Wednesday, February 09, 2005
I thought if I had most of the difficult questions in my ESD.72 Engineering Risk & Benefit Analysis (ERBA)
homework done, I would have more free time that night. I was wrong. I
drafted the homework solutions on scratch papers and they weren't in a
presentable format. So I literally have to spend a lot of time cleaning
and rewriting the solutions onto a more presentable form. I started
working on the homework at 1am after slacking off at the Z-center,
talking to my mother,and adding "Steal These Buttons" on my blog. I
thought I would finish the problem set by 2pm. Well, I didn't go to bed
till 5am again, thanks to the ball-busting task of expanding an 8th
order factorized polynomial equation problem, which I ended spendinga
lot of time on. For those of you who have not attempted this before, it
is both stupid and senselessly time-consuming. In any case, I overslept
and went to the ERBA class late. Worse, I didn't
actually get to finish expanding the ridiculously long polynomial
equation till 1 hour after class. The TA was a little stern and
expressed dissatisfaction when I submitted my homework even an hour
late. He warned that he will penalize any late submission in the
future. Yikes!
Nonetheless, I find todays ERBA lecture interesting. The professor
talked about Bayesian probability and how it can be applied to help
make important decision, in particular the choice of doors in an
execution room to open so that you wont get electrocuted. Unlike my
classmate Yoav,
I do find ERBA interesting. In fact, I have found it interesting enough
that I signed up for the 12-unit full version of ERBA instead of the
9-unt abridged version of the same class that the SDM students are
required to take. Let me finish this blog and get an early shut-eye
tonight. Yawn...