

Gray code at the pediatrician's office  - zkz
http://blog.plover.com/2009/06/21/

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smanek
Maybe I'm being a bit slow today ... but I don't see the binary numbers
encoded in the pattern.

I get gray codes (yay Karnaugh maps from EE101!), but I just don't see the
binary numbers - someone mind explaining?

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baddox
Upvoted for the mentioning of Karnaugh maps! For a subject I'm not
particularly interested in (binary arithmetic and logic), I found Karnaugh
maps and some of the stuff we did with them in Phy220 quite brilliant and
interesting.

~~~
jonsen
Just curious, what code speak is this: EE101, Phy220?

My guess is Electrical Engineering course number id 101 and Physics course
number id 220.

Did you guys attend the same college or is there a larger part of the world
where these ids are standardized?

~~~
smanek
Actually the course number for me was 'ECE 110.'

A 101 course is, traditionally, the first course in a series while 'EE' is
traditionally 'Electrical Engineering.' Hence, 'EE101' is an idiomatic way (at
least in America) to indicate the first Electrical Engineering course a
student would take in college.

~~~
jonsen
Thanks a lot. Solves my occasional wondering about the exact semantics behind
some uses of CS101.

~~~
smanek
The rule of thumb is that '100'-level courses are for first year undergrads,
'200'-level for second years, '300' level for 3rd years, '400' for fourth
years, and '500'-level for graduate courses.

There are, obviously, a lot of exceptions. Many people will take 200/300 level
courses their first year if they are comfortable with the subject. And a
handful of schools use entirely different systems - my current school uses
'000'-level to denote 'introductory' courses, '100'-level for 'advanced'
undergrad, and '200'-level to signify a graduate course.

~~~
jonsen
Thanks again. Would you care to enlighten me on another puzzling educational
expression: one-term course.

For example you may see in the teachers guide of a textbook: This can be
covered in a one-term course.

How much 'study volume' i.e. study hours total does such a one-term course
comprise?

~~~
smanek
One term is a semester, which is ~ 4months. Most classes meet about 4 hours a
week, so ~60 hours of class time per term. Profs always say you should spend 2
hours studying out of class for every hour in class, but very few people do
that - I probably average about 1 hour out of class per 3 hours in class (but
some classes take _far_ more time).

So, figure a bare minimum of 60 hours, an average of about 80 hours, and an
upper bound of about 200 hours (very rare, but there are a few classes that
have problem sets from hell).

~~~
jonsen
I see. Several culture and subculture dependent interpretation issues here
too.

No further questions. You may rest :)

