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St. Mary’s Church Eastwell & Lake

2011-07-25T13:42:00.001+01:00

MotoGP

2011-06-22T09:39:00.001+01:00

2 weeks ago we went on our annual pilgrimage to the British round of the MotoGP. The weather was good for the Friday and Saturday, resulting in over 800 photos being taken. On Sunday the weather was bad but the racing was good. Still can’t believe how they managed to race bikes at 150mph+ in the pouring rain. Although Cal Crutchlow was injured and couldn’t race, we still had somebody to cheer for. Bradley Smith, a rookie in the Moto2 class, started at the back the grid and managed throughout the race to move through the pack, ending up 2nd.

Valentino Rossi (f/10.0 1/200 300mm ISO 200)

Alvaro Bautista (f/8.0 1/250 300mm ISO 200)

Toni Elias (f/11.0 1/125 300mm ISO 200)

Jorge Lorenzo (f/10.0 1/250 300mm ISO 200)

Bradley Smith (f/7.1 1/250 300mm ISO 200)

Photographers Day Out – Part 2

2011-06-16T10:02:00.001+01:00

Here are some further shots taken at the Masters Historic Festival.

Ford Mustang (f/16.0 1/80 300mm ISO 200)

AC Cobra (f/9.0 1/200 300mm ISO 200)

BMW 3.5 CSL (f/13.0 1/100 95mm ISO 200)

Photographers Day Out

2011-05-31T11:30:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I went to the Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch and met up with a number of local photographers. This was organised by Glyn Bareham and Paul Dunmall in response to a similar meet-up they organised last year.

“This is aimed at being a fun day in the company of fellow enthusiasts but as last year if anyone requires help with the intricacies of Motor Sport Photography, Panning, places to get the best angles / views etc. this will again be available as we will have at least two & hopefully more photographers on hand well versed in such matters.”

It was a good day, being both enjoyable and informative. Plus the weather was good, not raining until after the last race had finished.

Aston Martin DB4 (f/7.1 1/250 300mm ISO 200)

Ford GT40 Mk1 (f/8.0 1/250 300mm ISO 200)

Taydec Mk3, Chevron B16, Chevron B16 (C) (f/8.0 1/320 190mm ISO 1600)

Aston Martin DB4 (f/14.0 1/80 95mm ISO 200)

Underwater Technology

2011-05-23T11:19:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Canterbury and whilst walking along side one of the small rivers that flows through the city I came across this piece of underwater technology. A Compaq laptop.

Josh Brookes

2011-05-09T09:27:00.001+01:00

Yesterday Laguna Performance Centre had an open day and Josh Brookes (BSB rider for Relentless Suzuki) was there signing autographs. So I went along and managed to get him to sign one of the photographs I had taken of him at the recent British Superbike round at Brands Hatch. The shot is of Josh exiting Druids but to make it more interesting I adjusted the angle of the image to give the rider and bike a more upright look.

Josh Brookes @ BSB Round 1 Brands Hatch (f/8.0 1/640 300mm ISO 400)

Update

2011-05-04T11:25:00.001+01:00

Well it is over a year since my last entry, so I thought that I should pull my finger out and provide an update.

I have always been interested in photography and in June last year (as a reward to myself for graduating) I purchased my first non “point & shoot” camera, a Canon EOS 450D. At this point I was a total noobie, so things like aperture, exposure and depth of field were all alien to me. Now after reading numerous articles, both on and off line and having joined 2 local photography clubs I am starting to get to grips with my new hobby and gaining a better understanding of it’s technical side. One book that has certainly helped is “The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D Companion”, it covers all the bells and whistles of the camera, giving good and helpful explanations as to when, why and how to use the different settings. Although still very much a novice I am growing in confidence and in March of this year signed up for the OU’s short-course “T189 - Digital photography: creating and sharing better images”. T189 is a 10 week course with the first week starting on the 1st May.

For a number of years my other interest has been motorsport, primarily motorbike racing, and am now combining this with the photography. Last year I went to a number of meetings (MotoGP, WSBK & BSB) and each time my technique has got better. Its a slow process and requires a lot of practice, but I do feel that I am improving. If you would like to see my efforts so far, take a look at me Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianmcy/.

Luke Helm @ BSB Round 1 Brands Hatch (f/5.6 1/320 300mm ISO 250)

Facebook users be aware

2010-03-23T15:28:00.001Z

Our companies e-mail monitoring system captured an e-mail today pertaining to have come from Facebook Customer Support.

Subject: Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Customer Support

Body:

Dear user of facebook,
Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.
Thanks,
Your Facebook.

Attachment: Facebook_password_239.zip (containing Facebook_password_239.exe)

Threat: Mal/FakeAV-BW

Suzi’s replacement

2010-03-17T09:02:00.001Z

After all the new bikes and liveries, plus line-up changes, the last question all fans have been asking themselves about the 2010 MotoGP season can finally be answered - who will be presenting the BBC's MotoGP coverage?

Suzi Perry, the face of MotoGP for more than a decade, decided in the close season to step down and concentrate on other work.

Now, her replacement can be revealed - Jennie Gow.

More >>

Web Leopard

2010-03-15T13:15:00.001Z

After taking the BBC (Lab UK) “Web Behaviour Test” I am apparently a “Web Leopard”.

Fast-moving - Web Leopards like you are adept at getting information from the internet very quickly. Your speed is a trait you share with real-world leopards, which are among the fastest land animals.

Solitary - Leopards live alone, fending for themselves in isolated home ranges. Similarly, the Web Leopard likes to go it alone when looking for information, rather than rely on social networks, or other sites where the users create the content.

Specialised - Web Leopards are best suited to performing one task at a time rather than multitasking. The real-world leopard is similarly specialised, being perfectly adapted to silently tracking its prey before pouncing.

Go take the test at: Discover your inner animal

Open University curbs Tesco 'clubcard degree' scheme

2010-02-05T13:52:00.001Z

The Open University is scaling back a scheme which allows students to pay for courses with Tesco clubcard points.

Since February 2007, OU students have been able to use reward points earned from shopping to pay fees for their undergraduate degrees.

But now the university says it has had to "re-evaluate its budget" and restrict the deal to students in their first years, under a phased programme…

ref: BBC News

SourceForge Block Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea & Cuba

2010-01-25T15:31:00.001Z

Is Open Source Still Open?

…SourceForge.net the world’s largest open source software development web site blocked users from downloading free open source software from “banned locations” meaning users and developers form Syria, Sudan, Iran, N Korea and Cuba are banned…

ref: ArabCrunch En

What next?

2009-12-17T11:35:00.001Z

A number of people have been asking what I will do next, and to be honest I am not to sure at present.

Some students and tutors have suggested teaching. Although this is something I have looked at in the past I am have decided not to go down this avenue because from what I have seen secondary schools at present do not teach computing, they just teach pupils how to use computers / software.

Several other tutors having suggested tutoring for the OU and this is something I might well look at doing.

Or I could continue studying by doing an Msc. Having taken a brief look at the OU website I have estimated it would take 5-6 years at a cost of about £9,000.

What every I end up doing I am taking a year off. Even though I have a few jobs to do around the house, a year of no TMA’s, revision or exams will be so relaxing.

Thank you

2009-12-17T11:20:00.001Z

Having completed my degree I would like to extend a big thank you to the following:

The “Open University” for giving people the opportunity to better themselves;
The tutors who have helped me through my courses;
My fellow students whose messages of help and congratulations have been a great motivator.

Degree Confirmed

2009-12-16T13:37:00.001Z

The OU, via my “student home page”, has confirmed this morning that I have my degree. It is a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computing, Upper Second-class Honours (2.1).

M366: Result!

2009-12-15T10:19:00.001Z

The final results for M366 have been released (3 days earlier than stated) and I got a Grade 3 (OCAS 92 & OES 54). I felt that the exam didn’t go well for me and I have been worrying since then that I had failed the exam (thus the course) and would have to do a re-sit. So I am mightily pleased.

This means that I have got my degree and if my calculations are correct it is a 2:1.

M366: Finished (well hopefully)

2009-10-15T13:29:00.001+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I took what I' am hoping was my last exam for my degree. To say that it was a joyous experience would be an extreme exaggeration as I found it concentrated to much on the minor aspects of the course, i.e. those areas that you think want crop up in the exam or if they do it would be the odd one or two questions. Plus they changed the way formulae were presented making them look partially different to how they were in the course text. Exams are a stressful experience and with the time constraints I for one did not need the challenge of having to decipher a formula before using it.

I now just have to wait until December to see if I scrapped enough marks together for a pass and not have to worry about doing a re-sit in April 2010.

M366: Revision starts today

2009-09-18T14:50:00.001+01:00

Having attended the M366 strand at the M500 Revision Weekend and submitted my last TMA (Tuesday evening) I can now concentrate on revising for the exam on the 14.Oct.

To aid in my revision I have created a plan:

Day	Date		Block	Unit	Description

1	Fri	18.Sep	1	1	Learning outcomes

2	Sat	19.Sep	2	1	Learning outcomes
3	Sun	20.Sep	2	2	Learning outcomes
4	Mon	21.Sep	2	3	Learning outcomes
5	Tue	22.Sep	2	4	Learning outcomes
6	Wed	23.Sep	3	1	Learning outcomes
7	Thur	24.Sep	3	2	Learning outcomes
8	Fri	25.Sep	3	3	Learning outcomes

9	Sat	26.Sep	Tutorial		10:30 – 15:00 Croydon
10	Sun	27.Sep	Turotial		10:30 – 15:00 UoW
11	Mon	28.Sep	3	4	Learning outcomes
12	Tue	29.Sep	4	1	Learning outcomes
13	Wed	30.Sep	4	2	Learning outcomes
14	Thur	01.Oct	4	3	Learning outcomes
15	Fri	02.Oct	4	4	Learning outcomes

16	Sat	03.Oct	5	1	Learning outcomes
17	Sun	04.Oct	5	2	Learning outcomes
18	Mon	05.Oct	5	3	Learning outcomes
19	Tue	06.Oct	6	1	Learning outcomes
20	Wed	07.Oct	2	All	Recap
21	Thur	08.Oct	3	All	Recap
22	Fri	09.Oct	4	All	Recap

23	Sat	10.Oct	1	All	Recap
24	Sun	11.Oct	6	All	Recap
25	Mon	12.Oct	5	All	Recap
26	Tue	13.Oct	Study	exam	papers

27	Wed	14.Oct	Exam		14:30 – 17:30

and constructed a revision pack:

1.	Learning outcomes;
2.	M500 slides;
3.	TMA's & marked answers;
4.	08 exam & specimen papers;
5.	Glossary;
6.	Maths guide;
7.	Course text index.

Using the course text and my revision pack I plan to answer, on a postcard, each of the Learning Outcomes for course. I will then carry the postcards around with me all the time and use them (i.e. whilst commuting to work) to aid in an attempt in retaining all the necessary information.

Painless Upgrade

2009-08-28T10:53:00.001+01:00

In the past upgrading the firmware on my iPod Touch has been a painful experience (unless I have been doing something wrong), in that the upgrade has reset my Touch and removed all my music and videos. As I don’t retain copies of my CD’s in iTunes this has meant that after the upgrade I have had to go through the lengthy process of re-importing my CD collection. Thus for along time I have been on the hunt for a program that will allow me to copy my media files back onto my PC so that it makes the re-importing a lot quicker and less tedious.

Although there are a number of commercial programs available, I have been using a program called iPhoneBrowser (http://code.google.com/p/iphonebrowser/). This program looks a bit like Windows Explorer, allowing me to see the whole of the folder structure of the Touch and backing up selected files to a PC.

Even though it is a powerful program it has a couple of draw backs.

You have to be familiar with Unix / Linux folder structures making the hunting down of where you music is stored frustrating;
The music (and videos) files do not have user friendly names (i.e. IHAX.m4a) and there is no knowing what track is what until you import them in to iTunes.

So my hunt has continued, until the beginning of the week when I discovered SharePod (http://www.getsharepod.com/about/), a free standalone application that when copying your media files gives them recognisable filenames.

After several tests of copying music from the Touch to a PC using SharePod I decided to take the plunge and upgrade the firmware to the latest version (3.0/7A341). The first step was to backup all my media on the Touch. SharePod was very impressive, copying 1,300 audio tracks to the PC in half an hour. The next step was to perform the upgrade itself. This went very smoothly and after the upgrade I discovered that this time the Touch had not been wiped clean with all my media still there. Initially I was a bit annoyed at having gone to all the trouble of backing up my Touch but then when I thought about it if I hadn’t I would not have discovered the brilliant SharePod.

Aside: Anyone interested in jailbreaking their iPod Touch (or iPhone) should take a look at this instructional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_QovWugN8

M366: TMA03 Result

2009-08-19T10:29:00.001+01:00

Last night I got the result back for TMA03, 93%. Still on course for a Distinction if only I can find a way of nailing the exam. One of the problems with M366 is that it covers so much information and I am struggling to remember any of it. Hopefully the M500 weekend and revision tutorials will help. If anyone has got any revision tips and tricks they are most welcome.

M500 Revision Weekend

2009-08-06T09:30:00.001+01:00

I have just booked a place at the M500 Revision Weekend.

The M500 Society began in 1973 as a self-help group for Open University maths students in Southampton. Now there are members throughout Britain and in many other countries across the world.

Every year they hold a revision weekend at the Aston University, Birmingham. The Weekend, 11th - 13th September 2009, is designed to help with exam revision, is open to all OU students and this year includes M366.

There are five teaching sessions for each course, which are Friday 19.30 - 21.30, Saturday 9.30 - 12.30 and 14.00 -17.30, and Sunday 9.30 - 12.30 and 14.00 - 17.00. Total teaching time, excluding the tea breaks, is about 13.5 hours.

If you are doing more than one course, you are free to go to any of your courses for any session. Most tutors will produce a timetable to help you decide which course to go to for any particular session.

I have previously attended these weekends for both M301 and M359, and found them to be invaluable in assisting with my revision.

For further information goto http://www.m500.org.uk/sept.htm

TMA03 finally submitted

2009-08-04T15:07:00.001+01:00

Finally got around to submitting TMA03 this afternoon, and as some tutors have commented, it took a mighty long time to complete. This is primarily due to the number of neural networks (and variations) we had to create and the number of training sessions needed for each one.

Now on to Block 5. No peace for the wicked.

Online Tutorials

2009-06-25T10:06:00.001+01:00

M366 is the first course I have done where there are a number of online tutorials using a system called Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com/). This does present a problem though in that the tutor taking the online tutorial can have the tendency to post messages about the tutorial only to their tutor group, as is the case I experienced on Tuesday 23.Jun.09.

Although I reside in region 13 I tend to participate in region 1 tutorials as I work in London and it is often easier for me to attend these tutorials rather than my official ones. One of the region 1 tutors’ has been very helpful in supplying me with dates and times of the online tutorials so that I could participate. So on Tuesday I logged on at 8pm only to discover that there was no one else around. I hung on till 8:30 but with no one else coming online I assumed that perhaps the tutorial had been cancelled. Yesterday I discovered that in fact the tutor (a different tutor to the one previously mentioned) who took the tutorial had actually started it at 7pm and only her students were aware of this. I have e-mailed this tutor in the hope that she will keep me informed of the start times of future online tutorials she is taking.

M366: TMA02 Result

2009-06-25T09:52:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I got the result back for my TMA02, and am very chuffed as I got 90%. Like TMA01 this TMA had a number of questions that were word limited, plus some of the questions were not to clear on what was required. Overall I did not screw up any single question but lost the odd mark here or there for missing out a particular point.

Now onto Block 4 and TMA03, which is all about Neural Networks. The opinion of one tutor is to leave plenty of time for the TMA as it is very time consuming.

M366: TMA02 Submitted

2009-06-03T13:48:00.001+01:00

Last night I managed to finally finish TMA02 and submit it 4 hours before the deadline. Initially this TMA looked as though it was going to be easy, but appearances can be deceptive as it got harder and harder the further I progressed into it. Still it’s done and dusted, and I am going to chill out for a couple of days before starting block 4.

The one thing the TMA has shown and greatly concerns me is how quickly I am forgetting things that I have studied in the course text. For example I had to totally re-read the section on Ant Colony Optimization as I could not remember any of the details. This means that revision is going to be a real slog. The way I feel about this course at present I will be happy just to get a pass come exam time.

Congratulations Bradley !!!

2009-05-05T12:03:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Bradley Smith for winning his first 125GP race on Sunday at Jerez. He is now 1 point behind the championship leader Andrea Iannone.

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2009/Smith+takes+first+victory+at+the+Spanish+GP

http://www.bradley-smith.co.uk/

M366: TMA01 Result

2009-04-27T09:49:00.001+01:00

I have just got the result back for my TMA01, and am rather pleased as I managed to get 93%. This was not the easiest of TMA’s especially where questions specified a word limit. I have always had trouble with trying to provide short concise answers.

For TMA02 I am endeavouring to answer each question after finishing the relevant unit. This way I hope to be able to give myself more time and improve how I answer word limited questions.

M366: An update

2009-04-15T09:44:00.001+01:00

It has been sometime since my last entry so I thought I would give an update on how my M366 studies are going.

Block 1 and 2 have been completed;
TMA 01 was submitted yesterday (13.Apr.09);
Attended 4 tutorials (1 official one at Croydon College and 3 region 1 tutorials at the University of Westminster).

4 tutorials might seem a bit excessive but I have found them (except for 1) to be of great benefit, and for this course any additional help is certainly needed.

TMA 01 has been a nightmare. I have probably spent double the amount of time of this TMA than I have previously spent on any other level 3 TMA. One of the major problems was that a number of the questions required us to document our understanding of a particular subject but with a set word count. For me this proved very time consuming especially when trying to fit an answer in to say 150 words without plagiarising the course text.

AI is a subject that has interested me for a long time, and the course material is both extensive and interesting, but the course text itself is dire. The authors of the course have tried to cram to a broad range materials into a limited space, with some subjects only being briefly covered. For example Block 2 has a section about logic and “rules of inference”, yet without having previously studied these subjects in M263 I wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell of understanding them from the course text alone. This is not being an isolated example. Block 2 also covers “developing good heuristics” in a page and a half, yet the subject was a major part of TMA 01 question 4. And don’t talk to me about “alpha-beta pruning”, without a flash based app developed by one of last years student’s I would not have stood a chance of fully understanding this particular concept.

At present my opinion of this course is DON’T DO IT, unless AI really does interest you and then make it your very last course.

M366: Yet another tutorial

2009-03-30T10:47:00.001+01:00

On Saturday I attended my 3rd tutorial for M366. The previous 2 tutorials have been at the University of Westminster, but this one was at Croydon College and held by my actual tutor.

Even though it was a 2.5 hour round trip for a 2 hour tutorial, it was worth it as the tutorial was both informative and enjoyable, as well as being well attended (10 students if memory serves correctly).

After the general intro’s, we had an overview of all the blocks and the TMA’s (i.e. weighting, no substitution), plus general discussions about AI and the course so far. A number of students thought that the course text made a lot of assumptions (i.e. the logic section) in that we have previous experience in specific areas, and I made the observation that perhaps M263 should be a required course for taking M366, as M263 covers in depth a number of topics in Block 2 of M366.

One very useful piece of information given is that we should allow plenty of time for TMA03 as it will be rather time consuming due to the practical's involved.

M366: AI on YouTube

2009-02-26T15:18:00.001Z

Whilst wondering the ether yesterday I came across a couple of lecture series on Artificial Intelligence, on YouTube. Both come from the “National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning” in India (NPTEL). Their objective is:

The main objective of NPTEL program is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses.

Links to the lecture series:

Computer Sc - Artificial Intelligence There also seems to be an associated web-based course containing an extensive number of PDF’s.
Computer Sc - Artificial Intelligence - Prof. P. Dasgupta

I also came across another site, AITopics,that is a massive portal to all things AI.

M366: First Tutorial

2009-02-25T11:04:00.001Z

Last night I attended my first tutorial for M366. Not being one of my official tutorials it was one run by Region 1 at the University of Westminster. This is one of the many positive aspects of the OU in that you are not restricted only to your official tutorials as you can go along to any of the tutorials being run for the course you are taking.

The tutor was a Dr. Dorothy Monekosso (http://cism.kingston.ac.uk/people/details.php?AuthorID=45) and 9 students (including myself) attended. The evening started off with the general introductions were I discovered that for a number of us this was our last course for our respective degrees. This was followed by a crossword to assist in identifying and understand key terms from Block 1. I really hate crosswords, I find them so frustrating. The evening finished off with a discussion about the Turing Test.

As Dorothy travels a lot a number of her tutorials will be online using an application called Ellimuate (http://www.elluminate.com/) with the first one being on 24th March. And my first official tutorial is on the 28th March at Croydon College (a long way to travel for just a 2 hour tutorial).

M450: Result!

2009-01-22T10:14:00.001Z

Last night I got home to find a letter from the OU giving my result for M450. To my surprise (after all the heart ache and worry) I got a DISTINCTION.

The letter was the standard OU result letter also showing my OCAS (83) and OES (87). There was no explanation as to why there had been a delay in releasing my result.

MotoGP: BBC Coverage – A Possible Solution

2009-01-20T10:30:00.001Z

Those of you in the UK who follow MotoGP will no doubt be aware that British Eurosport has lost the rights to broadcast MotoGP, with the BBC now being the sole broadcaster of the event.

This means that we are no longer able to watch practice, qualifying, or the 125 and 250 races unless we use the BBC’s interactive service or have access to the Internet.

UK fans are outraged by what Dorna has done by limiting MotoGP coverage in the UK, yet I believe I have a possible solution.

Back in October 2008 it was announced:

The AB Groupe and Eurosport France have agreed a three-year deal with commercial rights holders, Dorna Sports, for the television rights for MotoGP across France, until 2011.

Under the deal, digital-terrestrial channel NT1 will broadcast all 18 MotoGP races live throughout the season, including a pre-show for each race whilst cable-satellite channel Eurosport France will offer practice and qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday, followed by all three races live on Sunday. Each channel will create its own individual programme for the events.

ref: http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/167955/french-motogp-rights-awarded

Therefore why don’t we petition BSkyB to get them to broadcast Eurosport France to UK Sky TV subscribers? Ok the commentary will be in French but at least we will get back the coverage we were used to, and we might even learn a foreign language at the same time.

Go on e-mail Sky today.

M366: Open For Business

2009-01-19T10:25:00.001Z

Both the course website and FirstClass conferences are now available.

FirstClass

There are 8 conference areas, of which 7 are sub-conference areas of the main area , M366 09BStudents. The sub-conferences comprise of an area for each of the blocks (except for blocks 1 and 2 which have a combined area), an FAQ area and a revision area. At present it looks as though we can post messages to any of the areas except for main area which I find a bit strange. Still we might found out the reason why at some point.

Course website

The course website is tightly integrated into the students home page under the Courses menu option, as opposed to previous courses where their respective website has been a separate site. I think that this might be to do with the OU restructuring their websites and how they present information to students.

The main page displays a 3 week view of the course calendar and a number of menus to go to other areas. For example under Resources you can access the course materials for Assessment, Course resources, Library resources and Errata, with a majority of these materials downloadable.

I have downloaded all the course materials that are currently available, including TMA 01 (due 14.Apr.09), so that I have access to them whilst travelling to and from work.

As yet my course record is still not showing who my tutor will be for the course or when / where the tutorials will be held. I am waiting with anticipation.

M366: Assessment Information

2009-01-08T14:18:00.001Z

Having just read the “M366 Course Guide” here are some of the details concerning the course assessment:

TMAs

Four TMAs
No substitution

TMA	Block coverage
01	1 and 2
02	3
03	4
04	5 and 6

Some TMA questions will involve practical computer work

Exam

Three-hour unseen paper
A specimen examination paper and solutions will be made available on the course website

M366: Course Material

2009-01-07T11:30:00.001Z

Last night I received the course materials for M366. The package contained:

Block 1 – Intelligent machines
Block 2 – Symbolic intelligence
Block 3 – Natural intelligence
Block 4 – Neural networks
Block 5 – Evolutionary computation
Block 6 - Reflections
Course Guide
Software Guide
Using the Electronic TMA System – A Student Guide
Course News
Course Software (DVD)
Online Applications (CD-ROM)

The course software disc contains:

multimedia material, such as videos, audio presentations and animations
case studies and other supporting printed texts
activities
computer exercises
web links to various topics and advice on further research
proprietary software packages (NetLogo, JavaNNS, SB-MASE)

NetLogo: An implementation of the Logo programming language, written in Java.
JavaNNS: Java Neural Network Simulator, a package for producing computer models of neural networks.
SB-MASE: No description given in the software guide. A search of the web described SB-MASE as being aimed at students and researchers in AI, for simulation and control of agents and robots (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbmase).

This is the Internet!

2008-12-16T14:06:00.001Z

M450: Still no result

2008-12-12T10:45:00.001Z

Well its the 12th of December, the day I should have received my M450 result by, but my course page is still showing the result as Pending. The most frustrating aspect is not being given any reason why my result is pending. I do hate being kept in the dark!

I see back in 2005 the OUSA (Open University Students Association) East of England Region said

The Association calls upon the University to introduce a mechanism so that where final results are notified as "pending" to an OU student, that the reason(s) and likely delay period are given and subsequent explanation given for any additional delays.

ref: OUSA in the Eastern Region

M450: Argh!!!

2008-12-09T11:44:00.001Z

I have just been informed by a fellow M450 student, Stuart, that the results are out. So I quickly went to my student home page only to discover that my result is Pending.

It has not been possible to finalise your result in the time available before our scheduled results release date. We realise how important it is for you to receive your result quickly and we are working to provide this as a priority. Our aim is to send your result to you within six weeks where this is possible but often it will be within less time than this. Unfortunately the priority we give this work means we are unable to handle related telephone enquires during the initial six week period.

The really annoying aspect is that the student home page gives no clear indication as to why my result is delayed, although a couple of thoughts have come to mind. So I am now going to have to wait for up to another 6 weeks before getting my result :(

Still Stuart got a distinction. Well done Stuart!!! And two other friends of mine have also got their results. One got a distinction and the other passed.

OU (MW): Working from back to front

2008-11-07T13:29:00.001Z

Having decided upon a content layout I have started to think about the various bits of code of will need for each area. After sometime contemplating how all these bits of code should fit together to form the final program I decided that perhaps a better approach would be to create the final program first and then I can use elements of this code with my core text to demonstrate certain aspects, for example the default constructor. My program is now complete and it demonstrates a default constructor, constructors with arguments and the 2 ways of using the this keyword, by producing multiple instances of my Frog class. Now to get on with the text.

The code:

void setup() {
  size(640, 480);
  background(255, 248, 220);
  smooth();
  noLoop();
}

void draw() {
  Frog freddo;

  for (int i = 0; i < 75; i++) {
    switch (int(random(0, 6)+1)) {
      case 1:
        freddo = new Frog();
        break;
      case 2:
        freddo = new Frog(int(random(52, 588)+1),
                          int(random(37, 442)+1));
        break;
      case 3:
        freddo = new Frog(int(random(0, 254)+1),
                          int(random(0, 254)+1),
                          int(random(0, 254)+1));
        break;
      default:
        freddo = new Frog(int(random(52, 588)+1),
                          int(random(37, 442)+1),
                          int(random(0, 254)+1),
                          int(random(0, 254)+1),
                          int(random(0, 254)+1));
        break;
    }
    freddo.display();
  }
}

class Frog {
  // properties
  int xPos;
  int yPos;
  int redColBody;
  int grnColBody;
  int bluColBody;
  
  // constructors
  // default constructor
  Frog() {
    this(320, 240, 0, 128, 0);
  }
  
  // constructor (position)
  Frog(int xPos, int yPos) {
    this(xPos, yPos, 244, 164, 96);
  }

  // constructor (coloured body)
  Frog(int redColBody, int grnColBody, int bluColBody) {
    this(320, 240,redColBody, grnColBody, bluColBody);
  }

  // constructor (position & coloured body)
  Frog(int xPos, int yPos, int redColBody, int grnColBody,
       int bluColBody) {
    this.xPos = xPos;
    this.yPos = yPos;
    this.redColBody = redColBody;
    this.grnColBody = grnColBody;
    this.bluColBody = bluColBody;
  }

  // methods
  void display() {   
    stroke(0);
    strokeWeight(1);
    // body  
    fill(redColBody, grnColBody, bluColBody);
    ellipse(xPos, yPos, 90, 45);
    // feet
    fill(107, 142, 35);
    ellipse(xPos - 30, yPos + 15, 45, 23);
    ellipse(xPos + 30, yPos + 15, 45, 23);
    // eyes
    fill(255, 255, 255);
    ellipse(xPos - 15, yPos - 23, 23, 30);
    ellipse(xPos + 15, yPos - 23, 23, 30);
    fill(0, 0, 0);
    ellipse(xPos - 15, yPos - 23, 8, 8);
    ellipse(xPos + 15, yPos - 23, 8, 8);
    // mouth
    noFill();
    strokeWeight(2);
    arc(xPos, yPos - 2, 30, 5, 0, PI);
  }
}

The output:

OU (MW): Welcome back old friend

2008-11-06T14:42:00.001Z

Part of the criteria for my chunk (like a majority of all the chunks) is to develop a progam to demonstrate what I have written about and to try and get it to do something graphical. Thus I have been musing over the last couple of days as to what graphically I can do to demonstrate the use of constructors. I do not want to do anything that is too complicated as I don't want it to detract from the main point of the code, but I do want to make it interesting and perhaps fun.

Well last night I decide to welcome back on old friend from the time I studied M206. For this course we were taught all about OOP's via the use of frogs. These weren't just normal frogs, there was also HooverFrogs, DietingFrogs, frogs that could barn dance and toads. So let me introduce Freddo (for those who remember the chocolate bar).

My Freddo The real Freddo

I will now be able to demonstrate different constructors, creating Freddo's in different places on the screen and in different colours

M450: Cinders is not going to the ball

2008-11-06T14:01:00.001Z

This morning I received an e-mail concerning my application for one of the two places at the Computer Science 2008 conference. Unfortunately due to the number of applicants and the "high quality of all the projects" I was not selected, though the feedback was positive and I am now really intrigued as to what final grade I am going to achieve for my project.

However, the selection panel agreed that your project was highly commendable and you will be receiving a letter of commendation in recognition of this from the M450 course chair.

OU (MW): Content layout

2008-11-06T13:05:00.001Z

Prof. Ince has confirmed that I can do chunk 62 "Constructors", so I have been working on what content to include and how to lay it out. This is what I have decided on:

Introduction
- What has been covered so far
- What are constructors?
Default Constructors
- Hidden
- User specified
Overloading Constructors
- Arguments and setting instance properties
- the this keyword (part 1) - setting instance properties
Advanced Constructors
- Argument checking
- The this keyword (part 2) - invoking a constructor
Summary
Program putting all the ideas togeather

OU (MW): Committed

2008-11-04T13:20:00.001Z

Having read chapters 1 & 3 of Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art I decided upon committing to chunk 15 "Functions 2". I e-mail'd Prof. Ince with my decision and then started to think about a layout for the chunk.

Purely by chance I discovered that someone else has already committed to chunk 15, so I have had to revisit my list of candidate chunks and upon deciding a replacement I e-mail'd Prof. Ince with my new choice.

My chunk of choice is now chunk 62 "Constructors". Tonight I will read through pages 309 -311 of the book, and also dig out the corresponding section(s) from the course text for M254 - Java Everywhere that I took back in 2005 as it might prove useful.

OU (MW): To do list

2008-11-04T11:52:00.000Z

A simple to do list so I know what is outstanding.

Decide to participate of not. Done
Read the introduction to Processing. Done
Read the wiki entry on "Blog". Not required
Send email giving details about myself and willingness to participate. Done
Set up a blog. Done
Decide on what chunk to write. Done (04.11.08)
Email details of the chunk I want to write. Done (04.11.08)
Download and install the Processing IDE. Done (28.10.08)
Order the Processing book. Done (28.10.08)
Read chapters 1 and 3 of the book. Done (04.11.08)
Write the chunk.
Email the finished chunk.

Notes:

The book to order:
Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (Foundation)
Ira Greenberg
ISBN: 9781590596173
at Waterstones

OU (MW): Google Reader

2008-11-03T12:47:00.001Z

Apart from keeping an eye on everyone's blogs by using Feedreader, I have clumped them altogether within Google Reader (see here: MassWriting) and added them to my blog as a widget.

M450: Gobsmacked!!!

2008-11-03T11:39:00.001Z

I received an e-mail last week from a lecturer in the Department of Computing at the OU asking if I was interested in applying for one of the two places, in the form of bursaries, at the Computer Science 2008 conference in December. This all sounded very interesting and I replied saying that I would be interested in attending. Yet the part of the e-mail that really surprised me was...

...your name was put forward as a potential candidate by the M450 course team who were very impressed with quality of your undergraduate project work.

Considering how I felt about the project and what I had produced, I was really gobsmacked when reading the above comment. Still I must not get me hopes up to high with regards to my final result for M450. Only 39 more days until the results are supposed to be available.

OU (MW): Book and Chunks

2008-11-03T10:41:00.001Z

This morning I received my copy of Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (ordered via Amazon), so now to start reading. I will start with chapters 1 & 3, as recommended by Prof. Ince, and then move onto the sections in the book corresponding to the candidate chunks that I have identified whilst trying to decide for which one I should write.

I went through the complete list of chunks, last week, and from each block of ten chunks identifying at least one that is of particular interest. I ended up with a list of eight candidate chunks and from there I eliminated half of them. The plan now, after reading the corresponding sections from the book, is to prioritise the remaining 4 candidates and e-mail Prof. Ince with my choice.

Note: Someone else has already chosen one of the chunks that I have in my candidate list, thus I am now down to three candidates.

Note: Having done a brief skim through the book, I am intrigued as to why we don't have to read chapter 2. Might have to e-mail Prof. Ince to enquire as to why.

OU (MW): Processing - A Bug!

2008-10-29T11:09:00.001Z

Yesterday I downloaded and installed Processing. I then started going through the "Getting Started" page of the processing.org web site and everything seemed to be going ok. That is until I went to save same code. It just would not save. Every time I tried, the IDE kept responding with the message "Save Canceled".

I had a look around the web site and found that this is a known bug and was reported on the 27.Oct.08.

This morning I discovered the exact nature of the bug. If when saving a new sketch you accept the default supplied filename (i.e. sketch_081029a) the save will be cancelled. The work around is to overwrite the filename given in the "File name:" field, of the "Save sketch folder as..." dialogue box, with a filename of your choice.

M450: Course result available on...

2008-10-27T10:56:00.001Z

Saw this on my StudentHome page yesterday...

OU (MW): Up the garden path

2008-10-27T10:15:00.001Z

Simon K. left an interesting comment on my previous posting "OU: Mass Writing", and after re-reading the posting I realised that I might have mislead people with what I have written. Prof. Ince in his blog gives a better description of what the book is about.

The book writing project involves OU students, and anyone else who wants to volunteer, writing a book about the Java-based computer-art system known as Processing.

Once completed the book might be considered for use within a course, and if accepted for publication by a conventional publisher...

the royalties will go to the student hardship fund or any other charitable fund in the Open University

OU: Mass Writing

2008-10-23T14:47:00.001+01:00

Received an e-mail this morning from a Professor Ince, the Head of Computing dept. at the OU, asking if I would like to collaborate on a book about Computer Art. Sounds grander than it probably is. The department actually is looking for 85 volunteers, with each volunteer completing a section comprising of 2,500 words and a computer program. I have decided to volunteer as it looks as though it could be fun.

For further details take a look at page 5 of the Autumn issue of Sesame.

Somebody with to much time on their hands

2008-10-21T09:33:00.001+01:00

I know these are old but they are still entertaining...

The OU has caught a cold

2008-10-21T09:30:00.001+01:00

It is not only county and borough councils that have been caught out by the collapse of several Icelandic banks. It now appears that a number of UK universities have also caught a cold, including the Open University.

The Open University said it had invested £6.5m in UK subsidiaries with the Icelandic banks.
"The funds at risk with these two banks, although significant, represent less than 4% of the university's cash holdings and 1.5% of the university's expenditure budget this year.
"There is no threat to the university's operations and staff and suppliers will be paid as normal," said vice-chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley.

This really begs the question "What was so special about these banks to entice so many high profile depositors?"

ref: BBC News

M366: In conversation with... a computer program

2008-10-17T08:52:00.001+01:00

ref: BBC News

Stuck for someone to talk to? Elbot is a computer program pretending to be a person. And this week it won a prize for coming closest to fooling people into thinking it was human. The BBC's Mark Lobel catches him in a more relaxed moment.

No computer has ever passed the Turing Test to see if, during text-based conversation, a machine can be indistinguishable from a person. But Elbot just came pretty close.

At the 18th Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence, held at the weekend, this artificial intelligence entity convinced four of the 12 human interrogators he was indistinguishable from them.

If Elbot had convinced one other, it would have passed the magic 30% mark - the threshold set by Britain's most famous code-breaker, Alan Turing, who devised the test back in 1950.

What's more Elbot, the very same version that came so close to passing itself off as a living, breathing, sentient human being (under Turing's rules at least), is online - for anyone to talk to. Let's see if he's feeling chatty. [...]

M366: Test explores if robots can think

2008-10-14T10:39:00.001+01:00

Reported on the BBC's news web site:

Scientists at the University of Reading tested five machines to see if they could pass themselves off as humans in text-based conversations with people.
The test was devised in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was "thinking".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7666836.stm

FTSE

2008-10-10T10:45:00.001+01:00

Do you duty!

2008-10-09T14:05:00.001+01:00

Keep things safe

2008-10-09T14:01:00.001+01:00

Since starting my OU studies one of my primary concerns has been making sure I have adequate backups of all my OU data. This is especially relevant to the current course being studied and the TMA being worked on. There can be nothing more frustrating and depressing than loosing a TMA that is 90% complete and having to recreate it from scratch. Data loss can come in many guises, such as hard disk failure; loosing a memory stick; corrupt file, and with this in mind I always have 3 copies available at any one time. One on my home PC, one on my laptop and one on my work PC. This sounds nice and secure but the problem has been in keeping the 3 machines synchronised.

Over the last few years I have tried various methods including manual copying and trials of commercial packages (i.e. Handy Backup). Well today I have come across an Open Source program, Synkron, that looks as though it will do the job.

It has a number of features, including:

Synchronise multiple folders
Tabs allow you to have more synchronisations running at once
Periodical synchronisations automatically sync your folders in selected intervals
Restore files, which were overwritten during the synchronisation
Add files and folders to black list to make sure they won't be synchronised in the future
Make schedules and backup using multisync
Propagate deletions

With multiple supported platforms:

Apple Mac OS X (Universal)
Microsoft Windows (Installer)
Linux/Unix (Source code, RPM, Ubuntu, Archlinux and ALT Linux packages)

The one drawback is the lack of documentation, although there is a support forum. Even so it is a simple program to use and I would recommend taking a look at it if you are wanting a way of synchronising data.

M366: A cry for help

2008-10-09T11:08:00.001+01:00

Having got hold of the course text (blocks 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6), in electronic form, for M366 I have made a start on block 1 only to discover that there are other documents that I need (i.e. Dartmouth.pdf supplied on the course DVD). So I am wondering if anyone who reads my blog and has already done M366 can let me have copies of the other documents (in electronic form) needed for M366.

Some Interesting Statistics

2008-10-09T09:57:00.001+01:00

With Valentino Rossi having recently won his 6th MotoGP championship and Troy Bayliss having won his 3rd WSBK (World Superbike) championship, crash.net have come up with some interesting statistics in the form of Bayliss v Rossi v Schumacher.

The first table below shows the most important stats for each competitor, with the second listing their achievements as a percentage. Rossi's stats are for 500cc/MotoGP only (does not include his 125 or 250 seasons and championships):

	races	wins	podiums	poles	titles *
Troy Balyiss	150	50	92	25	3
Valentino Rossi	148	70	113	41	6
Michael Schumacher	248	91	154	68	7

	wins	podiums	poles	titles *
Troy Balyiss	33.3%	61.3%	16.7%	60.0%
Valentino Rossi	47.3%	76.4%	27.7%	66.7%
Michael Schumacher	36.7%	62.1%	27.4%	50.0%

* only full racing seasons were included for the title percentage (Bayliss missed three rounds of the 2000 season, whilst Schumacher missed part of both the 1991 and 1999 seasons).

An Early Start

2008-09-29T13:41:00.001+01:00

I have been able to get hold of some of the course text (blocks 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6), in electronic form, for M366 and even though the course does not start until Feb.09 I have decided to make an early start on it.

Some People Will Eat Anything

2008-09-12T10:37:00.001+01:00

I promised him a squirrel sandwich and that is what he's gonna get after school. You've heard of tuna melts or patty melts, well why not squirrel melts.

WARNING!!! Fluffy creatures were harmed during the making of this video.

The New Donington ?

2008-09-10T14:51:00.001+01:00

Donington race circuit has won the contract to host the British round of Formula 1 as from 2010, whilst hopefully still hosting the MotoGP (Silverstone is so flat and boring). Donington will require a lot of modernisation and as part of this the track is being redesigned. Below are links to an article and a plan of the proposed new circuit.

Article and new circuit.

M450: That was quick

2008-09-10T14:31:00.001+01:00

As previously mentioned I posted my ECA on Monday (8th Sept) at about 3:00pm, and I have just checked my StudentHome page and it is saying that my ECA has been received by the OU. The wonders of modern snail-mail.

M366: Registered

2008-09-09T14:18:00.001+01:00

This afternoon I registered for M366 - Natural and artificial intelligence, and have already started to search the net for useful information. Apparently we use an application called NetLogo during the course, and I have found the home page here.

M450: Finished !!!

2008-09-09T11:35:00.001+01:00

I finally submitted my ECA for M450 yesterday. Three copies printed, bound (Staples did a very good job, £9 less £3 discount) and posted (First class £4.30), plus not forgetting to obtain the proof of posting.

This means for me that the course is now finished and all I have to do is wait for the result, which apparently can take some time.

Over the next few weeks I am going to try and put together some advice on how to tackle M450 for those students thinking of taking it in the future, especially as it is not the easiest of courses.

Now I have to register for my next course, M366 - Natural and artificial intelligence, even though (having done a quick search via Google) it seems that it might not be the easiest of courses. This will hopefully be the last course of my degree.

MU120: Final Result

2008-08-04T14:28:00.000+01:00

I have just got my final result for MU120, a PASS with an overall continuous assessment score of 94%. This means that if I were to stop my OU studies now I have qualified for a BSc(Open) degree, but I am not as I only have a year and a bit to go before getting the computing named degree.

Eurosport Loses MotoGP Coverage From 2009

2008-06-27T11:24:00.001+01:00

Yesterday (26.Jun.08) Dorna announced

that coverage of the MotoGP World Championships will no longer be available on Eurosport from the 2009 season

The BBC will have exclusive coverage of MotoGP in the UK and this is very disappointing news for the following reasons:

Currently the BBC only shows the MotoGP race on terrestrial TV (BBC2). The 125 and 250 races are only shown on the BBC's BBCi service;
In the past some races have not been shown live;
The BBC does not show qualifying all the time, and when it does it is only available via BBCi;
Unlike Eurosport, the BBC does not show any of the free practice sessions or the qualifying sessions for the 125's and 250's;
From 2009 the BBC will also be showing F1, thus if a race clashes with a MotoGP then the F1 race is probably going to get preference;
If the BBC increases it's MotoGP coverage then more than likely it will only be via BBCi. The Problem is that you are not able to record BBCi on a SKY+ box.

Dorna have said that their reason for taking this action is to try and increase MotoGP coverage across Europe by giving priority to free-to-air television networks, but by taking this action they will actually be decreasing the coverage available to UK MotoGP fans.

If you are a MotoGP fan and want to petition Dorna against this action that they have taken then you might find the following e-mail address's useful:

Dorna UK :- Tony Partis - dornauk@dorna.com
Licensing :- Phaedra Haramis - commercial@dorna.com
TV Production :- Sergi Sendra - tvproduction@dorna.com

OU: TMA Results

2008-04-30T15:27:00.001+01:00

Last week I got the result back for my MU120 TMA03, 95%, and yesterday I got the result for M450 TMA02, 86%. Although I did better for M450 TMA02 than TMA01 I am still finding the research aspect of the project most frustrating.

Blake's 7 poised for Sky comeback

2008-04-24T13:20:00.001+01:00

The BBC has reported:

A new remake of sci-fi series Blake's 7 could soon return to television screens, Sky One has revealed.
The satellite channel has given the green light for the development of two 60-minute scripts for a "potential event series".

...

"The time is ripe for a revival of a show that represents the best traditions of the genre, not to mention one of the best-loved and most successful dramas of all time," Elaine Pyke, commissioning editor for drama at Sky One, Two and Three, said.

ref: BBC News

M450: TMA02

2008-04-22T10:39:00.001+01:00

Well I have finally submitted TMA02 for M450, 1 week after cut-off. This is the first time in all my OU studies that I have had to have an extension. The cause of the problem is the research we have to do for this course, it is proving difficult, frustrating and demoralizing. The course text does not go into any detail as to why we are having to do the research and what we should be looking for. Still at least I can now press on with the core elements of my project.

MU120: Finished!

2008-03-27T14:35:00.001Z

Last night I had a tutorial and was able to hand my completed TMA04 over to my tutor, just under 3 months ahead of the course schedule. This means that I have finally finished MU120 and I can now fully concentrate on M450.

Phorm - Family friendly?

2008-03-19T09:53:00.001Z

Over the last week there has been a lot of talk about Phorm.

A system that matches users' web surfing habits to adverts must ensure sensitive sites are black-listed from tracking, a privacy report has said.
Phorm's online technology is set to be rolled out by three of the UK's biggest ISPs, BT, Virgin and Talk Talk.
ref: BBC News

Even Sir Tim Berners-Lee has concerns about it.

The creator of the web has said consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee told BBC News he would change his Internet provider if it introduced such a system.
ref: BBC News

Now I am wondering if such a system is family friendly. What I mean by this is that my home PC / Internet connection is used by the whole family, and I visit sites, such as adult humour, that I do not allow my daughter to go to, for example b3ta.com. So if my ISP was to implement Phorm could it distinguish between different users going over the same Internet connection. Would my daughter start to see adverts relating to my surfing habits? Like any responsible parent I monitor and guide my daughter on what she watches on television and what she sees on the Internet, yet it appears to me that an ISP using Phorm could well take some of this control away from me.

Off to travel the stars

2008-03-19T08:26:00.001Z

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

ref: BBC News

Happy St Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T10:10:00.001Z

Team Fortress 2

2008-03-17T09:42:00.001Z

TF2 is a truly addictive multi-player online game, and someone has recreated a scene using LEGO. Also click here.

CMAs and TMAs

2008-03-13T10:56:00.001Z

On Tuesday I got the results back for my MU120 CMA43. I got a very pleasing 96% and lost a couple of marks due to silly mistakes. These mistakes I believe are due to the nature of CMA's in that being multiple choice I tend to go through them a lot quicker than I would a TMA thus resulting in not studying a question as thoroughly as perhaps I should.

Yesterday morning I got the results for my first TMA for M450. Even though I got 80% I was disappointed in my tutor's comments, in that they were very brief and in some instances cryptic. This left me feeling frustrated and confused, but after a lengthy telephone conversation with him last night I feel a lot better. He enlightened me to what he actually meant, thus I now understand where my TMA was lacking and how it could have been improved. I now realise that one of my biggest problems with my project is that I have had tunnel vision, in that I knew what the problem was (difficulty in sending bank statements) and how I wanted to solve it. This has meant that when I was looking for research I was basing my investigation on the solution rather than the problem and finding alternative solutions to it. In fact I now appreciate that my whole project is based around my solution, even it's title "Automated archiving and electronic transmission (via SMTP) of customer bank statements", as opposed to describing the problem, followed by looking for any solutions, discussing their strengthens and weaknesses, and then selecting a viable one. With this in mind I now feel more confident that for my next TMA I should be able to produce a superior paper.

MU120: All that is remaining...

2008-03-05T13:44:00.001Z

All that I have remaining for MU120 if TMA04 as I have just submitted CMA45. It took a bit longer to complete than the other CMA's as it went through the whole course and on a number of occasions I had to refer back to my notes. Rather annoyed with myself though, as after submitting the CMA I had a look at my submitted answers and realised that I have done a typo on one of the them. It's a shame that submitted CMA's cannot be amended.

Knight Rider

2008-02-29T10:36:00.001Z

Testing is currently underway at the Losail Circuit Qatar in preparation for the first MotoGP race of the 2008 season.

The March 9 race will be the first Grand Prix, two or four wheeled, to be held at night when it starts at 23:00 local (20:00GMT). Formula One will hold a night race in Singapore in September.
MotoGP organisers have said their race would be the biggest sporting event to be staged under floodlights with the area involved at Losail equivalent to 70 FIFA regulation soccer pitches, with 3,500 lighting units installed.
ref: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/65378

MU120: CMA44

2008-02-28T14:48:00.001Z

Having put MU120 on hold for a month (except for attending my local tutorials) due to starting M450 and completing the first TMA, I can now go back to it. I have outstanding 2 CMA's and the ECA. With this in mind I ploughed through and submitted CMA44 this afternoon. It was not so bad although I did have to refer back to my notes on a couple of occasions. The biggest problem was remembering where all the relevant functions are in the calculator. Now onto CMA45.

Bradley Smith Interview

2008-02-28T13:57:00.001Z

MCN caught up with Polaris World Aprilia rider Bradley Smith at the teams official launch in London yesterday.

M450: TMA01

2008-02-27T10:40:00.001Z

Last night I finally managed to submit my first TMA for M450, 5 hours before cut-off. The course started on February 2nd and it has been a long hard slog during these past 24 days to get the TMA completed, even though the course team say in the assessment guide

completing each TMA could take as little as five or six hours

There are 2 reasons for this TMA taking so long, the first being that I dived straight into the TMA and although I have started tasks such as a project schedule and an E-R model, I did them as part of the TMA. The second reason is that I have experienced a lot of difficulty in finding any research papers in relation to my project. This become a frustrating exercise and started to make finishing the TMA feel tedious. And I don't believe that I am alone in these sentiments.

Anyway I can now get down to some real practical work, starting with the statement of requirements, and the database analysis and design. With this in mind hopefully TMA02 wont take so long to complete when I come around to doing it.

Vote for Dustin

2008-02-25T13:26:00.001Z

This Saturday the Irish decided on their entry for this years Eurovision Song Contest and the winner was Dustin The Turkey singing Douze Pointe.

It reminds me of the episode of Father Ted where Father's Ted and Dougal are Irelands entry for the annual European contest with their song My Lovely Horse. The Irish don't want to winner the contest anymore as it is proving to expensive to host, so they pick the one song that is guaranteed to loose.

MU120: TMA02

2008-02-07T09:31:00.001Z

Got home last night to find my marked TMA02 had been delivered. This came as a surprise as having handed in the TMA about a month and a half before the deadline, I had completely forgotten about it. The surprise was made very pleasant when I discovered that I had scored 98%.

MU120: On Hold.

2008-02-05T14:26:00.001Z

Having read all 16 units and now only having CMA44, CMA45 and TMA04 left to do I have decided to put MU120 on hold. My reason for this is that M450 officially started on Saturday (02.Feb) and its first TMA is due on 26.Feb. I therefore want to concentrate on the M450 TMA01 and will resume MU120 after 26.Feb.

M450: A slight change of direction

2008-01-25T10:20:00.001Z

Having been allocated my tutor I e-mailed him yesterday with a description of my proposed project and saying that the scope would be the back-end process and database.

In his reply to me he said...

it might be prudent to plan the whole and implement a prototype

I have always appreciated that for the project you don't need to produce a fully working system, even though it has been my intention to do so as it will be used by my employer on a daily basis. Therefore I now potentially have a conflict of interest between what I need to do for my project and what my employer requires, with regards to time. It's going to be interesting to see if I can keep both parties happy.

M450: A bit chewy?

2008-01-14T10:26:00.001Z

Although I have not yet started looking through the course materials, I have had for some time an idea as to what to do for my project.

I plan to develop a system for the "archiving and electronic transmission (via SMTP) of statements" for the bank that I work for.

This system will comprise of 2 areas:

1. A database and a back-end module to import the raw statement data into the database, plus identify those statements that need to be transmitted.

2. A front-end client module which will allow users to:
2.a. Release those statements ready for transmission;
2.b. Select, display, and re-transmit selected statements upon request;
2.c. Update customer control data (i.e. e-mail address).

There are a number of different areas that I will have to investigate, such as the connection between Java and MS SQL Server, as although I know that this is possible, it is not something that I have done in the past.

Now I am in the fortunate position that I can work on this full time, yet I am starting to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew, time wise. Normally I would say that it is possible, but I get the impression from some of the postings in FirstClass that how the OU want us to approach the project and how we would actually do it in real life does differ. Plus a quick search (via Google) threw up the following:

About 40 per cent of the work develops and assesses skills for project scoping and specification, self-monitoring of progress and presentation. The remaining 60 per cent concerns the technical detail of the project and is project specific. Course materials will be made available online. Students are expected to retain the material associated with the courses on which they build for their project.

Students will develop a project topic, specification and plan, carry it out, and then write it up. A tutor will advise and guide students, but they will be expected to produce their work independently, without close supervision. They must also keep a project log and use it for an assessed critical review of their work. The emphasis is on students being reflective practitioners, developing not only the technical aspects of their project but also reviewing and thinking about what they have learnt from doing the work, to further improve their skills. Tutor-marked assignments provide milestones and feedback to help them monitor their progress. Guidance notes, study calendar and other supporting material will be made available on the web.

ref: http://www3.open.ac.uk/employment/associate-lecturers/courses/M450.shtm

I am therefore wondering whether I should just concentrate on the first area (the database and back-end module) as opposed to the whole system, and complete the second area in my own time. I think I will have to consult with my tutor once I know who he / she is.

MU120: CMA42

2007-12-20T09:47:00.001Z

Yesterday, apart from getting my result for M359, I got the result for my MU120 CMA42 (computer marked assignment). I scored 88% but today it is 92%. It looks as though for one question there are 2 answers, not 1, and I have gained marks for correctly answering the question when previously it was marked incorrect.

Perhaps they can re-score my M359 exam, as an extra 4% will bump me up a grade. LOL

M359: Was it worth it?

2007-12-19T14:52:00.001Z

The results for M359 have just been released and I got a grade 3 (67%), this being my lowest grade over the 4 years that I have studied with the OU so far. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement especially as I obtained an overall score for my assignments of 94% and spent a month revising for the exam.

I know I have an issue with exams but I strongly feel that the layout for the M359 exam had a detrimental effect on my final result. This appears to be the opinion of a number of other students who also got high assignment scores but were let down by the exam.

With only 2 courses remaining I am still in with a chance of getting a 1st for my degree (according to the online degree classification calculator, Leningrad), it just means that I am going to have to work extra hard as I will require distinctions for both of the courses. If I slip up on either I will probably end up with a 2.1 classification.

M359: Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!

2007-12-13T11:08:00.001Z

The course result for M359 should by available by the 14th Dec, and for previous years results have sometimes been released 1 or 2 days earlier. So there I' am checking my student home page every hour to see if the result for M359 has been released when I notice "Your course result should be available by Friday 21 December 2007". No explanations as to why, and I now have to wait an extra week. As a fellow student pointed out, perhaps this is the final errata for the course, with the final results placed in an appendix at the end of our course record page.

MU120: Useful Links

2007-12-12T14:34:00.001Z

Whilst studying MU120 I have visited a number of web sites in the hunt for further and useful information. So here is my list so far:

TI-83/84

Finding Your Way Around the TI-83+/84+ Graphing Calculator
Quick-and-Dirty Guide to the TI-83, TI-83+, TI-84, and TI-84+
Graphing Calculator Instructions
T³ FREE Online Courses
TI-83/84 Tutorial by Topic
Introduction to the TI-83/TI-84 Graphing Calculators and Mathematical Modeling via Regression

Programs for Texas Instruments Calculators
TI-83 PLUS BASIC PROGRAMMING TUTORIAL: A BEGINNERS' GUIDE v2.5
Math Tools for TI-83/84

Information

Measures of Spread
Sine curve visualization tool
Welcome to mathcentre
10 Easy Arithmetic Tricks
The Physics Classroom - Speed and Velocity

MS-Excel

Box and Whisker Plots
Box and Whisker Diagrams: getting Microsoft Excel to plot them for you
Boxplots in Excel
Excel Box Plots - Group and Trend

MU120 Students

Vicki Andersen's MU120 Page

Misc

MathCast - the open source equation editor
Virtual TI v2.5 beta 5
File utili. Bios image

MU120: Velocity, Speed & Acceleration

2007-12-10T10:52:00.001Z

Having started Unit 11 "Movement" I have been struggling to get my head around velocity, and how it differs to speed and acceleration. After having done some further research on the net I came across a web-site called The Physics Classroom which not only had an understandable lesson on "Speed and Velocity" but also some simple animations that clearly shows the difference.

Positive Velocity and Positive Acceleration
Observe that the object below moves in the positive direction with a changing velocity. An object which moves in the positive direction has a positive velocity. If the object is speeding up, then its acceleration vector is directed in the same direction as its motion (in this case, a positive acceleration). The "ticker tape" shows that each consecutive dot is not the same distance apart (i.e., a changing velocity). The position-time graph shows that the slope is changing (meaning a changing velocity) and positive (meaning a positive velocity). The velocity-time graph shows a line with a positive (upward) slope (meaning that there is a positive acceleration); the line is located in the positive region of the graph (corresponding to a positive velocity). The acceleration-time graph shows a horizontal line in the positive region of the graph (meaning a positive acceleration).

Vote for JT on the 9th!

2007-12-05T15:02:00.001Z

James Toseland, World Superbikes Champion 2007, is one of the ten final contenders for this years "BBC Sports Personality of the Year" award. Vote for him on the 9th December.

James Toseland
Age: 27 Nationality: English
Sport: Motorcycling

2007 highlight: Second World Superbikes title

Toseland showed he loves life in the fast lane as he regained the World Superbikes title.

Reaching speeds of up to 200 miles an hour - he set the pace from the start in the 15 round championship.

The Honda rider won a race in each of the first five meetings, and treated home fans to a first career double at Brands Hatch.

After his second championship win, he moves to Moto GP in 2008.

ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/7118812.stm

Hmmm??? Good or Bad?

2007-12-04T14:58:00.001Z

Having just seen via John Naughton's blog that you can rate the readability of a blog, I thought I would give it a go.

The result for my blog is:

Now this could be deemed as being good as you my audience must be an intelligent bunch of people to keep coming back and reading my blog. On the other hand it could be bad, in other word's my English is dire and I am using to many technical terms. Hmmm???

MU120: TMA01 Result

2007-11-29T10:20:00.000Z

On Tuesday I got the result back for my first MU120 TMA. Although I got 95% I lost 3 marks through stupid mistakes in part 1 of the TMA. 1 mark was for saying one word when I meant a different word, and the other 2 were for not spotting that Excel hadn't formatted the x-axis scale on one of the graphs correctly.

MU120: 50%

2007-11-26T08:30:00.001Z

I am now half-way through the course, having completed units 1 - 9, CMA's 41 & 42, and TMA's 1 & 2. If I am able to keep this pace going then I should have the whole course completed by the end of January. The thing is that OU courses have a habit of really increasing the learning curve at the half-way point. Fingers crossed that it isn't to steep for MU120.

Dr. Gordon Moore

2007-11-12T10:04:00.001Z

The BBC on their news web site has a fascinating interview with Dr. Moore.

In April 1965 a 36-year old electronics buff jotted down his thoughts on the future of the juvenile silicon chip industry.
Writing in a "throw-away" journal, Gordon Moore accurately imagined a future filled with mobile phones, home computers, and even intelligent cars.
But it was a much more prosaic prediction that has come to dominate his life and the industry that he helped found.
"I could see a change coming that the electronics were going to get significantly cheaper," says the co-founder of Intel, the largest maker of computer chips.
In the article in Electronics Magazine, he predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double every year for ten years.

This interview would have been useful when I did T171 back in 2004, and it might be useful for those students studying it's successor T175

Interesting title for a book

2007-10-25T09:20:00.001+01:00

MU120: Where am I?

2007-10-23T22:46:00.001+01:00

Last Wednesday I attended my second tutorial for MU120, with the main theme for the evening being statistics. I also handed my TMA01 part1 into my tutor. Although this was just over a week early, as the cut-off date is the 25.Oct, I didn't want to have to worry about it being delayed due to the recent postal strikes.

Having completed unit 2 "Prices" I started unit 3 "Earnings" today. With the next tutorial being the 31.Oct I am planning to hand in my TMA01 part2 then. At present I am enjoying the course, with it not being too taxing and am on schedule to finish it by the beginning of Feb 08. We will have to see if I can keep to my planned schedule. Why the rush? Well I want to minimize the overlap with M450 which officially starts in Feb 08.