Happening now:


Exciting notes:

  • Office hours may change from week to week, and will always be on Teams if not also in person. Always check the Teams calendar for confirmation.
  • Deadlines for assignments: The 11:59 pm really means any time on that day. Please try to set an earlier deadline for yourself that works with your schedule.


All the things for week 8:

  1. No in-class/synchronous lectures for week 8 (October 17 to 21)
  2. Assignment 8 is due at the end of the week.
  3. Stand-in lectures come from PoCSverse Classic™ and are all about complex networks. One extra clip on statistical mechanics and percolation will help with Assignment 8. These lectures will more than replace the missing one from week 6 and the two for week 8.
  4. Lectures are listed below.
  5. The core lectures to take in here are on Small-world networks. You may know something about them. But PoCS will give you the full story behind the music science.
  6. Whatever your background, you may optionally take in the full set of slides and lectures on complex networks.


Previously on ...



Alert! No synchronous lecture on Thursday, October 6.






  • Week 2's classes and office hours will all be online.

    1. COVID has come back to the Deliverator's home, because that's how stories work.

    2. Please do not come to physical class! Although you can use the classroom to stream the lecture if you want.

    3. Going forward, we will have a in-person and online streaming working together, using Teams.



  • End of Week 1 notes and updates:

    1. As expected, a good number of "things going wrong" for all of us getting through the first week. All good.

    2. Blackboard should be properly operational soon for everyone (there are three ways to be enrolled in the class and not everything is connected properly within the beautiful system that is Blackboard).

    3. The next PoCSverse assignment is available (as will generally be the case on Fridays):
    https://pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/teaching/courses/2022-2023pocsverse/assignments/
    Not everything has been covered in lectures yet, but you can dive in right now.

    4. Overleaf templates are now functional. You'll find links on the assignment pages.

    5. We will explore new niches for office hours next week.

    6. We will move to streaming through Teams in class. Alerting the Online Only people for this, and anyone who may be feeling unwell and would be best advised to stay home. COVID has abated but if movies have taught us anything, it's that monsters are never really dead at the end of the film.



  • The introductory basics for the PoCSverse:

    This is a short note to welcome you to PoCS, Vol 1., now in its 18th Season. PoCS, Vol 2. will follow up in Spring, 2023.

    Everything remains fine.



    E-v-e-r-y-th-ing.



    (PoCS is a fun-but-very-serious course.)

    Be safe.

    Things to know:

    1. The Deliverator has been building the course for many years and has a full set of lecture slides online coupled with a storehouse of clips and lecture-long videos. New videos will be added as needed. And of course, things keep changing in the world and relevant videos may be added throughout the semester.
    2. Like every season, we will work to adapt and improve PoCS throughout the semester but acknowledge that everyone involved may be confronting and overcoming new kinds of difficulties.
    3. Instructions will appear here and on Microsoft Teams throughout the semester (you're on the page now).
    4. PoCS will have an ARD (Assistant to the Regional Deliverator).
    5. The course tweets under the handle @pocsvox. Tweets appear on the instructions page (where you are now). You do not have to follow the Twitter account but it's a good way to hear of updates.
    6. For office hours, we will likely be interacting through Microsoft Teams (you will be signed up automatically).
    7. We also have a Slack space for all students in Complex Systems and Data Science courses and programs.
    8. Archived versions of all courses are listed here:
      https://pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/teaching/.


    Plan for the course:

    1. We will lay out the course through retellings of Stories of the PoCS.
    2. All clips and slides will be stored and organised here and here.
    3. There will be 11 assignments and 1 project (small groups).
    4. There will again be no dioramas. Because 2020, 2021, and 2022.
    5. Assignments and project updates will be due by 11:59 pm on Fridays.
    6. Grades and assignment submission will work through Blackboard (the only use for the course).
    7. We will determine when office hours works best for everyone in the first week. We may have to adapt throughout the semester.

    As for every edition of PoCS, the Deliverator encourages you to work together in groups.


The tweetses:


RapidWeaver Icon

Made in RapidWeaver