or their partner, X shook hands with everyone possible. So the only person who could be partnered with X had to have been the person Y, who shook zero hands, for everyone else shook hands with X and is hence ineligible as a partner.

Next, remove X and Y from the party. If we don't count handshakes involving these two people, we are reduced to a party with n invited couples, and everyone’s handshake number has dropped by exactly 1, since everyone shook hands with X and no one shook hands with Y. But the inductive hypothesis P(n) tells us that the hostess at this “abridged” party shook n hands. But in reality, the hostess shook one more hand—that of the X whom we just removed. So in the party with n+1 invited guests, the hostess shook n+1 hands, establishing P(n+1).

Vintage

When I first interviewed at CCIT, I went to talk to my friends at Acis about it. Their response was... "oh, it's the people who send us those creepy affectionate emails all the time." When I started working here, I got the joke, and fully embraced it. Well, a lot of things have changed since. There is no more Acis, for example. And we've had our own bit of regime change here too. But I still keep the legacy of the creepy affectionate emails, as a sort of personal homage to the ghosts of CCIT past.

A typical email to CUIT goes as follows:

Dearest CUIT Postmaster,

I pray that this letter finds you well. Would you kindly add Joe User to the alias@columbia.edu email list? I am eternally in your debt.

With Deepest Gratitude,
Irina Paley, CCIT

Standardized Tests

I do really well on tests, especially the standardized kinds that are crafted to be administered to a large group of people. And what's great is that I always do extremely well, especially when I go into the test with little/no preparation, and stay up the night before not studying and not sleeping.

When my friend Rimma was trying for law school, I took the LSAT, just out of solidarity. The night before I skimmed the Kaplan prep book, and spent the rest of the night playing Civ. I passed out in front of the keyboard about 4 hours before I was due at the testing center. I scored a 165, which, if I had the GPA of an English major, would be enough to get accepted to a decent school like Cardozo (ooooooh!) or BU.

I am not bragging. In fact it's pathetically ironic that I am so successful on the kind of test that is so fundamentally offensive to the constructivist pedagogy upon which I base my entire academic ideology.

So, here's why. Here's why I do so well. I figured it out today.

The most difficult test I've ever taken was the New York City Specialized Science High School Entrance Exam (also known as The Stuyvesant Test, and also, more appropriately known as The Bronx Science Test). I took it when I was 13. Now, I didn't know anything when I was 13. I was pretty stupid. So, relative to my body of knowledge, the test was really difficult. The next test I had to take was the SAT, 4 years later. At that point, I was already pretty smart. I had taken AP Calc, and technical drawing, and honors English with Mr. Laboda. So, basically, I was much smarter than I was at 13. But the test didn't get much harder! You see, even though I got smarter, the SAT is still the same Bronx Science Test, which I already knew how to do at 13. Next followed college. I got a little bit smarter (not much), but the GRE, again, is just the Bronx Science Test with a writing section. And same goes for the qual exams in grad school. And so on, and on.

So that must be it. If you passed the science high school test in New York City, everything else is just a repeat. You just have to keep getting smarter, and the test will keep getting easier.

Purple is a fruit

- Oh my god! Why are you eating those corn things?
- What? These?
- Yea!! And after you yelled at me for eating candy!
- These are fortified with calcium, and other vitamins.
- Candy's fortified.
- Oh? With what?
- With delicious!

Whine

This is going to be another super-sucky week, in terms of staying up late to get through a lot of work. I am even feeling a bit overwhelmed here. Tomorrow I have to teach (and therefore, prepare) a midterm-review session for the Econ Math Lab class. I also have a small backlog of problem-sets to grade. On Thursday I am offering an extra office hours, to help those who are having a difficult time with the material. Also, on Thursday, I have to submit the take-home portion of the Java midterm, and take the in-class portion of the exam, well... in class. I also have to submit a draft of the wiki paper by Thursday afternoon, and work on a case-study for the Human Development class, due by Tuesday of next week.

But at least the laundry's all done. Phew.

Friday Math Problem

The handshake problem: I invite 10 couples to a party at my house. I ask everyone present, including my spouse, how many people they shook hands with. It turns out that everyone questioned (I didn’t question myself) shook hands with a different number of people. If we assume that no one shook hands with his or her spouse, how many people did my spouse shake hands with?

Please remember: I did not ask myself any questions.
Please also remember: Although it may seem so at first, this problem is NOT intractable.

Friday Math Solution

The solution to last week’s three frogs problem: put the frogs on a coordinate plane so that the bottom left frog’s coordinates are (0,0), top left frog’s coordinates are (0,1), and top right frog’s coordinates are (1,1). Observe that when a frog jumps, the parity of its coordinates is invariant. Therefore, none of the frogs can ever get to the bottom right corner, where the coordinates are (1, 0). Another way to say this is that none of the frogs have (odd, even) coordinates, and therefore, they can never land on an (odd, even) point.

The Revision Policy

Folks, I'd like to present to you the constructivist approach to testing. It's called The Revision Policy, and it goes something like this...

Session before the test:

Class. I have to test you. I am sorry. I know that it's wrong, but it has to be done. I have no other way of knowing whether you understand this material. Be prepared for a test next week.

Session after the test:

Class, you didn't do so well. Some of you did ok. But most of you have no clue. I am glad I gave you this test, because now I know who needs help. Don't panic. I am not going to fail you. I am not going to give you the solutions, but I will give you another chance. By next week, you can revise every question that you got wrong. In addition to submitting a correct answer, you should also submit an explanation of what you did wrong, and why your answer was incorrect. I'll take the average of the two grades, and that'll be the grade that I count for you.

Ta Da! There you have it. The Revision Policy. (Disclaimer: not appropriate for anyone under the age of 22).

Game 7

Omar Minaya put it perfectly:

"I don't know. In a Game 7, you can't tell how anybody's going to do. Game 7 is an out-of-body experience. Game 7, in stickball, is an out-of-body experience, so you can imagine what it must be like in the Major Leagues. I can tell you what it's like in stickball, but I can't tell you what it's like in the Major Leagues."

And so, Oliver Perez, is going to be pitching the most important game of the season for the Mets. This is shocking, depressing, and even inspiring. After Perez miraculously won his last start (after allowing five earned runs on nine hits in 5 2/3 innings) the Mets said "thanks for the win, we hope you never have to pitch for us again." But here he is again, on three days rest. About that (by the way), Willie Randolph said, "it doesn't matter, really." I guess he means that if you suck so much already, an extra day of rest isn't going to make much of a difference.

A victory tonight will take the "you gotta believe" mantra to a whole new level.

Game 6

Tom "I used to be good with the Braves once" Glavine didn't get the win yesterday. So, it's up to John "200 million and I'm their number 2 starter" Maine to pitch for a win tonight.

Brink. Of. Elimination.

Quips

I've noticed that there are several quips in our list attributed to me. And if a new person were to come to CCIT, and read our quips list, he would get a very odd impression of me (at best). For example, there is one that goes: "I do enjoy people getting hurt." I don't think that I've ever said that. I think that what I actually said was: "In the manly sport of soccer, people often get hurt, and that can sometimes be an entertaining aspect of the game." Another one goes: "The Maltese is the stupidest dog. I hate them. They can't do anything." I believe that what I actually said was: "My mother has a Maltese, and it's not very intelligent, as far as dogs go."

Anyway, stop quoting me in the quips. You know who you are.

Friday Math Problem

I am going to start posting clever math problems every Friday. These are in the style of the high school Math Olympiad problems, and are intended for recreational purposes. I think that this is a great idea because a) it will save me the trouble of having to come up with original content to get you through the weekend, and b) you might get smarter! I know, I know, this isn't fair to those of you who went to lower and middle school in the United States, but look at this as a productive challenge. And also, I'd like to mention that googling the answer is completely unethical, and goes against the very spirit of clever math problems.

The three frogs problem: Three frogs are placed on three vertices of a square. Every minute, one frog leaps over another frog, in such a way that the leapee is at the midpoint of the line segment whose endpoints are the starting and ending position of the leaper. Will a frog ever occupy the vertex of the square that was originally unoccupied? Show a proof.

The Suck

Sometimes I think that IT is a really shitty way to make a living. Yeah, it's been one of those days.

Plane crash on the east side.

I was coming back from an appointment on 57th and 5th, at around 2:40, going uptown on the east side. I was at 69th when the plane hit the apartment building with a loud thunder-like boom. It was just a few seconds. It was clearly a small plane (not a helicopter, as the radio news initially reported). And it looked like the plane was not aiming for the building. It seemed like something was already wrong with the plane, although there were no visible signs. I quickly got into a cab and headed for the west-side before the emergency traffic closed off all access.

Belated Update: The pilot was Cory Lidle, the Yankees pitcher. Columbia's own Janak Parekh (and others) contributed to the story break on baseballmusings.

Forecast

1010 Wins reports the weather as follows: Temperature for the first pitch will be a crisp 62 degrees. And we all know, that's perfect weather for a Tom Glavine fastball.

Scapegoat

Who should be fired? Here is my list:

1. Joe Torre has to go. It's time. See ya.
2. Sheffield.
3. Mussina.
4. Pretty much anyone over the age of 30 whose name doesn't rhyme with "neater" or "armada."

Discuss.

To the naked lacrosse players on the south lawn

I am not exactly sure what your sport entails, but thanks for the show!

On literary snobbery...

When did you become such a literary snob?

At first, I was completely taken back by that question. It almost became one of those adorable "You talkin' to me" Taxi Driver re-enactments that I enjoy so much. I was positive that years of reading and re-reading Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, and an assortment of cultish sci-fi and low-brow mystery fiction would guarantee a permanent exclusion from the New Yorker crowd.

Generally, I whole-heartedly accept most labels of academic arrogance, but this one seemed completely off. Especially since my reading lists have been consistently unassuming - always Victor Hugo over Albert Camus, Isaac Babel over Anton Chekhov, Shel Silverstein over T.S. Eliot, and so on. If you were to make an analogy to musical theater (and really, why wouldn't you) you could say that my literary tastes lie somewhere in the My Fair Lady category - not as shallow as Oklahoma, but a hell of a lot funnier than Cabaret.

Finally, after some humble (conspicuously humble) probing, I determined that the question was provoked by a few positive comments that I recently made about Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians." I read the book last week for the first time, and was profoundly moved by it. In fact, I think that it is beautifully written, and immensely important. This is my favorite passage:

"What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire! Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhound everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation. "

I think that this book has been categorized in the "elitist Ivy League humanities curriculum" group instead of the " thoughtful train reading from the Time list" group because it makes you hurt without allowing you to cry. And that makes it a difficult book. Selby's writing is like that too.

For example, "The Kite Runner" is a lovely book that I read just prior to Coetzee. It's very emotional, and I cried every 20 pages. It addresses important issues, and relates them through a very nice story about heartbreak and perseverance. It's a good book, but it's not an important book. And sometimes it's necessary to take a break from the undemanding comfort of a sad story and venture into the difficult territory of overwhelming injustice and tragedy. Even if it does earn you the label of a literary snob.

Letter: Mike Mussina

Dear Mike Mussina,

Why do you keep screwing me over like this? It's not fair. You suck.

Scornfully Yours,
Irina

P.S. Kindly pass this along to A-Rod.

Letter: Paul Lo Duca

Dear Paul Lo Duca,

Typically, I am very much against marital infidelity. Cheating on your wife is wrong, and you shouldn't do it. But I realize that you are under a lot of pressure. You got the Mets to the play-offs. You work really hard. And you are only human. I understand. And a lot of people make mistakes in their personal lives. Just don't make any errors on the field. As for going to hell, I am sure that there are plenty of Mets fans in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church who will be happy to absolve you, after the victory parade. So don't worry about that. Just do what you have to do.

Forgivingly Yours,
Irina

P.S. That play last night was awesome.
P.P.S. Adultery is still very wrong.

John Sterling drinking game

Folks, here is a fun one to get you through those painfully long Mike Mussina starts.

Drink 6
Whenever John Sterling says something nasty about "those moneyball folks."

Drink 5
Whenever John Sterling says something statistically counterintuitive, i.e. "I can't believe Giambi just got on base."

Drink 4
Whenever John Sterling makes a sexually suggestive comment about one of the Yankees, i.e. "Bobby Abreu is as sweet as candy." I kid you not. He actually says that.

Drink 3
Whenever John Sterling mentions the words "clutch" and "Jeter" in the same sentence.

Drink 2
Whenever John Sterling yells "on the track, at the wall" for a routine pop fly that is nowhere near the track or the wall.

Drink 1
Whenever John Sterling explicitly says "You just can't predict baseball."

Just be sure to stock up on the alcohol.

Russian Baseball: Repost

Somebody emailed me asking why Russians don't play baseball. It turns out that I blogged about this a while ago, so I am just going to repost it. I wrote this on September 10, 2003. Notice the overabundance of external links - a characteristic of an early-Irina blog post.
____________________________________________________________

Does the absence of a free market economy somehow make one incapable of hitting a ball with a bat? Obviously not. So, it must be the weather. Only that doesn't make sense either. Climate conditions that are acceptable for soccer are equally acceptable for baseball. A great deal of Russia's major cities enjoy the same climate as the American North East (and even more cities, the weather climate of Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, and Chicago).

But, I won't go into a speculative discussion about what makes Russians so disinterested in baseball. For now, I am more interested in understanding what makes Russians so darn awful at it.

I discovered a most devastating website about the Russian National Baseball Team. In May 2003, the team went on a tour of the North East League, facing the Brockton Rox, Berkshire Black Bears, New Jersey Jackals, and Allentown Abassadors. The results were not pretty.

Game recap headlines read:

GAME 1: BROCKTON BEATS RUSSIANS, 5-2
GAME 2: BERKSHIRE HAMMERS RUSSIANS, 15-3
GAMES 3 & 4: JACKALS SWEEP RUSSIAN NATIONAL TEAM
GAME 5: GRAND SLAM LIFTS ALLENTOWN BY RUSSIANS

A team comparison of Russian National vs. Northeast League is of the 1962 Mets vs. 1927 Yankees variety.

So, how to explain this? Why do they suck? Because nobody cares? And if so, is absence of public interest sufficient cause for the demise of a sport? Or can it be the case of the chicken and the egg? There was a small surge of interest in Russian baseball when the National Team made it to the final rounds of the European Championships in 2001. They knocked Italy out of the finals for the first time ever, but that only warranted a two paragraph clip in the paper's sports section.

A further google search of Pravda.Ru for "baseball" was fruitless, although very amusing.

Certainly, Russia is far from entering the world of baseball in any sort of legitimate capacity. But maybe we have to think smaller. Maybe the fate of Russian baseball is still unrealized ....

The Moscow Little League 2-0 shut out of Guam is certainly hope inspiring... But reading on -

[coaches] Eltchaninov and Kornev both learned baseball when they were children in New York. Their parents worked at the United Nations, and the boys learned to play stickball with the other kids nearby.

So, is there hope for Russian Baseball? Sure - but only by way of New York.

Joke

Thanks, Theo, for making this joke funny again: What is the difference between Yankee Dogs and Fenway Franks? They serve Yankee Dogs in October.

ALDS

The Yankees kick it off tonight with Wang on the mound. Insert all the "it's not the size, it's how you use it" jokes you want. The Mets follow up tomorrow. Thanks MLB for scheduling the games so that New Yorkers can follow both teams in the postseason.

I wonder what people in Boston are doing tonight...

Homecoming 2006

It's common knowledge that graduate students at Columbia don't care about the football team. However, the joke is that undergrads at Columbia don't care about the football team either. I've never been to a single Columbia football game. In fact, I don't think that I know anybody who has. Those few (liars) who claim to have attended could never provide anything more than vague details along the lines of "and... uh... they threw the ball, and we lost, and that's pretty much all that happened."

But, this year, I got talked into going to Homecoming (insert: obligatory flickr photoset).

It wasn't so bad. I mean, it could've been a lot worse. We had really good seats, 3 rows back, on what I was told was "the fifty yard line." The best part was the Columbia University Marching Band. Their lack of musical talent, complemented by some very witty jokes and a delightful acronym, was responsible for a variety of hilariously infantile humor throughout the game. As the saying goes: even if the football team continues to lose, the Band will go undefeated.

Columbia lost, of course. Daniel (and everyone around me, even strangers) put up a considerable effort to explain the rules of the game to me. I didn't get it. It's not at all like soccer, and all that time I spent trying to understand the rules of soccer for the World Cup has been a total waste. Still, I hope that the team stops sucking so much, so as to help President Bollinger create an atmosphere most conducive to check-writing.

Maybe I'll even go again, when Dartmouth comes to town. If only for the sheep jokes.

Roar

A Columbia University School of Engineering hat - it'll protect you from the sun, the rain, and the opposite sex.

By the way, I (bottom right, fyi) look so miserable, because I just sat through a football game. And also, Columbia lost. More homecoming pics later.