## Saturday, March 31, 2007

### I am reading more Bowles this weekend.

I am reading more Bowles this weekend. I will continue to study mostly Bowles until the exam and the paper are done.

## Thursday, March 29, 2007

### Programming school work very successful

I am just taking a break to post here after two successful programming sessions. The first was programming in Stella and the second was programming in R.

For Stella I had written down my ideas right in front of the professor after thinking up the program in the Tuesday lecture. It took about an hour or two but I implemented them alright in Stella. I can go further now with the basic modeling done. I modeled a labour negotiations game based on the social cooperation game in Bowles chapter 12 which was the game we studied last week. I only implemented the basic game and not the evolution of strategies or populations or conventions. I tied labour negotiation strategies into the wage and effort variables for worker negotiation strategies and for employer choice of strategies I tied in monitoring and effort. I merely accumulated payoffs from the game. I now need to tie the game back into the main model as a collective agreement or perhaps as a strike or lock out.

In R I used the professor's quick blackboard R code from our probability course and did it from memory but did the work of looking up all the help files for each command. I modeled a one dimensional random walk but need to make a very nice plot still. I did the code in a

$\LaTeX$ editor for a printed copy and copied and pasted from the editor to the R command line. This R programming is for a bonus problem for our applied probability course. The problem in this assignment is to present random walks graphically and account for recurrence and transience in one, two, and three dimensional random walks. Our presentation must be appropriate for an audience who know nothing about markov chains, probability or random walks.

## Tuesday, March 27, 2007

### I handed in the third assignment yesterday.

I did complete the third assignment yesterday. I attended the lecture and we covered one, two and three dimensional random walks and proving these were recurrent or transient which involved showing a sum was either equal to $\infty$ or $< \infty$. It was an interesting lecture where I understood the equal probabilities of taking steps in multiple dimensional spaces up to 6 dimensional spaces where each step has probability $p=\frac{1}{12}$.

## Monday, March 26, 2007

### The last question has a general answer.

The final question I answered has a general answer and I can not find the series I need to answer it. I may leave the answer incomplete. I just proof read the assignment due today at 5 pm this afternoon. Right now I am getting ready for work and will review this week's reading for economic systems design. I believe we are too read chapters 3 and 11 of Bowles this week.

## Sunday, March 25, 2007

### I have all but one question completed now.

I have only one question left to solve. It will involve some linear equations. The second last problem was a recursive system of linear equations which solved neatly as though it were an applied problem which it is because this is an applied probability course. So all problems are solved except this last one involving a zero seeking device, and one problem needs double checking of the calculations.

### I did my proof reading. But am distracted now with my partner waking up and my own household work.

I spent some time sweeping just now. I am going to stay out my partner's hair because she is slow and waking up and I am speedy and tired. I did the proof reading and found one error so far. I also corrected and improved my English on the assignment. This allowed a more covered and comprehensive view of the course material.

I read some of an article by Rosenberg and X on home care and volunteerism in Canada that uses Statistics Canada data from 1997. I also read more about managing volunteers and hiring a manager of volunteers or leader of volunteers. Political correctness is so correct these days. This article helped inspire some of my cleaning of our house.

I also read the preface to a book on markov cycle processes and at least know this is a leading area of research. My professor has suggested only reading our textbook. I should follow up on his suggestion and did not read more of the book on markov cycling.

### Still meeting this morning plans in the probability assignment.

I was distracted by my health and other issues of living but I noticed this and got back to the assignment just on time. So now as of 8 am I have all problems started. I have six problems solved but need to proof read these and one of the six needs to be double checked and perhaps more needs to be written there. For the remaining two problems I can see the solutions and for both I am merely required now to solve some linear systems equations but all the transition probability matrices are now typeset. Now I will begin proof reading as a next step towards completion.

I have worked about 6 or 7 hours this morning. This was the rate of 7 hours per weekend day that I had planned for two weekends ago and it was finally achieved today. But last weekend and the weekend before I fell short. Also during weekdays I have not yet made the number of hours to complete 149 hours final exam study. I have though done ten hours on assignment #3 so far. This exam study must be done or I will fail the course.

If I have some time left over today before sleeping I intent to model Bowles' labour game from the problem set. I would also like to begin to review lecture notes today.

### Assignment #3 progressing nicely as planned.

I spent about an hour since the last post working out the first of the remaining four problems and then set up and quickly solved the second of the remaining four problems. I now face two more problems and will have one of these started before 7 am and the final problem started by 8 am. I don't know if this second problem I just solved is a famous gambling problem but it did involve analysing flips of a coin by a markov chain. It was very easy given that I understand the basics of markov chains now having studied these for almost two months now.

### Assignment #3.

I have three problems solved now. I may need to clarify one answer as another student had a different answer. I started one problem of the remaining four. I need to solve all four of these problems today. I will solve the problem I am working on before 5 this morning. I will also start another problem by 5 am. I will then solve that problem by 6 and start another problem by 7. Then by 8 at the latest I hope to have all the four remaining problems started and two of these done. Then I need to get the other two done by about 2 this afternoon when I can sleep. This gives me about 10 hours to work today. I have already spent 1 hour and am near the end of the first of these four problems.

### We have formed a study group for complex economic systems study.

The same team of students we have formed who are working on our term paper have decided that we will also study together for the final exam. We started by reviewing case studies and yesterday I read an air safety case. Our next step is to answer the problems and exercises in Bowles that are at the end of his book. We found a game model too in this section of the book and we also intend to model that. I won't work too much on this today unless I complete my probability assignment due tomorrow.

### We added more variables to our model.

We are modeling the labour discipline model presented by Bowles in chapter 8. It turns out that Bowles is a sixties Marxist from Harvard. Our professor also studied at Harvard.

I have been to Harvard in the early 1970's to visit an architect's office before and a performance theatre building. This was with my father and the architect was a family friend. I have also been to MIT in the past again with my father before I was a university student.

## Thursday, March 22, 2007

### Probability homework progressing.

I have three problems solved now and fully typeset. I still need to proof read these three. I have four problems left to solve still then I am done.

## Monday, March 19, 2007

### I attended class tonight

I attended class tonight and we covered an application of generating functions to find convolutions.

### I did not get the probability homework done by today.

I got busy with volunteering and our labour market term paper so got no further with the probability homework this past weekend. I need to document a part of our modeling of the employer-employee relationship. I have been assigned to document the effort-wage-monitoring equations. We did our modeling in Stella and seem to have a reasonable model now. We spent about three hours on Sunday at the library with my Macbook doing the modeling.

## Sunday, March 18, 2007

### I completed another problem in the third assignment.

I typeset the first problem's solution and used the textbook for the correct notation. I have two problems solved now and a third one started. For the third one we have a markov maze problem and I used the textbook to solve it. But I am stuck thinking about the final step of the problem. But I can still progress up to the final step. Right now I am solving an augmented matrix.

I just printed the work I have done on assignment three and will proof read it this morning. I would be nice to have this assignment done by Monday, one week early.

### I read parts of chapter 8 and chapter 12 of Bowles on the bus yesterday.

I was busing around going to a rally against war and doing some shopping. I read Bowles on the bus. I have to read his chapters 11-13 before the course ends. Something about this economics course there is may be only one women scholar referenced in the course readings. I think I will post this to the course message board, this gender observation,

## Saturday, March 17, 2007

### I typeset the beginnning of two problems now and solved and finished one of these problems.

I solved the second problem in our applied probability homework. I have the solution typeset. I will just save the $\LaTeX$ file now and increment the file name one point version up. Thus v 0.0.1 becomes v 0.1.0 meaning one problem is now solved. I use the second points for when I work out a few steps in a problem.

## Wednesday, March 14, 2007

### I completed reading chapter 13 now.

I completed reading chapter 13 now in Beinhocker and also am half way through chapter 6. That is the last of this book. May be I can read the whole thing again before the exam but really what I need to know is in the professor's lecture notes. I have all notes printed to date. I attended the lecture last night and took proper notes on the power point slides.

I have the next probability assignment questions now and they seem easier than the last assignment problems. I am fairly sure I can solve them all with only the textbook. I typeset the beginning of the first problem which is a simple markov chain problem for N= 0,1,2,3, and 4.

## Sunday, March 11, 2007

### All the probability problems for the second assignment are started now.

I have typeset the beginning for all the problems now in this second assignment. I have three of the seven problems solved. I have started two problems today that I can see might be solvable by me. I have the other two problems started. Only really one of these last two has gotten no real work yet. This problem was also started in our lecture so I should be able to get somewhere with it today.

### I attended a wobbly regional gathering.

I did not do much work on the organising of our radical union's regional gathering but did attend yesterday as it opened. I also loaned the gathering my portable printer and first aid kit. I met other wobblies from Canada and heard what other branches are up to. I might also write something about this gathering for rabble.ca if the rabble.ca folks let me.

## Saturday, March 10, 2007

### My study plan was distorted.

I did not spend four or five hours on probability this morning only 2 hours. Instead I studied economic systems design for 8 hours or so. I started modeling the labour market with Bowles' variables from chapter 8 and have four different Stella 9 files now. I sent these to the other students in our group to work on. I must get back to solving probability problems and I will now do some reading and maybe typeset the beginnings to the remaining problems that have not gotten work yet.

### Only three required chapters left to read in Beinhocker.

I completed reading chapter 12 an hour or two ago. I have spent the last five hours updating my school blog and studying economic systems design. I completed reading the week's required readings in the Beinhocker book. These chapter 11 and 12 concerned evolution of physical and social technologies. Physical technology design space is explored more through deductive reasoning according to Beinhocker. Social technology design space is explored best through art rather than science. Those are just two points from these chapters.

I also started reading the references and footnotes in Beinhocker and will be searching out some journal articles this morning. I am taking a short break from studies to attend a union gathering and then come home and sleep. So I have about 2 more hours at home to study and prepare to travel for the day.

I started the Bowles' readings for the week. I will also search the library now for this week's suggested readings.

### I read Ian Hacking's account of Pascal's wager

I read Ian Hacking on the historical view of Pascal's solution to the wager that God exists. It was according to Hacking the first time games of chance theory and thus probability was used in decision theory. Also the solutions to the decision were straight out of our game theory solutions. Thus games as we are studying them may be seen as decision tools.

### I read chapter 11 now in Beinhocker.

Just now I completed chapter 11 and got half way through chapter 12 in Beinhocker's book. I want to complete reading chapter 12 this weekend and start chapter 13 or also complete that this weekend. I also want to complete the Bowles reading for the whole course soon so I can get working more on using Bowles's chapter 8 for our project.

I purchased a license to use Stella and the first model I made at home on my laptop was a markov chain representing two gravity wells or basins of attraction. I could not get Stella to do this right.

### I am still working on this probability assignment.

The deadline for our assignment was extended until Monday. I did not do anymore work on the assignment until this morning. I did spend some time re-learning differential equations including reading about complex roots and quarter roots. I also looked at Laplace transforms. I have one hour now spent on the first problem plus about one hour on Monday. So I still need to find about 6 more hours of time. I need to review and make notes on basic probability for the exam coming up in about 1 month's time. I figure I still need to complete the exam study in 149 hours now. Thus I need about 5 hours a day study time. I will try to do 7 per weekend day and 4 per day weekday. Thus I need another 13 hours this weekend. Plus 6 hours on the assignment.

## Sunday, March 04, 2007

### I have two questions done in our second assignment and I started a third problem.

I should take a break from the economic systems design reading and get some more of my probability course assignment #2 completed. I have completed I believe two problems on markov chains and I have those typeset. I believe there is one more problem to solve concerning markov chains on this assignment.

I am also doing some computing tasks including backing up one computer, installing the latest release of Debian 3.1 r 5 on an old Pentium 1 laptop, researching control and machines in their social context of surveillance, and of course I am reading other subjects like an academic book on volunteering. I also am following Second Life and have now purchased a copy of the Matrix On-Line. I won't play this Matrix game until I have my assignment completed. So the game will wait until Thursday evening.

### Our group met to discuss our project and term paper.

Our group of systems sciences students met to discuss our term paper proposal. We also discussed our failing grades and we are all going to stay with the course. I borrowed more books and read some required readings for this week's lecture. I read these with another student.

## Friday, March 02, 2007

### I am reading a book on economic-environmental modeling

I am reading this book for my economic systems design course:
Bratt, L. C. & van Lierop, W. F. J. eds. Economic-Ecological Modeling (North-Holland: Elsevier Science,-IIASA, 1987).