OpenMusings

For those considering a new computer – make sure you ask for student discounts. I’ve just splashed out on a new MacBook Pro – in Apple’s case, the website doesn’t even give the full story, as they have a separate price plan for Higher Education students, including us OU part-timers, that isn’t available online. While their online Education Store usually offers up 10% discounts on new hardware, simply ‘phoning them and asking for a Higher Education discount will get you a 15% discount – quite a chunk off any piece of kit. You can’t even complain about the cost of the call, as it’s an 0800 number.

Not sure how typical Apple are when it comes to discounts (from what I hear Dell and HP at least both offer them, but not sure how much), but given the cost of decent computers these days, it’s always worth asking.

Nice little surprise arrived with me last week, as the first M257 mailing hit my doorstep – completely unexpected, as the course isn’t due to start until 6th October. If I wasn’t enjoying my short study break so much, it would be a great opportunity to get ahead a little…

Materials look straightforward enough – the first few units are going back over the history of Java and giving overviews of its use in projects large- and small-scale before it finally gets on to the coding again. Looking forwared to using a “real” IDE (NetBeans) instead of BlueJ, not so sure about some of the topics they’re due to cover later in the course!

M255′s out of the way now, and I’ve just submitted TMA04 for T224. Since the T224 exam’s not until mid-October & my next SSC (S199 Modelling the Climate) doesn’t begin for another month, I’m at a loose end for a month. This is a new experience for me – although I suspect someone will have a list of chores for me, now that I’m not disappearing into the study 4 days a week.

A thought about S199. This involves using a distributed processing tool (climateprediction.net) for the duration of the course – my “general use” PC is an old G4 Mac mini, which doesn’t meet the system requirements for BOINC CPDN, so I’ll have to fire up The Beast: my Windows XP gaming PC. The problem with this is that The Beast generates so much heat (and chews through so much electricity) that it’s almost a climate change factor in its own right. Somehow this doesn’t seem quite right…!

Curious things you notice when reading exam feedback and such. In the case of M255, it appears that 2 people turned up for the exam, filled in their names & PIs to register that they were actually there, and then didn’t bother answering any questions (724 students “took” the exam, 722 gained a score in one of the parts; I assume the 2 that got an overall ‘G’ on the University Scale were the two that didn’t bother).

I can’t help but wonder: Why!? If you’re so past caring that you don’t even attempt a question, why bother turning up, as a no-show is the same as a nul-points in the end – and I can’t see the exam paper having been so scary to anyone that they couldn’t attempt anything.

One of those questions that’s destined to remain unanswered, but definitely made me curious…

Well, that came back better than I thought it would:

I hadn’t been at all sure about my exam performance in this one, it being the first “real” exam I’d done since my GCSE’s (1988), but it turns out I needn’t have worried – the exam score was actually better than my OCAS. Go figure. That gets me off to a good start in the quest for a 1st-class honours – 30 points down (excluding the level 1 courses), 270 more to go…

As an interesting aside… I took another look at the M255 question paper this morning, alongside the student performance info. It was like looking at a whole new question paper – I couldn’t remember seeing the questions before, and I certainly can’t remember what I wrote for any of the answers. Not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing..!