Using VirtualBox for OCaml

I would like to try out OCaml. From what I have read, though, it is only happy running on UNIX. Without a UNIX box at the moment I decided to try out Sun’s VirtualBox with Ubuntu.
Setup, configuration, and installation took less than an hour. Directories can easily be shared between the host and the guest (Windows XP and Ubuntu in this case), which is convenient for me because I share my Bazaar checkout folder. The NAT network adapter is configured “out of the box”. Everything “just worked”; it was a really pleasant experience.
These days there really aren’t many obstacles to running, or even just trying out, Linux.

Snow Leopard Can't Access Windows XP Over SMB Woes

Recently I switched back to a Windows XP box (XPB) from an OS X Leopard (OSXBL) machine. Since OSXBL would have a new user, I figured that I might as well install Snow Leopard (OSXBSL) on the machine. Everything worked out pretty well; but I was surprised to find that OSXBSL could no access SMB shares on XPB. This surprised me as nothing changed on XPB; so seemingly it was Snow Leopard to blame. I went through a standard checklist, followed by “tips” from the web:
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What is so bad about being an actuary?

Over the past couple of months I’ve done some very informal research on what it means to be an actuary. From reading the Wikipedia article and also the Be An Actuary website it seems like a pretty interesting job. Here is where it gets surprising, though: nearly everyone I know in the insurance industry has communicated that it is a very lonely and boring job. This leaves my question to you: what is so bad about being an actuary?
Here are two other links I’ve yet to research: Society of Actuaries and Casuality Actuarial Society (thanks Dr. Rowe), and clearly I need to do more.

Mid Term Probability Update

In the first half of the semester in the Probability course I am taking we learned (among other things) how to, given the probability distribution function for any distribution, derive, if possible, the:

Everyone seems to be excited about the second half of the semester when we will start building on this foundation.