Cindy Gao
Staffwriter
behavioral economics (like econ but if you assume people are kinda stupid!), creative writing (what some would term "lying"), DC '27
Bio
perhaps better known as auntie readme. almost certainly not a cat.
Fun Fact
two lies and a truth: i have a perfect record of dying in every edition of every readme that i've appeared in, i'm still running from whatever i unleashed that one time i stole an eldritch book from wean 2 (help), and as a humanities student, each time i
Previous Work
Auntie ReadMe Advises On: Lack of Pronouns in the Barista Industry Due to Tech Layoffs
Hello valued readers! I’m Cindy, (they/them), better known as Auntie ReadMe. After opening my inbox to the questions that are stumping the best and brightest minds in the country, I have been continually disappointed against my lowest expectations, and not at all surprised. A completely unastonishing amount of you want to know how to make pipe bombs. Even more of you want me to commit AIVs for you in the name of defusing a bomb. Figures, but I can’t even find the terminal on my computer.
However, there has been one problem amidst the slag that has caught my eye—one so daring and relevant to today’s society that I can’t not take a shot at answering it. Thank you to Danya Kogan for asking–
“The gay baristas at La Prima are being replaced with CS majors. I don’t want a CS major to serve me coffee, I want a person with at least two pronouns!”
—
Let’s approach this problem the way most Carnegie Mellon students approach a problem–with a systematic breakdown.
The computer science job market! Not doing so well! After recent advances in the field of using animal neural nets to produce creative work, disgruntled writers have begun turning it on the field of coding. As such, computer science students have begun to try to find work in coffee shops, displacing many employees with a variety of pronouns. This has created a shortage of pronouns in the barista industry.
So what is to be done?
Luckily, economics is a field with an impressive diversity of opinion on how best to destabilize foreign governments, pursue general exploitation, create models of people in increasingly unrealistic ways, and lie. Let’s see what the various economic schools have to say on this issue.
As John Gay-nerd Keynes, the man that put the “homo” in “homo economicus,” the man that the invisible hand of the marketplace would have limp-wristed said, “demand-side economics, baby!”
He would have probably approved of the government creating more demand for computer science jobs, such as creating immensely applicable and useful languages like Brainfuck, porting all code currently written in C to the memory-safe computer language Rust, and attempting to create artificial intelligence that can correctly count the number of “r”s in “strawberry.” Simple. Easy. Immensely boring. A completely unprecedented policy suggestion that has never been the topic of political debate at all, whatsoever.
Of course, there’s also supply-side economics, or trickle-down economics. This intervention, championed by our favorite president Ronald Reagan, would involve a gay beam hitting the largest computer science companies in order to give computer science majors more pronouns. Given that many computer science endeavors are already sponsored by HRT, this shouldn’t be a groundbreaking shift for anyone, and is precisely what Reaganomics would have stood for.
Of course, there’s also the option of negative and progressive income taxes, which suggest that anyone falling beneath a specific cutoff will receive benefits instead of taxes, with higher taxes falling on those above the cutoff. This will involve us redistributing the wealth of pronouns from taxpayers to computer science majors.
Thanks for checking out the financial part of this newspaper, which we all know you all only read to try to feel somewhat better about only picking up ReadMe for the crosswords and stuff. Signing off now, I have been Cindy, ( / ), and it’s been a pleasure reporting for you!
Auntie Readme’s: Answering REAL Questions Asked By REAL Freshmen
Welcome, freshmen, to the most prestigious institution this side of the Monongahela River! (And this side of the Allegheny as well, and the other side of Forbes, and the other other side of Schenley, and, well, you get the point.) Some of you are probably (understandably!) nervous about going to the school that spawned the monstrosity known as the Duolingo owl, has an inscription on one of its buildings suggesting that women should be responsible for “domestic pleasures” or whatever, and has had almost every one of its buildings flooded, and those of you who aren’t are beyond my help anyways. So, without further ado, I will use my vast year of wisdom to answer REAL questions REAL freshmen have asked.
Where can I get a fake ID?
For best results, you should probably hit up the CMU Police—they’ve probably seen a lot of them in their day and likely have an entire archive of confiscated ones, so they’re likely at the cutting edge of how to make one look extra convincing! If you choose to go a freelancer and find that you’ve gotten scammed with a bad fake ID, you should immediately call CMUPD, explain your situation to them, and see if they can issue you a new one.
How do I get into Jane Street?
Legend has it that sometimes, if you’re walking home from a long day at Gates, frustrated by the seeming uselessness of computer science, a stray poodle may lead you to the crossroads where the Mall meets the Pausch Bridge. Oh, don’t be afraid! Little known fact, this poodle is a Jane Street recruiter. Unless you can successfully compress all fifty states into a 5x5 grid, or perhaps create a more optimal solution for the Enigma, he’ll disappear into the night. This will leave you with no more chances to be hired, and no more job prospects.
Heed this word of warning, though. One doesn’t realize that part of the “working for Jane Street” bargain means that you can’t ever feel a single moment of bliss and job satisfaction. Unfortunately, those who do forfeit their souls. Given souls will be immediately possessed by the recruiter and put to work continuing to make real-time market valuations.
(Haha, your Jane Street test has already begun. This advice is a puzzle!)
Best ways to fuck with my roommates?
Start by putting one grain of sand on the floor. For every day that passes, double the number of sand grains on the floor—two for the second day, four for the third, etc. This should remain undetected for the first few weeks or so.
Eventually, your roommates may see trails of sand on the ground, and start to have some questions. If you’re lucky, and you’ve cultivated your Bay Area persona well enough, they may dismiss this as a natural part of growing up near a beach. They will be unprepared for the day that sand leaks from the closets and under beds and out of drawers and pushes them out of the room entirely.
How to deal with bad professors?
Find their most groundbreaking/notable/cited paper, or their dissertation for grad school or whatever. Write one proposing the same ideas. Backdate it to exactly one year before they published theirs (yes, this may be before you were born. If questioned about it, say that you were just a really precocious child). Bring forth charges of plagiarism and watch as they are pushed out in academic disgrace.
If that fails, I may have an idea about a lecture hall and some bags of sand...
Where’s the best place to secretly drink?
If you’re a School of Computer Science student who wants to keep other SCS students from finding out about your emerging alcoholism, you should try Baker-Porter, or any other humanities building, or really anything that’s outside the Gates/Newell-Simon/Wean triangle. I guarantee they won’t be able to find it.
How do I transfer to MIT?
Now that is an iconically Tartan question! Props for already embracing one of the iconic CMU mottos— “my heart is in the work”, “everyone at this school is better than me and I’m an imposter”, and “why did MIT have to reject me?” are words we live by around here. Now you’re really getting into the Carnegie Mellon spirit!
Auntie ReadMe’s: How To Participate In Carnival Traditions
Well, it’s really a shame that I died under “mysterious circumstances” the week before Carnival, because dying kind of sucks and there are several Carnival traditions that center it, such as “the crucifixion of every member of the losing booth orgs on their leftover pieces of wood.” That’s okay though, because whether you’re a freshman eager to escape your academic hazing for a weekend or a senior who wants to make the most of the rest of your time here, I have tips on several of Carnival’s tamer traditions!
Douse A Pre-Frosh
This carnival tradition involves finding tours of prospective students around campus and soaking them. Whether you use hit-and-run tactics or strategically position yourself atop Wean 9 siege-style, it’s sure to make the school stand out in any prospective student’s memories! It’ll also fundraise our printing efforts for future issues. We’re selling buckets of water for $5, water guns for $10, and cauldrons of water for $20. Soaking a prospective student is worth 1 point, soaking a parent is worth 2, and if you can manage to get a younger sibling (they have smaller surface area), that’s a whole 10 points. These points can be redeemed in the official ReadMe factory town booth (see page 3) for food and clothes, so grab a bucket and start dousing like your family’s livelihood depends on it!
Weepstakes
Some schools have designated finals-week-gather-on-the-lawn-and-group-scream traditions. Those schools are amateurs! However, despite the fact that this happens enough to be a daily tradition at CMU, it’s hard to coordinate and make time for. This is where Weepstakes comes in—to be cathartic now that everyone has the time to be catharsed. This primal scream and group crying session will be hosted at 12 AM Carnival Friday in the Gates-Hillman commons, so as to smoke out any CS students that would decide that Midway is, in fact, pretty mid and be tempted to hide away during Carnival to try to finish work. We will all cry about our impending finals weeks, and everything that is academically at stake.
Statistics & Data Sciences Booth
Alternatively, don’t want to cry about your finals? Leave your grade up to random chance and check out Grade Plinko at SDS’s booth! Tell the booth operator what class you’re taking, drop a disc into a normally-distributed pegboard, and take the grade letter that your disc lands in. The expected value of this approach is left as an exercise to the reader.
Physics Department Brunch And Talk: “Honoring Electrons”
We would tell you where it is, but have only been able to narrow it down to the general probability cloud of “somewhere in the city of Pittsburgh.” The physics department has been historically really annoying at past Carnivals like this–it’s always hard to cheer for their “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle” buggy, because the second you observe where it is, you suddenly can’t tell how fast it’s going, and if you try to announce how fast it’s going, it’s suddenly really hard to tell where it is.
Scotch N’ Soda’s performance of Our American Cousin
Rumor has it that President Farnam Jahanian will be in attendance wearing an egregiously tall top hat, and we’ll be handing out a whopping 100 points (enough for a small slice of bread at the ReadMe factory town, or for a congratulatory confederacy of like-minded pranksters at the John Wilkes booth) for anyone who can nail him in the head with a water gun—10 bonus points if they sneak up from behind.
Tartan Anti-Talent Show
Aggressively bad at something? Showcase what you’re worst at in a performance at the ReadMe office! This has been shown to be the year’s best reducer of imposter syndrome.
The Annual Carniv(ore)al Ritual To Appease The Wean Turtle, May His Terribleness Not Wake And May He Avoid Eating Any Of Us Non-Engineering Students For Another Year Still, Amen, otherwise known as:
Free Cookies in the Wean La Prima! :DDDD
Free cookies in the Wean La Prima! All day every day of Carnival! Please just walk straight into the turtle mouth–I mean, the main entrance! Please please please do!
I hope these traditions help you have a little more fun this Carnival. Have fun and stay safe out there this weekend! I mean this in both a completely silly non-turtle-related and a completely serious way <3.
Auntie ReadMe’s: A Conversation With Dr. Et. Al
After being suspended from the Guild of Advice Columnists for “giving bad advice” because “you can’t just lie” or something and “several people have died as a result of going along with something this column said and that means you can legally be charged with manslaughter” and other silly allegations like that, I’ve decided to not do a Notes app apology or make a video apology or something–don’t have the energy for that. Instead, I’m outsourcing this week’s advice column to the world’s most renowned scientist, Dr. Et. Al!
AUNTIE README: Hello, it’s a pleasure to have you with us, Dr. Et. Al! We at ReadMe-
DR. ET. AL: Etward, actually.
AUNTIE README: What.
DR. ET. AL: Etward Alabama in less formal settings, please. Et. Al is so dry and stuffy, and I really only use it to gain respect in academic publications.
AUNTIE README: Sure, then. Etward-
DR. ET. AL: Doctor Etward, please. I worked hard for my PhD in every conceivable field.
AUNTIE README: O….kay then! Dr. Alabama, I’m sure ReadMe wants to know more about the scientist behind such respected studies as “The psychology of esports players’ ELO Hell: Motivated bias in League of Legends and its impact on players’ overestimation of skill” and “Will Any Crap We Put into Graphene Increase Its Electrocatalytic Effect?” Let’s start by getting to know you a little better. You’re based at CMU, do you have a favorite place you like to go to work?
DR. ET. AL: On nice days, I’ll jot down a few of my ideas sitting underneath Walking to the Sky. That statue reminds me that anything is possible, given hard work [inaudible] and the overworked PhD students and undergraduates I roped into my lab.
AUNTIE README: Could you repeat the last bit? I didn’t quite catch that.
DR. ET. AL: Don’t worry about it.
AUNTIE README: Okay, next question! You do lots of math! Got a favorite number?
DR. ET. AL: Hm. 46 is nice. It’s how many people I’ve gotten to stop disagreeing with me since I started publishing. Depending on when this gets published, it could jump to 47 or even 48–who knows what the future holds?
AUNTIE README: A number of great personal significance, then. That reminds me! Surely while making such a large swath of claims in the academic world, you face any number of people who disagree with your studies or have contradictory results. How do you politely respond to them?
DR. ET. AL: Knives are pretty great. You can use them to get up close and personal when disagreeing with people, and you don’t even have to break eye contact! Can’t stand the sort of passive-aggressive bickering-through-abstracts-and-paper-titles that goes on in modern academics. If knives don’t work well enough, I go for inflicting blunt-force trauma.
DR. ET. AL: Besides, who knows if the poor fools aren’t being pressured by research universities to falsify data, anyways? Maybe they tactically decide to criticize me because they know my results–unlike their bodies….of work! Are bulletproof, and it’s better to spread misinformation that goes nowhere than misinformation that goes somewhere. Sometimes when you’re faced with publish or perish, you just gotta perish, you know? No shame in that! Academia isn’t for everyone, and a good colleague is always willing to push people to recognize where their true strengths lie. And sometimes their true strengths lie six feet under.
AUNTIE README: What an…incisive…metaphor! Truly, not everyone can stand the toxic culture in academia, and sometimes you’ve got to be honest with people about that, you know? Push them towards being happy in industry, able to sleep like the dead for eight good hours, instead of struggling through yet another round of peer review. It’s needed sometimes, even if the blunt force of your statements feel like being stabbed. This is why I admire you so much, Dr. Etward–clearly, you possess a lot of grace and tact.
AUNTIE README: That brings me to my next question, actually. You’ve had the most papers retracted out of any scientist in history. As a discredited advice columnist, I have to ask–how do you take being wrong so many times with such grace?
[The interview was then abruptly and unexpectedly terminated.]
Auntie Readme's Ten Things They Never Taught You In High School
While schools drill certain indisputable facts, such as “the moon landing was filmed at Area 51” and “Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination” into the impressionable young minds, they also peddle deceit, push conspiracy theories, and propagate outright falsehoods. Fortunately, I am here with the world’s premier scientist to educate you on ten things the high school curriculum certainly didn’t cover!
MYTH: Humans only use 10% of their brains.
FACT: Humans actually use 0% of their brains at any given time. We’re more bacteria than cell, and it is the bacterial hivemind that’s keeping the lights on up there.
MYTH: Humans need oxygen to breathe.
FACT: Nope! You really ought to have some more trust in our bacterial overlords. Next time you’re bored, simply stop breathing and let them take over. They’ve got this.
MYTH: The Sun is the center of our solar system.
FACT: Pluto is now the center of our solar system. Following Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet and subsequent lawsuit in interstellar court for emotional damages, scientists have been forced to reject both geocentric and heliocentric theory and support the new Plutocentric theory of the solar system.
MYTH: Camels store water in their humps.
FACT: Camels store dark matter in their humps. That’s why astrophysicists haven’t been able to explain where it’s all hiding, and the origin of the phrase “the straw that broke the camel’s back”--imagine how you would feel if you were carrying all of the universe’s mysterious unexplained mass on your back and someone asked you to carry their drink for them.
MYTH: Fire is hot.
FACT: This one deserves credit for being partially true, but it’s not because of any energy being released or chemical reactions or anything, but rather because the subatomic bees that make up everything are rubbing really hard against the hot thing to generate heat for it. Thank your local subatomic bees the next time you take a nice sip of coffee or pop something in their hives (microwaves).
MYTH: The Earth has seasons as a result of how close it is to the sun. FACT: The Earth has seasons as a result of the subatomic heat bees’ schedules. During summer, they’re called to train a new batch of subatomic bees, and this increase in numbers is why it’s so hot. All of their vacation days fall during winter, which is why it’s so cold.
MYTH: There are 50 states in the U.S.
FACT: There are actually 49– “New York” was invented in 2018 for Into the Spiderverse, so all of the Spidermen could have a place to look really cool while slinging webs between buildings.
MYTH: Your hair and nails will continue to grow after you die.
FACT: At the time this myth was coined, the Tooth Fairy had cornered the market on collecting human body parts. After government regulation, the Hair Fairy and Nail Fairy have emerged as clear industry leaders, so don’t worry–if you die, you can fully expect your fare across the River Styx to be paid for by the two.
MYTH: The universe is expanding.
FACT: A few days ago, particles at the edge of the expanding universe saw what was still beyond and have been flying back towards the universe’s center at full speed. No one quite knows what they saw, but the universe is decidedly contracting and running away from whatever it is now.
MYTH: Bats are blind.
FACT: To give this one credit, bats are blind, but not for the reason you would expect. It’s not because they “live in dark caves where vision isn’t as necessary” or any of that nonsense. It’s because a long time ago, when bats were in charge of fulfilling the universe’s expansionary Manifest Destiny policy, they too saw something at the edge and promptly went blind from the horror. Maybe if we take good care of our planet, we, too, can live to see this incomprehensible horror!
Auntie readme's Advice
After having been summarily shot for giving advice purely off of the terminally online references in my head, and having been resurrected by a joint effort of ReadMe staff and the biochemical engineering majors due to staff shortages, I am now fully embracing the magic of science and consulting with experts in their fields!*
*Their fields being anxiety, mostly. †
How long is too long for a handshake? Am I gripping too hard? Is it too late to switch the eye I'm making eye contact with right now?
Ideally, a nice firm handshake should last until either your hand is honorably broken or you honorably break your opponent’s hand. As we all know, social interaction is a zero-sum game and someone must win. Consequently, there’s no such thing as gripping too hard– your grip should ideally be on the stronger end of “limp fish” to “forbidden by the Geneva Conventions oh god why do you have a three-pointed knife concealed in your palm.” Switch which eye you make eye contact with as often as you like–even if you lose the handshake portion of the game, you can get half-points by winning the staring contest bit.
-With help from Dr. Et. Al
what does it mean if someone who never uses punctuation or capital letters in texts sends me a text that begins with a capital letter? (they didn’t use a period or anything, which would unambiguously mean they hate me, but im still worried)
As you said, this one is a bit more ambiguous than using a period. It is, however, not so ambiguous that we can’t flowchart it out!
-With help from Dr. Et. Al
do you think if i got a concussion and i couldn’t make excellent points about the role of the social contract in french salon art my art teacher would still love me
This one’s for your art teacher, actually, I’m going to need you to avert your eyes and convalesce in a Swiss sanitarium with leeches for a few seconds-
Okay, you can look now.
-With help from Dr. Et. Al
Is my incessant allergy-based sneezing getting on the nerves of my lab partner?
Depending on what kind of lab you’re in, it’s probably more just concerning. For example, what are you doing sneezing in a physics lab? What are you, allergic to the fundamental particles of reality and the strong force as a whole? Or what are you doing sneezing in a forensics lab? Cocaine?
Is the sneezing allergy based or do I just want to assume that?
If you’re sneezing in an epidemiology lab, I also just want to assume that it’s allergy-based!
i ran into someone i met briefly before and they remembered my name but i didn’t remember theirs. do i have to fall upon my own sword now?
Not at all! You have three incredibly obvious paths from this junction–two good ones and one you should avoid at all costs:
The Good Options
Generate the statistically most common first name and surname for your region and address them by that. Drop decreasingly subtle hints that you are a benign fae who has generously decided to forget your acquaintance’s name. This puts them immediately in your debt, and from there you can placebo effect a geas on them and enjoy small offerings of fruit and nuts.
The Bad Option
Go “Hey, I’m sorry, but could you remind me what your name was again?”
- With help from James Smith and Author Who Asked To Be Credited Only As ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’
What is the optimal distance for making eye contact with a person walking in the opposite direction as you before waving at them?
The trick is to always catch your friends and acquaintances off guard, so they spend just a bit more time trying to recognize you than you do them. Time travel to become a past iteration of yourself! Try out that pair of breeches and colonial tricorner hat sitting in your closet! Inexplicably carry a musket around!
Once they’ve spent those extra few seconds staring at you, that puts them in the position of being the embarrassed and awkward one. You now have the high ground–this is your Bunker Hill and you will not wave ‘til you see the whites of their eyes. Once you do, attach your bayonet and commence the charge. The British are coming! There’s no time to waste on pleasantries.
-With help from Author Who Asked To Be Credited Only As ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’
how do I tell if people close to me are in a relationship?
If one of them reads this godforsaken column and applies all of its advice on the other person, and the other person still chooses to associate with the advice column reader, that’s either true love or insanity. Which is still kind of a coin flip, but seems better than what you’re currently working with.
-With help from [Author Who Asked To Be Credited Only As ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’ II, who has been summarily shot for lack of faith in this column and, by extension, ReadMe]
† Have you considered getting evaluated for anxiety?
This is my advice column, not yours.
Auntie Readme's Advice Column
The people have asked questions and I, having no knowledge about anything in my head save for a handful of terminally online references, have found it fitting for me to respond as confidently as possible. Here goes!
should i take a job at lockheed martin if they offer me $300k a year 🤔
Military-industrial complex? I find it quite simple, actually. You and I have very different problems and I am unqualified to advise on yours. I direct you to my official Dietrich merch, reading “My major may not make money, but is too impractical to be recruited into the military-industrial complex.”
Has Anyone REALLY Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?
Why do they call it a question when you quest in the cold inquiries quest out hot eat the inquiries?
what's the most efficient way to navigate the store to purchase groceries?
This reads suspiciously like a 15122 assignment and as we all know, the geese report back to Honk and Chonk, who reports back to Iliano. The geese are everywhere. I’m not in the business of getting hit by AIVs before stepping foot in a CS class. Next question!
I want to start a new hobby, what hobbies are good?
Yeah, so speaking of CS majors. Why don’t you mallocate some time away from labs and try out:
- Operating a business without registering with the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue?
- Payment of cash wages to employees for the purpose of avoiding Pennsylvania Withholding Tax?
- Avoiding the Excise Tax on diesel fuel by using "Off Road Diesel" in the fuel supply tanks of a motor vehicle for use on highways?
- Overstating the number of children or other dependents on an individual income tax return?
what is the best activity to do with someone you don’t know well but are trying to get to know better?
Let’s just say that should you follow my advice in the last portion with an acquaintance, and things were to somehow go wrong (not that I would be held legally responsible, of course), there’s this really well-studied game called the Prisoner’s Dilemma that will tell you a whole lot about a person really quickly. And potentially give you a whole lot of time to yourself to ponder what you learn about them.
what should be next on my reading list?
This has it all. What was in that skin-bound book you stole from that weird crypt thing in Wean 2 last Monday? Who are the people in dark cloaks following you around? If you hypothetically had to hide from dark, shadowy, eldritch forces, how secure would the CMU sewers be in terms of hiding places? How do you barricade a door? If you get killed by eldritch monsters, do you have to let your readme editor know you’re missing an issue in advance?
For completely unrelated reasons, that’ll be all for this week!