FIT2001 week 2: almost moving!
I think I enjoyed this week of FIT2001 more than last week’s, as we actually started to get our teeth into some real topics, and didn’t spend a lot of the lecture “settling in” as is inevitable for a first week class. I think I was a bit sick of the “welcome to our unit!” talk because FIT2001 is my last class of the week. I thought it was amusing how POD kept saying: “I know this is boring, I promise next week will be more exciting”, because I actually found this week interesting. It helps that I’m also doing Project Management (FIT3086 (FIT2003)) this semester as well so a lot of the concepts carry over. I guess the feel of this week is that we’re starting to climb up a mountain and the really interesting stuff is soon to come.
The theme of this week seems to be an overview of how a project works, because as future analysts and designers we’ll need to be aware of how our work slots into the whole. I liked getting the big picture idea, but I’m looking forward to getting into the details with the assignment.
While we’re talking about the assignment, I’m a bit concerned that a quick google search on wikipedia doesn’t show up anything meaningful for “Event Table” so my ears will be pricked for any references to them in the lectures, and I’ll look it up in the text book as well. This web based system sounds a lot simpler to the MAX FIZZ assignment from last year, but might not be as much fun.
Every project starts with a problem. Even if it is in response to a new business opportunity, the problem is “we’re not doing this yet and we should be!” So analysts have to be good at identifying problems. After that we can worry about how to best solve them, but we have to make sure we’re solving the right problem! Then we can look at all the tools, techniques and models we’ll need from our chosen methodology to make something cool (or not cool, I guess) that fixes the problem.
Model making seems to be something we’ll do a lot of this semester, something that stuck out to me from the lectures was models have to mean something, they have to help our understanding of the problem. So not like Dilbert then. (I reckon Dilbert is an “anti-manual”: a manual on how NOT to do things.)
The Quiz!
Since the quizzes don’t count towards our marks for this unit, I’m trying a new method of learning, which is “Fail first”. Basically if you take a test and then fail a lot of it, you’ll remember the information better come exam time. (I know I saw the article about this research, but can’t find it at the moment.)
So, the things I missed this week were mostly vocabulary terms: things like spiral modelling, context diagrams, and the exact definition of phase and activity (phase is a group of activities, activities are a group of tasks) I had some good guesses and some very easy questions. I sometimes confused the order of things, I put “write a project proposal” before “identify a business problem” I guess because I had a small picture view, not a big picture one. I found the text entry boxes frustrating to this method of quiz taking. I have several answers to double check.
The Tutorial
Only two groups showed up to our tutorial, so we got through the presentation pretty quickly. As POD said defining system boundaries is quite difficult! I enjoyed doing the presentation on only a small amount of preparation: I have done some volunteer teaching so I know how to conquer the nerves pretty well. I like the idea of focusing on a technological kind of system, not the big overview kind of systems. I’m looking forward to getting into the assignments, but I know I will be frustrated at not actually building it!
Onwards and upwards into week 3!
(almost!) fructose-free caramel slice
Fructose is a kind of sugar that is found in many foods, and can be tricky to avoid if you’re fructose intolerant. Most people know it as the sugar found in fruit, but it is also found in many other foods. A person who is fructose intolerant needs to avoid wheat, as do many coeliacs and gluten intolerant people. However many recipes that are gluten free are not always fructose friendly.
This is my recipe for gluten and (almost) fructose free caramel slice. It is suitable for all people who need gluten free recipes, and for fructose-intolerant people who have known about their condition for a while and are managing their diet well. This caramel slice should be avoided by people trying to get their body free of fructose.
Ingredients
For the base:
- 125 grams Butter
- 1/2 a cup packed Brown Sugar (This ingredient helps the base stick together, but also introduces the fructose, since brown sugar contains molasses.)
- 1 generous cup Gluten Free self-raising flour (up to 1/2 a cup extra, depending on the dough consistency)
- This recipe removes the desiccated coconut, which is on the “avoid” list for fructose. (original recipe says 1/2 a cup.)
For the middle:
- 1 400 gram tin of condensed milk
- 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
For the top:
- A block of chocolate. Another friend of mine is intolerant to cocoa, the main ingredient in milk and dark chocolate, but not white chocolate. This slice works really well with dark chocolate or white chocolate, and I’m sure it would work well with milk chocolate as well.
Tools:
- 1 deep tray greased and lined with baking paper. The paper is really useful because then you can just lift out the slice when you want to cut it. You may find you want to double the recipe (I often do) to fit a larger tray.
- 1 saucepan large enough to be used as a mixing bowl (for the base).
- 1 metal bowl suitable to be used as the top of a double boiler
- 1 wooden spoon
- 1 scraper
- chopping board
- Large, straight sharp knife
Method
First of all, preheat your oven to 180 degrees C, and then take the saucepan and melt your butter in it. Once the butter is melted take it off the heat. Mix in your brown sugar till you get a nice slurry, then add your flour, a bit at a time, stirring the flour into the slurry as you go. You should end up with a nice ball of dough that you should be able to run around the edges of the pan to get all the little bits of dough, and the pan should be surprisingly clean at the end.
Take your greased and lined pan and press the dough into the bottom of it, so it covers the pan. I usually go with (about) between 1/2 a centimetre to a centimetre depth. Bake the base for 10-12 minutes until it is golden brown. Aim for undercooking because we’re going to bake it again.
The next step is the ooey-gooey caramel, arguably the best part of the slice. Put the tin of condensed milk into a saucepan and mix through the tablespoon of regular sugar (optional). Let it heat over a slow heat, always stirring it, because the caramel is just waiting for you to turn your back so it can boil over, stick to the bottom, or burn. Take it off the heat when it becomes a golden brown colour. Cooking it before we spread it on the slice gives a firmer caramel, but you can skip this step and spread the condensed milk directly on the base if you prefer.
As soon as your caramel is done, spread it evenly all over the base and put it back in the oven to bake some more. The caramel will bubble up a little. Cook for 15-20 minutes until it has caramelised a bit more. Keep checking it, don’t let it burn! Take your almost finished caramel slice out of the oven, and after it has cooled a bit, put it in the fridge to cool the caramel, for about half an hour.
While your caramel is cooking and then setting is a good time to clean up the caramel sauce pan and wooden spoon- hot water and a little elbow grease should clean it up.
Now you need to prepare the chocolate topping. The best way to melt chocolate is in a double boiler: that is, over hot water. Take a metal bowl that fits over the top of one of your saucepans. Put boiling water in the saucepan and put the chocolate, broken into bits, into the metal bowl. Carefully rest the bowl over the top of the hot water. The chocolate can be left alone until the end, when you can give it a bit of a stir to get rid of any lumps. Spread this all over the cooled caramel base, and then put it back in the fridge to set.
After the slice has set for an hour (or until firm) take it out of the fridge and, using the lining paper, lift it out of the tray and on to the chopping board. It’s much easier to make straight cuts if you can cut right down the edges of the slice. Start by scoring a grid on the chocolate and into the caramel. This is fairly rich so monster slices don’t work well for finger food. Using the long knife, slice all the way through the slice so you’ve got lots of rows. I find it helpful to cut the slice in half, and work on one half at a time. I also find it useful to set aside all the rows and work on one at a time to get neat blocks.
Now you can store them in a container in the fridge. (Layer baking paper between levels so they don’t stick together.) If the day is a warm summer one, be aware of the potential for melting chocolate when you serve them.
Sources
- Kid Spot Australia caramel slice recipe
- Exclusively food caramel slice recipe
- Gluten Free Living NZ Caramel Slice (gluten free)
- Fructose information: Can/Can’t/Maybe list of food.
FIT2001 week 1: beware gorillas!
This week has been learning about what a Systems Analyst is, how to think about systems, and to be very aware of gorillas.
Gorillas?
There is a problem with simply asking how the company wants you to solve their problem, or even what they think the problem is. It’s called situational blindness, and it means that people see what they want to see. When we design systems to solve problems, we need to be very careful that we observe how the company works, what the actual problem is, and the best way to solve it. It’s good to take input from the client, but we still need to be aware that they might be suggesting something that won’t actually fix the real problem they have. You’ll have to watch the lecture 1 from Caulfield to work out what I mean about the gorillas.
An analyst doesn’t need to be an expert in every kind of technology, but it helps to be aware of what is out there. The most important skill an analyst has is observation, and then using those observations to solve problems. It’s good to develop a few solutions to be able to pick the best one to solve the problem.
In the tutorial, we started to play with analysing a system. I remember getting frustrated with this exercise last year, but this year it has been easier to generalise the system into an object oriented sort of system. We were assigned the water system, at Clayton we are looking at the super system as well as the different parts of each system. I think we might get some more practical experience looking at a specific part of the system in more detail, but looking at the overview makes sense also. It has been good to look at the Characteristics, State, and Actions/Activities of each object in the system. I’m looking forward to next week to see how we can do better at analysing the system.
As a side note, using Google Docs was a great way for all of us in the group to collaboratively develop the document as we went, instead of having a “secretary”.
I must admit that the 2 hour slab of lecture is difficult for me. I find the Caulfield lectures fun to listen to, but after 1 hour I get restless and wonder if I could be using my homework time more efficiently. The Clayton lecture explained things a bit differently, and since POD is the head examiner I reckon it’s important to get the Caulfield perspective as well. I’ll be listening to the mp3s, maybe when I’m transiting. I’ve had success in the past of speeding up recorded lectures to 1.5x speed, (2x is often garbled) to get through the recordings in 2/3rds of the time, we’ll see how this goes.
The Quiz
I found the quiz very easy, I got a lot of the questions right without having to review the material. I was stuck in programmer mode however when I said false to “system construction is the last system development life cycle” – it is true that there is maintenance and testing needing to be done afterwards, but those processes involve a different life cycle and often a different part of the company. (Probably because I’m doing Project Management (FIT3086) this year also.)
Case stands for Computer-aided system engineering.
ERP is Enterprise Resource Planning, where a company commits to a set of software packages to deal with their systems of information.
I also found it amusing that there was an odd thumbs down icon in the quiz- I think it’s because the question was A/n (for A or An).
FIT2001 week 0
Anecdotal evidence tells me that students who blog or journal about their experiences and newly acquired knowledge do better in those subjects. Perhaps this is because they solidify their knowledge through summarisation, and are able to recall this knowledge when doing assignments and the exam.
Happily, there is an optional 3% bonus for FIT2001 if I blog reflectively each week about what I’ve learned. I will be using the existing Wordpress infrastructure on my own personal blog to write the posts, but will be using an RSS scraper to display these reflective FIT2001 posts on my newly acquired student web space (used for another of my subjects: FIT3084, Multimedia programming and the WWW.) (Due to complications I have just submitted the fit2001 category page as my blog.) Another advantage of blogging on my personal blog is to keep the posts I’ve written after the semester ends and my access to the Monash server ends. I will be using the category “fit2001″ to flag each of these posts.
I’m looking forward to FIT2001 this year, it is my last 2nd year subject and pre-requisite for my Computer Science Degree. I was enrolled in the subject last year, but as I was overloaded to 5 subjects (instead of 4), I had to drop one, and FIT2001 was the most logical one to drop. So, I’ve had an advance taste of the subject, and it looks like it will be lots of fun!
If you would like to subscribe to the RSS feed of just my FIT2001 posts, use this link: RSS for FIT2001 posts only.
telephone charades
I played this game with a group of girls aged 12-14, and it was a real hit.
I got the idea from Group Games.com, but modified it a little to prevent cheating.
You need a group of people- I had 10, probably 15 and 5 are the upper and lower limits respectively. You also need a room and a corridor (or another room.) You also need good charade ideas. The best charades involve several actions, are a bit silly (“driving” was a bit easy) and involve more than just the hands.
Start everyone outside the room in the corridor. The first person thinks up a charade, then gets the next person from outside the room. Now inside, the first person performs the charade. Then the second person gets the next person from outside the room, performs the charade (no one guesses the charade yet) in the room (out of sight from the other players). So it continues, until you get to the last player. The last player then guesses the charade. If they don’t get it, go backwards through the players to see where the charade changed beyond recognition.
Optional scoring system: for 10 players, give 10 points for a correct guess at the last player, -1 for each player back through the line, so you get 0 points if no one guesses the charade. This might work well to split a larger group into smaller teams.
addressing an envelope
Since I’m younger than email, and grew up in a country where mail sometimes could take 8 months or longer to arrive, I’m not very familiar with letter writing or addressing etiquette. I found this page on the Australia post website useful, it talks about how to write an address, the best place to put it on an envelope, and how to be friendly to the electronic sorters they use these days.
Also: 55 cents to send something, when I send email for (pretty much) free? Wow. No wonder email revolutionised the world.
flat packed furniture
As I type this I am sitting on a brand new sofa-bed from IKEA. It’s huge, heavy and blue. (It’s also much comfier than our old sofa.) We have also bought our new dining table and chairs from IKEA. The furniture is pretty good, but this article isn’t an advertisement in praise of IKEA. This article is about the adventures we have had in getting the furniture from IKEA to our house, out of the cardboard boxes and assembled into useable furniture.
First Trip: last week, participants: Mum and Dad.
One Table, dining room size. One dining room chair. The encouraging part of the story is that the table, originally thought to be too big to transport home in our own car, was actually flat packed in a really clever way, and was in fact in a very small package. The discouraging part of the story is that only one chair was available in the colour that matched our other furniture.
We assembled the chair on Saturday, and the table on Tuesday.
Second Trip: Tuesday this week, participants: Dad, my sister and me.
Already in the city, we decided to visit IKEA and see if there were more chairs available. We had also found out about an “Eat your discount” deal, where you could eat at the restaurant and then deduct the price of your food from the cost of your furniture, in effect eating for free. We looked at a sofa-bed that my parents had looked at on their previous trip, and then went and enjoyed a Swedish meatballs meal from the restaurant. Wandering down to the shop floor, we found that the colour of chair we wanted was unavailable. Apparently “yellow brown” is a popular colour! (The colour actually doesn’t look as unappealing as it sounds.) What to do? We had already eaten and it looked like we wouldn’t be taking advantage of the “Eat your discount” deal! We asked at the service desk about the chairs, no go. We then thought about the sofa-bed. Being a large item, we had to pay for it and then pick it up from the warehouse. Unlike the table, the sofa wasn’t as easily compacted into a flat pack, and instead came in two large boxes, plus a smaller box for the cover (purchased separately, so you choose the colour.) After waiting for the sofa to emerge from the warehouse, we took it to the home delivery counter, and took home the smaller box (the cover) ourselves.
The next day, a scorching hot day of around 37 degrees centigrade, the delivery truck arrived, and our sofa was delivered to our living room. It was too hot to assemble anything that afternoon so we rested.
The following morning in the refreshing coolness, we opened up the two large boxes. One was amusingly coffin shaped. As we sorted out the bits and pieces, there appeared to be a part missing- an alan key. However we decided to attempt assembling the sofa bed as we went. It came together pretty easily, until we came to the legs. They needed a long thick alan key to reach through the legs to the bolt into the rest of the sofa, and that alan key was missing. After phoning up IKEA, we decided it was time for another IKEA trip- a quick check of their website revealed that there were some chairs in stock.
Third Trip: Thursday (today) participants: Dad and me.
With a half assembled sofa in our living room, we drove into IKEA. The first thing we did was go straight to the flat pack pick up and grab the four chairs in yellow brown. Heaps in the other colours, but only four of the ones we wanted. Then I waited with our trolley while my Dad went to the returns desk to get the missing alan key. It took a while for them to give him the right part, but eventually he got it. Now, it was close to the middle of the day, and we were starting to think about lunch. But how to get to the restaurant without abandoning the chairs that are so hard to get a hold of? We wheeled the trolley back through the show room to the lift, and went up a level to the restaurant. We enjoyed our lunch and then retraced our steps down the lift and through the show room to the check outs.
Then my Dad pulled out the parking ticket (you get four hours free in the car park if you purchase at least five dollar’s worth from IKEA) for the check out person to process. He had two in his pocket: after the first visit to IKEA there had been so many cars wanting to get out that an employee had opened the boom gates and waved everyone through. He picked one, we thought it was the right one.
Unfortunately, we caused a traffic back up because we picked the wrong ticket- we had picked the old ticket. One dollar and a sprint there and back from the parking paying machine, and we could load up the boot with the four chairs and return home with the alan key.
Once we had the right alan key we were able to bolt the legs on really quickly, and were able to assemble the sofa-bed and test it out. It’s really comfy. We then got really good at assembling the dining room chairs, following the instructions like you follow the instructions for LEGO.
So, over the course of a week, we have one sofa-bed, one dining room table and five dining room chairs, from three trips to IKEA. One chair short.
the beautiful things I saw today
I had a wonderful day today. This morning I was almost awake when the alarm went off, so didn’t have any trouble getting out of bed. As I left the house I saw the beautiful black sky dotted with twinkling white stars above me. As I drove the orange glow in the east began and grew stronger. Driving into the university I looked across the sports fields to see the amazingly orange clouds preparing to welcome the sun. I parked the car, and looked back to see the sun rise over the horizon. Beautiful! It was joining the lovely moon, which I had seen calmly glowing a magnificent white pitted with the grey shadows of craters.
During the day I enjoyed the wonderful colour that is sky blue. Driving home again, I was stuck in traffic, crawling up Springvale road for at least half an hour. This didn’t matter though, as I was able to listen to great classical music on Classic Drive (Classic FM). As I turned up High Street Road, I noticed a half of a rainbow in the clouds. As I drove on it got better! The colours became more intense and the arc was completely from side of the road to the other. I saw it touch the ground. Then I drove underneath the rainbow, right through the middle, and it disappeared. Looking back through the rain shower I had just come through, I saw the a lovely golden glow of the sun shining through. I really liked the clouds, fluffy yet majestic. The sky was tickled briefly pink, then the gold faded to a beautiful velvet, and I saw the first stars come out.
Yes, I had a good day today.
an interesting evening
Blooding again! Number 6. An interesting experience- the needle rolled over or something, and the blood flow was really slow. After 11 minutes 50 had elapsed, I had only managed 430ml of the 470ml that they go for. They’ll still be able to use my blood- after 12 minutes they can’t use the platelets so it was best to stop. I’m a bit disappointed though! Haemoglobbin 13.4 (down just a smidge) and BP 117/74 (from memory.) See if you can do a better job- give blood.
Next I went out to get in my car and go to Girls Brigade- only to find that my car was being petulant again. It has had some issues, but has just come out from a service! After a good rev it started again, and I have parked so a roll start can happen tomorrow, if needed.
Then I found out that only one girl had come to Girls Brigade, so I could go home. So instead of driving to church, I drove home, and wrote this. I hope tomorrow is a bit less interesting!
my first “fun” python program
I’m doing a Computer Science subject this semester that is requiring the use of Python as the coding language (as opposed to Java, which we have been taught so far.) For today’s prac, we were required to write a simple guessing game. The computer would generate an int between 0 and 100, and then accepted user input, telling the user if they were warmer, colder or if they won.
I was pretty happy to complete this in half an hour with limited python knowledge (admittedly with the help of Google and an internet connection.)
I will upload this python file after the pracs are over for this week, so people can’t cheat. 