Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:45:11 -0800 (PST)

From: David Sprague <dsprague@cs.ubc.ca>

To: grads@cs.ubc.ca

Subject: Submitting to beer and fun...

Hello again everyone. Well the Christmas season is upon us once again so I am sure that many of you are expecting me to write a

Christmas top ten this week. Well since I don't bow down to everyone else's predictions * I decided to write about the

conference paper I have been working on this week. Yes, that's right. David may actually be doing work and getting something

accomplished......but don't hold your breath.

* The Christmas list will be next week, probably on Christmas day, direct from Kingston Ontario. You know what they say about

Kingston, the limeStoned city when university is out: Prepare for some boredom.

Intermission in my talking about my week: For those of you who are still in town and are free / almost free from the shackles

of course work and projects, this is your last chance to hit Koerner's with your ever loving beer czar. Yes, your last chance.

Provided you buy and drink your own beer for 5-6 hours and you haven't eaten a full meal before hand.....and your name isn't

Steve Wilson, I can guarantee that you will become drunk. For those that don't want to drink much/at all, you can hang out with

me and we can make fun of the drunk people. It will be a great time all around. Lets meet inside the Atrium of CICSR where the

crazy sculpture that I don't understand what it means used to sit. It will be our tribute to Jeremy loosing his arm in the

process of taking apart the sculpture yesterday.** So lets all celebrate the end of term as a group. For those people who are

still working on projects: very few people know this, but people write papers, projects and exams significantly better when

hung over. ***

** I assume he lost an arm.....he still had both arms when I left, but I figure it was just a matter of time before someone got

serious hurt during the deconstruction.

*** If you believe this statement, you believe a liar.

So back to the top ten: To commemorate my cruddy conference paper submission, I present to you the following list. I have also

finally wimped out and recycled a list. I wanted to give something to the new grads for finishing/almost finishing their work

and so I am also including last spring's end of term top ten. Enjoy

TOP TEN WAYS YOU KNOW YOU ARE WRITING A CRAPPY CONFERENCE PAPER!!

-----------------------------------------------------------

10. You spell your name wrong.

9. One of your collaborators has a computer virus that inserted

random characters throughout your paper. You decide to submit

that version of the paper.

8. The project you are writing about comes from an undergrad course

project of yours. Hey, if the project failed a course, you might

as well try and get it into CHI.....even if it IS a systems paper.

7. Your abstract is longer than your paper.

6. When your supervisor is done editing the text the only original

words that are still yours are "and", "the", "wedgie" and "Tibi"

5. "Acknowledgements:

You, for reading this crap"

5. You can't number a list correctly.

4. To make sure all the cool stuff you wanted to talk about fits into

the 8 page limit: 4 pt fonts!!

3. After submitting your paper, you noticed that there has been a

sudden outbreak of self-blinding in the research community.

2. The title of your paper is "Living Things you Shouldn't Shove Down

Your Pants"

1. By your fifth reference you write "(Findityourself, 2004)"

0. By your 15th reference, you are writing:

"which demonstrated a significant improvement in algorithm

efficiency (YourMom, 2004)"

-1. Your results section only contains the words

"Don't get your hopes up"

-2. Paper Title: "How Many Ph.D.s Does It Take To Disassemble a CICSR

Lobby Sculpture? A Joke/Work in Progress"

-3. To fill up your page limit you include instructions on how to make

an origami swan.

-4. References:

Available Upon Request

-5. Your formal review response consists of a letter bomb.

TOP TEN THINGS TO DO AFTER FINISHING ALL YOUR EXAMS AND PROJECTS

--------------------------------------------------------------

10. Hug Wolfgang for letting you pass CPSC 514

9. Cook an ACTUAL meal rather than just eating hot dogs over the

sink.

8. Start your Master's research....hahahahaha I kill me.

7. Hunt down undergrad students that wasted your time with stupid final

exam answers. Wedgie them.

6. Prepare to pass in this term's theory projects three months from now.

5. Give your visualization classmates something to really visualize. Flash them.

4. Change your name so David stops making stupid Penoff jokes.

3. Tape record people saying "you can't get less than an 80% in a grad

course." Print off your end of term marks and show it to them. When they

start to apologize, wedgie them.

1. Shower.

2. Remove the coffee IV from your arm.

0. Find students who failed the course you TAed and laugh at them until

they cry. Laugh at them for being cry babies.

-1. Do an hour long series of mental rotation tasks and potentially get

to use a head mounted display and head tracker. WOW that sounds

like fun!!

(if you are a woman and would like to help pilot this experiment

contact dsprague@cs.ubc.ca)

-2. Continue drinking like usual.

So on that final note, I will see you all at 5.

Snobby Beer Quote of the Week

----------------------------------------

You write a book like that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's

beer.

--- Ernest Hemingway

David "A paper doesn't need to be good to be a work in progress on my resume" Sprague