Open source software references search

I must have searched for some other term yesterday because today the Keyword Search for "Open Source Software" produced some 200 references.

RefWorks practice happened last night.

I did a search for my thesis topic and then exported this list from the University of Ottawa library to a Refworks file. I then tried out the bibliography functions of RefWorks further. I used a Science Editor style (I have never heard of this style before) to format this bibliography. The oldest work on this list was from the 1960's. The list was short and included two terms. There is much searching to still be done and one missing search now is of journals and this practice was a Keyword search only of the University catalog. I searched for the terms "Open Source Software" and Software Documentation". The formated bibliography was four pages long. One author on this list was in fact, my future supervisor. So while searching can be done I would be right to actually read these references and especially my supervisor's work. Other catalog searches can still be done of other libraries in Canada and around the world hopefully with RefWorks friendly exports.

I am tired now and feeling easily up and excited and easily pleased with my self, but I also thought the topic of software documentation could be continued by me to the Ph.D level. I could really live with this topic, as I have practical experience working with the subject these days and may be some ideas about it and how to do good documentation. Can I turn this into a field for my studies though? The reason I like this topic also is because it is a slightly literary topic in the field of technical writing which was something the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig did for work after he went on his voyage of recovery and exploration of quality. This book was influential with me in my early college years late high school studies. I also had roommates and later band mates who also read this book and whom I admired. I later learned to rethink this admiration but kept the Robert M. Pirsig story and concepts he wrote about in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance alive in my thoughts. When younger I wanted to have a career in technical writing. That direction I gave up. May be now is the time for a return to this field as a student and theory writer rather than an actual technical writer. Of course his book is considered philosophy. See this Wikepedia entry for this book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance. I also trust that my boss has said software documentation is a very important topic thus agreeing with my supervisor.

I also practiced with a search for a rare health topic that produced 994 records. This list I formated in APA style both with and without abstracts. I then started to copy these to note cards in Second Life. I am not done that but it was fun to push the length limits of note cards in Second Life and I broke up the bibliography into different letter sets. I mostly had to go one note card per letter of the alphabet with the long APA list with abstracts. This later transfer is not complete yet in Second Life.

I will start to use RefWorks to start my thesis reading list.

The paper I read the other day really begins my thesis with one topic I have so far chosen. Thus I need to start recording citations. I can not use this blog alone thus should be using RefWorks again for only the second time now.

I read a paper on open source software in computer science education.

I read a brief paper that covered Open Source licenses. It also covered the benefits of open source software for teaching students of computer science.

Reading and doing hands on learning in R.

I was able to get R up and running with a basic linear models book for R. The book is

Faraway, Julian J. Linear Models with R (Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/ CRC, 2005).

I read the first chapter finally. Then I installed the author's R package faraway then applied this command library(faraway). I then started the first problem in chapter 1 and produced some summary statistics and linear model graphs with the data set teengamb about teen age gambling. I talked to some coworkers about R at our Christmas lunch. I continue to work mostly in SAS at my day job.

I have been reading some pretty kooky American book on surveillance.

The book I am reading on the bus these days is

Jensen, Derrick, and Draffon, George. Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control (White River Junction, VT.: Chelsea Green, 2004).

These guys are Kooks. They are also not against guns because they fear the FBI will still have guns if they give them up. Thus America and even its scholars it seems are stuck in cycle of violence. The questions brought up by this book are valid though. They briefly cover Foucault, Weber, Marx and claim an ecological moral higher ground. The paragraph on 104-105 is a well written paragraph on vivisection; shocking in its poetry. But still this book is Kooky conspiracy theory stuff although a good critical view of science and the inhumanity of geeks and science fictions generally.

Ethics and law.

I am reading a piece that divides Deontological ethics out as European and Consequential as American. That seems too simple but the writer then examines intellectual property and also privacy with these views. This was an article sent to me by Charles Ess after I asked him about research ethics and the differences between world privacy laws and their effects on research ethics. I am wondering if a better paper is possible with less of a simplistic view. I have just started to read it and found it on the Internet using google scholar. I am also reading a piece published by my employer Statistics Canada on the social impact of information and communications technologies.

I did do well with my final exam.

The marks are in and I did well with my exam. I am also getting a second chance with a workplace decision. I must prepare for this Monday and have some notes others at work have given me for this. It mainly concerns managing my own time and I have been studying on Friday evening the topic of procrastination.

My exam is done. I thought I did well.

I usually know how I did on an exam. I think I did very well on this one. I had answers for all questions. I was not too stumped by anything. A few problems I came back to and did not solve until later in the exam as final problems. I should have studied a little more. I answered the multiple choice questions all on the first pass except for one question. I read all the long problems before answering those. Then most of my time was spent answering the long questions. It took me only two hours to write the three hour exam. It officially ended fifteen minutes ago but I was done an hour and a quarter ago.

I have now completed reviewing chapters 4 and scanned chapters 5-7.

Really these are the significant chapters for our final exam. I understand the recourse methods of chapter 5 and stochastic programming but should review the approach and the expected value approach as these are important in statistics. I also understand the topics of chapters 6 and 7 and need to review these fully. I am reviewing at the last minute because this will keep this fresh in my mind.

I intend to go to the professor's pre-exam office hours just before the exam and also register for the next term. I also want to return a book to the library this afternoon after the exam. Then I will place a hold on the book. It is The R Book by Michael Crawley. It is 1000 pages long almost and I only managed to read about 20 pages of it so far. But someone else has recalled it so it is due back at the library this week. I also want to pick up some posters from a student group so I can poster for them.

Progress update. Chapter 3 now read. Chapter 4 started.

Well I did not read all the notes today but I have at least one more day to study and that is Tuesday. I did complete reading chapter 3 and got most of the way through chapter 4. I read the MatLab code for creating neural networks in the MatLab software even though we will not be tested on that at all. I wish I could list what topics I studied today but I am tired and still need to buy my wife some coke before sleeping. I have a very busy day at work tomorrow and then a relaxing community Christmas dinner right after work. I will be ready and rested for a good day of study Tuesday. I also read more statistics research today and more basic statistics problem solving and continue to read a book on statistical literacy, that is the product of years of research into the Australian school system.

I also sent one helpful, I hope academic email to a professor at MSU who is preparing a masters of arts course on organizations and technology. I also sent an email to my old boss, the normal instructor of the survey sampling course at Carleton updating her on my progress at work.

Review progresses for exam study.

My exam is on Wednesday at 2:00 PM. I have spent some time this morning reviewing the course notes. I read the first two chapters so far today. I will report my progress here. I have my wish that the exam cover all topics. The Professor has promised that there will be questions covering each topic on the exam. I have five chapters to still review. I want to do one complete review of the notes today before I sleep for the day. I have a big day of work on Monday. I want to work early and late and earn some time off later on in the month. We also are reaching the end of a project this week. I also have Tuesday and Wednesday off work. Then I am back for Thursday and Friday. I do have charity dinner to attend this week, in fact, checking the web calendar now, I find the dinner is Monday at 5:00 PM. This means I will miss a Second Life event. It also means I can not work too late on Monday only about one hour.

Our project is nearly completed.

Our programmer reported that the software is now working but there are still some build errors. These used to be called compile errors in the old days. At any rate, I am working on the final write up. Actually another student did the write up and I am only proof reading and rewriting it now. We are meeting again Tuesday evening to finalize our work. Our project is due Wednesday and I think we will do fine. So after this there is the final exam in under two weeks then another graduate school course is completed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

The documentation of the adventures of Peter Krogstad is ready go on a new blog.

I started a new blog for accounting the explorations I do through my Second Life avatar Peter Krogstad. This morning I created an edit in a Moving Type(MT) template. I used Moving Type for the new blog and put it in my cybercitizen web site here
http://cyborgcitizen.org/pkrogstad/index.html.


I used the witty name for the blog Just a Second Life Avatar's Blog. I made a table banner with 40 little Second Life screen pictures of my avatar. This was what took the hand coding. It was tough uploading too. I made a goal to completing this before going out today and I am now done. So I achieved this goal. I worked very hard.

I did quite well with my mid-term in systems optimization.

I did excellent on my mid-term. What with more academic work at my paid workplace and more computer use as in basic programming at school I doing well. I am starting to enjoy the fact of being in graduate school. I am also trying to exploit this as a social fact.

I spent the day at work coding in SAS.

I am happy to report I have been paid to code. I have a job and my duties this week became coding in SAS. I spent almost every minute at work today writing a SAS program. I have proven to be very good at assisting my boss with his database work too. I credit this to clear communication as a nagging goal.

I also have been able to become an obsessive documenter. I wrote a lot of comments in my code today explaining each and every step in SAS comment lines. Being a blogger of my own daily life and other mundane topics has improved my skills in this regard.

Second Life progress update.

I have been studying inside Second Life with the help of Tracy Kennedy and Joanna Robinson. Tracy is writing her Ph.D. with Barry Wellman at the University of Toronto and Joanna is a research associate at Simon Fraser. I joined them at a virtual campus last fall. I have since joined them at a meeting of the Communications, Information and Technology section of the American Sociology Association and wrote a paper on facebook and privacy for that event. I just posted it Thursday night at www.webpagex.org.

I have now learned more about Second Life by reading books. I read just a little of the Offical Guide to Second Life and with that created another account and avatar and went through orientation island again where I better learned to fly. This has really helped me out. I moved my house or should I say my offices to a PG sim and it is more pleasant to see on screen now. I find I am spending more time on-line there now in this virtual reality world that is like photoshop for 3 dimensional stuff. It has cost me close to 400 dollars now in about 1.5 years of use.

I am going to open a blog now for this virtual world and report my progress there. I will post the new blog address here when it is set up.

Reading a feminist on gay men.

I was cleaning up my office a little bit. I put some old school notes from a geography course or two into a white magazine box. I also put some fiction including my wife's fiction also into two magazine boxes. I came across a book I had gotten from another wobbly and read a chapter in that book. Here is the cite:

Layland, Joyce. "On the conflicts of doing feminist research into masculinity" in Stanley, Liz. Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology (London, U.K.: Routledge, 1990).

This was an interesting read and suggested gay men are also misogynists. I think I had an idea this was true. So basically she concluded in the paper that gay men devalue women's activities. In particular drag Queens use stereotypes of women in their performances.

I wrote the mid-term for systems optimization last night.

I wrote the mid-term alright. So this is it this is really graduate school. I hang out on line these days with a graduate student of network studies and gaming and a research associate in digital media creation. The graduate student of gaming is a feminist researcher of gaming. I also now work editing learned papers. In fact, I have my name as an assistant on a paper going for peer review for a journal at Statistics Canada now. I work at Statistics Canada during the day and use the Internet for studies at home.

Here are the topics I must study for this week.

I have a mid-term exam this week at school. I am making a list here to help me study from. These are the topics I need to cover and know very well.

Setting up a system

1. Stating the objective function,
2. the variables,
3. and the constraints.

Using the Fourier-Motzkin method

Using the branch and bound method with the Fourier-Motzkin method.

Using cuts for a system of inequalities

1. Gomory cuts
2. Geometric cuts

Networks and path optimizations

I handed in assignment #2 and also solved a computer programming problem this evening in our lab at school.

I did get my assignment done now. I used a variety of programs to solve the assignment. I used Word, LaTeX, two programs of the professors and text programs. I got it done. I handed it in at the beginning of our lab this evening. I attended the lab this evening and solved the professor's challenge of putting a license agreement in a program installer build in Visual Studio. I am learning to use Visual Studio to make Window's applications.

I have Q1.1 and Q2 solved now in assignment #2 for my course.

I worked a lot on Thanksgiving and got one problem solved with one technique and that was Q1.1 using Fourier-Motzkin software. I also solved Q1.2 but used geometric cuts rather than Gomory cuts so need to still do some more math work and more Fourier-Motzkin work. The geometric cuts I did with R for drawing and that was a good R workout using the web and open source help files to learn the proper R code to draw a point grid and then draw simple lines over the integer point grid.

I remembered the lecture on the network solution software and was able to solve the network problem and then print it out. I did need to run that software in Windows 2000 but it still did not work as it should have. I did print the solution network diagram. So that seems solved.

I have class tomorrow evening and tomorrow we are working in the computer lab rather than having a lecture.

I will work on assignment #2 this evening.

I will solve assignment #2 this evening. I will use windows 2000 and two softwares the professor has given us to use. One solves networks and the other solves Fourier-Motzkin elimination problems.

I will become a research assistant again this time in the government.

It looks like my work duties are changing. I am set to become a research assistant to a Statistics Canada research economist. I won't be able to blog about this in any detail.

The Fourier-Motzkin elimination problem has now been corrected and typeset.

I am learning some techniques of good "copy and paste then edit" style for repetitive typing from my professor this term. Using these techniques with LaTeX helped me complete my homework problem typesetting. I now have only to typeset one more problem and to complete typesetting the second problem. Of course, I also need the solutions to these two problems as well. But I now feel I have solved three of five problems and there is really only one problem that has not gotten any work yet.

Assignment number 1 home streach

I have now solved three problems including the final Fourier-Motzkin calculations. I can actually check my calculations using some software but I did the solutions by hand without a calculator of course. I now need to write up the steps by step pen and ink calculations with TeXShop and LaTeX code. Then that leaves 2 problems to still complete one of which is started. My solution for this unfinished problem has also been commented on by the professor so I know I am on the right track. I need to complete this work overnight now and I have no work tomorrow to make it easier to score A+ perfect on my homework.

Proofreading volunteer paper work then school homework then work-work.

I just need to proof read my volunteer paperwork then I can look at my school work. I also have some printouts for job applications to organise and read. I then can head off to work for another day at Statistics Canada. I can then do more school work after work and if possible will visit the professor to clarify one of the investment problems. I did take him my facebook and privacy paper last class but forgot to include the figures which I can email him this morning. I also should email my project work to my project partner but I also need to proofread that. So that will wait for later in the day too. So for the rest of this morning I will focus on job applications and preparing for work.

I am just completing some volunteer paperwork and then I will check home work and then it is off to work for another day in the government.

I did some volunteer work this weekend and am just completing some paperwork for that before going to work. I will also print my work so far on the assignment one. I also did some work on our project for this course and should email it to my project partner. I also want to start the Fourier-Motzkin problem this morning.

I started to study facebook development.

I started to study facebook application development because I have an idea for a facebook application. I have downloaded three API's namely: Perl, Java, and PHP 4 & 5. I am not sure what these are. I started to read about Facebook Query Language (FQL) and can understand this based on my use of queries in Arcview. I also understand the way these data structures are referenced or searched based on my knowledge of R data frames. So this is moving along just fine and could look good for a Computer Science position (CS-01) employment application at my workplace, if I can make at least one functioning facebook application.

Speaking of workplace employment applications and my career I have one interview and test to study for this week at my workplace. Later in November I have three government tests to write and one is for my present workplace and the other two would have me working at new workplaces but still would be government jobs. I am going forward with hope.

Working on my first assignment at school this term.

I have solved two problems and started a third problem of five problems on my first assignment due this Wednesday. We are really just setting up systems of equations in the first three problems and I have completed one of these problems. We must define variables and constraints and also find an optimization formula for each of the first three problems. I have done this for one problem and started the second problem. I have also completed the fourth problem that involves showing two systems are the same or not and explaining why they are the same or not. The last problem, Q5 is to work through the Fourier-Motzkin method for a system of inequalities. I will have more time late Tuesday to finish this assignment. Between then and now I will start the other two problems Q3 and Q5.

Harry Potter, British history, and course notes; I continue to read.

I scanned some course notes on network solutions. I did study some it very hard. I might visit our professor today during his office hours after my working day is done. I should take him a copy of my facebook social networking paper from this summer. I am also reading the Harry Potter series. I am trying to read these children's books and not smoke while reading. I am still reading the introduction to The Revolt of the Nobles. I also have to study Canadian social and economic issues and statistical software for a test and interview at work for a job as an economist/sociologist.

I am reading a British history book.

I bought the book

Adamson, John, The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I ( London, U.K.: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007).

So far I have only looked briefly at the maps of the countries and the plan of Westminster Abbey and the House of Commons, and then of course the family trees that seem to always belong in British history books.

This is my first school book this term.

Langenwalter, Gary A. Enterprise Resources Planning and Beyond: Integrating Your Entire Organization (Boca Raton, Flr: CRC, 2000).

I have now read the preface, the acknowledgments, about the author, about APICS, the testimonials, and up to page 6 in the introduction and about 3 pages of Chapter 9 System Selection.

I read chapter 1 in Chinese for Dummies

I now know that each morpheme has one syllable which has an initial sound and a final sound and a tone. There are four tones in Mandarin. This all according to this ancient book Chinese for Dummies.

I was reading about the film The Matrix a lot this summer.

I kept rereading the Sidney Eve Matrix book this summer, Matrix studied various pop culture references to cyberspace including the film The Matrix if that is not too confusing to read. Did Sidney Eve Matrix change her/his name? Did Matrix really study cyber culture? No instead the study was of film mostly except for the video game Tomb Raider. Otherwise it was TV adds for Apple Computer and films like the Matrix and science fiction. I have now lost my borrowing rights at Carleton for my alumni card so had to return the book. But I did reread the section on the film The Matrix quite a bit. I still have not watched all three films of The Matrix.

Last night I watched Kill Switch again. This is episode 11 in the fifth season of the X-Files and I was reminded of uploading ones consciousness to the net and compared this in my mind to facebook profiles. I saw this episode in 1998 just before becoming involved in legal studies. Even in those days I studied the law and the Internet.

I attended my first class and started reading the recommended books for my systems science's course: Systems Optization and Management

I made it to class with time to spare. The professor also has a very tight schedule so we were given a 20 minute break half way through the class. The professor also has a very heavy teaching load. Many of the other students are from abroad such places as Turkey, Serbia, China, Australia and Taiwan and many have math degrees. The professor has a math doctorate and also masters in systems sciences. There is one other government worker in this course and he is also a math guy.

New University of Ottawa web site/page.

I attended my graduate school fall orientation session and was introduced to some computers and got a new account and opened a new web page here at http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~ptimu005/

I have my application emailed to my mentor now.

I was able to email my application for the A.Stat credential to my mentor this morning. Now I am working on cover letters for job promotions.

I passed the statistician's exam at work.

In what is called the SI exam I passed. I will now be considered for a job as a statistical officer in the government. Speaking of new jobs at work, I need to complete three more job applications and have the resumes ready for these three jobs. I have one cover letter started and it needs editing this morning. The other two cover letters still need to be written.

I also need to complete my A.Stat certification application and I hope to complete the scanning of my transcripts today and then email these transcripts and this application to my mentor for her opinion on this application.

This Wednesday is orientation day in our department.

I booked some time off work on Wednesday to attend our orientation day at school. So this Wednesday afternoon I will be introduced to the computers that are available to me as a systems sciences student.

The Wired Style guide.

I picked up the Wired Style guide from the chaos that is my office. I browsed it and realised that the research I have done into Wired magazine lets me know that this style guide is too opinionated and has too many editorial inserts in what should be a more objective guide to language use. The selection of terms for inclusion in the book too shows bias for the owners and founders of the magazines favorite theories and economic philosophies. Even if I accept that objectivity is impossible I do not agree with the magazine's original team's views on economics so will not be reading much more of this book and it will go on that top shelf in my office where computer books on out of date and useless topics goes.

I am now registered for one course in my masters for the fall term.

I registered for one course called SYS5130 SYSTEMS OPTIMIZATION AND MANAGEMENT for the fall term. It occurs on Wednesday evenings.

I am attending a social networking workshop this fall in Toronto at the University of Toronto.

I have arranged with my family to attend a workshop on social networking given in part by Barry Wellman at the university of Toronto. My family will give my partner and I a place to stay and meet for a family gathering on the weekend after the workshop. I will also meet up with some old high school friends that weekend.

I registered for my one course this term.

This term I will study networks. I will review my network + certification book from a few years back in preparation. I will also research optimization and constraints as they are also themes of this course. I suspect the course is problem base and mathematical.

I just printed out my photos from the summer picnic the students in the program had near the beginning of summer.

The weekend virtual conference was good here is the advert.

Here is the advert from www.citasa.org. I presented my paper but had technical difficulties and did not finish giving it. I will post it to www.webpagex.org in a few weeks.


Welcome to CITASA
Tuesday, August 14 2007 @ 04:37 AM EDT
CITASA MC 3.0

Wednesday, July 25 2007 @ 03:22 AM EDT
Contributed by: netwoman
Views: 29
CITASA NewsWeb 2.0 and Beyond:
The Sociological Significance of Virtual Worlds Supplanting Cyberspace

Event: CITASA 3rd Mini-Conference to be held in the Metaverse – Second Life
Date of Event: Sunday, August 12th, 2007
Time: 5:00-8:30pm EDT / 2:00–5:30 pm PDT /SLT
Location Details: The GNWC Virtual Centre for Digital Media in Second Life
University Project (150, 84, 23)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20Project/150/84/23

For the third year in a row the Communication and Information Technology Section (CITASA) of the American Sociological Association (ASA) will hold a Mini-Conference as part of the ASA’s annual meeting. This year’s ASA meeting will be held in New York City, while the primary venue for CITASA’s MC3.0 will be held in Second Life. (www.secondlife.com). Second Life is a 3d virtual world with nearly 8 million residents, who’s lifelike avatars participate in a wide range of economic, social, educational and recreational activities. The virtual location for MC3.0 will be the Virtual Centre for Digital Media created by the Masters of Digital Media Program at Great Northern Way Campus (Vancouver, BC). The physical location of the conference will be wherever the participants find themselves—in New York and elsewhere—at the time.

MC3.0 will focus on three broad areas:
• Social Networking Sites (Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc)
• Videogames & Gaming (World Of Warcraft, Console games etc)
• Virtual Worlds (Second Life, Active Worlds etc)

Key Questions that will be addressed
1) What is the sociological significance of the Web2.0 (and beyond) mediated form of social interaction?
2) How can these forms of online interaction serve as bases for sociological research?
3) Specifically, what is the pedagogical value of the virtual world experience?

Individuals interested in presenting or serving as discussants should contact one of the MC organizers listed
below.

1) Anyone interested in participating as a presenter or discussant should contact one of the MC3.0 organizers (listed below) by July 27, 2007.

2) Anyone may attend the MC3.0 SecondLife session that wil be held August 12, 5:00 – 8:30 pm (EDT) during the ASA meetings. There will be no central physical location for MC3.0, but there will be an opportunity for informal, face-to-face discussion during the CITASA joint reception with the section on Teaching and Learning in Sociology on August 13th (6:30-8:30 pm) in the Hilton.

3) To attend MC3.0 you should have an active SecondLife account and be familiar with the basics of SecondLife navigation and communication. Opportunities for discussion in SecondLife will follow each of the three main presentations.

4) CITASA will provide personalized SecondLife orientation assistance and telephone support July 24 through July 27 between 5 and 9 pm (EDT). To arrange a session send email to jwitte@clemson.edu

CITASA MC3.0 organizers
Tracy Kennedy tkennedy@netwomen.ca
Anabel Quan-Haase aquan@uwo.ca
Joanna Robinson joanna@gnwc.ca
Jim Witte jwitte@clemson.edu

Join the CITASA group on Facebook!

I am studying about 500 short pages of web/pdf printout about statistics work at Statistics Canada.

I am writing a test for Statistics Canada's statistical officer job. I am writing my test on Wednesday. I have a study group which will meet on Tuesday and perhaps on Monday after work. So I am switching gears from sociology of facebook studies to statistics studies.

The paper is completed and the final graphics test is done.

I tested the graphics one more time in Second Life on Saturday between 5 PM EST and 7 PM EST. I also met in-world some other presenters as they also tested the room and delivery techniques. I then waited a bit and did some other computer tasks like talking with my father using Skype where I introduced him to chat for the first time in his life which he called his first texting. I then wrote the final draft of the paper and edited it a bit with a little more proof reading.

The remaining task before the conference is to prepare some note cards of the text of my paper that include the proper copy and paste breaks. I learned that I will copy and paste my text into a chat window in Second Life. The best way to do this I found was to have the paper already inside Second Life by putting it into a note card. I still must prepare this note card before sleeping today at say 6 AM. The final draft was sent to the conference organizers at 1 AM EST.

I changed all the graphics I am working on into 4 pt stroke lines.

I tested the slides for my paper in Second Life in the conference room using the slide projector. This slide projector will work for LaTeX if I can design a LaTeX format for Second Life. The LaTeX pdf pages would need to be changed into jpegs. I changed all my Adobe Page Maker files into 4 point lines and larger 18 and 30 point fonts. I will test them today at 5 PM EST.

I am now eight hours behind on the paper.

I am eight hours behind on the paper and wanting to do two more hours today in my plan I have to do ten hours today to catch up. I may drop my speculative other 6 hypotheses and work on the one only which I have graphics for and start to think more about the closer nodes hypothesis.

I have finished reading all the ACM papers now.

The last ACM paper while by the same authors as the first is not gong to be useful for my paper. The second paper will be useful but not directly but it will shows that facebook helps bring nodes together but I need to write something more deep about this hypothesis.

I was successful with Keynote insertion of a pdf graphic file.

So here is what I was able to do yesterday and today. I was able to make graphics of network models using Adobe Page Maker and then turn these into pdf pages using the Adobe Distiller program. Then using Keynote I have been able to add these pdf pages to slides and view them on screen.

The next step with the help of the conference organisors will be to test the power point projector in Second Life. We will test it perhaps tonight.

This evening early on at 7:00 PM I am going to the local community college for a meeting of the local Linux users group. I am going to this meeting tonight because Dr. John C Nash a professor who may be a supervisor for my master's thesis is speaking tonight at the meeting. Then I may stay up late and sleep tomorrow right after work.

I finished one ACM paper and started to read a second.

I read all, of the empirical study into privacy exposure of Carnegie Melon Students who used facebook in 2005, now. I need to read parts of it with more care tomorrow or Wednesday morning. Below is a bit of a summary and some ideas on how I will use their paper. Here is the citation for this paper:

Ralph Gross & Alessandro Acquisti & H. John Heinz, III. Information revelation and privacy in online social networks in Workshop On Privacy In The Electronic Society Proceedings of the 2005 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society (New York, N.Y.: ACM, 2005) at 71–80.

The paper is critical of social networking models. It uses facebook search features to gather data. It assumes the worst crimes such as identity theft and stalking. The authors do realise that they are generating hypotheses as I am in my paper. I think the other side of my paper "closer nodes" might counter balance this fear mongering. But definitely the authors have made a great start of this type of study. They, I think are weak on law and philosophy, so I can add something from those fields. They focus on what's exposed and I think I will use their work to suggest these exposed facts about persons without exploring these aspects deeply. I think the next ACM paper from a year later in 2006 might be more about the "closer nodes" side of my paper.

7 hours done today on the paper.

I am still doing graphics and should may be try to finish those today while using Adobe Page Maker is fresh on my mind. I was wrong about the graphic shapes not being adjustable after writing text. I just need to point at the actual edge of the graphic to select and then adjust it. Right now I am 5.5 hours behind on the paper for my weekend schedule. If I try to do another three hours of graphics and mix in some reading and then half an hour to study survey processes I will also complete today's study goals.

I put in another hour and a half work on the paper, and graphics, as well as, writings are happening.

I have a good bibliography now. This includes all the papers I have consulted so far. I now need to check the bibliography against my legal style guide or better would be to learn the ASA style quickly and apply it to this paper. That would be ideal. I still have to read most of the papers carefully.

I now have seven hypothetical exposures written down. I also have some sketched out graphics for these to show who or what is exposed and the levels of exposure possible or not. Having drawn the graphics with pen and ink I now needed a tool for doing computer drawings. I tried Microsoft Word art about a week ago, and it was not great. Then after having an idea of all the graphics I will need, I looked for software for drawing on my eMac. I tried Illustrator but that did not work well, as I don't know enough about Illustrator. In the end I have my figure 1., a basic network in facebook drawn with Adobe Page Maker and it looks fine and produces a 1 page pdf of the figure. Now my next step will be finding a way of including the figure in the paper or having the graphics separate. I will need seven more graphics at least for the second section for the analysis where I sketch out the networks for each hypothesis. I need to stop here and think about the process of using Adobe Page Maker. Some graphics get hidden behind text boxes and then can no longer be adjusted. So one step to take for the other seven graphics will be to do all the geometric symbols first. Thus draw first, then write labels. I can also copy and paste the legend maybe, but there will also be a graphic symbol for areas of exposure in the seven diagrams, so copying and pasting my first legend would be a mistake. I will think a bit more about the processes and then make some solid sketches before going ahead. Apparently network diagrams were rumoured to have been drawn on napkins or envelopes for the original design of the Internet. I will need seven figures for the seven hypotheses. I am keeping my drawings and models very simple for display reasons. Also the learner will find understanding not elitist.

Steps for writing about these hypotheses are, first identify, describe (the network structures/models in figures), explore the ethics that seem involved in each case, and then finally ponder the legal possibilities in each case.

I planned for 18 hours this weekend and have done about 6.5 hours now.

I planned to work 6 hours per day on this long weekend until my paper was done. I have worked about 2 hours per day and 3 hours today. I also planned about 2 hours on Friday which did not happen. So far I have downloaded some pdf articles of professor Wellmans's and read a chapter in a book by him. I have also read parts of another book mentioned before on gift giving and started the three ACM articles and have those printed out.

I am going to develop 7 hypothetical exposures to privacy and have the first and second identified now. I need five more now. I will today find those five and also read the three articles from the ACM and the book chapter on gift giving. Then I will write more and then sleep on everything and work a little in the morning before work. I should also spend half an hour studying survey processes for work.

Researching open source software teams.

I found this article but have not read it yet.

Barcellini, Flore et al. A study of Online Discussions in an Open-Source Software Community: Reconstructing Thematic Coherence and Argumentation from Quotation Practices in van den Besselaar, Peter, et. al. eds. Communities and Technologies 2005 (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2005) at 301-320.

This would help me with working on my masters thesis with management professor John C. Nash who has this as one of his study topics although he focuses more on forecasting in the field of scientific software. I am going to hear him talk tomorrow on his topic, Tuesday evening at the local Linux users group meeting for August.

I search ACM and found three very relevant papers for ideas for my paper.

I found searching ACM's journals that at least three very close articles have already been written on my topic. The first one rejects the use of social networking to study privacy on facebook. This is an empirical study of Carnegie Melon Students who use facebook. I have not finished reading the three papers so will wait to cite them here.

I found a good paper on social networks and gift giving.

Because file sharing is a two way street it may be similar to rights because rights are both given and taken. In my browsing QA76.9 I found QA76.9 C66 C5845 2005 and this paper:

Skågeby, Jörgen & Pargman, Daniel. File-Sharing Relationships - conflicts of interest in online gift-giving in van den Besselaar, Peter, et. al. eds. Communities and Technologies 2005 (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2005)

This paper will be used for the above thought and the model they use for scales between network nodes, namely ego-micro-meso-macro.

I need to check the above citation against my legal studies citation guide before putting the above cite into my bibliography for my paper. At least I have it started here and have the Nordic accents done in html entities for now.

Working on my paper for CITASA Mini conference 3.0

I am writing a paper for the Communications Information and Technology section of the American Sociology Association mini conference for 2007. This will take place in New York and also on-line in Second Life a virtual 3D world.

I requested transcripts today from Carleton University

I just faxed Carleton's registrar's office with a transcript request. These are for applying for the A.Stat credential from the Statistical Society of Canada. Speaking of this society they are having a conference next Spring in Ottawa that I will try to attend.

My abstract for the Communications and Information Technology section of the American Sociology Association 2007 mini-conference in Second Life

Exposed edges and tighter nodes: a suggested social networking hypothesis for web 2.0 as seen through a user of facebook a web 2.0 social networking site.

Author Peter Timusk, B.Math, B.A., graduate student of Systems Science at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario Canada.

The author explores previous studies of social networking by pioneers such as Barry Wellman. Using these studies and more recent basic networking models a hypothesis is developed for further empirical study of the networking properties of social networking web sites such as facebook. It seems to the author, who is a new user of facebook in summer 2007 that there is more privacy exposure between persons and at the same time these same persons are brought closer together by networking on facebook. Thus edges between nodes on this social network are exposed revealing these edges to other nodes while nodes themselves potentially learn more about each other as nodes only not just as edges. It is hoped that this hypothesis and other various hypotheses will help either social network analysts, or those who will be data mining web sites, such as, facebook to understand implications of the network’s social structure. Legal and ethical considerations resulting from these hypotheses will also be considered in this paper.

Applying for a professional designation.

I started to complete my A.Stat application with the Statistical Society of Canada application.

Reading books.

I read the beginning of two books today:

Berger, Peter L. & Luckman, Thomas. The Social Construction of Knowledge: A Treatise In The Sociology of Knowledge ( New York, N.Y.: Anchor, 1966)

This is a very inspiring book.

Heiberger, Richard, M. & Holland, Burt. Statistical Analysis and Data Display: An Intermediate Course with Examples on S-Plus, R, and SAS (New York, N.Y.: Springer, 2004).

This book I read more of the second chapter.

I did borrow a book and again I am stupid

I did borrow a book on errors and measurement and again I have made a stupid mistakes about knowledge I could have known. The book I read this in was:

Taylor, John R. An introduction to error analysis : the study of uncertainties in physical measurements (Mill Valley, Calif.: University Science Books, 1982)

I read a book for fun that could be related to Internet research or my business but am deciding it was just fun.

I read this book

Carr, Paul & Pond, Graham The Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life: The Essential Guide to an Amazing Virtual World - with Millions of Users
(New York N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007).

I read most of this book now. I read it very quickly as it has a light hearted style. It has many foreign or historical and ancient origin based words for names of virtual tourist destinations. These are the actual names of these locations in the virtual world known as Second Life. I had to pronounce these proper names slowly. I did not search these locations out in Second Life but the authors gave the tourist spots names as a locational reference. So I did not explore Second Life with the book in hand but instead after, starting to read this book, I went on line in Second Life did a little work on making my home in Second Life. I was intending on working on my business in Second Life while on-line today, but after I read more of the book, I am rethinking doing business in Second Life, and thinking more of just enjoying Second Life.
The pages of this book are small and it is the typical paperback length of 200 pages or so. It read more like Canadian narrative sociology than American analytical sociology.

I was also reading analytical sociology last night. I read more of the book Social Networks edited by Barry Wellman because he seems to think his early work covers social networking like studying facebook or other social web network might need covering these days.

We had a BBQ for systems sciences students today.

My partner and I had a good time at the BBQ organised by other students in my master's program.

Library thing dot com

I added more books to Library thing dot com and tried adding a tag to all the books I am currently reading. Five hours of study done now plus yesterday's work and teaching my partner fractions for an all round busy busy day.

I dig deep into past lessons to understand political and business uncertainty

I want to borrow this book

Taylor, John R. An introduction to error analysis : the study of uncertainties in physical measurements (Mill Valley, Calif.: University Science Books, 1982)

I read about alternative terms for free software to learn what FLOSS means

I read wikipedia's article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOSS (cited July 5, 2007) and a definition at flora.ca here http://www.flora.ca/floss.shtml (cited July 5, 2007).

Computers as art form? May be not.

R.L. Rutsky, High technē: art and technology from the machine aesthetic to the posthuman (Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota, 1999)

I read more of this book lately. I disucssed a little of the points made at the beginning with a coworker and I made sense. Art attracts me and motivates me. I am a computer artist since 1979.

I read a few pieces tonight in the Internet law puzzle.

I decided to revisit my legal studies of the Internet on Monday evening and borrowed one book on this topic from the old library shelf where I found myself during the e-commerce course I took in Winter 2004. I am just finishing reading from this book one piece

Garnham, Nicholas. The Role of the Public Sphere in the Information Society in Marsden, Christopher T. ed. Regulation and the Global Information Society (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2000)

This was a good review of law and political theory touching on both Kant and Rousseau as well as Habermas. This whole book was published just before the Internet crash but whose to say that the changes brought about by the Internet which this books asserts has changed the world, is really that affected by a loss in the stock market as the over all changes in society seem to have held and grown stronger. Perhaps the Internet is changing capitalism for the better or at least testing the markets and awareness of the stock markets.

I am studying by email with AOIR researchers lately.

I have been following the Internet with other more senior and experienced Internet researchers by email. I have taken to using facebook for staying in touch with coworkers and friends. This site (facebook) is all of a sudden very popular.

Cyber culture summer studies

Here is my summer reading list for cybercultural studies. I may try to develop a course with real programming and culture studies from this summer reading. What follows each bibliographic entry is from our libraries entry for the book:

Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, Arturo Escobar, eds. Cultures of politics/politics of cultures : re-visioning Latin American social movements (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1998).

Contents The cultural politics of citizenship, democracy, and the state -- The cultural politics of ethnicity, race, and gender -- Globalization, transnationalism, and civil society -- Theoretical and methodological reflections on the cultural and the political in Latin American social movements.

Summary Investigating the complex interrelations between culture & politics in a wide range of social movements in Latin America, this book focuses on the cultural politics enacted by social movements as they struggle for new visions & practices of citizenship, democracy, social relations, & development. The volume explores the potential of these cultural politics for fostering alternative political cultures & social transformations. Theoretical & empirical chapters assess & build upon novel conceptions of culture & politics in a variety of disciplines & fields-particularly anthropology, political science, sociology, feminist theory, & cultural studies.

Sande Cohen, & R.L. Rutsky, eds., Consumption in an age of information (Oxford ; New York : Berg, 2005)

Summary We live in an age when consumption and consuming have come to define us. Consumption, now a global phenomenon, is so dominant it allows little room for alternatives. At the same time, information and digitization have become all-pervasive in our media culture. As ever greater aspects of the world have come to be seen as 'data', information has increasingly become the very currency of consumption.

Consumption in an Age of Information maps this new terrain. Bringing together some of the world's leading theorists and critics, the essays range across high theory and popular culture - from informational flows to science fiction simulations, from pop-cultural consumption to capitalism as religion, from the consumption of time to the role of 'speed' in contemporary culture. Book jacket.

Zillah Eisenstein Global obscenities : patriarchy, capitalism, and the lure of cyberfantasy (New York: New York University, 1998).

Contents Seeing : virtual globes and cyberpublics -- Viewing : media-ted seeing and cultural capitalism -- Talking : cyberfantasies and the relations of power -- Surviving : transnations, global capital, and families -- Wishing/hoping : Transnational capitalist patriachy, Beijing, and virtual sisterhoods.

Summary A noted feminist critic & political scientist investigates the effects of global capitalism & the new media explosion.

Jane Kenway, et al. Haunting the knowledge economy (London; New York: Routledge, 2006).

There is not much written about this book in the library entry only that this book falls in the sociology of knowledge field one field I read in and am learning on my own.

Wendy Harcourt & Arturo Escobar, eds. Women and the politics of place (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2005).

Summary A team of researchers and activists in development, geography, women's rights, and related fields explore how women in place are living their lives at different levels of resistance and creativity in the face of what are often perceived to be overwhelming and largely abstract global forces. Case studies include Pakistan, Columbian black movement struggles, rural Finland, Zapatista women, and Palestine. Annotation :2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Webster, Frank, Theories of the information society (London; New York: Routledge, 2002).

There is really nothing written in the library card entry about this book. But this book does fall in the subjects of communication -- Social aspects; Communication -- Technological innovations; Information society; Information technology; Information policy.

David Morley & Kevin Robins, Spaces of identity : global media, electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries (London ; New York : Routledge, 1995)

Again there is nothing much written in the library about this book but here is the subject info:

Subject:
Intercultural communication

Telecommunication -- Social aspects

Group identity

Computers and civilization

R.L. Rutsky, High technē: art and technology from the machine aesthetic to the posthuman (Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota, 1999)

Summary In an age of high tech, our experience of technology has changed tremendously, yet the definition of technology has remained largely unquestioned. High Techne redresses this gap in thinking about technology, examining the shifting relations of technology, art, and culture from the beginnings of modernity to contemporary technocultures.

Drawing on the Greek root of technology (techne, generally translated as "art, skill, or craft"), R. L. Rutsky challenges both the modernist notion of technology as an instrument or tool and the conventional idea of a noninstrumental aesthetics. Today, technology and aesthetics have again begun to come together: even basketball shoes are said to exhibit a "high-tech style" and the most advanced technology is called "state of the art." Rutsky charts the history and vicissitudes of this new high-tech techne up to our day -- from Fritz Lang to Octavia Butler, Thomas Edison to Japanese Anime, constructivism to cyberspace.

Progressing from the major art movements of modernism to contemporary science fiction and cultural theory, Rutsky provides clear and compelling evidence of a shift in the cultural conceptions of technology and art and demonstrates the centrality of technology to modernism and postmodernism.

I studied the first chapter in Thomas S Ferguson's course on large sample theory

Here is my work in for my notes on the weak law of large numbers. This is just Ferguson's first page and the defintion.

Student: Peter Timusk

From professor Thomas S Ferguson, UCLA

Laws of Large Numbers

converges in law to ,



if as n for all points x at which is continuous

I attended a colloquium at statistics Canada. Hearing talks on biomonitoring

I attended some talks today on biomonitoring

Spending time studying overnight tonight after the hockey game.

I am watching hockey tonight and will do some book reading after the game. The game is starting now with the pre-game show on TV.

A local activist shared this video about the military industrial complex.

View the shift http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3uhcRe60Zo

I started to use Library Thing.

I started to use Library Thing at www.librarything.com.

use of reseach topics.

The more the professional researchers discuss the internet and web 2.0 the more time I spend using web 2.0.

Reading today

I read a little more Peter Senge on The Fifth Discipline and I read more of Cyberpop by Sidney Eve Matrix.

Academic studies of facebook.

I am reading some papers from Fred Stutzman found at this web page

http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/academic.html

Pi sub i's as a probability vector for sampling w/o replacement.

I am not sure what Dr. Fellegi meant in his Ph.D. by saying the probabilities of a sample without replacement are to be represented by vector. We have the equal probabilities of and I would think probabilities of as sampling without replacement. I thought this was trivial not something one could write a Ph.D. about. Ok I am still assuming equal probabilities and certainly things are more interesting with unequal probabilities.

I do see his experiences with Statistics Canada and thus awareness of respondent burden cropping up early in his dissertation.

I am reading Ivan Peter Fellegi's Ph.D.

Ivan Peter Fellegi my most supreme boss at my work place is the chief statistician of Canada. I borrowed his Ph.D. today from the library of the school where we are both alumni and both of us studied statistics there. You can find out more about him on wikipedia which I believe is accurate. Here is a link to the wikiepdia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Fellegi.

Facebook and the US intelligence industry

This is good little presentation.

http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

I am continuing to read general cyberspace culture studies.

I am still preparing my summer reading list to post here. I am still reading Daniel Bell's critique of himself and some of the other books I borrowed this summer. I am also reading a 100 year history of the wobblies. I attended the Montreal anarchist book fair.

Daniel Bell critiques himself.

Daniel Bell wrote about the post-industrial society in the 1970's. In Frank Webster's book, Mr. Bell critiques himself and those who have used his ideas. It is an interesting and novel piece that I read yesterday morning. I am not finished it yet.

I tried to claim this blog with technorati and they let me add a search function.

Wow, talk about more web freebies. I searched technorati for links to my various blogs and this blog was nowhere. After doing some surfing of other blogs linking to my various blogs and contacting various bloggers who linked to me (without permssion I note) both good and bad I decided to join technorati. I am now in the process of claiming this studies blog as my own.

I passed both courses in my first term in grad school.

I managed to pass both courses in grad school this term.

I am preparing a list of books about cyberculture that I am reading at the moment.

I am hoping soon to have a list of books I am borrowing at the moment on cyberculture. I will also include library information for these books if available.

I am relaxed now that the school work is done.

I am more relaxed now that deadlines have passed and exams are over. I wrote an exam at work yesterday using a computer for a computer skilled job assignment. I am now focusing more on work instead of school. I have begun studying cyber culture over this summer. I have about ten books out on cyber culture. I have been reading them when ever I can the past week. I have a problem with the library being closed early this week at Carleton. I will try to use the libraries all summer at both schools. I am just resting now before a Friday at work.

Our paper is done.

With some last minute footnote changes we were done today. I found working with others stressful and feel we did not do our best. This is the beginning of working with others on papers.

The model is done and I am just writing it up this morning.

I am doing my final write up of the labour contract model now. I wrote it in pen and ink and now must add it to the computer file.

I am working on our term paper this morning.

I am working on a term paper for our economic design course. I have not been doing much work and need to do more now. We will have a final modeling session this afternoon.

I wrote my final exam in applied probability today.

I wrote my final exam in applied probability today. I did not do a perfect exam. I did pass I am sure.

Organizing my applied probability course notes.

I made an excel sheet to account the notes from my probability course. I reviewed lectures # 1 and #2 for the last time. I also double checked the solution technique. I should also study random sums and random expectations. I have about 24 lectures in total to review. My exam is on Friday this week. I have about 1 more hour today to study and may be an hour after work before I sleep. Then an hour or two Wednesday morning and then may be 4 or 5 hours Wednesday night. I should be able to review lectures #3 and #4 this morning. Lectures #5 through #8 tomorrow morning. Lectures #9 through #16 or #18 Wednesday evening. Then the final 6 lectures on Thursday evening. That will be my study plan then.

I wrote the SYS5140 economic systems design 2007 final exam last night.

I am home basically relaxing by installing Linux software and creating Linux disks. I wrote the exam and we looked at a model of an economy. I wrote about three pages for an answer. I stayed for the full exam as did all the other students.

Everything is packed for the exam in 2 hours.

I have everything packed in my knapsack and ready to go. I just need to pack my laptop now and I am ready to go.

My sympathies go out today to the students and staff and families at Virginia Tech.

I am deeply sad about the shootings that happened today on a US University campus. This is awful news.

I am calling it a night again.

I am done with studying for Sunday and it is early Monday morning now. I will sleep and hopefully be writing my exam about 9 hours into my day Monday. This should be the best time of day to write the exam.

I reviewed example cases and example answers to these cases.

The professor posted example cases and now answers to these cases. The answers are point form analysis perhaps with diagrams of the cases. I may need a diagram software or instead a piece of paper to help with my own exam answer. I will be writing the exam on this laptop.

I reviewed lecture #5 notes just now and the workshop lecture #6 notes. I am half way through the course material now in my exam study review.

I reviewed the lecture #5 notes just now. This was mostly about social systems. I also reviewed the notes from our workshop in week 6. In this workshop we learned to use Stella.

I reviewed chapter 16 of Beinhocker's now for lecture #5

Beinhocker in his chapter 16 looks at organizations and in particular companies to see how they adapt to changes in the marketplace. He suggests strong organizational culture with positive values will work well. He also compares and contrasts older and younger workers on their basis of adaptability. He looks at R&D a little as skunk works or little research projects researching new products. This chapter was the second reading for lecture #5.

I reviewed chapter 8 of Beinhocker now.

I reviewed chapter 8 of Beinhocker which covers stock markets and patterns in economic data. He presents some findings about order books which I can understand having spent a few days in a day trading firm locally. This is the first of two chapters of Beinhocker used in lecture #5.

I reviewed lecture #4's notes just now.

I reviewed lecture #4's notes just now. The lecture covers networks briefly and then has a lot about data mining but only really neural networks, genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. I am not happy with knowing data mining or, in fact, I may have difficulty with implementing data mining.

I am calling it a night.

I am loosing focus and becoming tired. I will continue studies for economic systems design tomorrow. For now I am going to sleep. I am almost done with lecture #4 now.

I read the Bar-Yam chapter 2 on neural networks just now.

This reading too I have not read completely this past term. I reviewed it just now as it was a required reading for lecture #4.

I reviewed Beinhocker's chapter 7 now for lecture #4.

I have now reviewed Beinhocker's chapter on networks. I realised I had not read this chapter completely during the school term before lecture #4 and was missing some key issues that came up about networks in the lectures. I reviewed this just now.

I would like to complete reading and reviewing lectures #5 and #6 by midnight and then sleep when that is done.

I just quickly reviewed the power point lecture notes now for lecture #3.

I have completed my review of lecture #3 now. This also covered dynamic systems but included some other material on chaos theory and its material.

I reviewed the other required reading for lecture #3.

I read the other reading for lecture #3. This covered dynamic equations based on mostly the quadratic differential equation. This lead to chaos in some cases.

I just reviewed the Beinhocker chapter for lecture #3.

I read chapter 5 in Beinhocker just now. I don't actually read the whole chapter but read the beginning sentence of each paragraph and then maybe a few more sentences. This chapter was about dynamics and non-linear systems. I now will read some other author's reading dynamics and chaos.

I reviewed the professor's lecture notes now for lecture #2.

I was able to review the lecture notes just now for lecture #2. Mostly he covers the Bowles chapter 2 in his notes. I am now moving on to lecture #3.

I reviewed chapter 2 of Bowles now.

This is the key chapter in the course which sets up evolutionary stable strategies as a concept and also set this concept and most of the book into the context of economics.

Also in this chapter are the segregation models, the hawk dove game, the bourgeois games both pure and contested ;and in this chapter he introduces non-best-responses.

I was slowing down with studies and watched hockey on TV and napped.

I slowed down after reading chapter 4 and went shopping for supper. I also looked at bike parts at the local pro shop and said hi to someone I know who works there. I came home and tried to read chapter 9 but got tired reading it. I watched a fair amount of hockey as Ottawa lost to Pittsburgh. I just now completed reading chapter 9 of Beinhocker and am moving on to chapter 2 of Bowles. My studies pace is quickening.

I reviewed chapter 4 now of Beinhocker for lecture #2.

I reviewed the first chapter of Beinhocker that is chapter 4 that goes with the second lecture. This was mostly about sugarscape in detail. There is another chapter still to review from Beinhocker for this lecture.

I reviewed all the notes now for lecture #1.

I have now gotten briefly through all the lecture power point slides for lecture #1.

I reviewed Bowles chapter 1 just now.

Chapter 1 of Bowles was also assigned reading for lecture #1. I have reviewed this chapter now. He introduces game theory in great detail and sets game theory into the field of economics.

I reviewed Lecture #1's Beinhocker reading which was chapter 10.

I briefly reviewed chapter 10 in Beinhocker. He covers the prisoners dilemma, the sugarspace simulation and then looks at the library of babel or the library of Smith.

I am just printing out final copies of lecture notes and organizing my lecture notes for SYS5140.

I am just printing lecture notes for my economics course. I have started to review lecture #1 today which involves the introduction of game theory.

I handed in my random walk programs.

I completed my random walk program printouts just on time to catch a bus to our last lecture. I did not include 1 dimensional random walks. I also did not include 4 dimensional square walking. I now have a couple of days to submit the regular assignment. I was just working on it now and sorted out two more problems.

So my progress report...I have two problems fully solved. I have another problem almost completely solved except for the final general form. I also have another problem involving extinction probabilities for a Poisson branching process solved except for the calculation of the ultimate extinction probability. The next problem after that is another ultimate extinction probability for a geometric branching process. Then I have a limiting distribution problem which we learned to solve in last afternoon's lecture.

I made the R programs output better graphs and am just doing final print outs now of the 12 walks.

I will hand in the 12 random walks today. I have 7 printed out now with labels on graphs and code for each program. I will do the 1 dimensional walks rather quickly but the last 3 dimensional is taking some time and the two 4 dimensional will take a long time to run on the computer too. These are running on my laptop but I will do a writeup now on my desktop computer.

I solved another half problem just now.

I solved a problem with finding an just now. The second half of this problem is to verify a formula. Then I have five more problems to solve before tomorrow. I will return to schoolwork after work today at 3:30.

Assignment #3 solutions.

I briefly read the professor's solutions to assignment # 3 and I seem to have done each problem correctly. I may have scored 100% on this assignment. This is motivating me to complete assignment #4 now.

I completed the other half of the exercise now. So two exercises are now done.

I have now completed the second half of a problem concerning communicating classes of a markov chain transition probability matrix. What we do is this: "For state we evaluate for all . and any and at the same time evaluate for any . If we can show that for any and also that for any we have shown that the states and communicate. This allows us to establish which states communicate and then grouping all states by ability to communicate allows us to establish the different classes of states.

I read some of this week's required readings.

I read one of two of this week's required readings for my economics course. I also borrowed some books on bargaining games but so far after reading some of these I find they are not close to our topic. I also borrowed a book about Joan of Arc.

I have another half problem solved now.

I now know how to solve four problems out of eight. I have one problem done except for a final edit. I also have half of a second problem now done and know how to solve the other half. Again this problem had answers in the back of the book which helped steer my learning. I now know about communicating classes, and communicating states. I have not done any further work on the two branching process questions that are easy but both also have answers in the back of the book. Of course, these answers could be wrong and this type of teaching namely assigning problems, where the answers are in the back of the textbook is common with these probability professors. I know I can do this work.

I am only staying up for another five hours. I do mean to go to the university of Ottawa library this morning to read this week's required reading for our economics systems design course tomorrow. Tomorrow will be our last lecture. I will just check the hours of the library and then go to school now. I also want to borrow a book on error measurement or at least look at it.

I have 1 problem from assignment #4 solved and typeset and another solved in my head.

It took some reading of the textbook but I solved one problem and type set it now. I used our lectures on transient states and recurrent states and then the theorem about this in the book and solved the first problem. I also used the text book to solve another problem but have not actually calculated the solution yet or typeset this problem yet. For both problems the answers are in the back of the book but I still need to show in my answers how to get to the answers in the back of the book.

I did read a little more economics but need to get to work on assignment #4 now.

I need to start some code for my assignment #4 now

I have 12 working programs now and will rest this work for the day.

I have the two 1 dimensional random walk programs coded now and they were really coded last week but I generalized my code a little and started to write the standard comments for these programs. I then posed the problem below and sent an e-mail to our professor asking him to read my weighted 3 dimensional walk problem. I only now need to write two more programs of the 14. So I have 12 programs now. For the final two I only need to create a 4 dimensional square walk program and then split it into an interactive version and a non-interactive version. Then later today or tomorrow when this coding is done I will only need to proof read the comments in these programs and e-mail the files for the programs to the professor.

Code testing completed.

I needed to adjust the iterations down to 500 for the interactive plots for the 4 dimensional random walk but now all ten programs have tested as working at least once. I now realize I do not need four 1 dimensional random walks and in 1 dimension there is no diagonal v square walking. So for 1 dimension I just need an interactive and non interactive walk meaning I need only 14 programs.

I am tempted to make a 3 dimensional random walk that walks to all points in an origin centered cube. In other words the next step can be any combination of for any of the three axis. Thus giving 6 choices with walking towards a face, 8 choices of walking to a corner, and 12 choices of walking to an edge. This could be or in my alternative version we would weight the probability based on the vector length of the walk. The probability would be inversely related to the vector length of the step. Thus setting the probability of walking to a face as unity with probability and then set the others to the inversion of their vector lengths. Thus walking along a diagonal would be walking to an edge and would have a probability of and walking to a corner would have probability .

Then a basic law of probability would be used to create this equation which would solve for

.

The 3 dimensional walks have all worked now

I needed to leave the laptop alone and not multi-task while the R code ran for the non-interactive 100000 step random walk and then the code worked. I have some ideas for more work but I am ready to test the 4 dimensional code I have and must get working now on the regular assignment #4. I also have three household tasks to complete today.

3 dimensional walks not working.

The first of the 3 dimensional 100000 iteration non-interactive walks crashed R. This means so far 5 out of 6 programs have worked alright. I will continue testing now.

Testing yesterday's R code for the Bonus assignment.

I just tested all four 2 dimensional walks and they run fine. I will post these for download on my Crystal Computing web site and perhaps also my cyborgcitizen web site. But I won't do this until May 1st when the course is over. I am now testing the four three dimensional random walks.

I have almost completed reading Bowles' third chapter now.

I have read more of Bowles today. I read about his account of the ultimatum game. Beinhocker also described the results from experimenting with this game. The basic thesis that results is that people like fair games over their preference to self interest. This is apparently universal throughout the globe and in different levels of civilizations.

Random walk programming continues for the past two or three days.

I did more programming in R this past few days. I did get square axis walking done yesterday and also got three dimensions and four dimensions done. I slept on this work and am examining it today as I test my ten programs.

I now have successful random walks in 1, 2, 3, and 4 dimensions and have interactive plots for 1, 2, and 3 dimensions stable for runs of 1000 steps. I can not get a stable interactive plot in 4 dimensions. I also tried diagonal and axis walking random walks. This should be 4 walks with both diagonal and axis walking for 8 walks but for each walk I have an interactive and non-interactive walk for total of 16 R programs. I have 11 done now and must do three more 1 dimensional walks and 2 more 4 dimensional walks. The interactive walks plot the steps at each step and the non interactive draw a plot at the end of the walk showing the path of the walk after all steps are taken.

I attended all lectures this week.

I attended two probability lectures where we learned branching processes. We needed to use generating functions for this. We also are now covering the fundamental markov theorem. We are also looking at limiting distributions for markov chains.

In my other course we looked at a model in Bowles for three person games describing the rise of agriculture and sharing and punishing in an extension of the solution of the hawk dove game and looked at the so called bourgeois strategy solution to this new game. I think anything that dictates a strategy is not a bourgeois strategy but certainly owning property which dictates the bourgeois strategy can be interpreted as a position of wealth that dictates a strategy. Thus our modeling of labour negotiations which is dependent on worker efforts might be called the hard workers/shirking worker strategy and has polar opposite effects on workers and management but then in Bowles model effort would not be monitorable so would lead to disagreements at the bargaining table as too whether workers were working too hard for too little for the workers to bargain in good faith or too little for the costs the employer endures or too hard for the money the employer pays.

I completed a successful programming session again.

I now have the R code done for a 2 dimensional random walk. It took about 2 hours to get the coding from a 1 dimensional simulation to a 2 dimensional simulation. The problem now is that R crashes when running the for loop 100,000 times. If I take the plot statement outside the loop the code executes alright and we get a return to the origin in one run of n=7 times.

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.

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

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.

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 or . 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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).