Problem solving schedule.

I have not really kept to my problem solving schedule. I would like to have my homework done by sometime this week. I really should solve two or three more homework problems today and may be two exam study problems. May be this less intense schedule will help.

I appreciate Churchman's use of Kant.

Emanuel Kant is well explored by Churchman. I am not quite half way through his book now.

I attended class on Thursday and showed interest in the Gamma distribution.

I stayed up late on Wednesday. I read more of the Churchman, more on reflexive modernity and more about general systems as mathematical models. Then in the morning I attended my lecture where we covered the gamma distribution and I participated fully in the lecture commenting on the gamma function abstractly and helping the professor with answers. I have started to score lower in the course. I began my fifth home work assignment and also began to solve the very first problems in the textbook. I plan to solve maybe ten problems over night now. And then another ten problems on Sunday. Two or three of these twenty will be from homework the others will be from the text first chapter. I would like to have solved all the first chapter problems in the next week then have solved the second chapter in the next week and be solving the third chapter in the following week and be done the fouth and fifth chapter problems by the end of term. This is a lot of work but I should do this.

Although Churchman is a philosopher his ethics are not very well grounded on a spiritual morality.

I see Churchman as analysing ethics in planning well. His best issues are environment, peace, and mental health. But missing is gender or labour from his analysis. But he does do a good reduction of systems science for looking at the broader ethical concerns. But I don't see his morals as firmly grounded as he seeks a community vision where his drawing in of many historical spiritual community traditions are weak. Would I prefer a strong moralist? I don't think so, and so am still enjoying reading him. But he was a philosopher of his times as his strong issues show was the 1960's and 1970's. Ah Neil Young and seventies biology classes. Really what I find annoying is his 3 and 4 as magic numbers these are beer case numbers not solid math.

I read about real victims v the psychology industry.

I read some more of Manufacturing Victims. I was struck by my psychological focus and need to change this.

I studied a little movie art.

I read a little about the film The Matrix in a book about the themes in the film. This essay compared the film with other recent films where reality is a virtual illusion. Virtual here meaning computer generated.

We had our review class for our mid-term today.

We reviewed the material in our course so far and solved last year's mid-term in class together. I knew what I was doing with only a few mistakes.

Interested in environmental studies again.

I bought an Olympus BH Biological Microscope Model BHB, S/N 391825 made by Olympus Optical Co., Japan on ebay. It cost about 500$. I have some water quality slides to look at for learning. I also bought a classic book on algae on ebay by Fogg.

I printed out the assignment solutions just this evening.

I will now examine the proper solutions to our assignment problems and compare these to my solutions. I will read the textbook over night too.

Studying probability

I started to read David McDonald's textbook. It turns out this is the textbook for next term's course. I also started two of Ian Hacking's books. This reminds me I need to renew three books fom Carleton's library now.

My 4th assignment in my probability course was handed in.

I did attend class on both Tuesday and Thursday this week. I handed in my assignment on Thursday. I have completed all assignments to date and am still scoring an A grade. We have our mid term next week. I will be studying for this this weekend. I just read the first chapter of Ian Hacking's book on emerging probability. I will also read some other books on probability this weekend and our textbook.

I did go to the library

I did in fact make it to the library later in the afternoon. I had a lot of fun. The Ian Hacking books mostly could not be found. I did borrow his book The Taming of Chance. I also sat myself down on a library step stool and looked at the classical systems theory books in the Q range. I was impressed. I also sat myself down at the QA 76.9 range of social impact of computing books and browsed but did not borrow these yet. I did borrow David McDonald's textbook on applied probability. I did not borrow the book on research methods in social relationships. I did borrow the book on survey methods. I also borrowed a book on chaos and it includes a CDROM of computer programs that I will may be pick up today. The library staff have to get this CDROM out of storage first. I also borrowed a late 1980's book on computers and health effects. This will help me at work as well as improve my health and safety knowledge in the workplace.

I am making my third trip to the library today.

I planned all weekend to make a trip to the library and this morning I am going to do this. I have a list of about 8 books to borrow. I am taking three books back. One book going back concerns social work and systems theory and is very old. Another book is the second book I borrowed by Churchman and I will read it at some other time. This is the mystery book that hasn't been read in over twenty years. The other book I am taking back is the social sciences and systems theory book that is also quite old. I am keeping about four books on systems science out. I am also taking back The Dilbert Principle.

I borrowing a book on survey research to help me at work. I am also borrowing a classic textbook on researching social relationships in its seventh edition. I will also borrow two Ian Hacking books. There are some other books I will borrow as well. I will bring my Macbook and do some work on the laptop for my probability assignment. I solved the first problem in pen and ink and have type set the first part of the problem and part of the second part and still have four more parts to type set in the first problem. I might solve the second and third problem before taking the bus to the library and then type set them at the library. Then I have four more problems to solve.

Studying basics of moment generating functions.

I read our course textbook on moment generating functions. This is a reminder for me. I now need to solve some problems in this topic at this level. I also need to read the next section of the second chapter and also solve some problems from that section of the textbook. But I am also starting to think of studying for the mid term happening in a week and a half.

The find a supervisor project.

I am formally deciding at this moment that finding a supervisor is a study in itself or a job in itself. I will try to spend a few hours a week on this study for the next few years.

I read the introduction of this paper by D. McDonald and a former graduate student K. Qian An Approximation Method for Complete Solutions of Markov-Modulated Fluid Models this morning from professor McDonald's home page but this paper was published at one time.

Dr. McDonalds book.

I found this book written by David McDonald:

McDonald, David. Elements of applied probability : for engineering, mathematics and systems science (River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 2004).

It is in the library so I could borrow it this Tuesday.

I should search out the papers now by Dave McDonald professor at the University of Ottawa

Dave McDonald was the name given to me as a potential supervisor for a thesis. I think it only fitting that I search out and read his papers in journals. I will do that for a few hours now.

I was given the name of a potential supervisor.

I talked with my professor who teaches the basic probability course. I told her I would complete the advanced probability course next term. This advanced course is one of five courses required in graduate school. I will also may be try another course next term but perhaps I will only study the one course.

I got my grade on the 2nd assignment and am still scoring A grades. I handed in the third assignment yesterday. I will attend class this morning and also start the fourth assignment. After the fourth assignment we have a mid term test. We also because of the mid term have a week off of asssignments. So this is the first landmark to make.

I solved two more problems now and have two to go this morning.

I am up over night managing my pay cheque which gets me excited. But this is good mood to be in to do my probability school work learning. I just completed the second of the remaining four problems I need to solve. I now have two problems to go. The school work is due in class tomorrow morning but I can stay up this morning and hand this assignment in to the professor during her office hours this morning.

This will also give me an excuse to go to the math building and see her office. The idea of this visit has got me thinking a bit more about possible supervisors for my thesis. I could perhaps choose a satistician for a supervisor. This can be my small talk with the professor this morning.

I checked the solutions to the second assignment and I did better on that assignment than the first. I am so far scoring high enough to stay in graduate school and also high enough to transfer to a Ph.D. I am starting to read the graduate school regulations.

So generally over night this morning I have been spending time on my school work productively.

Putting off completing the four problems with computer tasks.

I have been backing up my computers this morning and writing on blogs. I have put off doing my homework and relaxing a bit.

Solved the first problem now and solved two more simple problems.

I solved two simple expectation problems and have four problems left to go in this week's home work. I also went back and solved the first problem using a floor operator which I learned about on wikipedia. I was taught the floor operator at one point in my mathematical education but had forgotten it and had digested it into an int function in computer programming. Anyway I now have my elegant solution to the first problem. I solved a mathematical guessing game.

Twenty years on a shelf... Churchman's book.

The other book I got out by Churchman looks very new and checking its borrowing record I found that it had last been checked back in in 1985. This means this book has just been on the shelf at the library for over twenty years unread which makes it a very mysterious book. It is in fact an ethics book in fact applied ethics to systems science which is just what my lawyer and my ethics professors hoped I would read. I do not actually have my own lawyer I am being metaphorical. And my ethics professor probably doesn't know I am reading this. But now that I am working in government I am concerned about ethics for government work.

I worked on this week's assignment this morning but am now procrastinating doing more.

I solved two problems rather quickly after having spent some time on the first problem yesterday and not really solving it elegantly. The two problems I solved this morning were simple substitution type problems but I need to add justifying comments now. I also browsed the remaining six problems and can solve them no problem as long as I have the textbook. I would like to solve about four more this morning.