I just reviewed the notes from our course review class.

I just reviewed notes from our course review class last Thursday. I will continue to study all night tonight.

Wasting a little time but my review notes of my textbook are done on time.

I did waste a little time giving away a computer, surfing Second Life and updating Second Life, and just now updating myspace. So capitalist internet continues to ruin my school time. I did in fact get my review notes all done by 3 AM. I now need to read my review notes and then review problems and practice some problems. I should practice a problem from each studied section now. I will try to do that starting this time at the end in chapter 5.

Plan for this morning's study is to summarize my textbook.

I have summarized two chapters now and have three to go. I will get this all done by 3 AM and then practice problems. I will report my progress here in one hour.

I attended our last class in MAT2371.

I attended the last class in MAT2371 and we reviewed the last two thirds of the last year's exam. I have some weak areas like change of variables and and also poisson approximation but otherwise know what I am doing. I will be reviewing my own material and these weak areas tonight after work. I may leave work early today if I can. I have tomorrow off work but it is very important that I do well do this first exam of gradaute school.

The normal distribution, studied.

I studied the normal distribution this morning. I have studied most of the first chapter and this was chapter 5 I read today. I am working early today so I can leave work early and get to sleep early and wake up on time for our last lecture tomorrow. I write my exam on Thursday morning. I also have Wednesday off work so I can sleep in the afternoon and wake up plenty early for my exam on Thursday.

Last year's exam as a study technique.

The professor reviewed seven problems on Thursday from last year's exam in Thursday's lecture. I reviewed these solutions today. I then solved another 6 problems on my own this morning and had some difficulties with three problems. I think I will use her review structure also from Thursday's lecture to rewrite my own course summary today. I will also try to solve another 6 problems. But right now I am going to sleep having not slept since Friday morning.

I did not complete all the problems in the last assignment.

I had some union volunteering to complete on the morning my assignment was due. I also did not plan the final assignment work load very well. I ended up only completing about half of the assignment. I should end with about 75% on the term work.

I started this week's problem solving homework this morning.

I puzzled with the Phi look up but got the first part of the first problem in this week's homework done. I will try to complete the first problem today before I go to work.

I have one more school assignment to complete this term.

I am just getting started now on my last assignment for this term. I will read sections 5.3-5.5 that cover the material for this week's assignment then I will attempt the problems. I have no volunteer meetings this week or anything special at work. We are nearing the end of our project at work. This will also be the last week of classes I believe.

I have to search out an optional course for Friday evenings next term.

I am not yet familiar with the techniques for searching the graduate course schedule at the University of Ottawa. I also need to review all the courses that are suggested options in the systems science certicate plus thesis. I only take 1 optional course. I need to pick well for high grades in the main.

I got almost every problem in this week's homework correct.

I just checked the solutions to our seventh homework assignment and I have every answer perfect. May be one of twenty little numerical values was wrong. So my grades should be improving now and I will continue to hit the books.

Speaking of hitting the books I just reviewed the ideas of conditional probability section 1.3 in the text book. I will complete my review of chapter 1 today.

My school work is now completed for the week.

I was able to get the school work done now and solved the last problem which was a combination of a normal probability with a binomial sample. I am ready to go to class today with the homework done.

I solved more problems this morning and am almost done this week's homework just on time.

I actually fell alseep yesterday in the early morning. I worked this morning continuously on problems and solved 4 more problems mostly concerning Chebyshev's inequality and then problems with the normal distribution and Z scores. I have taught or helped teach both of these subjects in the past two years of school. I have one final Z score problems to solve and I am done for this week. I will get ready in the next hour to attend class this morning and hand in my school work.

I read a little more of the book Policing the Risk Society as well last night but other than that and writing on blogs and the math school work with exam preparation study, I have done no other studies in the past few days.

Completed a second problem now.

I just now completed a second homework problem so have six left to complete. I hope to be done this week's homework this morning.

I also spent about an hour in total organizing my studying and doing these blog entries which help me set goals for studying and keep me motivated. Thus I now have done 1.5 hours study leaving 4 hours to still do today and also leaving 34 hours to complete before the exam. In terms of 2 hours per day I am half an hour short of today's goal and then an additional 6 hours short of the goal because I did not study on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. But I am now focusing again on this study goal and catching up.

I spent half an hour studying the textbook and the notes on methods of enumeration.

I did follow through right away after posting my last entry and completed studying the notes and textbook for section 1.3 which covered methods of enumeration, the factorial, and permutations and combinations. This is a difficult area for me at times and at other times I do really well with this area. I am done with this for now and solved a few problems from the textbook in my head without checking answers in the back of the book even after I was done the solving.

So I now have 5 more hours to study today and a total of 35 hours of study left until the exam and I have about 6 more hours to budget to studying chapter one of the textbook.

Right now I am going back to completing this week's homework.

Hours to study for the exam.

I think I miscalculated how much time I needed to study based on days left to the exam. Rather than start at 26 and count down I need to start at 39 and count down. This is because I need three hours for each of thirteen weeks of the term. I have not studied at all since my last note and that means I still have only done about 3.5 hours of study. Counting down from 39 this means I need to study 35.5 more hours. I now have 15 days to go which means I need to study about 2.3 hours a day until the exam. I will try to study for 5.5 hours today and catch up the point 3 hours.

Also I must study five chapters which means about 7 hours per chapter. I have only really studied chapter one so far. Thus I need to spend about another 3.5 hours on chapter one. But chapter five is not something we studied a lot and also chapter four is not heavily covered so I can budget 4 hours to each of those thus spending about ten hours for each of chapers one through three. This means I might budget all of this morning's study to chapter one and do my homework.

One problem of eight solved in this week's homework.

I solved one problem now of eight problems to be solved. I also got my grade for last week's homework and have brought my grades up a little including not being tricked by an error in the textbook but instead relying on my own learning from the textbook. In this first problem I needed to show that a sum of identical and mutually independent exponential r.v.'s is a gamma distribution. I usually have had the first problem in this weekly homework done by Friday or Saturday of the previous week so I am behind but trying to race to completion by Thursday morning when this homework is due in class..

I read sections 4.1 and 4.6 this weekend.

I started some homework so this is really not part of my exam study. I got through the learning material supporting three problems in this week's homework. I also looked at the three problems and they could be tedious but I should get them started today. I am hoping to make all my remaining lectures.

I studied my notes and have less than 23 hours left to go in my ideal study plan.

I carefully reviewed my notes for sections 1.1 and 1.2 of the textbook. This was about an hour of study today. So I now have close to 22.5 hours to still study before the exam. Ideally I would have 20 hours to go now so am now two and a half hours behind schedule.

I read more of our textbook today.

I just read sections 1.1 and 1.2 which have the introduction to the sample space and a random experiment and also contain the definition of probability and the probability set function. Also frequency is covered including the frequency histogram and the relative frequency histogram. This took about 20 minutes to review. So I now have about 23.4 hours to study until the exam.

I need to study for two hours a day until the exam.

I put in my two hours on Friday but not on Thursday. The plan is to study two hours a day until my exam December 7th. This should amount to 26 hours of study. I have studied about 2.25 hours now. I have some 23.75 hours to still study. I will study for 45 minutes now before sleeping.

I read the basics of two variable distributions.

I read section 4.1 in our text book and solved the first four problems in that section while reading on an intercity bus.

I am studying for my exam this weekend.

I am reading my course textbook this weekend. I also got my table of integrals to study. I will also read Kevin Haggerty and Ian Hacking this weekend. I also have a basic book on compound microscopes to read. I will also continue to read Churchman on systems science ethics.

I got my homework handed in this morning.

I did very poorly with my last assignment. I got this week's assignment handed in this morning and attended the lecture. I worked today and yesterday as well all in one long day. I have to study for 2 hours per day until my exam now. I have studied for only 15 minutes so far today

Reading Gidden's book and solving simple probability problems.

I read some of Gidden's book on the identity and also a little more Ulrich Beck and then returned these books to the library as someone put a hold on them. I also borrowed some Kevin D. Haggerty books yesterday.

I have only four more problems to solve in this week's homework.

Weekly probability homework.

I continue to do my weekly homework problems. I have about six more problems to solve today and will hand this in tomorrow. The first four problems concern the Gamma distribution and the Chi-squared distribution.

I am reviewing the VCR tapes from my introductory criminal law course.

In my new job one of my new coworkers in August was also a student in my criminal law course in 2001-2002. I started this fall to watch the VCR tapes from this course. I had watched these tapes when they were broadcast and once while studying in the course. The professor was John Hale, a practicing criminal lawyer here in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario..

The list of books I have out from the University of Ottawa Library.

The systems approach and its enemies / C. West Churchman. (New York : Basic Books, c1979).

General systems theory : ideas & applications / Lars Skyttner. (Singapore ; River Edge, N.J. : World Scientific, c2001).

Advanced systems thinking, engineering, and management / Derek K. Hitchins. (Boston, MA : Artech House, c2003).

The Relevance of general systems theory; papers presented to Ludwig von Bertalanffy on his seventieth birthday. Edited by Ervin Laszlo. (New York: G. Braziller, [1972]).

Taking control of IT costs / Sebastian Nokes. (Harlow, England ; New York : Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2000).

General systems theory: mathematical foundations [by] M. D. Mesarovic and Yasuhiko Takahara. (New York : Academic Press, 1975).

The taming of chance / Ian Hacking. (Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Soft systems methodologt : a 30-year retrospective / Peter Checkland. (Chichester ; New York : John Wiley, c1999).

Computers, work, and health : a socio-technical approach / Trevor A. Williams. (London ; New York : Taylor & Francis, 1988, c1989).

Elements of applied probability : for engineering, mathematics and systems science / David McDonald. (River Edge, NJ : World Scientific, c2004).

The emergence of probability : a philosophical study of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference / Ian Hacking. (London ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1975).

Survey research methods / Floyd J. Fowler, Jr. (Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2002).

General systems theory, systems analysis and regional planning : an introductory bibliography / Hugh E. Williams. (Monticello, Ill. : Council of Planning Librarians, 1970).

The presentation of self in everyday life. Irving Goffman. (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1959).

Mad travellers : reflections on the reality of transient mental illnesses / Ian Hacking. (London : Free Association Books, 1999, c1998).

Risk Society : towards a New Modernity / Ulrich Beck ; translated by Mark Ritter. (London : Sage Publications, 1992).

Modernity and self-identity : self and society in the late modern age / Anthony Giddens. (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford university press, 1991).

Reflexive modernization : politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order / Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1994).

Studying is little more relaxed after I got this week's homework submitted (early again).

I read a little about self therapy about an hour ago by Anthony Giddens. I also read a little math. I then emailed the director of my school with an update about my studies. I explained my background a bit more to him.

After talking with professor Ivanoff I bought a table of integrals

I handed in this week's homework today in the morning. I chatted with professor Ivanoff about graduate school thesis. This was interesting and gave me some perspective on this task. She pointed out the differences with a math thesis as opposed to other subjects. I had difficulty with an integral on this week's home work. The professor told me to get a table of integrals. I searched the university library and came across this book

Jeffery, Alan. Handbook of mathematical formulas and integrals 3e,

This book I can see has many useful formulas and I need to own one of these. I searched at Shirley Mill's homepage book price web search tool and the cheapest book available was Amazon.ca and I just purchased it on-line.

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Working on probability homework early this morning.

I finally got working on my probability homework. I solved a number of problems. I then proof read my solutions.

Exam schedule checked.

The exam in my course is on the first exam day in the morning. I will need to take the day before off or the day after.

I worked out and typeset 5 sub problems in this week's homework.

I worked out five sub problems in basic continuous distributions. The basic premise is that an integral of a p.d.f. from negative infinity to positive infinity should be equal to 1. From this property we needed to find constants such that the property held for various functions involving the constants.

One hour reviewing the U of Ottawa's undergraduate calendar for biology and mathematics courses.

I surfed the undergraduate and graduate calendars at my new school. I made a file of biology course descriptions. This file contains the ecology and plant biology courses I would like to study. There is also a light microscopy course in graduate school that might be enough.

I read a little Castells on nationalism.

I read a little of The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells this morning. I also read some business theory and some of my course textbook.

Discussing Kant with other students.

Through my union activities I have come to know a PhD. student in philosophy also at the university of Ottawa. I have been briefly discussing my Churchman reading with him. I have now completed a chapter in Churchman and want to complete a few chapters in a few other books this weekend. I just reviewed or scanned the chapter in continuous distributions in my probability course textbook. I have some home work to get done today in this course. I also need to buy some printer paper today.

Problem solving schedule.

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

I appreciate Churchman's use of Kant.

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

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

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

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

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

I read about real victims v the psychology industry.

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

I studied a little movie art.

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

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

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

Interested in environmental studies again.

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

I printed out the assignment solutions just this evening.

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

Studying probability

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

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

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

I did go to the library

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

I am making my third trip to the library today.

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

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

Studying basics of moment generating functions.

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

The find a supervisor project.

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

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

Dr. McDonalds book.

I found this book written by David McDonald:

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

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

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

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

I was given the name of a potential supervisor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting off completing the four problems with computer tasks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading old research on systems science for the social sciences..

I started to study systems science on the web looking at the associations and journals out there. So really my journey began at the McOrdum library web site and library on-line interface. From this initial research I know the names of the original systems scientists or rather pioneers. I have not really been reading Churchman the past week. I have started a book on systems theory in the social sciences and read the introduction to that book early yesterday morning. Here is a McGill legal studies style cite for what I read done as definition list in html.

Systems sciences within the social sciences

Müller Norbert. Systems - Theoretic Approaches in the Social Sciences in Bossel, Hartmut. Klaczko, Salomon & Müller, Norbert. eds., Systems Theory in the Social Sciences (Basel, Germany: Birkhauser Verlag, 1976).

Assignment #1 solutions.

The assignment #1 solutions have been posted and I compared these to my answers. I have everything correct except the last problem where I seem to have some small errors. My grades have not yet been posted. I did hand in the second assignment and attended yesterday's lecture. We covered the basics of expectation and also the properties of the probability mass function.

Proof reading the 2nd assignment now.

The 2nd assignment for introduction to probability is now completed. I am just printing a final proof reading copy now. I will proof read it once in the next 15 minutes and then again at may be 8:00 AM. I should then be able to hand it in this morning at class. Again I will hand an assignment in two days early.

Been reading and solving simple probability problems.

I have been reading in systems sciences and solving simple probability problems this weekend. I have been reading about controlling IT costs this evening. Yesterday I read a little about Bruce Lee's body building. This evening I read a little more Churchman. I read a little more of The Dilbert Principle By Scott Adams on Friday and Saturday.

A quote for guiding my thesis by Anatol Rapoport.

If one author has written that we need to find the right hypothesis. (Churchman, C. West. The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (New York, Basic Books, 1979) at 11)). Anatol Rapoport has written about finding the right system. Here is the quote

"The question now is, how far can this recognition be stretched? What else besides biological organisms can we get to recogize as "systems"? And how do we go about recognizing "theoretically fruitful" analogies in the structure, behavior, and history of portions of the world--material or ideational -- that deserve to be called "systems"?
Rapoport, Anatol. The Search for Simplicity in Laszlo, Ervin. Ed. The Relevance of General Systems Theory: Papers Presented to Ludwig von Bertalanffy on His Seventieth Birthday (New York, George Braziller, 1972) at 25 .

I solved a third problem this morning in my 2nd assignment.

I solved a third problem in my assigment. I type set it. I also read some more about general systems theory.

I did solve and type set the first two problems in the 2nd assignment.

I am hoping to solve as many of the present nine problems as possible this morning. I have just type set and solved two problems. I have read all nine problems and can solve them all. The third and fourth problems may give me some difficulty, but the remaining problems are fairly simple substitution problems like the first problem I just type set. The topic of this assignment is conditional probabilities and Bayes theorem.

The first assignment has been handed in and the second assignment has been started.

I was able to hand in the first assignment two days early. If I want to hand in the second assignment two days early it needs to be completed by Monday. This means I need to complete about four problems a day from now until Monday.

I borrowed about 8 books on general systems theory from the university of Ottawa library. I also borrowed a book called The Dilbert Principle.

I just solved the second last problem on the first school work assignment.

I just printed my solution to the second last problem for the school work due this week. I will proof read it in the next hour. I now have one problem to solve which I will do later today. Then I have invited friends over and we will watch TV or play a cyberpunk role playing game. After proof reading I will update blogs a bit and do some other reading before attempting the last problem in assignment #1.

I finished chapter 2 now in Churchman, C. West. The Systems Approach and Its Enemies

I was thinking about probability theory after class today but more even after work. I read some journal book reviews after work and searched out the books reviewed. This was from the International Journal of General Systems Volume 31 Issue #1. I completed C West Churchman's chapter on the tradition of the systems approach this morning.

I made it through class this morning,

I made it on time to my class this morning. We covered permutations and combinations today but the professor said that we would not be tested extensively on this. So other than the three remaining problems on the first assignment there will be one question on the mid-term and one question on the final from this subject area known as combinatorics.

I attended all classes this week.

I have attended two French classes this week. I have also attended my Tuesday probability lecture and will attend my Thursday lecture today. I have not worked on the assignment since Monday morning.

I got a receipt for my Canadian Mathematics Society dues and also received 4 copies of the student problems journal for this year. This journal is called Crux Mathematica and is a student problems journal.

Problems with pronounciation.

I attended my first French class this morning. I have problems with pronounciation of French and this is what this course will help with. Today we learned about the mouth and the lips. We also reviewed the international pronounciation alphabet for English. I had never seen this alphabet before.

I have completed more than half of the first assignment now.

I solved some interval problems for uniform random variables. I was going crazy trying to draw on the computer a semi circle in the cartesian plane. Instead I described the problem with words. I now have 5 Q's done and 3 Q's to still complete. I may try to do two more this morning. Right now I am going to shave for work today.

Learning more French

I am starting a French course this week coming up. It is a government sponsored course. It will be 7.5 hours one week and 5 hours the next week for about nine weeks.

Homework progress.

The first two Q' are done now. I will now try to complete the other 6 Q's this morning.

Other government work applied for.

I have been working now for more than a month in the government. I have applied since then to work with federal parolees in a downtown Ottawa office.

Graduate school orientation four days later.

I did attend the graduate school orientation. It was in an ultra modern computer science building. I met the director Tet Yeap and the other students. Many students are from China. There are two other mathematics students in our program. Which reminds me I paid my dues to the Canadian Mathematics Society again this year 2006. Wow, only 9 months late.

The new school library.

I had a tour of the new library and used the Sun Computer, Sun Ray machines to search the libray catalogue for books by Churchman whom my mother reminded me was a systems theorist. I borrowed two of his books. The only other time I have used this library was to borrow a book on our reading list for my drug law course in fall 2004. That was two years ago. I read one of his books about the enemies of systems theory while walking around my neighbourhood like a true scholar, walk and read at the same time.

I completed another problem in my first assignment just now in LaTeX.

I just typeset another problem from my first assignment in MAT2371 in LaTeX. This involved complements and intersections and unions of two sets and the associated formula for probability of union and intersection. I have taught this formula before to engineers. The assignment is due on September 21st. But I want to submit it next week. I have six problems left to complete. I know I can solve each one.

I have completed one problem of 8 for my first assignment.

Earlier this morning I completed a problem using LaTeX to typeset my answer. The problem is the first in my basic probability course. It was very simple. I have to have this problem set done by September 21st at 8:30 AM.

The next three days.

I will be attending graduate school orientation this morning. I was just reviewing the schedule of events. I was comparing it with the schedule for a conference I am going to attend parts of these next three days. The conference is the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) Conference – Ottawa 2006. The Chief statistican of Canada will speak there. With my present schedule I may be able to hear him close the conference on Friday but will not hear him speak this morning.

I will try to attend two afternoon sessions later today at the conference. But more important today is attending the full orientation session at the U of O. I will attend an address by the director of the school, a library tour, and some introduction session to the computing facilities at the University of Ottawa SITE location. I may stay for lunch too and then simply attend the conference later in the day after the orientation. Tomorrow I have my first class and then I can attend a session at the conference after class and then go to work. I can then try to wake up for 6 or 7 am Friday and attend the whole last day of the conference and then work in the evening Friday.

I have my first class this Thursday.

I have my first class this Thursday. I need to buy a binder which I plan to buy later today. I have paper for the binder. I wonder if I will bring a computer to the class and keep notes on a computer? I could prepare some LaTeX files from a lecture notes template. I could do this for every class in graduate school. Or could I? May be this morning I will design a basic lecture note template. I will look odd but the embarassment of being the only student with a laptop will not affect me much. So far laptops in class have not improved my marks but instead made my marks in those classes where I used a computer or brought a laptop every day to be lower marks.

I am still waiting for my textbook to be delivered. I don't have any other school books on order right now. I have though been buying entertainment items which I contend are different from school books. I don't consider school books to be entertainment items in a budget.

I have ordered a used copy of the textbook for MAT2371.

I used Amazon.ca to order a used copy of the textbook for MAT2371. It has been shipped now from my own province so should be here in days. I plan to start reading it soon. I did not work through the first two chapters of problems in the two probability books I have. I did read the first chapter of each book though. I still need to read the second chapters and also do all the exercises in these first two chapters in these two books. I had hoped to be done the exercises in the first three chapters in both books by next weekend.

Gail Ivanoff professor of mathematics university of Ottawa

The professor for my fall course is Gail Ivanoff who teaches mathematics at the university of Ottawa. She emailed all the students in the class and I replied this morning. After doing this I set up my email signature for my university of Ottawa email address.

Course outline and solutions to last years course assignments.

I checked out the professors web pages for the course I am studying this fall. I was able to understand the solutions to the assignments from last year. I am set to buy the course textbook in the next few days.

I got into an interesting email discussion about social navigation with AOIR people on the email list.

I responded to a basic question about social networks by rephrasing as social navigation and spinning it with a questioning of capitalism and it worked a brief discussion ensued on the AOIR email list. It was very interesting and brilliant to read some replies.

I listened to podcast #1 from the Centre For Internet And Society

I have copied and pasted from iTunes for the first time a podcast decription. The description of this podcast is below and I have formated it for blogspot. I am listening to this Podcast as I type this post. I wonder if this is lazy scholarship or just me and my technological tools being used for study.

Sony's latest Digital Rights Management (DRM)-endeavour earned a charge of “fraud, false advertising, trespass and the violation of state and federal statutes prohibiting malware, and unauthorized computer tampering”. The technology installs, unnoticed by the user, a piece of software that prevents consumers from unauthorised copying, is able to monitor and report user behaviour back to the firm and, accidentally, holds the door wide open for Trojans. Under other circumstances one would be tempted to describe such a strategy a hostile “spy at-tack”. In case of Sony BMG, this seems to be part of a business model to sell digital music to consumers. The talk will have a closer look at the charges of the EFF and a Californian lawyer against Sony BMG‚s latest DRM strategy. The Sony BMG case adds a number of interesting new dimensions to the ‘DRM and Consumer' debate. The talk will explain why the case is so important, also against the background of similar recent case law in Europe, and why it points into an entirely new direction of talking about DRM.

About the Speaker: Natali Helberger is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam. Dr. Helberger is managing legal partner to the INDICARE project. INDICARE (Informed Dialogue about Consumer Acceptability of Rights Management Solutions in Europe) is a project co-funded by the European Commission. The objective of INDICARE is to address issues regarding consumer acceptability of digital rights management solutions; identify obstacles and suggest solutions. At the moment, she is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

I have been officially a graduate student for about half a day now.

About twelve hours including one work day ago I registered for graduate school and received my student card. I will focus a fair amount of time now over night studying. I will read about getting a computer account and sign up for one. I will also be reading graduate school info documents on the U of O web site. I will also spend some time advancing my probability studies and will write some probability problems into LaTeX and their solutions. I still hope to work through the basics by Sunday. I still have a goal of completing the second chapters of two textbooks by Sunday. I may not be able to solve all the problems but that is also the goal.

I narrowed my reading fields in the past four weeks.

I need to focus more on reading statistics. In the past two mornings I have read basic probability in two school textbooks reviewing what I have studied since 1981. I will be studying an advanced basic probability course this fall term. I also focused on social naviagtion studies some more and was impressed when I read some studies but I was a bit manic and tired and wired when I was impressed. I have lost a lot of study time in my new work schedule and will continue to loose this time. I have also read some recovery and self care literature. I have also heard some original folk and world music in the past weekend. I have also taken up reading Bruce Lee the martial artist. I am also reading about communication, command, and control systems engineering and design. Most of my studies are graduate school preparation now. But I must also expand my career devlopment activities at Statistics Canada and may be studying French this fall at work. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays will be French studies and Tuesdays and Thursdays will be probability studies.

I used Bluefish a little on the Linux laptop.

I started up Bluefish on the Linux laptop. It is the programming editor that came with the Debian Gnome desktop. I started an R code file and just wrote some header info comments and really did not solve any problems. I will now read some probability books before sleeping.

Still studying the information age. I want to study some C++ programming on a Linux machine now.

I was just reading the beginning of a US military book on the information age. But was inspired to start up my Linux laptop and study some C++ programming from a book I have been reading on C++ programming. Whether I actually follow through on that is very improbable.

Studies on the job involve quality v quantity.

I am working with other graduates. Many have studied at Carleton too. We need to maintain quality but manage to produce quantity. This is really a new work philosophy for me coming from security work and teaching where quantity and quality are not so obvious. It is an old topic and quantity v. quality in academics is more like quantitative v qualitative research methods.

I learned some equation numbering on LaTeX this evening/morning.

I got in from work and booted up my Macbook laptop computer. I was testing at first if iWeb could be used in my new web master project. The new web site I am publisher of is here. www.wellness-project.org. I am designing some templates for this web site project and did this on my Linux laptop a couple of hours after getting home.

I did some LaTeX learning and typesetting after I figured iWeb would not be good enough for the web site project. On the eMac I copied and pasted into TeXShop an old Open Office file made on my old Thinkpad and presently stored on my eMac. I then opened it using the local network between my machines in TeXShop on my Macbook. The file is a list of all the exercises and solutions I have done from the textbook for my introduction to probability course I studied in 1999. I created this file in 2003 to really learn probability and possibly help me repeat the course with better marks. As I have set the goal of having worked through and read the second chapter of two probability books by Sunday next weekend, I thought I should get working on this study as I have done nothing other than pull the books out of their shelves to date. After opening the file as a tex file I began to write proper LaTeX code for the content. I did figure out an elegant solution to equation numbering using the exercise numbering for the answers as equation numbering. I did not really do any solutions though I just converted what I had done in 2003 to laTeX.

I got my last marking assignment done now.

I had to quit my TA work abruptly this summer term. But they had me do some more work and I finally got it done. I now need to rest and go to work later today at my new Statistics Canada job.

Goals and landmarks set for probability studies/review.

I am being required to study basic probability again. I have two probability textbooks. My goals will be to have worked through all the exercises in the first two chapters of both books in the next two weeks and the third chapters by the first week of classes four weeks from now. I will also buy the textbook for my actual course in about three weeks. I will try to stay a week ahead in the textbook and do as many problems as I can. The course is coded or labeled as MAT2371 in the University of Ottawa course code system. The course is given this fall term on Tuesdays from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM and on Thursdays from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM. This will mean I need to be awake at 8:00 AM Tuesdays and 6:00 AM Thursdays. On these days, and the days before I will be working from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM at my new job.

I read about positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia today.

I read about the difference between chronic and acute schizophrenia and the misuse of these labels. I read that perhaps using the terms type 1 and type 2 is a better typology. Type 1 is where positive symptoms dominate and type 2 is where negative symptoms dominate instead of associating the label acute schizophrenia with positive symptoms and the label chronic schizophrenia with negative symptoms. This was in chapter 2 of this book,

Howe, Gwen. Working With Schizophrenia: A Needs Based Approach (London, U.K. Jessica Kingsley, 1995).

This chapter describes positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms are symptoms added to the normal personality and negative symptoms meaning symptoms that take away from the normal personality. Normal here can simply mean what one was like before one's episode.

The three basic types of positive symptoms are

Altered Perceptions

This is where hearing voices fits in and seeing things and also the distorted perceptions like weird faces and smells and tastes that are may be over sensitive to certain characteristics of the environment.

Delusional Ideas

This is where people feel they are being watched or are at the centre of attention. This can also constructed with ideas of reference. In my own experience this happens when one is tired after an abnormally long day. Thus this symptom could be connected with either stress or physical health. This symptom can also results in sexual confusion or lack of clearly defined sexual boundaries. Also here perceptions of illness and health can be distorted.

Abnormal Thought Structure

This is a symptom where ones thoughts jump all around or some detail like a license plate on a car in front can be meaningful when, in fact, there is really no real meaning to it. This can also result in having one's attention taken by an object where one appears to be staring into empty space or at a table or object on a table. This would be greater I believe if one was high on marijuana. This is also the symptom where the ideas of intrusive thoughts can effect someone. Also beliefs that one is a very bad person can effect someone with these symptoms when the person is actually not a bad person or has no intention of acting on these thoughts. This can be quite distressful and cause an anxiety in my experience.

Negative symptoms can be more debilitating. The negative symptoms tend to be around lack on enjoyment of life or amotivation. This lethargy can be also confused with withdrawal and lethargy of marijuana smoking.

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Still reading about social navigation.

I started reading the third chapter of the book on social navigation. I am about half way through this chapter. I cannot read as much these days because I have started a full time job. The bibliographic cite for this book using Canadian legal studies style for the cite is

The bibliographic cite for this reading is

Dieberger, Andreas. Social Connotation of Space in the Design for Virtual Communities and Social Navigation in Munro, Alan J. & Höök, Kristina. & Benyon, David. eds. Social Navigation of Information Space (London, UK: Springer, 1999) at 35-54.

I am impressed with the understanding this author expresses about Usenet and its characteristics. Also this author is very aware of the privacy issues involved in the ideas of social navigation expressed so far in this book. Do we want others to know how we have used the web or say what we are buying at Amazon.com?

Continuing to study social navigation of information space.

But back to the effect on the direction of my studies. I learned to critique science after reading Cooper. This lead me to really understanding some topics in the sociology of science and technology early on in my studies and after becoming credentialed in statistics allowed me to pick up the pace with reading and critiquing science. I have also picked up more sociology and technology readings and lectures. I read many books in the 76.9 range where computers and society are studied. This lead me to blogs, which are a personal micro history, or as Cooper puts it, blogs are histographs not history or herstory.

So the questions that rage through my mind when writing on a blog have to do with appropriateness as suggested by the team of psychiatric rehabilitation actors I have used. Also privacy and things like libel effect my writing. But as I read about social navigation I am becoming aware that appropriateness is socially defined by people and is appropriate in places where people go and do things. So necessary for the definition of appropriateness are people just as laws are created by people and set out appropriate behaviours.

I am also combining my reading of social navigation with reading Cooper. I started reading this new field last week. I suspect the recent social networking web site engineers have studied this field.

The bibliographic cite for this reading is

Dourish, Paul. Where the Footprints Lead: Tracking Down Other Roles for Social Navigation in Munro, Alan J. & Höök, Kristina. & Benyon, David. Eds. Social Navigation of Information Space (London, UK: Springer, 1999) at 15-34.

This article starts by suggesting navigation to be possible as spatial navigation, semantic navigation and social navigation. The author explores social navigation, as more than book recommender web sites in fact examines ways that social navigation could use a wider possible group of social interactions. He briefly touches on architecture and distinguishes between space and place. Spaces being physical and the root human understanding of the world and places being more socially defined and having meaning for people, He depends here on urban and architecture studies that are much older than computer software design. He also briefly looks at perceptual awareness of others as an example of a social interaction to be added to social networking of information space. That is information about the activities of others gained on the periphery. He sees social informatics as both a way to help others find information and at the same time a way to exploit for financial gain the information others have left in their use of the same information. He does mention that privacy is an issue with using information about people. He stubbles when discussing generalized information and presenting trends and aggregate data which I think needs more understanding from a paranoia of identity theft and also the natural hiding many do on the Internet. But all in all this was a good two-day read.

I read some of Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry this morning.

I have read this fellow Dr. Cooper when young and idealistic. Also I only began to read him when some other roles were being played by me. One I was newly diagnosed as schizophrenic. Two I was a new holder of a bookstore credit card that someone else paid for in the end. Three I was looking for studies that would motivate me. This last point had the greatest effect. I do though still buy books on credit and have done this for years and years. It is one of my main activities that I get pleasure from. I also continue to play the role of schizophrenic but these days I hide this role for large periods of time when I am acting other roles where being schizophrenic does not really need to be played. But back to motivating studies.

I sought after reading this doctor to read more about knowledge and epistemology. That is what is knowledge and how do we organize it. The general attack that Doctor Cooper makes is on scientific knowledge being appropriate for human relations.

Cooper makes a point in the introduction that I read tonight that bears repeating decades later on this blog. Human actions are not repeatable. It is fine for the scientist my father to repeat a few times or many times the experiments he does on things. And true human life and human micro-actions seem to be routine like washing the dishes. Thus yes we repeat washing the dishes. But do we? When in fact it is those of us with deviance that stop washing our dishes.

So this leads the doctor to saying there are two types of rationality. Human relations cannot use analytical reason( scientific/numerical/metric), but must use dialectical reason. Plato or Socrates as Plato recounts him developed the dialectic I finally learned in 2001, as a fact I could remember. It is really the same as seeing humans and human issues from many angles but also simply put it is talking about human reality, human behaviour. It is not really that simple because a good dialectic will be like a court case where both sides or even more than two sides will be talked about. Thus weighting the pros and cons is a simplified mostly non-artistic way of being dialectical. This is like I have learned to do in executive meetings when making decisions in a group.

I am continuing to read the book on social navigation of information space.

I started the second chapter in the book I borrowed on social navigation. The bibliographic cite for this chapter is

Dourish, Paul. Where the Footprints Lead: Tracking Down Other Roles for Social Navigation in Munro, Alan J. & Höök, Kristina. & Benyon, David. eds. Social Navigation of Information Space (London, UK: Springer, 1999).

This chapter gets me really thinking about social interaction and the possibility of other interactions that could occur, both as the authors are trying to suggest inside information spaces, but also thinking about social interaction in general. I am also reflecting on my work helping other consumer/survivors of mental health services, use computers and the Internet.