CSC165 SLOG week 12

This week’s lectures are all about computable function except the one on Friday. On Friday’s lecture, we did a problem on diagonals. The problems requires students to think a lot. For the computable function we learned, I don’t fully understand all of them yet, but I plan to study later since there are final exams coming and the computable function will not be in the exam.

On the other hand, I am little worried about managing time in the final exams because in the two term tests, I felt the exam time was pretty tight for me, I spent lots of time thinking questions and there will be more questions in the final exam, and proofs always take me lots of time to think. Especially in the first term test, I think I would have done much better if I had more time.

Meanwhile, we still have the last assignment that is due on next Monday. My partner and I finished most of it but there’s just the last challenging question on computable function left. This is the last full week of school, there will be only one lecture on next week, then the week after will be the final exam.

CSC165 SLOG week 11

This week we have problems without algorithms and contradictory program. There is less content than before because of the fall break. This week’s content is a litter confusing for me; I understand some of it, but there are also some parts that I am not sure. For example, the uncomputable function sounds reasonable and I understand it, but I don’t feel like I can master it right now.  

Meanwhile, I start to work on assignment 2 since assignment always takes a long time to think. For the last question in the assignment, I don’t really know how to it because it is a new type of question to me, but it says I should emulate the technique from the course notes. Also, the proof that involves limits is new to me, I am not sure on how to use n and B in those question. So I decide to read the course note in this weekend in order to have a better understanding of those questions. 

As the term approaching to its end, it’s time to begin reviewing, though there is still lots of work from different subject to do.

I just found out Celina posted some examples from lecture with her own explanation in her slog which helps me understand computability better.
http://celinasopiniononcsc165.blogspot.ca/2014/12/week-11-halt-computability-and-many.html?showComment=1417581487045#c3131525499275371659

CSC165 SLOG week 10

For the definition of big O and big Omega, I didn’t understand when it first introduced, but in the tutorial, the TA explained again and it got much clear. It was just the quiz from last week was a little bit hard and I did bad on it. So, the tutorial is pretty helpful for me. A big part of this week’s lecture is about the proof of big O and big Omega, they are understandable, but in Friday’s lecture, I felt like I spent all my time copying notes and there was no time left for me to think and learn. However, this always happens to me, I want to listen to the lecture but I worry that I will forget everything after without notes or sometimes I don’t even understand the lecture. Maybe I should change the way I listen to lecture but I don’t know how. For now, sometimes I review the notes from lecture if I have time.

On the other hand, the term test result came out; I did worse than I expected and I will take my test next week since I don’t know why I lost points in the first question and I want to see how I did in the other question so that I can figure out the questions that I didn’t get them right. I sometimes do worse in test than I expect maybe because my speed is relatively slow and I always run out of time in test, but I can’t find a good way to improve my speed. Though I guess that doing more practice probably helps, I can hardly ever achieve.

The notation in lecture said that assignment 3 will be posted during the weekend, so I plan to start it early since the questions in assignment will be hard and it will probably take lots of time to finish it. Hopefully, I can do some parts of it in the long weekend but I still have my csc108 assignment. 

A student's slog reminds me that when picking variables in proofs such as big-oh, we need to be careful of the restriction, since it may cause the whole proof to be wrong.
http://looralicsc165slog.blogspot.ca/2014/11/week-9.html?showComment=1417562128900#c4582345074674066364

CSC165 SLOG week 9

The content of this week’s lecture is not a lot, because of the term test. The term test is little bit harder than I expected, and the last question is almost the same question as the one in assignment 2. I was somehow upset about the test since I didn’t completely solve the last question out in the test. Though I did the question on assignment by myself, I just couldn’t think of how I did it, and I didn’t finish it within the time limit. I hope I can get some part marks for those questions. Also, the second question in the test was also a hard question and I didn’t finish that question. But anyways, I am still glad that I finished all my term tests.

For the assignment 2 that we just finished, 1.2 and 1.3 were pretty tough questions, I spent lots of time on them. When I checked the solution for a2, these two parts were the only two that I got different from my a2. Hopefully I will have a better mark on my a2 compared to the mark of my test.

On the other hand, this week’s tutorial cleared the maximum slice part in last week’s lecture that I didn’t understand, though I think I still can’t solve those kind of question perfectly. In Friday’s lecture, proving statements to belong to big O is relatively easier than the content in previous lectures, and I can understand all of them and it taught me a new way to prove. 

By going to other students' slog, I found out that reading over the course slides in both Danny and Larry's section helps.
http://looralicsc165slog.blogspot.ca/2014/11/week-8.html?showComment=1417560888394#c2367418532350368305

CSC165 Slog week 8

This week is a super busy week, since 165 assignment 2 and 108 assignment 2 are due next week and term test will be on Wednesday; when this two things come together, it really brings me lots of pressure and drives me crazy; and also I still have an economics test on Monday night. The assignment takes a long time to think and to do, and especially when I am stuck on a question. And right now I am struggling and stuck on Claim 1.2 and 1.3 in the assignment, they are challenging questions to prove. I really hope the test and assignments can be separated into different times, so that I can do better on both test and assignment. On the other hand, this week’s lecture is confusing, I do not understand many of the parts such as big-Oh of polynomials and non-polynomials. Also, sometimes there are lots of notes to take, and I can’t follow the lecture very well when being busy taking notes. Even though we have course notes but it does not include all the notes in class, so I think it would be helpful if the notes from class can be posted on the course page. For now, I really need to catch up on these things. This chapter is hard and proof is new to me, so it is really needed to study and I don’t have enough time, but I will try my best. Even though I don’t get a chance to go out or do anything about Halloween, Happy Halloween!!!

CSC165 Slog week 7

This week’s lecture is a little bit confusing for me. I don’t fully understand the content. Some proofs I found a way to prove it; it might be wrong because it’s different from the solution, but I don’t know why, and I just did not think in that way. Sometimes I try to do proof, but my answer is always different from the solution, and I don’t understand why I am wrong. Maybe that’s because I haven’t done a lot of proof and don’t know the how to do it in the right way and I don’t fully understand all the concepts so can’t apply them. In Friday’s lecture, the penny piles was also a little confusing, I didn’t really understand the purpose of doing it, and there were some open questions that couldn’t be solved. On the other hand, the new assignment that was just posted seems to be very hard, I didn’t understand many of the questions when I took a look at it. Also, when I did the first assignment, I felt like I spent lots of time on finding and typing symbols in computer; so I hope maybe we could change another way to write assignment. And just found out that the due date is around the CSC165 test and I got another test and assignment due in those couple days, so I need to start the assignment early, and this makes me feel lots of pressure. And proof is hard!

Also, I found out that verifying proof is the hardest thing to do since it really needs students to fully understand the whole statement rather than just doing algebra to prove a statement without thinking deeply.

When I went on other students' slog, I found a person who also has the same view as me.
http://cs1t8.blogspot.ca/2014/11/week-7.html#comment-form

Problem Solving: Folding

Folding

Fold a strip of paper. Some of the creases point vertex up, some down. Predict the sequence of ups and down for any numbers of times you carry out the folding operation.

Plan: We decided that one of us would fold the paper until we could not clearly see the pattern and the other would record, then predict the sequence of the pattern based on the patterns we have.

The Pattern we have from the first fold to the fifth.

 U

UUD

UUDUUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDDUUUDUUDDDUUDDUDD

At first, we thought about creating an equation for the pattern, but we did not succeed on that. Then we thought since we folded the paper in half each time, it might have something to do with symmetric. So we started to stare at the pattern we have. As I compared the first letter to the last one, the second to the second last, and so on, I found out the pattern!

We divided the pattern into the first half, the middle and the second half.

U

UUD

UUDUUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDDUUUDUUDDDUUDDUDD

The first pattern depends on the way you hold the paper, and in this exercise the first pattern would be U since we folded the right end first then unfolded the entire strip.

For the first half, just simply copy the whole previous pattern.

The middle part is always the same as the first pattern.

For the second half, reverse of the first half and change each letter to the other.

Anther way:

U

UUD

UUDUUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDD

UUDUUDDUUUDDUDDUUUDUUDDDUUDDUDD

The middle part is always the same.

The letters in red are symmetrical. They copy the letter in red in the previous pattern as the first half of the pattern (only for red letter), and the second half is the reverse of the first half and it changes each letter to the other (only for red letter).

The rest in black are all in the pattern of UD.