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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Unexpected Hiatus

I have had a few subscribers email me asking if I'm going to continue the TtA series.  Answer: Yes!

However, I started taking courses offered by Stanford (Game Theory Math and Cryptography).  Game Theory is fun and I enjoy it.

Cryptography is significantly harder, and it has a programming component.  Making it worse, I decided I'd drop the course when I discovered programming to complete sections of the course.  I can write programs, but it is not worth my time to struggle with it when I really wanted a more high level overview.  With a heavy heart I wrote the letter to drop the course and sent it off.

About a week later the teacher replied they reexamined the course completion requirements and had dropped the programming portion, making it "extra credit" instead.  So, I was back to doing Cryptography!  But I had lost two weeks and the first quiz was due in two days  (course requires one quiz every week).  Since then I've been struggling to catch up with Crypto.

I should be caught up by end of this week, and moving onto a more normal schedule.  It is far easier to maintain a workload than to play catch up and be stressed all the time.

So, I hope to be back to a normal schedule soon!  And if your interested in some courses from Stanford, please check them out at: https://www.coursera.org/

Once these wrap up I'm thinking of taking a course in Model Thinking or Automata.  In early June/late May I will take a week off to prepare for my CISM.  One good thing, once I catch up I want to sit and write up a slew of articles, hopefully building up a buffer.