S197 Has entered the building

Two days ago the course book for S197 arrived - so now I have two very interesting courses sitting waiting for my attention. The topics on this one include:
Redshift calculations, Hubble constant, CMB, EMR, Quantum electrodynamics, Quarks and Feynman diagrams, Quantum chromodynamics, bosons, Curved Space, Gravitational radiation, the quark-lepton era, hadrons, nucleosynthesis, geometry of space, and many other interesting areas. I can't wait to get cracking on this pot of ideas.
But - it will have to wait - I have to make reasonable headway on M362 first.

M362 A familiar start

I started reading through Unit 1 of M362 the other day and felt immediately at home (and Unit 2 to boot). All those years as a Systems Programmer on IBM boxes and reading through much of the assembly source code of the Operating System (VM/SP, VM/ESA) means that I am on home ground when it comes to processes, context switching, interrupt handlers, various process states, user mode and supervisor mode, the fetch-execute cycle, and loads more. I know the course is going to move away from these topics eventually, but right now it feels good.

I am registered

Yesterday I still didn't know if I had successfully registered for M362 in time or not. Today I received a package containing all the course books and software.

I guess that means that I have my place on the course!

Major Tom to Ground Control

S194 is just about finished - a month ahead of schedule. The ECA was completed last night after a few hours trying to figure how the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation supports the Big Bang theory.

And today I registered for S197 "How the Universe Works" which is more cosmology and physics. I am expecting this to me a more challenging course that S194 - not because of the maths - but because of some of the concepts such as string theory, and 11-dimensional space. And then having to write a few thousands words that explains it in a coherent and intelligible manner. I have trouble explaining what I had for breakfast in a coherent and intelligible manner sometimes (not that I'm often asked - but since you did - it was porridge today).

So that's S197 and M362 starting in February. A jolly combination.

And now panic!

I thought that registering and sorting out the payment last night meant that I had a place on M362. And then I checked my StudentHome page this morning - they are waiting for the return of the registration documents before I have a place on the course. Except that obviously I haven't received the registration documents, and even if I had, there is no way that I could get them returned by the end of today.

Panic.

I phoned the Regional Office for guidance. They gave me the phone number of the OU Registration Services. I telephoned and explained my predicament. It looks like I am going to be OK because I have at least registered before the cut-off date (today), but my application is not yet complete. I am not going to know for sure until after Christmas.

I have to wonder why that is not made clear when registering online. Even the email that the OU sent out November simply states that the closing date for enrolment is 22nd December for all students and nothing about allowing several days after registering for the application to complete. If we assume (dangerous!) that it takes one week for the letter to come out, get signed, and then returned, then the OU should close the online registration on 15th December at the latest and not the 22nd.

Oh well, fingers crossed.

Quandry - leads to positive action!

Well, from a night of indicision and quandry has sprung forth some positive action. I decided to listen to the uncertainty that was filling my head and have acted on instinct - along with some helpful advice - and just registered for the February 2011 presentation of M362. And just in the nick of time.

Old Java books now dusted off and ready!

Quandry

I have found myself in a big whirlpool of uncertainty. Until yesterday I thought I had my course plans all worked out for the next two years. And just in time because the closing date for February course applications is tomorrow. But last night I hardly slept at all - something was bothering me and I had this sence that M363, which I was about to sign up for, was not the right course to do next. That surprised me because I hadn't really thought about it. But all night I had this running through my mind - almost to the point where I was questioning whether I should even sign up for another Level 3 course just yet.

But come the morning, and after a little sleep, it suddenly struck me that I should do M362 next. And when I thought that, I found that I felt relaxed again. From what I understand, M363 is a lot of theory (nothing wrong in that) and a little programming, whereas M362 has a greater programming content. And I think that is what has swung it for me - because I have been away from studying for a couple of years (apart from S194 - which I have really enjoyed!) I need something that I can do well, really get into, and if it isn't programming that does that then nothing will do it. After that is out of the way then it will be time for M363.

Unless I change my mind again tonight. Last chance though - tomorrow is decision day!

Astronomy Domine

NOT a reference to the Syd Barrett penned Pink Floyd song – the first track from their first album, but to the fact that I have just signed up for S194 – “Introducing Astronomy”. I am making tentative steps back to studying and thought a short 10-pointer would be a good way to start. Having been out of the studying zone for so long I find that I have managed to fill all the time that I once spent studying with other activities.

However, time passes, and the 60-point M206 that I did back in ‘05 will cease to be countable towards a degree by 2013, so if I don’t get my arse in gear now then it will be too late and a shame to lose those points.

My two year hiatus from studying has also given me time to think about the direction that my studies take. I have been questioning whether a named degree “IT and Computing” is really what I want to achieve. The ‘problem’ is that my interests are far wider than just computing and the more I think about it, the more I find myself drawn to going for an ‘Open’ degree with a high computing content but also drawing in other strands such as some of the science modules. My current thinking is that a wider ranging degree will be more useful.

So S194 fulfills two functions – it acts a gentle re-introduction to study, and a door-way into the science modules.

But what comes next? Well, if S194 goes as well as I hope it might (time-wise) then I think that S104 will follow on. S104 is a 60-point deeper introduction to general science and ticks so many of the ‘interest’ boxes that I have. In fact, when I took my first steps towards a degree in 2003, the S104 predecessor (cunningly called S103) was an optional course for the IT and Computing degree and was on my list of ‘must-haves’. Alas, when S104 came along it was not included as an option, so by doing that course (and S194) I am already veering off in a different direction. Then it’s Level-3’s all the way.

Anyway, I have to say that I am really looking forwards to starting again. I have selected the November start-date for the Astronomy course – that should give me time to get my other activities in order.

And because this is going to be seperate from my main Computing modules I have decided to create a seperate blog for it, so if you are in the need of some astrocomical ramblings then...

To infinity and beyond….

OU - Distinctly Good

Well, not been thinking much about studying and the OU for the past few weeks - to much else to do. But today is Results Day So I'll cut straight to the chase:

Two exams...Two Distinctions. Well I'll be damned!

I'm running around hollering right now (you'll just have to take my word for that - its not a pleasant sight I can tell you).

Actually, as nearly always, there's a curious side to this: on one of the courses only 4% of students who sat that exam got a Distinction, on the other course it was 27% - that is a marked and surprising difference. I wonder what the explanation is.

OU - Only use what they teach you!

I learned a useful lesson today. I received back my marked TMA04 for MT262 - I'd been expecting this for a few days - I already knew that my mark was going to be low on account of the fact that I had only answered one question. I decided before doing the TMA that I would rather spend time revising for the exam than spend time on the TMA and I was in the fortunate position of having done well enough on the previous three that I didn't need to do TMA04 at all. But I'm a sucker for punishment but also enjoy reading the comments that my tutor makes about my work [Ed: are you sure thats not the same thing?] - so it was a trade off! I'm rambling now, but I got 46 marks out of a possible 50. Thats good enough for me.

Anyway, thats not the point of this post - and nothing to do with what the lesson was. It turns out that I had used some bitwise operators in my C++ code (nothing wrong on that normally). The problem was that we haven't been taught about bitwise operators so must not use them. Oh, thats a shame - I use things like that a lot in my day-to-day work. I lost 2 marks for that oversight. I seem to manage to do something like that on every course I do.

MT262 - TMA02, Going well

Just the filip I needed - 94% for TMA02. The funny thing is that it is so long since I did the actual TMA that I couldn't recall what any of the questions were. Anyway, things are going in the right direction on this course.
Right now I am whizzing through Block 3 so that I can get back to T224 (which requires more time and concentration because the subject matter is one that I am not quite so familiar with). But Block 3 of MT262 has us writing software that produces plots of data-values that have been collected by a thermometer (not a real thermometer, but a simulated one). And its great fun.
And already paying dividends - I was asked at work yesterday if it was possible to write some software that will check the availability of a database on a networked server. The method simply involves connecting to the database over the network (it could be SQL/Server, Oracle, MySQL etc) and then performing an SQL select for a known number of rows and logging the duration.
As soon as I was given the request the phrase 'simulated thermometer' popped into my head [Ed; you lead a sad life Simon]. So now, a few hours later, I have an application that monitors a remote database and logs the transaction time - it writes it to a log files and plots the data on a graph in real time.

All I have to do now is to persuade my employers to contribute financially to my OU studies [Ed; the words 'pigs' and 'flying' come to mind].

T224 - How to lose point - part 254.

Just received back my marked TMA02. 89% so I'm happy with that but, you know what.....it could have been higher. Could have been, that is, if I hadn't made a couple of elementary mistakes!

Mistake number 1 - Only answered part of a question. I manage to do this on almost every course that I do - just completely miss a subquestion. When I saw my tutors comments ( "Simon, I think you must have missed the question...") I thought, "No, there is a mistake, there was no part of the question like that.....", and then, just to make sure, I re-read the TMA paper. And there it was, as plain as the nose on my face. And the bit that I missed out was so easy to implement - it would have been two minutes work. How daft is that.

Mistake number 2 - only using 12 bits for a memory address instead of 16. Now this is just so obvious, and I really can't believe that I wrote what I did. At least I was consistent about it - and my tutor did pick me up on it (although didn't penalise me for it). This is what it is about: Suppose that some data is written to memory location F02. When writing that down one should really write 0F02 (ie, use a leading zero). Its pernickety, but it is correct....and its something I have always done in the past. So why didn't I do that it the TMA?

Mistake number 3 - Now this is the one that I am really going to learn from - when a TMA question uses the word 'find' it means show the workings out and write down the answer. All I did was write down the answer (which I did get correct). The question was to do with ANDing and ORing hex values. I do these in my head and just write the answers down - I've done it this way for years - and it never occurred to me to show the workings. I did raise this with my tutor and he explained that there had been some debate about this - but that the course team are insisting that this is what it means and that is how it should be done. Well, I can live with that. His advice is to always show the workings out.

But now I am wondering whether there are other 'code words' that have specific meanings when used in questions - there must be a list somewhere. If I find out what they are I will place them in a new blog entry - I'm sure I'll not be the only person caught out by these.

Well, thats it. I should get the TMA for MT262 back soon.

MT262 - TMA01

My marked TMA01 received back a couple of days ago. I had almost forgotten what it covered having completed it in early February and submitted it in early March. So reading it again was interesting. A couple of errors that I had allowed through - which is annoying considering that I wasn't exactly short of time. But a 90% score is above the 85% that I set myself as targets so I'm happy with that. And this time I have no issue with the marking scheme (see T224).

I completed TMA02 in late March but won't be submitting it until mid-May. Which is just as well - because I decided to have a final read through of it this weekend and found some much simpler ways of writing some of the C++ code (and I like to keep my code clean and simple). And one question where I hadn't read the descriptions of one of the functions correctly. So tonight I must finish going through TMA02 and the set it aside ready for submission.

Meanwhile I am progressing through Block 3. Slight problem here because the OU are not shipping the Block 3 books until May (actually, according to the Material Dispatch page for MT262 there are no Blocks 3 and 4 - but thats wrong). But hoorah for pdf's - so I can make headway by printing out what I need - and printing 2-up double-sided means that I get 4 pages on one sheet of A4 - so not quite as environmentally disastrous as it might have been.

T224 - Must be clear!

Good news! Got my first TMA back for T224. Grumpy news - lost points for not being clear. Well, when I say 'not being clear' what I really mean is that 'it was not clear enough for the OU marking scheme'. See what you make of this - and if you think it isn't clear then please tell me. The question told us that we had a display panel with three 7-segment LED's on board. We had to write out the bit pattern that would be held in the 3 bytes that represent the pattern that will be displayed on the LED's. The pattern we were asked to use was '-05'. Note: This is not asking for the binary representation of -05, but for the representation that causes the correct segments in a 7-segment display to light up to display -05.

So in my answer I put: 00010000 11101110 11010110

Now, as it happens, that is the correct answer (hoorah!) ... so you may be wondering why I lost marks...Well, believe it or not, its because I did not make it clear which of those bit patterns was the first byte, which was the second, and which was the third. I lost a mark for each.

The moral of this story is that its not good enough just to get the answer technically correct, you actually have to make it very, very clear.

Its easy to forget that Universities are not real life and that this kind of thing is a requirement. In my professional life I have written countless lines of assembler code, and have had to work with colleagues doing the same - and I can guarantee that every one of those people would have understood that the first 8 bits referred to the first byte, the second 8 bits to the second byte, and the third 8 bits to the third byte.

If I am wrong, then you can call me Aunt Madge.

OU - M366 Intelligence

One of the courses that I like the idea of doing (perhaps next year) is M366 (Natural and Artificial Intelligence). It is currently part way through its first presentation and yesterday I exchanged a couple of emails with some who is presently a student on that course. I wanted to know from them what the course was like, what it covered, did it live up to expectations etc.

The answer is that...its quite hard, many people have dropped out because of the programming, but that it is interesting. The programming environment is NetLogo - a new name to me - which is a modelling/simulation environment that can be programmed in what looks like a version of Logo (in much the same way that Scheme is a descendant of Lisp, I guess). This environment allows you to simulate all sorts of dynamic systems - from groups of people interacting at a party and their levels of group happiness, to biological systems, physical systems (moelecules interacting) etc.

Really sounds like a lot of fun and very interesting.

OU - T224 -

The Student website for T224 opened yesterday and this is a great relief - at last I have some idea of the flavour of the course. According to my Student Homepage, the printed materials for the course have still not yet been sent.

But, from what I can see, we kick off gently with an introduction to number base systems, what a processor is (and not just the PC on your desk, but the 100 processors in a BMW 7-Series - and I don't know many academics who have been anywhere near a 7-Series!, processors in kitchen scales (not the old type!), washing machines, and so on), what IO-Systems are (and, of course, some are just I, and some are just O, and some are both).

A quick run around binary and hexadecimal (an old favourite of mine) and why/how it is easy to convert from one to the other (and yes, it is easy). Years ago I used to play darts in our local with a few colleagues. Just for the fun of it we would play 501 but do the scoring in hex instead of decimal - and somewhere I know that I have a photo from those days to prove it. How mad is that?

OU - MT262 - Progress so far

It might seem odd to be posting a progress report before a course has even started, but I find that I have just finished Unit 3 of Block 1. Unit 4 claims to be 6 hours work, which if its anything like the previous 3 units means that I will complete it in about 90 minutes. No kidding.

Why started already and why so quickly? Two questions, two answers. First off, I want to get as much done before I start on T224 (materials haven't arrived yet anyway), and the reason that I am making good headway is that it appears to assume no previous programming experience so spends some time telling us what an Integer is; what a String is; this is how you repeat blocks of code, etc. etc.

So all I have to do is to note down the terminology that they use (because I'll be expected to use it in TMA answers) and then do the practical work which, so far, requires very little thought.

Still, the more I get ahead the more time I will have when it gets challenging!

OU - Blog Readers!

I have received a few emails recently from other OU students who have stumbled (or googled, if I can turn a noun into a verb - a process called 'verbing' I understand , which is pleasantly self-referential!) upon this blog.

I must say that it is always a thrill to receive these emails, firstly it proves to me that this is not just a 'write only' blog (cathartic though that may be) but is a 'read/write' blog. Secondly, its great to hear from people studying the same, or similar, courses and being able to share experiences etc.

I had one email from someone working and studying in Malta - no chance of tutorials and very little chance even meeting up with other students. I think that this must take great motivation and dedication, so I doff my hat to all students studying in such circumstances. To cap it all, the course fees are much higher for overseas students.

I might even start to create a map showing the spread of readers (whoa, getting a bit ahead of myself there!) - more of a personal challenge really but I have a GoogleMaps API key, so might incorporate that into a Rails app at some point.

That reminds me of the time when, as kids, we set off gas-filled balloons at the village fete. The balloons had a label attached and there was a prize for who ever had the balloon that went furthest and was returned. Some of my friends had balloons that travelled to continental Europe, my brother once had a balloon that ended up in Germany. His prize was an orange (okay, it was a small village with no money!). My balloons generally ended up in the nearest tree although one did make it as far as Tonbridge (a distance of some 7 miles) before being dashed to the ground. I consoled myself with the thought that I didn't have to have an orange!

OU - MT262

Subtitled "Putting computers to work" this course covers the art of writing computer software in C++. I have been looking forwards to this course for some while. Not because I want to find out how to make computers do some work (I've been doing that for more years than I care to think about) but because I love writing software and want to get to grips with C++.

The official start date of the course is late January, but I thought I would make a head start and am currently up to Unit 3 of Block 1. So far, it has to be said, its been a stroll in the park - just covering some basic syntax and clearly aimed at people who have very little programming experience. I am assured that as the course progresses it does become more challenging. Well, lets hope so!

I have another course running in parallel with this and am still waiting for the course material to turn up. I only registered on 1st January and the start date is not until February 2nd, so plenty of time to get further ahead with MT262.

OU - M359 - A result, sort of.

Well, there we have it. The results for the first presentation of M359 are out. And they are disappointing as expected. TMA wise I was at distinction level although I knew that there was no way that I would achieve the marks needed in the exam to sustain that. However, as documented elsewhere, the exam was a real pigs-ear (and I speak as a vegetarian - I have nothing against pigs-ears per se). The questions were vague, three of the questions required constant referral to some tables that had been added as an appendix - which meant that it was not possible to read the questions and view the tables at the same time - the constant flapping of papers reminded me of a flock of seagulls alarmed by a marauding dog on the beach (but with out the piercing screech - which I tried to keep to a minimum so that I didn't disturb the MSc students in the next row).

All the course text need re-writing into English (I wonder it would score on the blog-readability test).

And I feel fed-up that I am forced into criticizing the OU - because I think that it is a fantastic institution.

Still, a pass is a pass is a pass. No resit required. Phew!