Thursday, April 29, 2004

I completed reading chapter three and thus part I in the book by Denning, Dorothy E., Information Warfare and Security (Reading, Mass.: Adison-Wesley, 1999).
I am preparing for emergencies and purchased five flashlights of different types including solar and head worn flashlights. My wife and I each have pocket first aid kits that can be attached to belts. I also have family St. John's kit that has almost never been used, but has been ready on numerous intercity bus and car trips, as well as, being around the house for years. I also have a home made kit which I carry in my knapsack. We also have two medicine cabinets with various drugs and ointments. We have an electronic temperature measurement device and also a glucometer. I guess all we need now is a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.

We also have an anatomy colouring book, two or three first aid books, books on the brain and diet, a book on sexuality, and various periodicals on schizophrenia. I also have book for communicating medical information to people with low literacy abilities.

Besides these books I have a small ten to twenty book shelf of books for each of the basic university subject areas. I have also specialist literatures for Geography, Law and Math, Natural Sciences and Sociology. I have bought these books from book stores, book clubs, second hand book stores including charity shops and I have also for the past 6 years bought books on-line most at Amazon.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

I studied Palm labels and fields, this morning, but did not examine the code carefully in chapter 7 of Bachmann, Glenn, Palm Programmming: The Authoriative Solution (Indianapolis, IN: Sams, 1999). But am only up to chapter 4 actually with reading, reviewing and working with the code in Code Warrior's Palm Constructor. I am doing this learning on my WinXP laptop.
I completed after about two weeks reading van der Wusten, Herman, "The Geography of Conflict Since 1945" in The Geography of Peace and War (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).

I am also reading about anti-terrorism architecture some more. I am also about half way through chapter 3 in Denning, Dorothy E., Information Warfare and Security (Reading, Mass.: Adison-Wesley, 1999). I also have the US Army policy on Information Warfare somewhere around here on floppy.

Monday, April 26, 2004

These are the legal studies and geography books I am reading at the moment:
Pepper, David & Jenkins, Alan, The Geography of Peace and War (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).
I first read this book in Winter term 1987. It concerns war and nuclear war. It is an effort of geographers to join in the 1980's peace movement.
Coaffee, Jon, Terrorism, Risk and the City: the Making of a Contemporary Urban Landscape (Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2003).
This book looks at urban design and the fortification of the cities of Belfast and London. It also looks at the insurance industry and Ulrich Beck's the Risk Society.
Frank, Lawrence D. & Engelke, Peter O. & Schmid, Thomas L., Health and Community Design: the Impact of the Built Environment on Physical Activity (Washington: Island, 2003)
Burks, Peter, Unjust Enrichment (Oxford: Oxford, 2003).
These are the computer related books I am reading at the moment.

Bachmann, Glenn, Palm Programmming: The Authoriative Solution (Indianapolis, IN: Sams, 1999).
This book explains the tools and code needed to make applications for the Palm handheld computer.
Stevens, Al, Wiley's Teach Yourself C++ 7d (New York: Wiley, 2003).
This book starts with the basics of programming in C++ similar to C and then goes further.
Schroeder, Michael & Wagner, Gerd, eds., Rules and Rule Markup Languages for the Semantic Web: Second International Workshop, RuleML 2003 Sanibel Island, FL, USA, October 2003 Proceedings (Berlin: Springer, 2003).
This book includes papers about web searching technologies for example.
Delwiche, Lora D. & Slaughter, Susan J., The Little SAS Book: a primer (Cary, NC: SAS Institute, 1998).
This book teaches how to do basic SAS and describes the structure of programs, data formats, and use of Data and Proc steps.
Denning, Dorothy E., Information Warfare and Security (Reading, Mass.: Adison-Wesley, 1999).
At work one other co-workers is also a student at my school. He studies sociology and political science and business. He will also be attending summer school. Another co-worker I met on Saturday is a law student at our cities law school which is a different university. He is writing three exams this week.
I will be helping mark final exams for MATH1104 on Friday of this week.
I am studying for my LAWS4204 exam this morning. I scan read the first 90 pages of our casebook. I still want to scan read the various cases and dispute settlements by 6:30 this morning. It is now 4:30.

Friday, April 23, 2004

I am working today in law enforcement for 8 hours.
I got my grade today for my legal research course LAWS3907. It was not quite what I was expecting but still a great mark. I must have scored a lower mark on the final assigment and maybe a lower mark on participation. I had shown some leadership in participation by trying to organise the class but perhaps that was ineffective. I had to struggle to listen sometimes. I only missed one class for family medical reasons. I know I had worked a little less on the final assignment but it seems I really did not do an A+ job on that final assignment. I did share some of my faults with the lecturer perhaps she took advantage of this self criticism. In terms of politics she may have not approved of my left wing stance in the conclusions of my paper. But I am not sure of her politics or whether this would affect her marking. I can only speculate about this aspect. She had promised as well that my marks would not be affected by mentioning past criminal offenses. Perhaps she thought I was outside smoking pot with the other students I don't know. I know she is a lawyer so can not look the other way in terms of offenses. But I had committed no offenses during the course. Oh well I need to write this blog entry as my mark was lower than I had expected although it is still within my average for law courses. I was improving last summer in the introduction to private law course and now seem to be just holding steady. Oh well maybe I can try harder on the final exam in the ecommerce legal issues course. Still I must admit I did better in this course I am sure than many of the other students and the course had me really working hard at times. It was by far one of the more pressured law courses I have studied. It introduced me to the nasty aspect of the legal profession. I might try and research this aspect of the legal profession in graduate school that is the meaness of lawyers and their lack of a sense fair play in law school. This would just be a certain subset of the lawyers because other lawyers I have studied with even those with different politics than myself have been decent human beings and not shown this level of meanness or put as much pressure on we the students.
I am still studying Palm programming this morning and also reading for my LAWS4204 exam. Final grades for my LAWS3907 course should be ready later today. I should have scored A or A- so another great term at school has happened. In this course I learned to research current laws and use an on-line legal database.
I am studying for my exam this morning after
    briefly studying
  • Palm programming,
  • Unjust Enrichment,
  • Numerical Analysis,
  • a little para-psychology and philosophy,
  • a little about web searching technology based on communities of common interest,
  • and reading the newspaper.

In the newspaper there was an article about bio-sensors or medical measuring devices built into a ring and using wireless communication to record patient vitals. I saved this article.

I also read city political news and scanned business headlines for the past month.

The paper about web searching technologies seemed to ignore that idea that communities of common interest are maybe unnatural and a way of being exclusive. But there were some equations made up that seemed rather arbitrary and some sort of pseudo math approach to web searching technology.

The para-psychology paper from The Journal of the Royal Institue of Philosophy was about why para-psychology or psychical research is an important philosophical topic. To state this thesis the author C. D. Broad described the limits that we generallly accept in the modern world about causation, timing of events, and mental events. He wrote this in 1949.

The numerical analysis reading I did was on about error and the occurance of error in input, problem solving and output.

The Unjust Enrichment book I am reading continued from the case it started with to a classification mapping of this area of law. Professor Ogilvie had stated that this law was not clear. Already Birks the author of the book I am reading has promised that this book will finally make this area of law clear.

In Palm programming I studied the standard Palm GUI buttons for selection by the user.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

I actually did not study today as impossible as that sounds. Tomorrow at noon there is a study group for the LAWS4204 course.

Monday, April 19, 2004

I prepared my notes for the LAWS4204 exam and we are meeting for a study group this Wednesday at noon.

I am still reading about phenomenological interviewing. I am also still studying Palm programming. I am also reading an old course book from 1987 that was for GEOG3307 back then on geography and peace studies. I can read it much better these days than back then. I also re-did some homework with SAS from my old statistics course in ANOVA. I did not get a spot in the SAS workshop this summer at York University. I am set to TA this summer and also take LAWS4701 where we will look at anti-terrorism law and security over reaction. I will also study homelessness in GEOG4000 later in the summer July-August.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

I am still reading about summer courses at Algonquin college and also the University. I am settling down to choosing LAWS4701 this spring and GEOG4000 this summer. I might also take GEOG3603 this summer term but it would conflict for six weeks with my role playing game night. I might take a term off my TA work to do this study plan. I also thought of taking computer security courses or health and safety courses at the college.

Saturday, April 17, 2004

I finished chapter 2 in Living Outside Mental Illness by Larry Davidson. This chapter was about how to ask questions when doing a qualitative interview. I learned more about how to listen from this chapter.

I finished chapter 4 and thus part I, in Terrorism, Risk and the City by Jon Coaffee. This chapter leads up the the concept of the "risk society" and the balance between risk and insurance. Red lining an insurance industry concept was discussed as well work by Ulrich Beck (Risk Society in translation, 1992), and also Anthony Giddens' (The Consequences of Modernity, 1990) and his (Modernity and Self Identity, 1991).

Thursday, April 15, 2004

I attended a colloquium today. It was given by J a seasoned professor who enlivens the department. I spoke up to defend a point he made about computer instruction. At the same time I have been helping to promote computer instruction this past term.

I met with J and we talked about her conference in cultural studies. It might be fun to attend I said. It is May 1st.

I am starting to review the course material for my exam on the 26th.

I borrowed a couple of more books from the library focusing on participatory democracy and also unfair enrichment. I took back a book on electronic warfare and also a book on intelligence agencies. I know when I start studyng war I am getting into trouble with paranoia.

I need to study more law and focus on the studies I should be doing that match the course I am taking or planning to take or have taken. Epistomology is the thing to help me focus.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

I did some union volunteering yesterday.

I read more about terrorism and risk society in a book by Jon Coaffee. This author does include criticism and also seems to know his urban geography quite well. He is also exploring space and control of space. Defensive architecture of cities is his subject. London and Belfast are two main places he looks at in this book about contempary urban landscapes.


I finished reading Rob Kitchin's Cyberspace and returned it to the university library last night.

Sunday, April 11, 2004

I completed printing out this blog in study copy for my binder to carry around at school and other places.
I have been reading about Palm programming, XML and C++ programming. I have installed various tools for programming on my WinXP laptop and my Fedora Linux machine. I have been following the examples in the books with these tools on the computers. I have also wirtten some more of my protest dtd and posted it live on the web now. I have also been doing paid web master work.
I slept at 3:30 in the afternoon and am now up at 1:30 and have been studying. I read a little of Terminal Identity a sci-fi and cultural theory book. I then read yesterday's newspaper the Citizen. I will not help the Citizen carrier this morning. I also read another chapter of Count Zero by William Gibson. I am just now printing out copies of my studies blog for my binder. This way I will have all bibliographic details of my recent research available with me because I carry this binder around everywhere.

I am installing Win98 on one computer.

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Today is the offical last day of term but classes ended 6 days ago on the Friday.

I took part in a hiring committee for my TA union this week. I have to interview candidates for a union job next week on Tuesday. The union covers my expenses for this union committee work once per term. It was tough to choose a short list. This gives me more experience for working as an executive.

I finished the chapter in Rob Kitichin's book on Cyberspace about politics and polity. This chapter covered legal matters. This is where significant things were judged by Kitchin with his political economy, post-modern, social constructivism approach. He seems to assess politics and the political arena quite well. The next chapter involves regional restructuring and is the real geography. One could read Kitchin instead of Lessig and not miss much law or lega implications of cyberspace.

Rob Kitchin is also interested in disabilities and geography. I have known his name and work on the geography of cyberspace since the mid or late 1990's.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

I read for six hours on Monday night.

On Tuesday I did some human resource work making a short list of candidates for a survey analyst position with the union.

My wifes book just passed the proof stage with a few small corrections. Her book should be for sale by the end of the month.

I got the union money situation moved along a bit and booked our room for this month.

I met with another disabled student and we had coffee. She is very proud of my school achievments and told me that. I also had coffee with a union office staff worker and we talked about our life partner's music abilities.

Monday, April 05, 2004

I borrowed books on security today and electronic warfare.
I am becoming a programmer again. I have been studying programming the Palm and also programming in C++.

I spent about two hours trying to install Debian Linux 2.1 on an old Thinkpad 360SC. It was extremely frustrating and I stayed up late doing it and then slept a lot and had a broken sleep last night.

Tonight I read about palm programming reviewing the first two chapters that I read last week, of a book on palm programming. I then installed a POSE and unpacked the SDK files onto my Fedora machine.

I have nicked named this machine LEAVES. The machine is an IBM 325 PC server with dual Pentium II 300Mhz processors. Maybe this acronym stands for Linux Educational Application v. Enterprise Solutions. It used to be part of a super computer I build and called Lamda after the Lambda moo which was legal example we studied in LAWS3501 last winter. This example of a community dispute in an on-line community came from Lawrence Lessig's book Code: and other laws of cyberspace. This same example is in Rob Kitcin's book Cyberspace.

I now want to install a POSE on my windows laptop because I just installed GCC and an IDE for GCC on this WinXP laptop.

But for now I must sleep and attend a University President's committee meeting tomorrow. Well actually later today but I am up late in the morning.

Sunday, April 04, 2004

I planned to read more of Cyberspace this weekend but kind of got bogged down in the legal cyberpsace stuff because I mostly know this stuff already. It gets a bit thick reading it again.

I am studying programming both for the Palm and more general C++ programming this past week and tonight.

I have two union related meeting this week and nothing else. There is no work this week other than a work load estimate due at the health charity network. This estimate is for paid web mastering next year.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

I emailed a few other law professors this morning. I might like to research disabilities and the law this summer.

Today I am studying a tutorial at IBM's developer works.

I am also downloading and installing TNT lite from www.microimages.com. TNTLite is a free GIS software. I am downloading it for both WinXP and also Mac OS X 10.3.3.

I am also reading chapter 5 in Cyberspace by Rob Kitchin who I know as a geographer interested in disabilities in the mid to late nineties. Chapter 5 is about politics and the consequences for the polity because of cyberspace. I find a lot to agree with in his book as well as stuff I disagree with. Thus I find it a well balanced book.

Thursday, April 01, 2004

It helps to surf the math department web pages. I found out today I could get a copy of SAS for use on my home PC. I went to school for about 15 minutes to pick up a copy and installed it on my laptop. This will help me study for a SAS certification.
I am using my Mac today. Yesterday I read some of William Gibson's Count Zero on the bus with my Palm. I read chapter 1 in Al Steven's Teach Yourself C++, 7 ed., yesterday.