My 07-129 Website

Who is Randy Pausch?
“Randolph Frederick Pausch was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human-...
What was he known for?
On September 18, 2007, Pausch presented his “Last Lecture”, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood...
Things I liked about his talk
A positive attitude even in the face of death. He seemed to accept that his disease was out of his control and...

What is a decision problem?
A decision problem is a type of problem in Theoretical...
What does it mean for a decision problem to be decidable?
A decision problem is decidable if the set of natural...
What is the class P? What is the class NP?
There are programs that solve specific problems and...
What is the intuitive meaning of the “P versus NP” question?
Quoted directly from the video, “Does being able...
If you resolve the P versus NP question, how much richer will you be?
Exactly one million dollars richer.

Qatar National Bank Data Breach
In 2016, 1.4 GB worth of data from Qatar National Bank was leaked. Hundreds of thousands of customers’ passwords, card details and PINs were posted on Cryptome, a document archive website. It was...
EHTERAZ App Security Flaw
According to the articles I’ve read, EHTERAZ was not actually hacked but was hackable. Fortunately, the security flaw was discovered by Amnesty International, an international NGO, who informed the Qatari...

What is Big Data?
In Computer Science, Big Data is data sets...
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery and use of computing...
Is Cloud Computing a novel technology per se or an amalgamation of several traditional technologies?
Cloud computing could be considered as a...
What are the 3 major cloud computing service models?
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) - Platform as a service (PaaS) - Software as a service (SaaS)
Name at least 3 real-life problems that cloud computing can help solve them.
CMU uses cloud computing to allow students to...
What is the economic/business model of Cloud Computing?
Some companies offer cloud computing services...

Why did we move from punch cards to programming languages? What does that...
Punch cards are physical so they can get lost...
There are hundreds of different programming languages out there. Why do you...
The reason for the abundance of different programming...
What are some drawbacks of a programming language you use? How would you...
When using Python, you often get runtime...
If you were going to create a new programming language, how would...
You need to define the fundamental...

How do you define AI?
Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of...
Can you name at least three different sub-fields of AI?
Machine learning, Deep learning, and Robotics.
AI has been around since about 70 years so far. Why is it booming right now?
One reason that AI is booming right now...
Can you name at least three application sectors...
The use of robots in warehouse management...
Can you identify three major challenges...
One challenge would be figuring...

What is a genome/DNA and why is it important to know?
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) are polymers...
Does CS have a significant role to play in studying...
DNA can store up to 215 petabytes worth of data...
What are some of the important questions in biology...
Biological structures such as DNA and the human...
Is it enough to study humans and the human genome?
It is likely not enough to study only humans...
Is the industry interested in computational...
There have been many big companies...

Theory of Computation
In your CS career you might be tasked to solve problems whose structures...
Cloud Computing
Big data is measured in three categories, the three Vs which are Volume, Velocity and...
Security
There are three things one can do to begin getting into security. One is to practice...