ceteris paribus

Cēterīs paribus is a Latin phrase, literally translated as "with other things the same," or "all other things being equal or held constant." It is commonly rendered in English as "all other things being equal." A prediction, or a statement about causal or logical connections between two states of affairs, is qualified by ceteris paribus in order to acknowledge, and to rule out, the possibility of other factors that could override the relationship between the antecedent and the consequent ~ wikipedia

i disliked econs in JC because of the whole study of ceteris paribus.  sure, its required for us to understand basic concept, and isolate individual relationships, but thats really not what happens in real life.  don't get me wrong though, i like econs, just not the way it was taught.  its good to keep ceteris paribus away when testing web apps.  you can't keep everything else constant.  the same message was repeated again and again, its not enough for an app to work on one station where all variables are controlled.

i LOVE the hotel buffet example.  its pretty fantastic.  instead of focusing on just maximising individual performance, looking at improvement at a higher order would be probably more effective - that's what i gathered.

i like how this course tries to make us to think big, look at the big picture, get ready for scaling up.  in the post-lesson discussion, prof said that there's probably no way we cant compete with mit, harvard in terms of brilliant minds in research, but we probably have a shot getting a facebook.  so beyond programming, its really more about high level perspectives.  i don't think any other CS mod teaches this.

i enjoyed the presentation very much.  i'm sure many of the more technical people had their appetites satisfied.
it was pretty high level technical stuff, din really get much, but it put lots of interesting ideas in my heads - things to keep in mind as I continue with the other modules.
 
prof said that zit seng was a "better person to teach [this topic] then me".  he probably can deliver the same content, but what zit seng had was real life working experiences.  when you sit in such sessions, its quite easy to tell between someone who's simply just read about it, as opposed to someone who's actually done real stuff.  that's the whole idea of me wanting to come to 3216 into the first place - doing real stuff, hearing it from real people.

this optimization thing really is an art :)

my driving instructor once told me "i tell you your mistake how many times also no use, if you fail once, you'll remember the mistake."  thankfully, i failed only on the trial run in the circuit by another instructor.  i guess that's the strange thing about humans, some mistakes or lessons really just need to be hammered into you the hard way.  its like how little children will never touch anything hot again after scalding themselves.

sure, the post-lesson lesson was kinda interesting, but i didn't really find it a big deal.  maybe its really cos I have an elite uncaring face.  i mean if you spend all your time complaining, comparing, speculating (zit seng's example of the guy who gave ACTUAL HARD DATA to back up the SoC lag comes to mind) to do actual stuff, you'll be much better off. i mean, its not like i don't complain.... (i complain a lot in fact), but its important to remember that nothing is really gonna come out of it.

kudos to my wave team! 2 X Guru + 1 X Noob + 2 other awesome members = win!