creativehedgehog in spanish
I am pursuing a major in Spanish and Latin American Studies for my Arts degree, and having grown up in Bolivia, South America, I can speak Spanish. As I found out with blogging for FIT2001, keeping a journal is very beneficial to your learning. A journal that is published, such as on a blog, forces you to write clearly because you are writing for an audience. For Dictatorship and Democracy in Contemporary Spanish Fiction (SPN3730), one of the classes I am taking at the moment, has vocabulary exercises and journal exercises as part of the class work mark, and I will be blogging them for several reasons:
- I find blogging really easy and fun to do, so will be encouraged to complete the work
- Writing for a public will help with the entry’s clarity.
- Writing in Spanish helps me improve my Spanish
- Publishing my journal will enable my tutor to check the diary as it comes, instead of having to wait for the due date to read all the entries (from everyone) at once.
So, any future entries in the SPN3730 category will be written entirely in Spanish. I hope you won’t find too many errors here! Please, if you find any, please comment and correct the errors, my Spanish will be less rusty.
Creativehedog en español
Estoy haciendo un “major” de Español y Estudios Latino Americanos para mi licenciatura en Letras, y (por su puesto) puedo hablar en español, porque vivió en Bolivia, América del Sur, por muchos años. Para otra de mis clases, FIT2001, encuentro que el proceso de mantener un diario es muy útil para recordar la materia. Un diario publicado, como en un blog, se hace escribir en una manera clara, porque estás escribiendo para otras personas.
Para Dictadura y Democracia en la Literatura de España Contemporánea (SPN3730) me voy
a poner en este sitio de web los ejercicios de vocabulario y los diarios de lectura; estoy usando mi blog para estés razones:
- Me gusta bloguear, es divertido y fácil de hacer, entonces me anima de hacer el trabajo.
- Escribiendo para un publico se ayuda con la claridad.
- Escribiendo en español me ayuda mejorar mi uso de la lenguaje española
- Si publicaré mi diario, mi profesor puede leer cuando él quiera, sin espera para las fechas de entrega.
Entonces, los artículos de blog en la categoría SPN3730 escribiré solamente en español. ¡Ojalá que ustedes no encuentran errores de lenguaje aquí! Por favor, si puedes comentar y corregir los errores, ¡mi español se encuentra menos empolvado!
2010 Semester 1 in review
Finally, I’ve put down my pen for the last time for Semester 1, 2010; now I can relax and enjoy a few weeks of holidays. Before I archive my uni stuff, I thought I would do a short review on each of the units I have taken this semester.
CLS3000
My lone arts subject this semester, Introduction to Critical Theory was the unit I chose because I could do it at third year level without any pre-requisites, I need a certain number of third-year points to graduate. I also could count CLS3000 as an elective for my Spanish Major. There is a lot of reading in this subject, but it’s really interesting stuff. Sometimes it was a bit hard to grasp the ideas, but the class discussions were always fun. I really enjoyed writing my final essay. At first this subject seemed really difficult, but in the end it was one of my favourite units.
FIT2001
My last-ever second year level unit, Systems Analysis and Design is probably the best unit I have taken so far in terms of student support. The resources available in the forums, Moodle site, Study Guides, Lecture slides, podcasts of lectures and podcasts of interviews, chat rooms and more! were made even more useful by the active involvement of Peter O’Donnel (aka POD), the Caulfield lecturer and chief examiner for the unit. Being friendly with the students over twitter, we could ask quick questions very easily. Sometimes the topics covered were pretty boring, but POD fought hard to make the lectures, tutorials and assignments interesting. I found that the best way to tackle the assignments was to have a go, then get the tutor to tell you what was wrong with your diagrams. My tutor was very helpful. Rocking up at the student consultation sessions was well worth it. A helpful tutor is basically giving you free marks when you ask questions! In the end, I think I know that a career as a Systems Analyst isn’t really what I’d like to pursue, but I wish more subjects were like FIT2001. Even having lecturers and tutors hang out in the forums before an assignment is due or before the exam would be a good first step. Speaking of the exam, the format of this subject’s exam was great. A good mix of confidence building easy questions and questions that stretched you.
FIT3084
In contrast to FIT2001, Multimedia Programming for the WWW was extremely interesting to me. We talked about HTML, PHP, JavaScript, Perl, CGI, CSS, colours, images, and good design concepts. The lectures were very good and enjoyable. I took lots of notes. However this subject was let down by the way it was run. This was an elective counting towards my computer science degree, not a common core unit so it was a fairly small class. The lack of an online community was a bit ironic considering that this was an Internet subject, and this led to the lecturer being flooded with emails just before the exam
The project was to create a design document for a website and then build it. This was worth 30% of the mark, which makes sense because it was group work. 30% is understandable as you don’t want to be pulled down too much if you’re lumped with a bad group. I found working in a group frustrating but we got it done. The assignment marking system was interesting, with a system of ranking by peers. I think this was useful to see what everyone else was doing.
The low 30% assignment mark made the exam a scary 70% of the mark. Due to the really broad nature of the subject, the exam was hard to study for and required lots of memorisation. The format of the exam was also annoying, with heavy black lines ruled through the question answering space. I prefer either thin lines (like in the separate answer book) or no lines (like the FIT2001 exam), not lines that cramp my writing. I also was annoyed that “look up in your own time” stuff was examinable, so you had no idea what really was going to be on the exam. Part of good exam revision is preparing for the exam format as well as for the kinds of questions, so the sample exam wasn’t as useful in that regard. The exam was out of 145 marks, not 100, which is a bit weird and awkward for time planning.
The tutorials were optional, and were like Q&A sessions, and could have been vastly improved if they had been held in a computer lab. The exercises provided were good, but there was no real incentive to try them. Having a piece of code on a screen to say: “it’s supposed to do this, but it does this” is better than having to demonstrate your code projected on the wall!
To improve this subject, I would make the exam worth 60% of the final mark, the two group assignments out of 30% and add a 10% tutorial component. Basically an easy 10% where you would get marks full marks for completing the exercise, half marks for attempting the exercise, and one mark for turning up.
FIT3086
Project Management. Before starting this subject I thought it would be pretty ordinary, but the first lecture got me interested. I really enjoyed some of the exercises: crashing networks is like a sudoku puzzle. However, the lectures soon became incredibly difficult to sit through. The tutorials were good, my tutor was really professional and helpful. The second assignment was pretty ordinary and annoying. Being forced to wrestle with Microsoft Project was pretty annoying also. The exam was ok, I hadn’t reviewed ROI but overall the exam was ok. It could have been made a bit clearer and less ambiguous- I’m sure language and learning would have been able to help. This subject has great potential, but it falls short. Because it has the potential to be so good, it’s sad that it’s terrible. I’ve heard that you can knock this subject over in two weeks during the summer semester.
Next Semester
Next semester I’ll be taking:
- SPN3730 Dictatorship and Democracy in Contemporary Spanish Fiction
- ENH3360 Fairy Tale Traditions
- FIT3080 Artificial Intelligence
- FIT3036 Computer Science Project
But for now I’m going to enjoy a well earned break!
FIT3086 exam revision: the writing bits
Reminder: 40% of the exam is writing/discussion type questions. In this blog post I’ll go over some of the key terms involved in the past exam questions.
Risk Management
The exam question in the semester 2 exam asks us to identify what risk management strategy is used in each scenario given. The risk management strategies to choose from are:
- Accept Budget as if the risk will happen.
- Avoid stop doing the risky activity; eliminate the risk
- Transfer Outsource, share, insure the risk
- Mitigate reduce the risk.
(Definitions gleaned from Wikipedia)
Project Charter
What we wrote for Assignment 1. The Project charter is an important document, basically specifying what the project will achieve and who is responsible for the work and how much money it’s going to cost. It is useful to hold the different parties accountable to their obligations.
Milestones
In Australia, we measure road distances in kilometres (km), but miles are used in countries like the USA, and used to be used in Britain. Along the road, milestones would mark each mile so you knew your progress as you were travelling. Even though we now have road signs instead of milestones, we still use the word milestone in project management to refer to events/goals that will mark the project progress. A Milestone may be getting the Project charter signed off on, or getting the design documents approved, or presenting a prototype.
Sponsor
The Project sponsor is a person who is high up the company hierarchy, and basically is “your friend in high places” who has the authority and connections to negotiate with the company for your Project. They are also a mentor for the Project Manager. As the project progresses, they are less and less involved, but are very important at the beginning of the project.
Scope Creep
Scope creep happens when the client (most likely the client, could be the analyst, or even the project manager!) requests more and more features. Perhaps they think that “hey, feature A could easily be stretched to include feature B” but the Project Manager needs to be clear on how much a new feature or function is going to cost (in both time and resources) so that the client can make an informed decision.
Another kind of scope creep is where your company has under-quoted for the Project and needs to add more features so you can charge more and break even. This is (in my opinion) unethical (dishonest) and should not happen. In practice, it often happens with government sponsored projects.
Scope Management
A WBS is a Work Breakdown Structure. It helps us see what work needs to happen and who needs to complete that work. We can see what needs to happen sequentially (for example, we need to buy the rose bushes before we can plant them) and what we can run in parallel (at the same time) so we can save time.
Iterations of a project plan might be needed so that the Plan meets the customer’s expectations for the project. Each time you present the new plan to them, they might see something else that needs changing… hopefully you will only have a few iterations of the project plan.
Organisational structure
In companies there are often many different different departments with hierarchies under the broad hierarchy of the company. In project managing, it’s important to have the authority to be able to talk to the other departments without being held back by the hierarchy.
Project Termination
You don’t want projects to hang around (they might start to go mouldy 
) so it’s important to finish them. Projects can be closed as successes, as failures, or as complete, but over time, budget, or reduced quality. Once a project is finished it’s a good idea to throw a party to boost staff morale for the next project.
Intangible Benefits
Sometimes a project might improve or deliver something that isn’t reflected in the accountant’s books. When comparing projects we can assign “weights” and “scores” to different aspects of the project to decide if it is the project we want. An example of an intangible benefit would be a project that improves the building facilities that improve staff morale. Happier staff might work harder, but that is something hard to measure and attach a monetary value to.
Project Management Software
We used Microsoft Project for this course, but there are cheaper alternatives out there. You can always grab a pen and some paper and sketch stuff out, but software makes it easier. You just need to input the data and the software draws and adjusts all the charts and graphs. The software makes a nice professional looking object to present to customers and management. They probably wouldn’t take you seriously if you presented all your doodles and drafts as a finished product.
Those are my thoughts, do you have any to add? Leave a comment, your contributions could be very useful!
FIT2001 exam revision: sequence diagram
So, you’ve sat down and written out a detailed use case description for the first part of the case study. You’ve drawn your Use case diagram with cute stick figures and bubbles for the use cases. (Not forgetting the automation boundary of course!) Now you’re moving on to the next question.
A Sequence diagram (oddly the 2006 exam seemed to think that s was a vowel- “an sequence diagram):
- Remember, this is the one with the boxes for objects, an actor on the left hand side, and vertical dashed lines (lifelines) descending from each one.
- Remember that the time scale is vertical, so if a message is passed before another one, it needs to be above it on the diagram.
- Look for the messages (methods) that will be passed: look at the flow of activities in your Use Case diagram.
- What objects do you need? It’s a first cut sequence diagram for the exam (I think) and the 2006 exam is a full 3 layer sequence diagram so you won’t need Data Access Objects, but you will need a boundary object (interface) a handler and other objects.
FIT2001 exam revision: detailed use case narrative
I’m attempting to drill this Detailed Use Case Narrative into my brain (but I know I just need the vibe- still, every bit helps) by blogging it- something about using both hands to type seems to engage the brain more.
- Use Case Name: Fairly obvious.
- Scenario: Maybe we’re using the same use case in slightly different situations, such as a web order and a phone order
- Triggering Event: what starts the use case
- Brief Description: Can be taken from your original brief Use Case description
- Actors: People or external systems involved
- Related Use Cases: What other use cases might be involved?
- Stake-holders: perhaps departments that need to provide information/stuff
- Pre-conditions: What must exist for this use case to happen
- Post-conditions: What will be created/changed at the end of this use case
- Flow of Activities:
- Actor: what the actor does (numbered)
- System: what the system does in response (1.1, 1.2, 2.1, etc)
- Exception Conditions: what happens if something doesn’t work right: maybe an item is not in stock.
So that’s a detailed use case description.
Edit: perhaps the sign of a tired mind, but here’s a fun saying to help remember them:
Uncle Sam Tells Big Dog About (Really Something Pretty Preposterous): Flying Elephants.
friends, gnomes, monopoly money
It’s very dangerous to surf the internet when you’re trying to avoid studying for a test. However, it can be very entertaining. First site I landed on? The Age.
So, there’s an article in The Age that I really wanted to comment on, but it was too long for a simple twitter comment. I thought it would be fun to blog about, so I needed a bit more information. Here’s the quote that snagged my attention:
A bemused Mr Langan said he initially suspected a friend was behind the prank, “but I’ve contacted both of them, and no, they’ve denied it”. (Gnome-nappers don’t have Monopoly on fun, the age, 2 June 2010 )
![[ gnome strapped to boom gate- not the gnome from The Age article. ]](gnome.png)
I thought: does this man only have two friends, or two friends (among several friends) who might be responsible for the gnome-napping? This is an awkward use of the English language and the journalists of The Age should know better.
Now I was hooked- the victim’s family are planning to pay the ransom in Monopoly money, and I wondered how much that would actually cost. I found out that from monopoly-man.com that regular monopoly game has $20,580 total, broken down into denominations of 500, 100, 50, 20 10, 5, and 1. So the family could raid their own Monopoly game to get the $10,000 needed to pay the ransom.
You can also buy replacement money from these guys (who will ship Australia-wide) for 7.95$ (AUD) so there’s that option, but the first thing that I saw is that Hasbro provided PDFs of Monopoly money for players to print at home. Interesting! I immediately imagined myself owning any Monopoly game in the future with my hoard of Monopoly cash, so I set out to look for these PDFs.
![[ 500$ monopoly money bill ]](500.png)
This was on Boing Boing in 2003, and the link is now dead. I had spent a little while searching around Hasbro’s website (side note: there are heaps of different Monopoly versions!) but “Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200″ etc etc. What next?
Well, the first thing to try when you find a dead link (or the page has changed, removing info) on the internet is to try the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. This I did. However the Wayback Machine had not archived the PDF files. But Hasbro still has them kicking around on their servers, so I just had to get the links from the old page and then download the PDF files! I don’t know how etiquette-al (etical? like ethical, but to do with politeness, not morals) it is to direct link to the PDF files, so I’ll let you do the same thing if you’re after these PDFs. (Just remove the internet archive bit from the URL.)
I feel like I’ve done something really cool and useful, but of course I’m just trying to avoid doing work, aka procrastination. According to etymology online:
procrastination
1540s, from L. procrastinationem “a putting off,” noun of action from procrastinare “put off till tomorrow,” from pro- “forward” + crastinus “belonging to tomorrow,” from cras “tomorrow,” of unknown origin.
Which of course is a bad idea when the thing you need to do can’t be done tomorrow because it is due tomorrow.
So I s’pose I’d better get back to it…
eye of the storm
Dear BBC, in your recent article about Facebook’s changes to their privacy settings, you mentioned that:
Over recent weeks, Facebook has been in the eye of a storm
I think you mean something like: “have been in hot water lately” or “have been under fire by privacy advocates” or something like that. You see, the eye of the storm is the eerily calm centre of a hurricane/typhone/cyclone.
1. A region of calm weather right in the middle of a storm.
[All Words.com]
(meteorology) The center of a tropical cyclone, marked by relatively light winds, confused seas, rising temperature, lowered relative humidity, and often by clear skies.
[Answers.com]
If you mean: right in the thick of inclement weather, don’t say eye of the storm. Yes, that is the middle of the storm but it’s not good English because the meaning is confused. Use another phrase please.
Facebook: turn off chat
Did you know you can turn off Facebook chat? It’s something that a few people have mentioned to me: they log on to Facebook and want to be on just quickly, or want to get through all those notifications, when someone sees they are online and pops up a little chat box to talk! Being polite people they don’t want to ignore their friend, but since Facebook added chat they haven’t been as productive.
Here’s how to log out of chat:
![[ Screenshot of the chat button, showing user is online ]](FBchat2.png)
The chat button is located at the bottom right of the Facebook window. If you are online, the chat button will have a green circle and a number indicating how many of your friends are online right now. Click on this button to expand the chat menu, allowing you to see who is online and also how to go off line.
![[ Screenshot of Facebook screen, pointing out the chat mini application at the<br />
bottom right corner. ]](FBchat1.png)
Now that you’ve got the chat “mini application” open, look for the Options menu, the one with a gear icon next to it. Click on Options to expand the Options menu. Right near the top are those magical words: Go offline. Click on that to go offline.
![[ Screenshot of the expanded chat menu, pointing out the OPTIONS menu item . ]](FBchat3.png) |
|
![[ Screenshot of the OPTIONS menu, pointing out the GO OFFLINE option. ]](FBchat4.png)
![[ Screenshot of the minimised chat button, showing user is offline. ]](FBchat5.png)
The chat application will minimise down, and you’ll see that Chat (Offline) is showing on the Chat button. Once you click on the Chat button you will be automatically put online, becoming available for people to talk to you. If you minimise the Chat application you will still be online, you need to select “Go Offline” from the options menu to turn off chat, becoming unavailable to talk to, leaving you to browse Facebook in peace.
(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.
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.