white.txt


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# ICFP2020 Cards
a Monad  # Inline comment
a Monoid
Endofunctors
JavaScript
Haskell
Scheme
Racket
C
C++
abstract nonsense
mutability
type theory
pointers

# Cards taken from
# https://github.com/CardsAgainstCryptography/CAC/blob/master/src/white.txt
# Filtered down to remove some sexism / racism / ... and irrelevant cards.
100% talks, 0\% human interaction
16-bit AES
a career-limiting card game
a hand wavy argument
a proof that appears in the "full version"
a violent and bloody PhD defence
academic integrity
actually being "sorry for the late reply"
an "anonymous" reviewer insisting I cite 6 papers by the same author
an overfull hbox
arriving 13 minutes late to a 15 minute talk and having the gall to ask a question
being the only smartly dressed person in the room
best rejected paper award
checking my Google Scholar profile daily
citing personal communication.
conferences with 5 submissions at 11:59pm
crippling student debt
day drinking
deadline day flatulence
deliberately hiding inefficiencies inside the big O
deliberately not referencing a superior paper
doing Facebook maths puzzles to show I am better than those idiot 97%.
drinking alone
explaining what my job is at a family reunion
falling asleep in a 5-person meeting
feeling flattered because a conference spam email addressed me as Professor
fighting over LaTeX syntax
forgetting my VGA adapter
frantically taking notes during every talk
getting a fourth cookie during a coffee break because I have no one to talk to
getting stuck at the French-speaking banquet table
getting tenure, then chilling out
having time to catch up on my reading, then not doing it
having to write a polite rebuttal to the reviewer who clearly didn't read past page 2
hiding my conflict of interest
ignoring reviewer comments and resubmitting immediately
ignoring the session chair flashing 5 minutes left because I've got 23 slides to go
including an XKCD comic in my slides because I'm so original
making claims in the submission that you hope you can achieve before the rebuttal
my dear friend the Program Chair overruling 3 borderline rejects on my paper
my successful career at a patent troll company
my supervisor's morning breath
not feeling guilty about falling asleep during the keynote
not having to wear pants
not needing to pretend to listen to the other speakers in my session
overselling it hard in the introduction
politely starting an answer with "That's a good question...", when the question is actually idiotic
preparing for two weeks to give a 15-minute presentation to a room of 7 people all on their laptops
pretending to understand
publishing anyway
putting an outdoors-y photo on my academic webpage to look well-rounded
quickly trying to peek at someone's badge as I shake their hand, but it's flipped backwards
relatives who ask me to help them install their printer on Windows
remembering when "working from home" meant a day off
sending an email at 11pm so people think I work hard
Zoom dropping out every 10 to 15 seconds
social sciences
someone less senior than me signing off with "Thanks in advance"
starting a conversation with "When did you fly in?", because I have nothing interesting to say
telling anyone who'll listen quite how busy I am
thanking the anonymous reviewers for their "useful" comments
the awkward question the chair asks when nobody understood the talk
the awkward silence of 8 people standing in a circle during the afternoon coffee break
the great paywall of IEEE
the intoxicating aroma of 12 PhD students in one office
the one suit I own for meetings with industry
the person in the front row taking photos of every slide
the sound of 50 people on a Zoom call all trying to speak at once
the student body
throwing a party for my next citation milestone
turning up to one meeting and claiming co-authorship
tweeting about my paper acceptance
undergrads
using Beamer because it's social suicide to use PowerPoint
using "it clearly follows" when the implied following is anything but clear
using "we should talk about this offline" because the question exposes holes in my paper
using indecipherable, non-standard notation to hide a dodgy proof
wearing a T-shirt with a Linux joke
wearing a conference t-shirt... in public.
wistfully looking out of the window of my overly-cramped PhD office
writing a reference for someone I can't remember meeting
Ctrl+F'ing to see how many times I'm cited and finding "0 results"
"Working" remotely
a slide deck entirely in Comic Sans