They’ve been a while coming but I’m thrilled to finally have them online for anyone to see. The atmosphere and attitude captured in these videos is probably unique to, and more importantly absolutely ubiquitous within, CS15.

Opening Day Skit

The skit showed/acted on the first day of class. Star Trek themed (as was the course and website) in 2009. Written by the 2009 Humor TAs.

Collaboration Policy Skit

3 short filmed skits animating the course’s collaboration policy. Written by the 2009 Humor TAs.

Star-crossed References

An in class skit personifying some of the aspects of programming and the Java environment. Includes variable scope, garbage collection, references and constants. Presumably written by TAs who’ve long since graduated.

Slush Gray

In class, Snow White themed skit. Has a linked list. The skit is a long-standing CS15 feature. Presumably written by TAs who’ve long since graduated.

Othello

The skit written and preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Othello’ in which students make the board game Othello and implement a minimax based AI.

Adventure

The skit written and preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Adventure’ in which students make a 3d randomly generating objective based maze game.

Sketchy

The skit preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Sketchy’ in which students make a basic graphics editing program. Written by previous years’ TAs.

Credits

The credits reel for all of the videos included on the DVD from which they were ripped.

Bloopers

Bloopers reel from lots of the above videos.

Cast List:

• Andy van Dam – Professor
• Alex Unger – Head TA
• Josh Kaplan – Head TA
• Kelly Newton – Head TA in charge of skit rehearsals and organization.
• Alex Feldman – Humor TA
• Alex Schultz – Humor TA
• Jason Gorelick (Video editing and filming)
• Will Cheung (Video editing and filming)
• Elinor Fung
• Gene Nelson
• Greg Young
• Lu Zeng
• Nabeel Gillani
• Jason Freeman
• Jonathan Eldridge
• Paul Sastrasinh
• Stephen Poletto
• Vazheh Moussavi
• Adam Zethraeus

Personal Notes:

I’m in the opening day skit (yes, in a corset), in ‘Star-Crossed References’, and in the Adventure project’s video (which all of the actors in had a large role in Co-writing).

TAing this course was an awesome experience during which I met and worked with some of the best people I know. Props to Andy, the HTAs and all my fellow UTAs. Crediting everyone for everything they did in the course would be impossible. You all rock. <3

The skit is about pointers and is set in the Mushroom kingdom… It’s nowhere near as hardcore as the stuff that we did for CS15 but it’s my baby, so here it is.

Script after the break.

C Pointers skit. By Adam Zethraeus, (azethrae)

Cast:
Mario: Neal
Peach: Miranda
Bowser: Kelsey
Toad-Priest-Narrator: Adam

Props:
Mario: hat, generally red clothes, mustache
Peach: pink clothes, pref. dress, tiara, veil
Bowser: horns, vicious demeanor
Toad: pillow taped to head

Signs:
(Sign 1) Bowser assigns a pointer to peach in memory with this:
_
int *deviousPointer;
deviousPointer = &peach;
_

(Sign 2) Bowser inserts himself into Peach’s memory space with this:
_
*deviousPointer = BOWSER;
_

Script:
<As the scene starts, Bowser lies vanquished on the floor between Mario and Peach>

Toad<aside>: The battle was long and hard fought, but inevitably in the end, after restarting from his most recent save point enough times, the Mushroom Kingdom’s force for good, Mario, triumphed over the evil Bowser – freeing Princess Peach whom Bowser had been holding captive.

Peach<thoroughly overenthusiastically>: Mario! Thank god, you’ve saved me! And you fought so valiantly! You’re my hero!

Mario<wipes brow and appears exhausted>: Of course, it was <takes time to pant> nothing at all.

Peach: But how can I reward you for such noble and selfless service to our kingdom? <pause for audience thought> I know, I’ll bake you a cake! It’ll be huge and pink and I’ll make it sparkle and it’ll be delicious and…

Mario<interrupting>: No!… <awkward pause> I mean, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want to put you through the trouble!

Peach: I have to do something! You must have died hundreds of times saving me!

Mario: Well… umm… why don’t we just go watch a movie at my place? I’ll kick Luigi out and it’ll be just the two of us and… <more awkward pause> y’know…

<pleading voice>

Peach<aghast>: But… you mean… you want to…

Mario<incredulous>: Yes! I crossed the whole Mushroom Kingdom and squashed like a thousand goombas for you! What did you think I wanted..!

Peach<ecstatic>: Oh Mario <hugs and strokes Mario>… I’m so happy you feel that way! I do too! But we have to get married first! I’m so excited!

Mario<hesitantly>: Yeah… uh, me too!

<All characters exit but Toad>

Toad<aside>: The next few months passed very slowly for Mario as he and Peach prepared for their marriage. Finally the big day arrived. The whole Mushroom kingdom was invited to see their Princess married to the humble but very well loved plumber. Everyone but Bowser was present for the ceremony.

<Mario stands center stage next to Toad. Peach walks towards them as though up the isle. She is wearing a veil><church music>

Toad<to Mario>: Mario, do you take Princess peach for your lawfully wedded wife for as long as you both shall live?

Mario: I D…

<Everyone Freezes. Enter Bowser!>

Bowser<menacing>: MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Bowser: That fool Mario thought that after he defeated me, he could just have Princess Peach. <voice grows frantic> But he cant! <v-frantic> She’s mine! And only ever mine. My sweet Princess Peach <dreamy…>

Bowser<snapping to>: Little did they know that when I captured peach, the first thing I did was declare a pointer and assign it to Peach’s address in memory! That way she’ll always be mine, and I will always have access to her!

<Bowser shows Sign 1>

Bowser: Now I can ruin their infantile little festivities with ease…

Bowser: Muahahahaha

Bowser: I’ll use my pointer to Peach’s space in memory to overwrite it… <pause for very dramatic effect> <practically shouted> WITH MYSELF!

<shows Sign 2>

<as whole case is frozen, Bowser walks over to peach, picks her up, moves her to the side>

Bowser<to Peach. Creepy.>: You’ll be mine forever Princessss.<optional creepy kiss>

<bowser takes Peach’s place in the frozen scene>

Bowser<sarcastic>: Don’t I look pretty?

<marriage scene continues, all cast but Peach is unfrozen>

Mario<obliviously to the audience>: I do!

Toad: And do you, Peach, take Mario to be your lawfully wed… <exclamation> Peach? Oh no! It’s Bowser!

Bowser<Booming>: I DO!

<Bowser kisses Mario>

Mario<incredulous and startled>: But..! What?!

Bowser<gloating and vindictive>: Come on baby! <Sarcastic and menacing> I’ve got a great night planned ahead of us!

<Bowser spanks Mario, grabs him by the collar and drags him offstage>

Mario<In true Vader style(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npdZnzP9yo)>: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Toad<Higher Pitch>: Noooooo!

Remember MGMT? No you don’t. You never really knew MGMT. Savvy?

If there is any sentiment to be excised from MGMT’s sophomore offering, Congratulations, then that’s it. And that’s fine. Any band is entitled to change their own persona and to mold themselves in the way they choose. And we as listeners are similarly entitled to move on to new frontiers if said identity crisis induced change crosses the subtle line between piquing our interest through its eccentricity and losing its sheen by wallowing in its own boorish attention seeking.

So has the band’s transition been constructive or has it been a net loss? In this respect, MGMT’s rebranding vaguely reminds me of a high school friend who, in dealing with her first heartbreak, dyed her hair, got her nose pierced, and was found ever more often with a cigarette in hand. Sure she’s might have made herself more ‘interesting’, but all of the sudden it seems like she’s flirting with a totally different crowd.

You’ll simply have to accept the new MGMT for what they are. They’re the band that goes to Coachella and refuses to play their biggest hit because they’ve moved on. They’re the pseudo-intellectuals who name a song ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’ because “…it’s really kind of messed up sounding, and we thought it would be funny…” They’re the phased post-success band that has achieved it all and has returned to report to the plebeian masses that it’s not actually all it’s cracked up to be.

All of that said, Congratulations is an enjoyable experience. The title track is an easygoing if sarcastic and self-deprecating melody with a hook more that satisfying enough to induce grooving. Brian Eno is a frantic anthem which holds your interest for long enough that the irritation it induces is but a backtrack and whilst Lady Dada’s Nightmare does verge towards being more of a haphazard noisy placeholder pre-empting the finale, the rest of the songs are amply listenable.

From any virgin band, Congratulations would be seen as the promising result of a nod to modern experimental, psychedelic and indie rock largely infused with the band’s own brand of personality. From MGMT, the album can be seen in much the same way, however in the wake of Oracular Spectacular and the Kids era, the listener is left with an uncomfortable insecurity in the authenticity of the band’s personality.

User scripts are javascript files with the extension ‘.user.js’ that are executed client-side to add functionality to a web page. They are natively supported by chrome and opera and are supported via extensions in most other browsers of any note. (Some include Greasemonkey for Firefox, GreaseKit for Safari and Trixie for IE).

I succeeded in reskinning the whole website which was pretty fun. There seems to be a limit to the usefulness of userscripts in that support for the ‘@run-at document-start’ flag which I believe should make the script run before any scripts on the page do, is not supported by most browsers. It’s not all that useful a flag anyway as I imagine you’d often want the script to run after the DOM has been written so that you can work with the content expected to be on the page. In this case however it would be useful as I attempt to strip out a script on the course page that redirects 1% of all hits to a rickroll (sigh). As such the script still runs before the userscript and so the rickrolling still happens.

I might also put some more time into the replacement style sheet some time soon.

Original

Reshaped and restyled

Code after the break.

Final Code:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           !cs16chan
// @namespace      http://zethrae.us
// @description    Strips mematic content from the cs16 course website
// @include        http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs016/*
// @include        http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs016/*
// @run-at document-start
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
 //the following function is from http://snipplr.com/view/1696/get-elements-by-class-name/
 //the internet claims that document.getElementsByClassName() is supported in firefox 3.
 //this doesn't seem to be the case on the CIT machines, so I guess this will have to do.
 //and yes. if i was writing this again, I'd just include and use jquery.
 function getElementsByClassName(classname, node) {
 if(!node) node = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];
 var a = [];
 var re = new RegExp('\\b' + classname + '\\b');
 var els = node.getElementsByTagName("*");
 for(var i=0,j=els.length; i<j; i++)
 if(re.test(els[i].className))a.push(els[i]);
 return a;
 }

function insertAfter(parent, node, referenceNode) {
 parent.insertBefore(node, referenceNode.nextSibling);
}

function strip_css_js(){
 var jsToRemove = document.getElementsByTagName("script");
 for (var i=jsToRemove.length; i>=0; i--){
 if (jsToRemove[i] && jsToRemove[i].getAttribute("src")!=null){
 jsToRemove[i].parentNode.removeChild(jsToRemove[i]);
 }
 }
 var cssToRemove = document.getElementsByTagName("link")
 for (var i=cssToRemove.length; i>=0; i--){
 if (cssToRemove[i] && cssToRemove[i].getAttribute("href")!=null){
 cssToRemove[i].parentNode.removeChild(cssToRemove[i]);
 }
 }
 }

function import_css(source) {
 var link = document.createElement("link");
 link.href = source;
 link.rel = "stylesheet";
 link.type = "text/css";
 document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(link);
}

//removes memes that won't be wiped by the fix_markup function
function strip_inline_memes(){
 var tagline = document.getElementById('tagline');
 tagline.parentNode.removeChild(tagline);

 var footer = document.getElementById('footer');
 footer.parentNode.removeChild(footer);

 var images = document.getElementsByTagName("img")
 for (var i=images.length; i>=0; i--){
 if (images[i]){
 images[i].parentNode.removeChild(images[i]);
 }
 }

var memesbyclass = getElementsByClassName('preH1').concat(getElementsByClassName('postH1'))
 for (var i=memesbyclass.length; i>=0; i--){
 if (memesbyclass[i]){
 memesbyclass[i].parentNode.removeChild(memesbyclass[i]);
 }
 }

}
function fix_markup(){
 var header = document.getElementById('header');
 header.parentNode.removeChild(header);

 var head1 = getElementsByClassName('h1')
 for (var i=head1.length; i>=0; i--){
 if (head1[i]){
 var newheader = document.createElement("div");
 newheader.innerHTML = "<h1>CS16 / "+ head1[i].innerHTML +"</h1>";
 head1[i].parentNode.replaceChild(newheader,head1[i]);
 }
 }

 var nav = document.getElementById('nav');
 var navcontent = nav.innerHTML;
 var newnav = document.createElement("div");
 newnav.id = "navigation";
 newnav.innerHTML = navcontent;
 nav.parentNode.removeChild(nav);

 var content = document.getElementById('content');
 content.insertBefore(newnav, content.firstChild.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling);

}

strip_css_js();
strip_inline_memes();
fix_markup();
import_css("http://zethrae.us/work/bangCS16chan/style.css");
})();

This was all intended to be tongue in cheek. But yes, memes from ’06 are rather annoying to see every day. And there wasn’t even longcat.

# tired 5 am adam suggests you scrap the ensuing block and rewrite it while you are fresh
# then again, he failed at writing queue tonight, so maybe his advice isn't great
# i will hit him for you

My job, aside from the universal holding office hours and grading papers was to create and maintain the website, as well as to do a couple of odd jobs such as the pictured poster (which really should have had more actual information on it). That said, holding office hours and actually teaching was by far the most fun part.

Anyway, I guess this post is most directed to people considering to apply to TA the course, so I’ll try to include some useful info. For one, it’s a lot of work, a lot of time (a fair number of people end up taking only three courses while TAing this class) and you’ll be terribly underpaid. Do it because you enjoy teaching or because you want too be more involved with the Brown CS department – whatever other reason you want. It’s also a really good way to become really familiar with the course material. Aside from academic stuff, you’ll be working really closely with 15 people or so and you’ll probably get to know at least some of them really well. You’ll have ample opportunity to get to know some of the students as well.

In short, apply! It’s worth it.

The post further states that Google realizes and is prepared to accept that this may be the end of its business within the country.

Purely from a user’s perspective, it’s great to see the internet behemoth making an effort to stick to its principles. Whatever the motivation, and even if Eric Schmidt still doesn’t understand the importance of privacy, this is a reassuring point towards the “don’t be evil” tally.

Edit: Laughing Squid reports that Google has already stopped censoring google.cn.

Edit: Some Chinese reactions.

Read the paper. (Really).

And here’s a reddit thread about the paper which points out some of the unstated assumptions.

Other related things of interest:

• Video of Michio Kaku arguing that SETI’s hitherto corroboration of the null hypothesis does not reinforce the Fermi Paradox.
• Wikipedia entry for Nick Bostrom
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. A superb short story about the inevitability presented by entropy.
• Wikipedia entry on the Great Filter hypothesis.
• Wikipedia entry on Von Neumann probes.

It is a 1000px wide translucent png. If it were any less sophisticated, it’d be a ruler on your screen.

The idea of the feature is to allow for dynamic newspaper style columns on a website. Columns have ordinarily been unachievable though any means but manually separating up content (which would still give unpredictable results).

I’m in the camp that wants the web to be both usable and pretty even with javascript turned off. I’ve missed lots of neat aspects of websites as a result of browsing behind NoScript in past. I think it would be very difficult to make a website designed with such drastic styling done with javascript degrade gracefully in a browser with the tool disabled. However, from a designer’s perspective, this is still one of the most interesting JQuery plugins I’ve seen yet.