FAP Final Assessment Log: Day 5

So I lied. I spent about 2 hours last night editing while chatting with a very mean person. I got quite a bit of editing done then too.

I was supposed to wake up only half an hour later than my usual work day wake up time to catch one later train. Turned out I hit the wrong button on my phone and instead of snoozing I slept until 8:05. By then it was too late to catch the last WCE so I had to take the 160. This turned out okay as I managed to get quite a bit of editing done on the bus.

I uploaded my assessment at 1:30pm today. Time spent since the last post is probably about 6 more hours. Thus in aggregate, I spent about 40 hour on my FA; 20 hours my ass SOA! But at least it is less than some of the crazy posters at Outpost who spent 50 hours on it.


And sweetness; I got a letter saying all my VEE credits are approved :).

FAP Final Assessment Log: Day 4

I am declaring that as of this moment I have completed my FAP final assessment. Add four more hours to the clock please.

I'll spend Monday editing this 36 page monstrosity with 9,500+ words at work.

For some reason I got really paranoid last night after shutting down my computer. I actually got out of bed, turned on my computer back on, and did a backup of my FA to a USB memory stick. Gah. I'm so glad this is almost over.


That is all.

FAP Final Assessment Log: Day 3

I finished all the meat of the FA today; I even did a first complete read through for mistakes and formating. There is only one more task for me to do, but it is basically to summarize the other tasks so I'll finish that tomorrow. Editing actually wasn't as bad as I thought. I kept thinking I would end up revising my conclusions as I reread my words but I didn't.

I can't believe I've been working on this POS since 8am in the morning. My Word file now has 30 pages and almost 8000 words. 13 hours is probably a reasonable estimate of how much time I spent on the FA today.

Funny things that occurred today while working:

• Excel's analysis tool pack SUCKS. It overflowed while performing linear regression. I ended up using JMP.


• Remember to note the series and table number when working with data from CANSIM.


• What the heck does CANSIM mean when it says something is in "dollars"? Is it inflation adjusted?


• There are actuaries in training who don't know what is VaR.


• It really sucks when an links to an external workbook updates unexpectedly--wait I already knew that through work. -_-


• It's a good idea to take sometime to add some formating to a worksheet, else you will get confused by the sea of numbers--wait I already knew that from work too.

FAP Final Assessment Log: Day 2

Ok I take it back. I'm now at Task 4 and I'm already at 12 pages. It's amazing what a bunch of tables will do the page count.

I've been working on this the whole day since I woke up at 8am. Other than lunch, I've spent about 8.5 hours on the first three tasks. I'm now pushing 4000 words.

I think one of the smartest thing I did is to immediately write a macro to loop through multiple scenarios at once. I don't know why the SOA didn't include this functionality in the spreadsheet. It's easy to do and saves so much headaches!

Edit:
Add another 3 hours to time spent on Day 2.

FAP Final Assessment Log: Day 1

I downloaded the files at 4:00pm PST today.

In total, I've spend 6 hours so far on the FA. The first hour or two were spent reading the PDF and the rest were mostly spent tinkering with the spreadsheet and conducting sensitivity testing, and also some research which involves looking up various historical rates and prices. I think I figured out what I need to discuss for Task 1. I think at least two pages is doable. However, I currently can't see how some people on Outpost can have 20+ pages in total.

My current opinion of the FA is high. From the spreadsheet to the PDF, everything is laid out pretty clearly. The presentation isn't obtuse nor fill with lingo from a specific track.

Time for some sleep so I can start writing (BSing) tomorrow.

VB6

OMG the hate I have for VB6. No multi-line comments, and now I've discovered its (so far) most ridiculous quirk.

Dim var1, var2, var3 As Integer

The above statement will declare var3 as an integer; no problem there. But guess what variable type will var1 and var2 be!?! That's right, the variable type VARIANT! Intuitive isn't it?

Halo: Combat Evolved

I tried playing the through the campaign of Halo 1 when it first came out on the PC. I remember giving up at the part where Master Chief has to follow the Monitor to find the Index. There were just way to many frigging floods; I was low on ammo and kept dying. However on the run I did today, I didn't run into any ammo problem at all. Either I improved a lot or running it on a faster machine does wonders.

Overall, Halo's campaign sucks. I liked the exterior maps, but the interior levels are VERY repetitive. All the rooms and connecting corridors repeat over and over. You return to the same locations, though with different textures. These maps made me felt lost, bored, and frustrated! For example, I was stuck at a slope for the longest time because I didn't realize that Master Chief can walk up the slope if he does it at a certain angle. I also found a lot of the interior maps to be too dark, and the flashlight low in luminance.

But I really like the damage system. The auto-recharging shield allows for fast, intense fights. Fighting the massive horde of Floods on the Covenant ship was exhilarating. It involves lots of well-timed weapon switching and reloading; jumping, backtracking, and strafing; and well-thrown grenades.

Now if only I can get that damn 'shield low' warning tone out of my head...