I’ve posted my solutions to the reading check I meant to give on Thursday (but wasn’t ready in time) to the readings tab. Check out what you missed — all two pages!! :-O

I’ve posted a couple new entries on the Readings page (click “Readings” on the menu bar above) that you will want to have completed on time. There probably won’t be a reading check on these (though I’m mulling over writing one) but you absolutely need this background information by the dates specified.

So, a little light reading over spring break for you, or some stuff to dig into as soon as you get back.

Cheers!

The code from yesterday’s class has been pushed to the github repo:

• bol.py (using the mean-field assumption)
• bol_grid.py (the version with a 2d grid space)

Quiz #3 has been posted to Canvas. It contains nothing about the Agent-Based Modeling we began yesterday, and hence is completely safe for you to take now. I personally would recommend not waiting all the way to March 10th to take it, but I made that the due date in the spirit of flexibility.

Homework #3 has been posted, and is due at 5pm the Friday after spring break. It will be submitted physically (like, actual paper) not electronically.

Should you work on this over spring break? Yeah, duh! (Or you don’t have to, but DO NOT procrastinate once classes resume.)

If you’d like to cash in your XP cards mid-semester, there will be one opportunity to do so: Thursday’s class (2/26). To redeem these, your XP cash must be:

• Stapled together with a staple, using a stapler.
• Have your name clearly printed on the back of the bottom-most card in the stack.
• Have the sum total of the XP also written on the back of the bottom-most card (so I don’t have to count).

You may hand me your stapled (using a stapler) stack of cards on Thursday, and I will put your points up on the scoreboard over spring break. If you don’t do this on Thursday, there is no penalty; you can just hold on to your cards until the final exam, and turn them all in then.

I’m going to see a specialist tomorrow morning about my back pain, and so might be late to my office hours. I’ll get there as soon as I can!

It’s come to my attention that there’s a bug in the answers to the Wild West problem on quiz #2. I owe everybody +2XP as a result. So fear not if you get one of the answers wrong there — you will be compensated.

FYI, I’ve finally updated the notes (see “Notes” tab on menu above) to reflect our content through today.

For anyone interested in more details about Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after the BLS produced their monthly job report that he didn’t like, here are some sources.

• https://apnews.com/article/trump-jobs-firing-f00e9bf96d0110519be9bf4f3ec89195
• https://www.govexec.com/management/2025/08/after-firing-bls-chief-lutnick-tells-federal-statisticians-independence-nonsense/407404/
• https://fortune.com/2025/11/13/october-2025-jobs-inflation-data-release-government-shutdown/

Today’s class will feature reading check #8 (on Silver chapter 6) as scheduled. However, the reading check #9 (on Silver chapter 7) will be postponed from the originally scheduled Thu Feb. 19th until Tue Feb. 24th.

This has been a public service announcement.

Quiz #2 has been posted to Canvas, and is due this Friday at midnight. It is open-book, open-notes, closed-other-humans, closed-AI, closed-Python, and timed at one hour. Good luck!

Homework #2 has been posted, and is due a week from Friday. Happy hunting!

I’ve pushed the code from class on Thursday to the git repo:

• lotka_volterra.py — the Lotka-Volterra (predator-prey) simulation
• furnace2.py — the parameter-sweep version of the furnace simulation

I’ve posted the temperature model we did in class today to the class github repo.

Unlike Tuesday’s reading check, quite a few people missed at least a question or two on yesterday’s, so you might want to take a look at the solution I just posted on the readings page. Also: next week’s checks will cover Silver chapters 4 and 5.

When I say that your dosage schedule needs to put the patient in the right range (between MEC and MTC), I mean “once the medicine has built up enough in the patient’s bloodstream.” It’s perfectly fine if their plasma concentration isn’t high enough at the start of their treatment; in fact, that will always be the case no matter what you do.

I’ve pushed these files to the class repo:

• aliens_vampires2.py — the version of aliens-vs.-vampires that adds a human population, and logistic growth
• xp_func.py — the code from today’s XP-bearing class activity

Here’s an example of a non-scientific writer using the term “exponential growth” to mean “big, strong growth.” There is nothing “exponential” about the increase in data centers, unless the rate of increase of data centers is directly proportional to how many data centers there already are. Not likely!

The next homework assignnment has been posted, and is due midnight next Wednesday (2/11). Good luck, and happy drug taking!

I have a short meeting at 10am next Tuesday (2/3), so office hours will be 10:30am-11:30am that day.

Several people have asked permission to modify the structure of the plot produced by the original wichita.py program; for instance, by changing scales, adding or removing axes, using different color/style combos for the lines, etc.

Here’s the answer for this particular question, and for all future infographics you may ever create. The only important question to ask is: “does this plot convey the necessary information clearly?”

If the answer is “yes,” then it’s an acceptable plot, no matter how many axes or what colors you used.

If the answer is “no,” then it’s not an acceptable plot, no matter how many axes or what colors you used.

In other words, I promise I will never get mad if you made different plotting choices than I would have, as long as the viewer can correctly interpret what the data behind the plot means.

Today’s drug simulation has been posted to the class repo! (See “Repo” menu link, above.)

This is a “one-compartment model,” which means it models the human body as one big bucket into which all intake is instantly distributed throughout. (Drugs take zero time to “kick in.”)

Today’s code has been pushed to the class git repo!

Quiz #1 has been posted to Canvas, and is due Friday at midnight. It is open-book, open-notes, open-four-function-calculator, closed-Python, closed-other-humans, closed-AI, and timed at 60 minutes. Good luck!

Reminder to those with accommodations: you must remind me before you take each and every quiz that you need your extra time added! Canvas will not do it automatically.

Apparently, they just closed campus for the rest of the week. For us, this means:

• Class will be on Zoom Thursday, just as it was today (same Zoom link).
• Office hours will be at the usual times, but on Zoom (same Zoom link).
• The next reading check is postponed until Feb. 3rd.

Stay warm!

We will have class tomorrow (Jan. 27th) at the usual time, on Zoom. Please check the Canvas announcement for the Zoom link (it’s the same link I always use). Be sure to warm up your webcam!

Also, office hours will be on Zoom tomorrow at the usual time as well.

I’ll be available via Zoom on Monday at the usual office hours time. (See the “Office” tab, above.) My Zoom link is in a Canvas announcement.

Sometime in the next week or so, read through the Numpy beginners tutorial, especially if you’re new or new-ish to Numpy.

For a chunk of up to +10XP, complete this homework before next Saturday, to bolt home your numerical calculus understanding!

I’ve added a “Notes” tab to the menu bar of this website, from which you can get the PDFs of all the notes I manage to create this semester. The idea is that if you missed getting a physical copy in class, you can print out your own (or just read it) from that page.

However I’m somewhat reluctant to unveil this Notes page because I worry that people will say “oh, well then why bother to go to class? I can just look over the notes and I’ll learn everything I need to know that way. No, you will not. Please view these notes as a helpful supplement to what you’re already learning in class, not as a replacement for actually being there! This includes Jake.

The numerical calculus example code from yesterday has been posted to the class git repo (see “Repo” link in the menu bar, above). There are two ways to access it:

1. The best way. Clone the repo to your own system, then browse the files from there. (See Ian’s excellent CPSC 225 notes for instructions on how to clone a repo.) Now, not only do you have a copy of all the files on your laptop, but you also can do a quick “git pull” every time I post an update to the repo this semester, and you’ll automatically suck in the new contents.
2. The sucky way. If you really don’t want to make the effort to clone the repo, github provides a clunky web-based interface you can use to view the current contents of the files: https://github.com/divilian/data420/blob/main/wichita.py. You won’t be able to run them, and you’ll have to manually navigate the repo contents using your browser.