unhappy campers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hstudents and panic-proof test

Today my colleagues published the results of the final exams in algorithms. The most interesting part of publishing exam results is watching the "secret" student discussion panels where some of them typically start to claim that they must have been obviously treated in an unfair manner. Some of them are even quite sure that teaching assistants at a university are typically bestial monsters with only one goal in their life: shooting down as many students as possible. And I thought that _I_ might be paranoid in former days...

If you are a student and read this: I promise you that no dead student bodies were found yet in the backyard of the computer science building here in Mannheim thus it is very likely that you will survive as well even if you ask questions to the teaching assistants about a topic you did not understand in the course. It is definitely more helpful in that case to ask questions than to hide seemingly dead in the course room. If you think that you have understood a topic try to explain it to a friend. If you don't manage to make him understand the topic you most likely did not understand it yourself and you will most likely fail in the final exams.

Some people say that it is almost impossible to upset me. So the manufacturer of my uplink router decided to help me escape from this dilemma by providing a new firmware release with a bunch of shiny new features. Typically when you upload a new firmware to the router you start the management tool, point it to the new firmare image, and wait for about 30 seconds, then it restarts and reestablishes connection to the internet. This time it was different: I started the management tool and pointed it to the new firmware image. The management tool told me that it will load the new firmware now. It claimed that during the firmware update the INFO led will flash continuously (it did) and that the router will reboot afterwards (it did as well) and that I can relogin then. Actually after rebooting the Power led started to flash continuously. I said to myself: "Ah, it is rebooting now!". the Power led continued to flash for some more minutes. I changed my mind to: "Is it still rebooting?" It still continued flashing for some more minutes what made me again to change my mind to: "Uhm... I mean... what the heck is going on here?!?" I tried to login to the mangement tool as it was promised by the tool to be possible after the upgrade had been completed and actually it did work. The management tool told me that the router is now restarting his efforts to establish the internet uplink. Some seconds later he told me again that it is restarting the very same efforts. Some more seconds later again. And again. And again... I watched the log for some minutes in discomfort and thought: "Uhm..." Finally I reconsidered what is often helpful to "fix" software bugs: Restart it! After I did so with the router it continued to flash the Power led for some more minutes but finally surrendered from his resistance and actually established the uplink connection. I'm very grateful to the manufacturer of my uplink router for implementing thrilling upgrade adventures into their firmware just to bring some extra excitement to my life.