Thursday, November 29, 2007

We have more of our C# code completed now.

We worked for three hours on Tuesday evening. We are working again on Saturday to get this project done by Wednesday December 5th. Our course exam is on the 12th. I began to study for the exam last night after class. Last night's class was our last class for new material and we discussed the exam a little bit. We will not have an exam review beyond last night.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Fourier Motzkin program in C#.

On Saturday we started our Fourier Motzkin algorithm in C#. We searched google code but found no math algorithms and also no GSL routines for Fourier Motzkin. I may write the algorithm and then submit it to the GSL as a byproduct of this term project. We did fine someone's Matlab code but we do not need all the efficiency of his method in our application. I opened his code on Matlab and we studied it a bit. We are meeting again Tuesday to try to complete the function for the method. Our programmer has done most of the GUI now and we are just trying to complete the back end code.

Fourth and last assignment done now!

We had four assignments in our systems optimization and management course. I have done all four. I got the fourth completed on Sunday after an all nighter. I just need to proof read it now. It is due Wednesday. I am happy and proud it is now done early.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

I am still reading about sexual offences in the UK.

I am still reading the critical look at British sex laws. This book covers the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I have just about finished the section on commercial sex now.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Reading about Illicit and Illegal, sex regulation and social control.

I am reading about UK sex laws and have progressed through three chapters now. I have read about the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and also sexual assault and sex with children offences. Now I am starting the chapter on commercial sex. The book Illicit and Illegal, sex regulation and social control is a law and sociology book.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

I started to work with two other students on our software project.

I am impressed with the SITE building and and all the students using computers there. They are almost all sitting at tables programming on laptops in the cafeteria. This is a building at the University of Ottawa. It is a new building that does not fail to impress the late 1990's image of subdued high tech art/design form. I worked there yesterday with my project partners on our copy of the software that does the Fourier-Motzkin calculations. We have the GUI built now but must now perfect the GUI and build the underlying code. I have taken two tasks on for my part of the work this week. One task is to document the behaviour of the original program we are copying. The second task that I will also have some help with is to write the solution algorithm for the Fourier-Motzkin method. I won't have to do this task on my own.

Other than that I have a regular assignment on neural networks which I should start this morning.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Writing up school homework this morning.

I started to write up my school work. I have one problem written up now and the beginning the write up done for the three middle problems numbers Q2-Q4. I am doing the write up in LaTeX.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

I solved the other four problems now but need to write up the solutions.

For the first problem we needed to use a software the professor provided that was not very good. I did get some printouts done for that problem. I seems to have done it correctly but used some common sense about exhanges and ratios rather than the software. The second through fourth problems are very simple because the constraints are large enough to find a simple solution that can be described in words. But I must also use math. So now that I have these three problems solved, I must write them up in LaTeX. I will do this later this evening. I am just going into work in half an hour early again.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

I got my Visual Studio project completed last night.

Before installing Leopard on the Macbook I use for school work I completed a Visual Studio windows software installer. This was something we have to do for our third assignment. It is now done and I can email it to the instructor now. I have two network systems questions to still complete but I have a LaTeX file started and will be staying up late to some some network and systems modeling of these two problems. The second problems is really three questions with slight differences to the system each time. This second system models an agricultural system. The first problem models financial currency exchange rates.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

I wrote a public service English language writing test today.

I wrote a public service entrance test today. It is for jobs in the public service. It is a writing test I wrote today.

A quote of a quote to begin my book for computer help

I want to write a non business book that will help people use computers. Here is a good quote I may use in the beginning to motivate a non-business book about computers. Don Tapscott quotes himself in Who Knows from Don Tapscott's On Ramp: Your Guide to the Information Highway "An information infrastructure shaped soley by the marketplace could have ugly consequences. Computers could record whom we telephone, what movies we watch, databases we use, goods we buy, and more. In a unfettered, wired world. the marriage of telecommunications to databases could destroy our privacy".

The books I started reading

So I have to admit even if I borrow some 20 books at a time from the university libraries I don't read them all. Of the books I borrowed this past week I am really reading only three this past week. I did start reading more than three but I continue to read these three below.
Data Structures and Algorithms Using C# (New York: Cambridge University, 2007)
Pritchard, Jacki. The Abuse of Older People: A Training Manual for Detection and Prevention 2e (London, U.K.: Jessica Kingsley, 1995)
Phoenix, Joanna. Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control (Devon, U.K.: Willan, 2005)

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Most of the books I borrowed last night.

I recorded these borrowings using librarything.com then Visual bookshelf then a directed html list which you see here. I still need to add the dd tags for these books which is why they looked cramped on this page right now.
Books borrowed November 6th, 2007.
McMillan, Michael. Data Structures and Algorithms Using C# (New York: Cambridge University, 2007)
Pritchard, Jacki. The Abuse of Older People: A Training Manual for Detection and Prevention 2e (London, U.K.: Jessica Kingsley, 1995)
Phoenix, Joanna. Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control (Devon, U.K.: Willan, 2005)
Pritchard, Jacki. Support Groups for Older People Who Have Been Abused: Beyond Existing (Violence and Abuse) (London, U.K.: Jessica Kingsley, 2003)
Kamir, Orit. Every Breath You Take: Stalking Narratives and the Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2001)
Balkin, J. M. Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment (New York, New York University, 2007)
Cavoukian, Ann. Who Knows: Safe Guarding Your Privacy In a Networked World (Toronto, Random House, 1995)
Gottlieb, Benjamin H. Social Networks & Soc Support (Sage Studies in Community Mental Health) (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981)
Litwin, Howard, ed. The Social Networks of Older People: A Cross-National Analysis (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996)

I borrowed 13 books last night and returned one book.

The book I returned was about building multi-layered enterprise applications. In fact, my brother does this for web applications at large and mid sized companies. He discussed this with me this past weekend. I did borrow books on privacy and also criminal law issues. I also borrowed books on social networks including a book my present boss has a paper in. I also bought this last book used from Amazon.ca. I am just going to use librarything.com to record these new books. I also read about 4 first chapters of these books last night. I will return here to list the books later.

I am working in SAS and this was also a school goal.

I used to think that I would not get work in statistics which is what my first degree was in. I did not believe the claims made by my school about students success after graduation. Well they have proved me wrong because after four years I find my self working in statistics and now using a practical skill I learned in that program. So I program in SAS for work.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

I attended Social Network/ing week at the University of Toronto.

I attended a conference this past week. I attended a conference on Social Network(s)/ing. I was interested in Steve Easterbrook's talk on social networks in open source projects. He studied the repositories and email of open source programmers to find their social networks and to see if the program they were creating compared well with the social network the email suggested.

The full conference program can be read about here http://www.bul.utoronto.ca/events/social.htm