Soloution to the Jesse Puzzle, 2013 edition

Last year I wrote a solution solution to the Jesse puzzle. But it's now out of date, so here is an updated solution:

Hi, I'm Jesse. I'm now 26 months old and can talk and run. My parents are still Mira and James, and if you need help with this puzzle, you should still ask them.

I have only worn diapers at night since Christmas. This is still new and I am still getting used to it. If I say anything that sounds like "potty", you should get me to a toilet immediately. You probably have about 10 seconds. As long as my parents are being attentive, they will put me on my toilet every 30-60 minutes and it won't be a problem.

Sometimes people don't do everything I want them to. Sometimes this makes me angry. If it does, I will start screaming, kicking, hitting, and possibly biting. I will probably fall on the floor while doing all this. My parents will probably remove me from the room so that I stop bothering people while they calm me down. This will take them somewhere between 10 seconds and three hours, depending on some unknown and unobservable conditions (and how well rested I am).

Now that we are done with the unpleasant things, it's time for the fun parts. In the past year, my vocabulary has increased from about 20 words to several hundred. I will spend most of my time talking. When I meet someone, I like to tell them about the clothes they are wearing. I also like to inform them that they have two eyes. It is very important to me that I verify that everyone has two eyes, so I do it all the time. Some days I tell my mom that our cat Juniper has two eyes every 5-10 minutes, just in case she forgot or didn't notice.

People still have trouble understanding me sometimes. I don't use articles, conjunctions, pronouns or any other words I don't know, so most of my sentences are 2-4 words long and are just a list of nouns, possibly with a verb thrown in somewhere. For example I might say "daddy work" to tell someone that my dad is at work, or "mama blue shirt" to tell someone that my mom is wearing a blue shirt. I don't entirely understand how word order indicates the subject and object of a sentence, so I just assume that the subject and object are the way I want them to be (this applies to what I say and what I hear).

I sometimes repeat the last word or two of whatever anyone says. Apparently this means I am a parrot.

I still have trouble pronouncing m's and b's differently sometimes. I frequently call that yummy white drink that comes from cows "bok." I drop L's in lots of words and I drop other consonants (sometimes whole syllables) in long words.

People sometimes ask me questions. I know they are questions from the intonation. If I don't understand the question, I will generally answer yes (possibly "yep" or "ya"). A fun game to play is to ask me questions like "Are you a super hero?" or "Are you a Higgs-Boson particle?" and see if I claim that I am. I will also be happy to provide advice on how to solve puzzles, as long as that advice can come in the form of answering questions with a yes (or noticing that things have wheels).

I love wheels. I love anything with wheels. When I see a wheel, I want to tell everyone about it, in case they didn't see the wheel. I also like tracks. One time, my parents took me to a room full of dishwashers. It was awesome. Every dishwasher has tracks and wheels. That's why I like them.

I like trains. I like cars. I am pretty good at identifying types of cars, and will point out my friends' cars when I see them, even when they are the wrong color or somebody I don't know is in them.

I'm also good at identifying people. I learn people's names pretty quickly, though I have trouble pronouncing them. I like to talk about my friends. I also like to talk about "podka" (my grandparents).

I am good at identifying colors. I can sometimes identify letters. I can count to two. I can count using other numbers, but they come in a random order interspersed with a lot of 1's and 2's. My concept of numbers is actually one and many, so if I say there are two of something, it really just means there is more than one.

I love books. If you will read a book to me, I will be your friend forever. Please read books to me.

My parents will feed me. But if I see you eating, I might ask you to share your food with me. My parents would prefer if you check with me before feeding me anything, mostly so that they know how much I am eating of different kinds of food. I will say yes if you ask me if I want to eat something, but that is because I like saying yes. It might also mean that I want to eat it, but it might not. My parents would appreciate it if you do not offer me junk food.

Solution to the Jesse Puzzle

Hi! I'm Jesse. I'm 14 months old and still learning to talk and walk. My parents are Mira and James. If you need help with this puzzle, ask them. They have a lot of practice.

If I'm saying anything with a nasal consonant (M or N), it probably means I'm hungry. Or I'm saying no, which is mostly just a game I play (but I'm starting to mean that I am unhappy about something when I say no). "mi" is milk, "mo" and "mah" mean more (which means food), and "mamami" means mama milk (which means I want to nurse). Sometimes I repeat these words really rapidly and it is hard to tell which one I'm saying. It mostly doesn't matter, because if I'm hungry and get some kind of food it will make me happy.

What I don't eat: candy, cookies, or anything else a responsible parent would call a dessert. Just kidding, I love eating those, but my parents for some reason want me to eat healthy, nutritious food, and I generally don't eat enough of that to be allowed to eat anything else. They say something about wanting me to be healthy and growing. Also, I don't like my food to be sticky or gooey (at least not when I first get it - I like to make my food sticky and gooey by putting it in my mouth for a bit and then taking it back out).

What I do eat: This is the first bonus puzzle. I almost always like crackers, bread, peanut butter, and berries. I eat many other things, but I use a semi-random process to decide what I am willing to eat at any given time. If you offer me some food, I will probably eat it. But maybe not. If I don't want to eat something you are offering me, I will push it away and shake my head no. If you continue shoving it at me, I will start screaming and crying. Nobody wants me to do that, so please don't try to force me to eat things. You should also check with my parents and get a bib before feeding me.

If I give you a book and say anything resembling read (probably "reee", but sometimes "eed"), it means I want you to read the book to me. I might lose interest before you finish and take the book away from you. Don't take it personally, I'm only 14 months old. If you read the whole book and I say anything with a "G" in it (often "geh"), it means I want you to read it again.

If I am crying: This is the second bonus puzzle. About half the time, this means I am tired. About a third of the time, it means someone is doing something somewhat obvious that I don't want them to do (taking me away from my parents, eating food in front of me and not sharing it (that is so rude), playing with MY toys, etc). The rest of the time I have unlocked the super-secret special bonus puzzle. Do not attempt to solve this puzzle. You will fail. My parents have practiced a lot and can generally solve the super-secret special bonus puzzle eventually, but it takes them forever and ever (more than one minute sometimes).

I am still learning to walk. If I fall down and you act like I should cry about falling down, I will. If you calmly say something like "you should be more careful", I will probably just get up and continue whatever I was doing. Unless I'm tired, in which case I will cry anyway. If I start crying, you should look at that section of the solution.

I like to cruise, which means walking around while holding onto things with my hands. I will pull up on anything conveniently close to me when I want to stand up. My minimum standards for pulling up on something are that it be at least three inches tall and doesn't fall over faster than I can stand up. Pants and legs are fun to pull up on. So are chairs, whether people are sitting in them or not. I might decide to pull up on your chair just before you decide to move it to stand up. I like to silently sneak up on chairs while people are sitting in them, but I don't like it when they somehow don't notice that I am there.

My favorite game is peek-a-boo, particularly around corners. My parents make me fall down from laughing so much by suddenly appearing out of nowhere over and over again. It is the best game ever.

I love reading books. I also like carrying books. I like putting toys on my head. I like banging things together. I like knocking over towers of blocks. I'm starting to like stacking things and putting things in containers.

If you give me paper, I will play with it. I will eat it, I will crumple it, and I might even rip it. If you didn't want me to play with your papers, you shouldn't have left them on the floor near me. If you take them away from me and don't give me a different toy, I will probably cry.

I like to stick new toys in my mouth. Don't give me anything that you don't want me to stick in my mouth (such as your phone). Don't give me anything that my parents would not want me to stick in my mouth (particularly pens and pencils).

I like to babble. Often I while repeat a sound over and over again, just for fun. If you repeat it back to me, it will amuse me. Sometimes I tell stories. Sometimes I tell jokes. I like it when people have a conversation with me. I understand a lot of what people say to me, but they don't seem to understand what I say. This doesn't bother me most of the time.

Diapers:  This is the third bonus puzzle. I am a mostly potty-trained toddler that wears cloth diapers. I like to use the toilet when my diaper is changed. Most of my diapers have multiple pieces and are generally messy. My parents decided how many diapers to bring for me, and will run out if they are used too quickly. You really don't want to solve this puzzle. My parents are experts at it and will manage just fine. If you want to know more about cloth diapers, you can ask my parents. If you really want to change my diaper, talk to a psychologist my parents.

How a Thesis is like a Newborn

In the following, I use the term thesis to refer to all the work involved in completing a PhD.

Ways in which a thesis and a newborn are similar:

• both consume all of your time, significantly cutting into your social life and making you lose contact with some friends
• both seriously interfere with getting enough sleep
• both are something you put a lot of effort into in the hope that someday they will produce a meaningful benefit to the world, but you have to accept that most likely they will both go unnoticed by the world at large
• both are capable of making you feel completely incompetent and unable to do anything right for what feels like forever
• both are a good way to meet other people doing the same thing
• friends and family give you advice on both, which is only sometimes useful
• both have a very frustrating way of telling you that something is wrong, but not indicating in any way whatsoever what is wrong
• both are expected to triple in size over the course of a year (different years of course)
• both produce lots of meaningless gibberish

Ways in which a thesis and a newborn are different:

• your thesis is never going to smile at you
• your thesis never seems to be satisfied with what you have done
• your thesis's problems can't be solved in a few minutes
• nobody has claimed that putting your uncovered thesis on your naked chest is good for anything
• your thesis didn't come into the world looking like it came from an alien race, you had to spend years working on it to provide that appearance
• your thesis doesn't smell good
• your thesis doesn't look like you, your partner, or any of your relatives
• your thesis does not become more independent over time
• your thesis will not be damaged by unexpectedly rolling off a table while your back is turned
• you don't have to thesis-proof your house
• you are not genetically programmed to fall in love with your thesis
• people offer to make food for you when you have a newborn
• people do not come over and ask to hold your thesis
• people are actually interested in your newborn (some people, not everybody)
• your thesis isn't your responsibility for 18 years (I sure hope not anyway)
• you can drop out of a PhD program
• neglecting your thesis is not illegal
• you don't have to pay people to watch your thesis when you are unable to
• you get to choose a partner for raising a newborn (most of the time)
• you can't accidentally apply to, be accepted by, and enroll in a PhD program
• there isn't a committee that decides when your newborn is good enough for you to move on with your life
• removing a useless appendix from your thesis does not require major surgery
• random strangers on the subway don't comment on or try to touch your thesis
• when you first bring your thesis home, your pets don't react to it at all
• nobody asks you to track how much waste your thesis produces
• the soft spots in your thesis won't go away on their own
• if you fall asleep with your thesis on your chest, you won't wake up to the feeling of something sucking on your neck
• you don't have to buy any furniture for your thesis
• most people know what a newborn is, but have not heard of sub-Riemannian geometry or astrodynamics
• people never mistakenly think you study stars when you say you have a newborn
• you are allowed to physically damage your thesis when you are mad at it
• your thesis is not at risk of suddenly dieing because you put it down the wrong way
• nobody thinks your thesis is "the cutest thing ever"
• people don't post pictures of their thesis on facebook (or at least not large numbers of pictures)
• you don't normally put your newborn on your resume or expect him/her to be useful for getting a job later
• your thesis never learns to sleep through the night
• when your thesis does something strange and unexpected, you can't call somebody and ask if it is actually normal
• all your ancestors successfully raised at least one child, but most of them did not do academic research
• when you talk about your child, people understand the words you are using
• you can backup your thesis in case you make a mistake later or a hardware problem causes you to lose it
• most parents don't pressure their children to get a PhD
• you can pretend to not have a thesis for a few weeks before it causes a problem