The Magic of Reddit

Good afternoon readers,

As a quick forward, this entry was typed with only my left hand partially due to boredom, and partially because of my right wrist being about as messed up as eating all the marshmallows from your roommate's Lucky Charms. Hopefully you appreciate the effort.

Bo Cao introduced me to Reddit, a brilliant forum that I have somehow missed all my life before. Hopefully you have run across it, and if not you should go there now and prepare to be entertained.

Reddit exceeds all expectations by having an enormous and diverse user base, as well as a sleek moderation implementation. Where many forums and sites like Youtube are overrun by trolls, Reddit dodges the issue. You will rarely see posters sharing with the whole web such witticisms as "FAGG!!" "AMerIca Haaaates gOd111" and "OmG ur sO ffucking Sadddd".

Reddit accomplishes this feat of troll pruning with aggressive moderation and a good post rating system. Users rate topics and posts by voting them up or down. Only the threads and replies with highly favorable records find their way to viewers. Initially this approach removes most of the forum offal, and since everyone likes to have their voice heard people actually try to write well.

We get to enjoy the result of this, an unending supply of novel tidbits and provoking discussion.

Until next time,
Wilder

Strange thought patterns

(As a spoiler this is kind of about the LSAT and kind of about a socially overreaching Irishman)

Holla todos,

Fortunately the most severe conflict in my life right now is preparing for the LSAT. I've fought my battles before, but this summer is really peaceful. Something odd about preparing for the LSAT though is the way it makes you think.

As a quick get-up-to-speeder the test is mandated by law schools to get a fair bearing on how good at the whole thinking thing applicants are. Without it, someone who padded their resume like a room in an insane asylum would look better than the next guy, and we'd be straight back to high school and its vomit inducing equivocation on extracurriculars.

A problem might set out a scenario like this:

There are five gigolos, Bovice, Chey, Dwayne, Tron, and Livingston, one sugar daddy, and Chris Hanson to be placed in three Cadillacs. Each Cadillac must have at least one passenger, and additionally the passengers of the cars conform to the following rules.

Chris Hanson is not with Bovice or Dwayne.
If Tron is with the sugar daddy, then Chey, Bovice, and Livingston are together.
Etc...

Questions are then asked.

The thing about doing too many of these kinds of puzzles at once is that you start to think about other things like puzzles.

For example, the other day I was over at my Sister's house in the U-District. A female friend of hers "Alice" was hosting another male friend "Sam" from Ireland. Sam was trying painfully hard to become romantically attached, demanded attention constantly, and since he had come so far the situation was uncomfortable.

Late at night we were all sitting around in the living room talking, and the time for bedtime swung around. Sam clearly wanted to go join Alice in bed, but Alice was pretty strongly opposed. I was sleeping on the couch, and so quietly wished for the situation to resolve swiftly so I could get some solid snoozing in.

At one point, just after my sister left, Alice got up, looking away from Sam, and told me that my sister had a serious problem that needed discussing. She left for the upstairs portion of the fairly large house. I was alone with Sam.

We continued to make small talk, me in a drowsy drawl and Sam in a fairly charming, but almost desperately morose Irish accent. I was reminded of a sad dog when its family left. He told me, not asked me, that something must be seriously wrong with my sister. I looked resigned, and shrugged trying to mask facial signs of the logic game going on in the back of my head.

Alice, Sam, Tim, and Katherine (Tim's sister) are in a house to be assigned to beds. There are three beds, Couch, Alice's Bed, and Katherine's bed. The following conditions apply to bedding.

Tim would prefer not to sleep with Sam.
Alice would prefer not to sleep with Sam.
Katherine would prefer not to sleep with Sam.
Tim is sleeping on the couch, Katherine is sleeping in her bed.
If Sam does not have a bed, it will be awkward.
If Alice, Tim, or Katherine has to sleep with Sam, it will be awkward.
If Tim has to sleep with Alice, it will be awkward.
If Sam does not see Alice for long enough, he will go to find her in her bed, and probably drunkenly go to sleep failing that.
Katherine is not upset, but Tim has been told that she is.

How can beds be assigned so as to avoid awkward, and what is the dealio with Katherine?

Answer:
T/A/K do not wish to sleep with Sam. Sam must sleep alone to avoid awkward.
Since Couch is occupied by Tim and cannot be slept in by Sam, and Katherine's bed is occupied by Katherine and cannot be slept in by Sam, Sam must sleep in Alice's bed.
Alice cannot sleep in Alice's bed.
Alice must sleep in Katherine's bed.
Katherine is not upset, Alice is just sneaky.

And that is why studying too much for the LSAT is a bad idea.
Hasta luego amigos,
Tim