Assignment Infinity

4.00 AM

If you're wondering what the heck I'm doing up this late (mind you, its up this late, not up this early), I have one word for you - Dumb luck. Any person who points out to me that that was two words is going to get punched in the nose.

I sat down to do this AI assignment, about a century back. Gathered all the material, questions, pen, paper, chewing gum, water, earphones... the works. Then I assiduously read through the entire relevant material, some 40-odd sides of pure written torture, an atavism to medieval, S&M devices - so devious its intent, so perfectly soporific its execution. After a round of lightly flitting through the text, followed by some dipping, some reading and some soaping up, I was finally ready to give it a go.

That was about 90 years back.

What followed was a nonsensical waste of time, every second of which questioned my determination and intent to NOT copy the assignment. After getting stuck on a particularly troublesome problem for quite a bit of time (think 2.5 hours) I chanced upon a studious type on the micro-waves, who proceeded to tell me that the sum in question had no solution that anything short of a supercomputer could predict. She very worriedly informed me that she estimated the problem would take 50 cycles to solve, and my inquisitive glances confirmed that she meant evolution cycles. The rest, unlike what they say, is not nearly as much history as anatomy, coupled with a good deal of swearing.

I can't understand why my wonderful teachers set assignments they obviously have no interest in correcting, and make us waste our time. During a Cycle Test week no less. I would at least have watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S.