[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]
[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]
My final exam is in nine and a bit hours time. It’s on “Implementing The Information Society”, the ‘fluffiest’ module in the entire Computer Science department. It could almost, almost be an Arts module.
It’s title is a bit of a misnomer. There’s absolutely no ‘implementing’ involved, and it’s only got tenous links to the Information Society as a whole. But it is a very interesting module with funky ‘what-if’ seminars and discussions about everything from national identity card schemes to security on wireless broadband connections.
Which, as it happens, are the two topics of the two-of-three questions I’ll be answering tomorrow. Unusually, this module’s exam paper is available on the web three days prior to the exam. Which makes the whole experience slightly less stressful, particularly as it’s an ‘unusual’ paper for us CompSci’s in general: we are so used to being assessed on things which have only a moderate degree of flexibility in their answers – a true Science paper – that when we’re given this kind of essay-esque arty exam we panic. Well; actually that’s not true – U.W.A.’s CompSci department are very good at making sure that our geeks are…