Landlubbers' Heaven

Lecture Review Week 11

2008-04-09T22:42:00.003+08:00

This shall be the last weekly review for this semester since the examinations will only be testing on topics till this week, and some of the modules have already finished the lecture series.

Database --- The last topic of this module is Normalization. The motivation for this is to remove anomalies in the relations by decomposing the table to smaller tables. For this module, we only need to learn 2NF, 3NF, and BCNF.

Relations in BCNF are certainly in 3NF and 2NF as well. Here's the conditions for each of the three cases:

2NF: for functional dependency in the relation like this {A}->{B}
A is not a proper subset of the candidate key or
B is a part of any candidate key

3NF: for functional dependency in the relation like this {A}->{B}
A is a super key or
B is a part of some candidate key

BCNF(Boyce Codd Normal Form): for functional dependency (F.D.) in the relation like this {A}->{B}
A is a super key

Apart from identifying the different normal forms, obviously, u need to know how to decompose the original relations. The first algorithm breaks the relation R, down to BCNF.

First identify the F.D. that violates BCNF, and we calculate the closure for the LHS of this F.D.

{LHS}+ = {some attributes}

Remove the attributes from R to form R1, and another R2 which consists of the remaining attributes in R union with LHS. Then check for both R1 and R2 that F.D.1 and F.D.2 satisfy with BCNF. If any of them does not satisfy, break that relation further until it satisfy.

This algorithm is not dependency preserving.

Another algorithm is to break R into 3NF:

First, you have to calculate the minimal cover for F.D. the method is in Lecture Review 10. Then re-combine the minimal cover having the same LHS to get the extended minimal cover.

With this extended minimal cover, we create R1, R2, ...., with each of the dependencies. Then we check that none of the relations is contained in another relation. Remove the one that is contained. Then check that at least one of the R contains the candidate key, if not, create another relation with only the candidate key.

Artificial Intelligence --- The last topic is machine learning. It's probably one of the easier topic for this module. For this topic, there are a series of test cases. From these cases, we are to construct a decision tree to predict the outcome for other values.

The decision tree is constructed with some form of algorithm calculating the information gain from choosing the different attributes as the root node. However, it seems more intuitive to construct it by observation at times. The chosen attribute should reduce the entropy of the test cases the most.

Software Engineering --- We continued with testing of the software. This week is white box testing. To do this form of testing, we have to consider the internal functioning of the codes. Looking at the codes, we draw the Control Flow Graph (CFG), then use test cases to test each of the possible routes, varying each time by one single path.

Lecture Review Week 10

2008-04-01T22:57:00.003+08:00

Database --- This week is the last second chapter of the semester. And since I've posted this after the tutorial, it seems that functional dependency ain't that difficult.

Given a relation scheme R, with attributes A, B, C, D, E, and a set of functional dependency F = { {A->B}, {C->D}, {B,D->A}, {D->B,E}}. The key concept here is to be able to find the closure of the different attributes. From there, find the super key, candidate key and the minimal cover for the relation.

{A}+ = {A,B,}
{B}+ = {B}
{C}+ = {C,D,B,E,A}
{D}+ = {D,B,E,A}
{E}+ = {E}

Therefore, the super keys will be {C}, and anything that contains C and {C} is a candidate key.

To find minimal cover,
step 1: Break the RHS in F to get F'.
F' = { {A->B}, {C->D}, {B.D->A}, {D->B}, {D->E} }

step 2: Break the LHS in F' to get F'', refer to the closure for each of the attributes to see which attribute on the LHS should be kept.
F''= { {A->B}, {C->D}, {D->A}, {D->B}, {D->E} }

step 3: Remove redundant implications from F'' to get F'''
F'''= { {A->B}, {C->D}, {D->A}, {D->E} } in here {D->B} is removed because it can be formed by transitivity from { {A->B}, {D->A} }

Business Law --- In the concluding lecture, the topic was on Directors' Duties. It is divided into three parts. Fiduciary duties, care and skill, and statutory duties. Under fiduciary duties, it can be sub-divided into four more categories, the most important should be the conflict of interest, where it is also sub-divided into four more categories. This conflict occurs where the director has share of the company they are dealing with, and depending on the situation, the contract might be fatal. In case of such conflict, the director should declare the conflict.

In care and skill, the director has to exercise what he knows and within their ability for the benefit of the company, then he should be fine. The degree of skill is dependent on the director's qualification.

In statutory duties, it is what is stated by law that the director should do. To list out the duties is gonna take forever..

Business Correspondence --- The concluding for this module as well, is the final part to Oral Presentation. In here, we went on to the final step of the 5-step model for TOPP, and is to deliver the goods.

This focuses on the pronunciation of words must be accurate, the tone of the talk must not be monotonous. Apart from being able to articulate your ideas across the audience, you must be watch out for the postures, hand movements, positioning of yourself when using visual aids and so on. Try to be natural and talk to the audience. Maintaining eye contact for a while instead of looking everywhere in the audience. Quite standard but not easy to do. Practice makes perfect.

Artificial Intelligence --- This time was on probability. After taking probability for one semester, I thought I was done, but this lecture really brings back bad memory. Lucky it's not so in depth like the module for probability, but it's still bad enough with the conditional probability and conditional independence.

The crux of the lecture lies in constructing a Bayesian network. Using the different conditional probability given, we have to determine which variables are dependent to each other and which are independent and which are conditional independent. From this way, we can effectively reduce the space needed to keep the probability of the different variables by breaking them up into different tables and not all store on one table.

Software Engineering --- After implementing, it's time to do testing for the system. So to keep things simple, we won't want to exhaustively test all the different cases for the system, therefore we select values that will test the limits of the system.

The meaning of testing the system is to try to break the system. If we manage to break the system, then we will need to debug and fix this problem. Therefore values that we want to choose are the values at the boundary.

Lecture Review Week 9

2008-03-25T20:44:00.004+08:00

Database --- This week's lecture was rather difficult to understand. What in the world is relational algebra.. Weren't algebra supposed to be some letter that represent numbers?

Anyhow, there are eight operations in relational algebra. Selection, projection, union, intersection, difference, cartesian product, natural join and renaming operator.

Projection is equivalent to the selection clause in SQL. As there could be duplicate tuples, the rows with duplicate are removed - Distinct. Projection is represented by PI (R)

Selection correspond to the Where clause. Since it always selects the whole tuple, all the tuples are distinct, thus there won't be a need for distinct keyword. Selection is represented by SIGMA(R).

Union is the combined of the different relations, removing duplicate tuple. Intersection is the duplicate tuples in the relations being considered. Set difference is the tuples that appear in the first relation but not in the second relation.

Cartesian product gives all the possible combination of the tuples between the first and the second relation. No duplicate is possible. Theta-join does a cartesian product of the two relations on some conditions given.

Natural join joins two relations with relations of the same name and projects only one of the attribute. Renaming allows attributes to be renamed, similar to the keyword -As in SQL.

Business Law --- The first lecture on Company Law. First off, the 3 types of business was introduced - Sole-proprietorship, partnership (up to 19 partners), and company (more than 19).

A company is a legal person but do not have the senses like a natural person. The two primary organs of a company are the board of directors and shareholders. The directors are people who run the company in accordance to the Companies Act. The qualification of a director is just that you have to be above 21 years old and is a natural person.

Business Correspondence --- The second Oral Presentation lecture focuses on making the talk a memorable one for the audience. Visual aids must be attractive, and must not be filled with lines and lines of words. Everything should be written in point form.

Contents must be audience centred, difficult to understand terms and abbreviations must be explained.

Use catchy phrases with memory devices and word painting techniques. Give your points in words that give the same sound - alliteration. Repeats your catchy phrase to make an impression. Make comparison using simile, metaphor. Other techniques include allusion, counterpoint, hypothesis and rhetorical question

Artificial Intelligence --- The lecture continues on Logics. To infer from first order logic, there are three ways, forward chaining, backward chaining, and resolution. Basically, I still don't understand forward and backward chaining. For resolution, it is trying to form a proof by refutation / contradiction. By adding the negation of the statement to be proven to the knowledge base, you try to derive that the statement is unsatisfiable. This will therefore prove that the statement is true.

Software Engineering --- This week's lecture basically converts state diagrams into codes and see what should be done to enforce that the states are not violated. Converting from designs to codes are usually quite intuitive and nothing much can be said about this lecture. Anyway, the test is done after the mid-term test, and I really can't concentrate well thereafter. Just hope the test is not too badly done like the other two modules.

Lecture Review Week 8

2008-03-18T21:29:00.004+08:00

Database --- This week's lecture continued from the lecture in week 6 - domain calculus. It's quite like tuple calculus, but this deals with the columns. It takes the form of

{ <> | 3y relation(x,y)}

All variables in <> are free variables. All others are not, and they need to be quantified by an existential or universal quantifier.

Business Law --- This week is on Product Liability. It's sort of an extension of tort of negligence and and sales of goods. You will have to proof the 4 essences of negligence. There are two ways for the remedies for this. First is under negligence, the second is under a breach of contract.

Business Correspondence --- This was a fun lecture, the first for oral presentation. There are five steps in the oral presentation process. This lecture concentrated on the first three.

First, is to analyze the audience and prepare the presentation in accordance to the audience you have. Try to give the presentation in a way that will benefit the audience and things that they will be interested in. The venue and time of the presentation is also important to take into account.

Second, apply ABC. Analyze the topic, Brainstorm content ideas, Choose your information. While brainstorming, don't judge the ideas that come up, jot everything down.

Third, draft your speech. The introduction must be captivating and motivating. Get the audience attention right from the start. Use transitional phrases to order the points, have mini-summaries to stress the main points, and double mini-summaries to do transitions between speakers. Conclusion is to summarize the whole presentation. Use the same phrasing as it was used in the blueprint during introduction. Any pamphlet you wish to hand out should be done at the end of the conclusion so as not to distract the audience by letting them read the pamphlet during your presentation.

Artificial Intelligence --- One hour test which I mostly couldn't do, just as I expected. After which a short lecture to wrap up first-order logics.

Software Engineering --- It's the first lecture by the second lecturer. This week focus was on defensive programming, which simply means maintaining the constraints that you have set up during the design phase. Things like 1-1, 1-*, 0..1-*, should be enforced during the coding. It's quite intuitive to know which part of the program to start working from.

Lecture Review Week 7

2008-03-06T01:21:00.004+08:00

Database --- Two tests in 2 hours, it's been fun.

Business Law --- It's a new topic on tort of negligence, and the tutorial question that my group will have to present is on this topic. Don't really understand the lecture much, but after reading up on the topic, this is what I think the topic is about.

To prove that someone was negligent to you, you have to show that the person owes you a duty of care. For example, when you walk on the street, you have to be careful not to walk into them, causing them injuries. While the standard of care may differs in different cases, the reasonable man test still applies for all of them, just that the man will be specialist of that particular profession that is undergoing the trial.

Apart from the duty of care, the negligence must have caused damage to the other party. This cause will also be accessed based on whether the damage is foreseeable and not too remote or far-fetched.

For defenses against negligent, there are two ways mentioned. First is that the injured party had volunteered to the risk or that he had consented the risk he is undertaking. This is a complete defense. Another is that the injured party was partly to blame for his own injury, therefore the injured party can only claimed part of the damages that the defendant is responsible for.

Business Correspondence --- The lecture was quite interesting and is on inter-cultural communication. This lecture wasn't to be tested in the exam but was still good to have.

As the topic has suggested, it's about understanding how the different cultures are like and that things that we do, other cultures will do it differently. When talking to my superior, I'll try to keep eye contact but some other culture may not as this is a sign of respect. There are just too many examples, so I shan't go into details.

Artificial Intelligence --- This lecture is on first-order logic, and it was mostly covered before in previous semesters. The AND, OR, NOT, =>, <=> and so on. But there's one part that I don't really understand is the sign '|=' which represents entail. When it's said that a knowledge base entails a statement says P i.e.

K.B. |= P,

it means that the K.B. is actually a subset of the statement P. At first, I thought that it was the other way round, but now, i think it does makes sense. The entails is saying that the statement P is implied from the knowledge base through some logics, so it's quite intuitive that P should be a bigger set or the set K.B.

Software Engineering --- This lecture is the last lecture by the first lecturer, and it concludes the design part of the module. How do we draw a state-chart? Actually, you just have to imagine in your mind how the software will work, and what the different states will be will automatically come to you. Then from this states, you go through the different ways that the state may change and draw the arrow out. Then there you have it, the state-chart.

Lecture Review Week 6

2008-02-25T23:27:00.003+08:00

Database --- This lecture is like a revision from the pre-requisite module. The truth is what you see inside the database, and not what is true in the real world. Things that don't make sense may be true, so don't use your knowledge to determine whether a statement is true.

Business Law --- This is on the sale of goods act. It's a contract to shift ownership of personal belongings from seller to buyer after the buyer paid money to the seller. Goods can be classified into three types - Specific goods where the very goods to be sold is confirmed at time when the contract is made. Unascertained goods where the goods to be sold is out of a bulk amount and not yet confirmed exactly which item in the bulk is to be sold. Future goods are goods that are not yet available at time when contract is made.

The ownership passes with the intention of the two parties in specific goods and for unascertained goods when they are ascertained. Once ownership is passed, the risk is also passed at the same time, meaning whatever that happens to the goods thereafter will be borne by the buyer. If the intent was not shown when the contract is made, the ownership passing will depends on the five rules listed in s18.

Business Communication --- Step 5 - step 8 of proposal writing is the actual part of writing the proposal. Step 5 is to organise the information you wish to present in a systematic way. Step 6 is to write your first draft, Step 7 to KISS (keep it short & simple) the reader and step 8 is to create visual impact to attract the reader's attention. This can be done by using a good font and formating of the document.

Artificial Intelligence --- To continue with more searching, this lecture goes on to constraint satisfaction problem. The most common question for this type of problem is the map colouring, which asks what is the least number of colours that you need to use to colour the whole map, and no two neighbouring states can have the same colour. This question can be easily represented in the form of a constraint graph.

Of course, when you choose which state to start colouring from, you will have to check for the state with the most constraints, in the graph representation will be the node with the highest degree.

You can also use other method like forward checking to check in advance the consequence of colouring the state. This is done by keeping track of the remaining legal value of unassigned nodes, if there is a state that will have no legal value, then it would signify a bad move.

Arc consistency is the chain reaction from making an assignment. When you remove a value from a state because the value is impossible, then it could cause other states to have other removal of their possible values.

Software Engineering --- Continuing into the design for the software, more notations are added to the domain modeling and use-case. Then there's something called the interaction diagram, which shows how the user will interact with the software. Sort of resembles a time-line, showing the different activities that take place when the user use the software.

Lecture Review Week 5

2008-02-15T01:01:00.003+08:00

Database --- This lecture covers conceptual modeling. It's more diagrams than words showing relationships between entities

Business Law --- The conclusion of contract laws this week covers the discharge from contracts. This is done in 4 ways. Firstly, when the contract is completed exactly and precisely, you are automatically discharged from the contract. It's 'ALL OR NOTHING', unless it's a divisible contract that states when you completed the contract to certain extent, you get paid partially.

Second way is ending the contract by agreement. Third way is by frustration, where neither party is at fault that the contract cannot be completed. In this case, the deposit must be refunded, no more outstanding sum of money will be payable but you can be paid for the expanses made so far till the point when there is a frustration.

The fourth way is by breaching the contract. Of course, this means there's a case. You can be sued for damages for breaching, but the amount of damages must be kept as low as possible for the wrong-doer. Damages is not profit, but a form of compensation. If damages is not enough, then Specific Performance may be used to make up for the inadequency.

Business Communication --- Proposal is an offer to furnish goods and services, research a subject, or to provide a solution to a problem. They can be divided into four types, solicited internal, usually requested by your boss to provide a solution to a problem, unsolicited internal, which you initiate to offer a solution to your boss (bootlicking?!), solicited external and unsolicited external.

Proposal writing can be divided into eight steps.
Step 1) Analyze RFP, Request for Proposal. Content requirement that gives technical function requirement, legal requirement which states terms and conditions, ownership of work, administration information which gives point of contacts, due date and how many copies of the proposal required, format guideline which states the language, font, page layout for the proposal.

Step2) Do research, understand the problem and needs of the public through market research. Do product research by coming out with viable solutions to the problem. Client research writing a targetted proposal.

Step3) Design a prototype,

Step4) Focus the proposal, arouse the interest of the reader

Artificial Intelligence --- One more searching technique introduced. This will be used in the the first project for the module. I wonder why people already finished this project even before this lecture.. Alpha-Beta pruning is a technique that that searches for a highest 'Minimax' value from the different states possible. The idea here is to assume the opponent is optimal, thus you can omit some paths which you know will lead to a worse state. However, if the opponent is noob, and will not choose his optimal path, then this technique may not be optimal.

This pruning depends alot on the order of expansion of nodes, sometimes, there may not be pruning at all.

Software Engineering --- Wow, this lecture basically just expand the Use-case Diagram and Domain Model to contain more detail planning. This will be the design for the software that you are going to build.

Lecture Review Week 4

2008-02-05T20:08:00.002+08:00

Week 4 of lectures has concluded early today.

Database --- Going into more advanced SQL,, there is the Group By att1, att2, though it there must be no ambiguity between the names of the attributes. The Having keyword is used for aggregate functions.

Nested queries are not recommended, and should be avoided as far as possible as nested queries might be quite misleading. In evaluating nested queries, you think of it as evaluating it in a nested for loop. Nesting are done in the Where line, as Where is the condition for the outer query. Results of inner query is not allowed to be brought out to the outer query.

View is a query with a name, after making the view, the view will be like another table and you can query the view as you would to any table. View is always up to date, any change in the original table will be reflected in the view.

Business Law --- Misrepresentation is a false statement and is of material fact that is made by one part to another, and induces this other part to enter into a contract. To show that it is a misrepresentation, all these four ingredients must be present.

Silence does not amount to misrepresentation, meaning that if the salesperson heard you saying to yourself about something wrong, and did not correct you, it won't be counted as a misrepresentation.

You are not induced into the contract if you had relied on your own judgement or individual investigation, knew of the false statement, or never knew of its existance.

There are three types of misrepresentation, fraudulent, negligent, wholly innocent. It is fraudulent when you know that the statement is false, without belief in its truth, or recklessly not caring whether it's true or not. It is negligent if the false statement is made without reasonable ground, and wholly innocent if it is made with reasonable grounds but the statement still turn out to be false.

Remedies to first two types are damages and/or recission, while for innocent misrepresentation is only recission. Recission is giving back and taking back.

Silence does not amount to misrepresentation unless there is a change in circumstances, or you told the truth but not the whole truth.

Next part was on illegal contracts, either illegal by statute or by common law. Illegal contracts are void contracts. Therefore it does not exist. To claim damages for this type of contract, you have to establish the case without relying on the illegal contract, or the parties are not equally at fault, or the plaintiff repents before the contract is substantially performed.

Contract in Restraint of Trade are prima facie void unless it can be proven that it protects properties of the person who enforced the restraint. For restraints in business, the length of restraints must be reasonable, and must not be contrary to public interest.

Business Communication --- In the continuation of User-Manual Writing, we discussed the six guidelines for task writing. 1) Task names should be action oriented, by using strong verbs and go direct to the point. 2) Organise the tasks logically, you won't want to read a manual which teaches you how to uninstall before installing do you? 3) Determine the elements for each task, 4) Write steps as actions, 5) Group steps under sub-task heading, this will make the manual more readable as related tasks are grouped into one. 6) Be consistent with options, notes and tips.

Tasks can be ordered in two ways, functional and sequential. Functional ordering is more used for reference as it focus on what the software can do. Sequential is more useful in teaching novice user as it focus on what the user wants to do with the program.

Here's the eleven task elements: Task name, user, explanation of task, start state, goal state, steps, results, screens, options, notes, tips. The essential elements are task names, explanation, steps, results, screens and notes.

Lecture Review Week 3

2008-01-30T14:15:00.000+08:00

Database --- This week started with the integrity constraints of the tables. Integrity constraints are rules for which to keep the data. Every table will require a Primary Key to ensure that the specified attribute(s) is always different. The attribute can be set to Not Null, so that no entry can be added if that attribute is empty. It can also be set to Unique, to ensure that the specific attribute does not repeats. Primary Key is essentially Unique and Not Null. The next constraints is Foreign Key, this allows the attribute to reference to other tables, and acts like pointers. The keywords to allows changes to be made in the table being referenced and then changing automatically in the referencing table are "On Delete/Update Cascade/No Action/Set Default/Set Null". The last is Check, which checks that the attribute will satisfy the given conditions as stated in the check statement.

Second half of the lesson focus on simple SQL statements. Create Table t1, creates a table, then within the parenteses put the required field of attributes for the table, with its domains and integrity constraints. Drop Table t1 deletes the table t1 created earlier. Alter Table t1 Add attribute domain will expand the table by another column. Insert Into relation_name(att, att) Values () using single quotes for the values. The att, att represents the order you want to add, can be omitted and the default order will be used. To view the whole table use select * from t1. To delete entries, use Delete From t1 where 'conditions'.

Business Law --- In the continuation of contract law lecture, there was discussion on contracts with minors - people under the age of 21, with mentally disordered and drunkards, and with companies. For minors, there could be three types of contract, first is a valid contract, which is beneficial to the minor or is necessity to the minor. Second type is voidable contract, which includes leases and partnership. Third type is void contract, which means the contract never existed in the first place. This includes money lent to minor and goods which are not a necessity to minors. For the contracts with mentally disordered and drunkards, there can only be voidable contracts.

The next part includes the terms of contracts. Conditions are the important terms in a contract, warranties are the minor term of the contract, innominate terms are the terms that you have to wait and see to see whether the breach was a breach of conditions or warranties. Exemption clauses can be included in contracts to exclude the liability of one of the party. Exemption clauses must be in contractual document and not in a mere receipt. If a person signs a contractual document, he is bound by its term even if he does not read (ignorant is not bliss). If a person is induced to sign by misrepresentation, then he won't be bound by the exemption clause. An ambiguous clause is invalid. Exemption clause made after the contract is sign is invalid, however, if there are past dealings and the person is aware that such a clause exists, then he will be bounded by it. Exemption clause does not discharge you from responsibility from death or injury. It can only exempts you from other losses.

Business Communication --- The first lecture on User Manual. It's quite instinctive to perform most of the steps. First, Analyze the users, what are the needs, who will use the software. Second, Design a task list, write out all the tasks that can be done using the softwares. Third, Develop a draft. Fourth, Review and Test the draft, and last Finalize the manual.

When writing the manual, treat the reader as an idiot of the software. Therefore when you write the step by step instructions, they must really lead to the desired outcome. Screenshots are added to aid user identify start state and end state.

The layout of the user manual should also be attractive. This are influenced by 4 factors - Alignment, Contrast, Proximity, and Repetition. Alignment makes the manual neater. Contrast between size of words shows different level of importance, different colours can be used to show that the words are related. Putting things of the same nature together makes it easier for reader to see that they are related, this is proximity, and reusing the same template for over and over again is repetition.

Artificial Intelligence --- This lecture was on more searching techniques. Choosing a search strategy depends on the problem. With more number of goals states, the problem is easier to solve. Other factors are distribution of goal states, the type of search tree (finite or infinite), repeated states, and the need for optimality.

The best first search uses an evaluation function f(n) to estimate the desirability. then order the nodes in fringe in decreasing order of desirability. Greedy Best First Search is a special case which uses a heuristic function h(n) which is an estimate of the cost from n to the goal. This search is Not Complete, Time of O(bm), Space of O(bm), and is not optimal since it doesn't explore for other possible cheaper route.

Another special case is the A* Search. The evaluation function f(n) = g(n) + h(n) where g(n) is the cost so far and h(n) is the estimated cost of n to goal. The h(n) here is an admissible heuristic function which means that the estimation is always lower than the actual cost. Therefore A* is optimal. The time is exponential and space is keeping all nodes in memory.

A recursive best first search keeps the 2nd best f-value seen so far, and backtracks when children reaches a value that exceeds the f-value. My guess for RBFS is it is complete, and not optimal

Software Engineering --- How do you draw a Use Case Diagram? First draw a stick figure of a person, and this is the actor. Then you give him a roll of what he does. A straight line represents association of actor with use case. Dashed arrow with the keyword '<>' specifies the behaviour defined for the base use case. A triangle arrow is a taxonomic relationship between a more general use case and a specific use case. Dashed arrow with '<>' gives a relationship shared between two base use cases.

Lecture Review - Week 2

2008-01-23T22:03:00.000+08:00

Database --- Half the lecture was spent on unfinished part of the introduction, the other half is on tables (the one that stores data). Seems like nothing much has been taught.. Headache for my project.

Business Law --- This lecture's on contract law. The two types of contract are verbal and written contract. All contracts are agreements but not all agreements are contracts. Contracts consist of three elements -

1. Offer and Acceptance,

2. Intention to create legal relations,

3. Considerations.

On point 1 -

Offer + Acceptance = Contract made

Invitation to Treat -> Offer + Acceptance = Contract made

Invitation to Treat is asking someone to make an offer to do something, examples include Goods on display for sale. When you shops, you are offering to buy the item at the stated price, and the cashier can accept or refuse to sell you, not the other way round. All news paper advertisements are also Invitation to Treat.

You have to revoke your offer before the other party accepts, no revoking after that. When there is a counter-offer to the original offer, the orignal offer is forgotten. In instantaneous contract, contract is only made when the offeror has received the acceptance while in contracts by post, contract is made when the offeree has posted the acceptance.

On point 2 -

You have intention to sue the other party in case of breach of contract. Domestic and social agreements are presume to have no intention as the agreement is based on mutual trust. After separation of husband and wife, there are intentions to sue. In commercial agreements, there are intention to make a legally enforceable contract.

On point 3 -

Consideration is some benefit accruing to one party or some detriment suffered by the other. Suffering must be after the contract is made, anything before is not counted. Consideration must be real and recognised by law (e.g. money), but need not be what the market value is. Consideration must not be for something within your own duty.

Payment of smaller sum will not discharge you from a larger debt, unless it is agreed by the creditor and consideration is made. Valid consideration is payment before due day by creditor's request, payment at different place at creditor's request, and payment with a delivery of a chattel (a movable article of personal property).

Business Communication --- Second lecture on Business Correspondence, introducing another acronym STARS standing for Specific, Thoughtful, Affirmative, Respectful, Simple.

In writing letter, you have to be thoughtful for the reader. Prevent using negative words, basically you should not put on an air when you write and while doing that, make the reader as happy as you can, and when the reader is happy, any request made will be accepted.

Artificial Intelligence --- I was so lazy to attend the lecture, so I had the webcast lecture instead. Kinda not able to concentrate well on webcast due to the many distractions at home, but lucky this lecture was on searching algorithms on trees which was taught a year ago.

The bad thing about this module is I have no idea how to do tutorial 1 which commences this week, how would I find the answer? Maybe from AIMA, the name of the recommended textbook.

Software Engineering --- Don't really understand the lecture, nonetheless I'll still try to write something about it.

It seems to me that the lecture is trying to give us an overview of what we'll be handing in for the project submission 1, and 2. Starting from the requirement, we then analyse the requirement before coming out with the design.

Requirements are what the system should be able to do. There are functional requirements which describe system services or functions, and non-functional requirements, which identify quality attributes and different constraints.

By prioritising requirements, we can separate them into 3 levels, from those that are absolutely needed, to highly desirable which means should be met, to the lowest level which could be implemented but not necessary.

The next part was on use case diagram, which comprises of all the possible interactions the user can have when performing the task.

Lecture Review - Week 1

2008-01-21T11:15:00.000+08:00

Introductory Lectures

Database --- This lecture has nothing much this week, spent more than half the time telling us what to expect. Gonna have a project in group of 5, and because I took the S-paper version of the module, we'll be preparing to give some presentations during class. The remaining time was spent on lecture 1, which unfortunately I have already watched the breeze lecture which was much more interesting and faster than the lecturer. Maybe the next lecture will be better cause I'll attend the lecture with no preparations.

Business Law --- It's a fun lecture. Interesting lecture made possible by a veteran lecturer who taught the module for 28 years... Apart from the materials in the lecture notes, learning which court you have to go to for the different amt of compensation you are demanding, she included many personal stories to share with us.

Business Communication --- This is basically just like the english lessons I used to have during secondary schools. This first lesson was about business correspondence. When you write a letter that includes good news, you jump straight to the point and breaking the good news to the intended reader. This is called the direct approach. When the letter is about bad news, you use the packaging approach, giving the bad news as little emphasise as possible. The last approach taught was the indirect approach. It's one where you used when the content is of little / no interest to the reader, and you have to try to get the reader to be interested. So you have to use the GIRO method standing for Gaining Attention, Increasing desire, Reducing resistance, Orchestrating action. Quite funny how people keep coming up with this type of acronym to help easy remembering, but which will cause lots of confusion at the same time.

Artificial Intelligence --- It seems to be another interesting module. The lecturer claimed that he is not an A.I. expert, so we can probably expect an easier paper from him. We'll be having 2 projects for this module. First is a mini-project to write an Intelligent Agent to play some chess game, on a 6 by 6 chess board. Can be done alone or in pair, so if I feel like I can do it, I'll probably be doing it alone. The final agent will be used to play against other agents done by other people, and if you win, you will score higher for that project. The final project details won't be out till later this week. Can't quite recall what was taught in the lecture, but the tutorial will be starting this week for this module, now I'll need to do some self-study again.

Software Engineering --- This is a CS module, targeting Computer Science students like myself, but this sem, there are more Computer Engineers from FoE, so the lecturer decided that the project can be done in C++ too, instead of only JAVA. Group of four, but I haven't decided who to work with. Most likely gonna be joining force with my primary school friend, Billy, once again after the project which we did in primary school some twelve years ago. The first lecture taught the different stages of software engineering.

how you solve this....

2007-07-07T23:56:00.000+08:00

A great navigation puzzle having to fill 3 yellows in a row to clear, how you solve it..

Skills and tonnes of luck..

Distill part1

2007-05-27T02:21:00.000+08:00

How the puzzle work?
This is one of the most difficult puzzle i find in the game. At the start, i keep fumbling and sending up a lot of unwanted pieces into the distiller, so it's important to remember that:

1. White when exchanged with black, white will go upward, and black will go downward.
2. When white is exchanged with brown, white will go downward and brown will go upward.
3. Lastly, when exchanging brown and black, black will go up, and brown will go down

I'll slowly teach some of the techniques in future posts. Too tired now, time for bed.

Merchants brigand's attempt to cheat money

2007-05-01T11:11:00.000+08:00

Lol, my stall got cheated of 2046poe yesterday when the brigands showed that they've sold my stall 97 tellerium, but it was no where to be found in my stall. Where could the stocks have gone to?? The only possible reason is that the merchant brigand's took my money and set sail without giving me my goods, what a pirate way of doing things.

The problem was solved after I petitioned a Oceanmaster for help. The OM on duty was Aphrodite, and she came to my stall and magicked up 97 telleriums in my stall. Thanks her. :)

A long break

2007-04-29T02:47:00.000+08:00

The long break from pillaging is finally over, even with 1 more paper to go, I've gone back into the seas making transportation and attended elite pillage led by Kaiak and another one with my hearty.

Took a big step towards my chalice of blood (while people are already getting bowl of blood) as Kaiak earned us a KB in just 2 battles and another 2 KB earned with my hearty's pillage. They are just too pro. Still in the midst of bidding my commodities so the transportation will be in another few days.

Holiday special - Bilging Final Chapter

2007-02-22T12:11:00.000+08:00

To obtain bigger combos then a bingo, you will need to look out for a row with only 2 shapes, covering all of the 6 columns which can make a 3x3 on itself(as marked by the 2 arrows at the bottom 5th row). From this prerequisite, you start to build your combo by looking at the top of the row and bottom of it.

Of course, this puzzle has already a sea donkey in place by changing the middle 2 pieces of that row. Usually this wouldn't be the case, so you have to manually build it first by carefully shifting the the pieces above that row to get the best puzzle you can, before starting to build the bottom.

Building the bottom is much more easier than building the top, cause when you break pieces below the row, the row wouldn't be affected. From this puzzle, you can try to build a Vegas by breaking those small pieces marked by the circles. Of course if you will only get a Vegas if you are in luck. Therefore, it will be easier if you find the prerequisite row as high up the puzzle as possible, so that you can see where is the required piece for you to get the vegas, and you can shift it accordingly.

This should be all the information you need to know to get a higher ranked Ultimate. Enjoy your bilging.

At Last, Back into the Vast Sea

2007-02-10T17:57:00.000+08:00

I've finally found some time to set sail on my sloop today after something like 10 days without sailing.. Damn the workload, so many things i cannot do caused me my time to go out to the sea. Though today was a short trip of 5 battles, it was still quite fun to go out to relax abit from my studies. The only sad thing is I didn't get any KB.

Anyway, the tutorial will be on pause for a while, since it takes more time to write on that then to talk rubbish here. I also need to find more materials for certain puzzles.

For swordfight and rumble, I dont think I'll be able to say much on them and perhaps the best way is to go to YouTube to find videos as they'll teach you how to do them. Maybe when i find some useful video then I'll post them here too.

Too much work..

2007-02-04T16:12:00.000+08:00

Seems like the maiden voyage for the new War Brig, the Dangerous Spot will be postponed to a later date due to the heavy workload I have from school.. Shd be setting sail around the 1 wk break in 2 wks time.. Hopefully

An interview with special guest: Kaiak

2007-01-30T18:44:00.000+08:00

Oldielord: Today, I'm very honoured to have with us, Mr. Kaiak, The Ultimate Crafter, with a total of 11 Ultimates trophies, and the current captain of the crew "Fourplay", and the lord of the flag of "Naughty Collectors", to give us some pointers on how to get incredible for alchemistry. So Kaiak, how you usually get incredible in alchemistry?

Kaiak: erm.. everytime try to put in at least 4 colours (at least 2 secondary) lor, if all secondary colours then 3 also can (high 2 stars nia, have reach 3 stars)

Oldielord: So what other things do alchemist need to look out for when they are alchemizing?

Kaiak: start with a secondary colour, then make it pass through as many of those overlapping tubes de as possible, aft tt easier to get the other colours

Oldielord: So you're saying we should start making the secondary colour first, and make them go pass those tubes that overlap so that we can make full use of all the tubes.

Kaiak: Exactly.. Each time fill one of each colour usually enuf, try to make sure tt after u fill le next turn at least 2 secondary colours are avail to fill.

Oldielord: Oh, so you're saying that we need not fill 2 bottles with the same colour, but should try to fill bottles with different colour. Guess that's what is between me(the noob) and you(the pro)

Kaiak: That's about all. You will be able to get incredible all the times if you are able to do those that I said above. Just by following these rules i've set for myself, i was able to hit a high rank of third.

Oldielord: Ok, thanks Kaiak for the pointers. There, The Great Kaiak, has taught us how to play alchemistry his way. Now hope you people out there are able to fill more 3-stars bottle.

Disclaimer: Dialogue by Kaiak are cut and paste of what i asked him on msn. I've only added 1 word "exactly" to 1 of his dialogue during the tutorial. His concluding dialogue is written by me too. All tutorial materials are from Kaiak, and if you think it's not useful, reflect directly to him and dont come find me, cause I'm just a legend alchemist.

Gunning

2007-01-28T01:12:00.000+08:00

This is the last duty puzzle that i havent covered.

For this puzzle, whether you find it difficult or not depends largely on your mouse and how well you use it. Basically, you just have to fill the guns with the 3 items(gun powder, rag, and the cannonball) in the same order. If you make a mistake, then you need to load the gun with a pail of water to wash the gun.

To be able to load the guns faster, you should use the maximum of 2 moves to form a loop for the items to go in a roundabout fashion, and the last move to load the gun. So load the gun 1 by 1. It's easier to fill guns on navy missions than to do it on pillages as on pillages you will need to wash the guns before you can fill it again. So if it's rating you are looking for, just go for any of the navy mission and it should work well for you.

Next time will be on crafting puzzle: alchemistry. Material provided by Kaiak the Ultimate Crafter.

Carpenting

2007-01-24T18:33:00.000+08:00

Carpenting is used for reducing damage on board the ship, the puzzle will give you 4 holes which vary from size and shape. In the middle, they will give you random pieces to work with on the 4 holes. I used to think this was the most difficult to play puzzle, but in the end this puzzle gave me my 2nd ult after shipwright.

To do well in Carpentry, you'll have to know how to hold your pieces and used up those funny looking, unwanted pieces without making the hole booched. Usually to do this, you will want to start of using your best pieces for the smallest holes, at the same time, work on 1 of the adjacent hole(left, right, up, or down. Not diagonally across). This is because when you fin 2 holes which are adjacent to each other, the other 2 holes will come out, so that you will have 4 holes to work with.

So, what do we do with the other 2 holes? Just throw all your unwanted pieces when working on the 2 holes to this 2 holes. When you have gotten your 2 masterpieces out of the 2 holes you work on, you can use the pieces that come to repair the holes with those holes with the unwanted pieces and put the unwanted pieces to the 2 new holes. This will usually work well, unless the 2 new holes are small holes, then it will be more difficult.

Vessel near completion

2007-01-20T12:43:00.000+08:00

Seems like the vessel i ordered a few days ago will be completed well before schedule. Initially, it says a long time, after 1 day it's 19 days, and slowly the time has decrease and is currently 3days, and only required basic labours. Great thanks to all who helped me with the work.

The vessel should be completed by tomorrow, but the maiden voyage won't be tomorrow cause i still have work to do. Therefore, it should be next weekend. Fair winds!!

New Vessel Ordered

2007-01-18T01:17:00.000+08:00

Look forward to the maiden voyage of a new war brig in Lima Island. The date is not set yet, most probably on a saturday. There's only 1 order at the Jbcrakhed's shipbuilding stall and that's my ship. Take a job there or simply play the shipwrightery puzzle there to help me.

Pretty expensive 24k+ poe and 50 dubs delivery.. OMG. Hope i dont buy it and keep it as a storage vessel like Kaiak do to his, he's just too rich.

Sails-- Pointers from Kaiak

2007-01-16T23:33:00.000+08:00

According to Kaiak, the best way to maintain incredible sailing is to get a big combo at the start and subsequently make at least triples.

One way of making big combos is to build around the required blocks, and leave some remaining pieces so that when the block is finish, the remaining pieces can drop to the other blocks forming multiple combos. To extend this further, before you break the first block, you can form a straight row upward and leave the last wanted piece out of the row, so that the final piece will fall in place when the row is formed. You can also form rows at the bottom, so that when the block is broken, the remaining piece can drop to finish the row. For even more advanced combos, you can even put rows between different blocks and break them while clearing the blocks.

Note: Blocks will be broken once they are completed, and if blocks and rows are formed at the same time, the block will break before the row and that counts as a double as well.

Bilge Part 2

2007-01-13T01:54:00.000+08:00

To celebrate me getting back into first bilge today, here is the next part of bilge's tip. Let's try to spot bingos in the puzzle. On the top is the given puzzle and on the bottom the steps to getting a bingo(will get it in 8 moves). It's important that step 3 and step 4 must come in sequence as if you had made step 4 first, you will have destroyed your bingo due to the green box piece in the water. That's a common mistake when building to a bingo.

Condition for bingo:

1. A piece type which can get a 3x3

2. Another piece type which can form a row and has at least one piece which is in the same row as the 3x3

Usually when there isn't a bingo in place, it's always good enough to get a 3x3 within 1 or 2 moves. Else try to jumble up the pieces in the puzzle using an octopus or making rows at the top of the puzzle. Gd Luck with your bilge!!

What for today?!

2007-01-11T22:59:00.000+08:00

Sry matey, what a bad day i had on the seas. In the noon on my solo pillages, out of 7 battles, i was grappled in 3 turns in 3 of the battles, lucky i still somehow manage to survive the swordfighting and did not lose.

In the night, i went out again with my priced vessel and wtf, in the 2nd battle which was up against an imps, i got dc-ed. The score was then 3-0. In the end, my swabbies lost. After that, i still continue the pillage, and battled in a pvp(player vs player). No winner, just a waste of my rums and small cannon balls.

So quite not in a mood to teach today. Cya then

Navigating

2007-01-11T01:20:00.000+08:00

In the game, there're 2 types of navigating, one is battle navigation, and the other is the duty station navigation. I'll start with the duty station type, cause it's my 2nd best puzzle.

Objective: Read the stars to travel faster(So Simple!!) normally, help to increase the vessel speed, but since you cannot play this in sea battle, it won't give extra moves when you enter sea battles.

In the puzzle, you basically just have to move the correct coloured-stars to the positions marked on the puzzle board. At low levels, it's so easy as you usually just need to move only 1 or 2 stars to the correct position. Unless you're new to the puzzle, you can easily place them in the correct position.

Problem come when there are more positions you need to get. At the highest level, you will start off with 4 positions to fill. Usually spread across the 3 rows on the puzzle, therefore you have to be extremely careful where you put the other pieces that you do not need at the moment. The best way to put them is to prevent putting same colours in the same column on row 1 and row 2, so when you are waiting for the piece you need in the 3rd row, you won't encounter the problem of clearing the bottom 2 rows and messed up the puzzle.

Tip: if there is no necessity to keep 2 same coloured-stars in the same column, it's still better to clear the 2 as at higher level, you may need to wait till the very end before you can get the colour you need.

I'll try to find some screenshots so that things are better explained. Lol. Until next time!!

basic puzzle: Bilge

2007-01-09T17:57:00.000+08:00

Argh! This be my best puzzle, pretty idiot proof once you get the hang.

Objective is to make form lines with the same pieces to clear water in the ship. Ye score higher points when ye make big combos with as little moves as possible. The number of moves permitted for each set of combos are different and I dont know how many exactly. Usually just follow the ruling of 9 moves to make a bingo would be good enough for ye to reach a legendary rank at least.

That's the basics, advance tips for next time.

ARGH!!

2007-01-08T23:51:00.000+08:00

Lol, this be the blog for my cyber world. I be blogging everything about what are my activities in the game. This will range from my pillages, to introduction of the game puzzles, and maybe add in some tips for some of the puzzle.

I'll throw in the interview of our MR. ULTIMATE (KAIAK), in here on how he manage to get so many ULTs and when he is intending to be the ult of ult pirates(I've yet to see).

Aye, that be it for now. Smooth winds in the seven seas!!