My SLOG For Week #10

This week we talked about some social problems, for example, life with, or without, computers, which works better, how many hours of work do we prefer to have every week as well as does technological change automatically improve lives. I have learnt the effect of automation/computerization. A sound case in point is that in 1940s, a car cost 35 hours but now it costs 19 hours only. Also, I have known the effect of hardware on working lives, for instance, storing information gets smaller, cheaper, faster by the decade.

The thing that challenged me was the problem-solving handout on products of sums. For instance, the list of positive integers that add up to 1 is (1), and the product of this list (if you allow unary products) is also 1. There are two lists of positive integers that add up to 2, and they yield two different products: (2) (with product 2), and (1,1) (with product 1). There are several lists of positive integers that add up to 3, and they yield several different products: (3) (with product 3), (2,1) (with product 2), and (1,1,1) (with product 1). And the question says: If n is a positive integer, what is the maximum product that can be formed of a list of positive integers that sum to n?

In order to work out this question, we should understand the problem first of all and write all the lists of numbers that add to n, take their product. Then organize the list, carry out and verify and finally look back.

My SLOG For Week #9

This week I learned about computer networks in the lecture. Danny introduced us three different ways how computers communicate with each other, namely token ring, star configuration as well as bus configuration, which are roundly connected, centrally connected and all connected respectively.

Furthermore, in DrRacket, I was required to watch the racket videos on triangle recursion and koch recursion to create Sierpinski's triangle. I enjoyed running DrRacket about the recursions in that I could see beautiful images after typing the code into DrRacket, which was amazing.

I was informed that we are going to have the second test next Wednesday, which will cover the details about hardware, operating systems and computer networks. I have to prepare for it very carefully because I did not do well in the last test.

My SLOG For Week #8

I am sorry about the late slogs since I saved in a Word document and forgot to post in my blog.

This week we learnt more about operators and operating systems in class. I have known that Operating systems should have a kernel providing access to hardware as well as system utilities, which are often closely associated with the CPU, for instance, DOS and Windows with Intel, Macs with Motorolas.  Actually, I am still confused with the definition of task-switching, time-slicing and time-sharing.

DrRacket was always interesting. We were required to watch the racket video on how to use apply with DrRacket at home and learnt fractals in the lecture. Danny handed out lecture exercise about fractals including three questions, which was not difficult I thought. Furthermore, there was a quick summary of Sneeze project, which is due on Nov. 1^st and I have not finished yet.

My SLOG For Week #7

This week I acquired copious new things in CSC class. I learned about what Von Neumann looks like, where Von Neumann’s going, what storage systems, including hard drive, compact disc, flash drive, look like and how they work as well as what an operating system should have, etc. 


Furthermore, in DrRacket, I have learned about how to produce a string in reverse order of “s” about crease-pattern as well as how to deconstruct images into dimensions and lists of colours, and then reassemble them into new images. I enjoyed watching the racket video and running DrRacket about decomposing and reconstructing images this week in class, which were very interesting.

However, the thing that challenged me was Von Neumann. The course material was closely related to other classes, for instance, map-image was very similar to map we learned last week. In terms of my term test, it was not very good since I did not really understand the history about the computers. Thus, I plan to ask my instructor next week to solve that problem.