Jimmy Bell
highly subjective
Open Distributed Systems
Jan 9th
The coursework for this module i’ve just finished studying was to write a journal article on a topic of choice within the modules limits.
Collaborative Distributed Web Caching for Bandwidth Heavy Content Types
Abstract
Distributed Web Caching has the potential to solve multiple problems, whilst save ISPs, Download Hosts and Users a great deal of money. If you take the example of Streaming Media as a popular content type you can see how a distributed cache network at the ISP level would be of great use. This project seems to hold the most potential, and so is the key focus of this document, specifically around the growth of the percentage of streaming media traffic relative to total internet traffic levels.
Full Text: Here
The Great Un-Depression
Nov 26th
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=nvda
After a nice 2 days tracking the worlds worst stock performance, in Banking and Tech – I saw my 6.74 drop to ~5.80.
How depressing, but the genius I am, I held on, and am now sitting pretty on a £120 turnaround, with a further £30 profit on top, leaving me high and mighty during this global crisis. Yes, I am grinning.
I’ll sell my tips and strategy at £30 a go, with no tech support or guarantees.
I will share any knowledge I have with anyone who might be interested, if they would be willing to part with some spare change for my Gambia Fund-raising.
Link here.
Hopefully a further drive upward might put me in the three figure profits, which would indicate time to cut and run. Take a profit, and repeat.
Graphical Enhancement
Nov 23rd
No, i dont have a new graphics card – but i do have a base investment in NVIDIA, which i intend to keep until such time as i make enough self-esteem money from it.
initially bought at 6.74, i had no idea where the “bottom” was, and from what i know (which isn’t much) that is quite cheap for a company like nvda.
Later, it turned out the bottom was more like 5.75, a new 52 week low – so im out of luck so far, and even though it fell twice over the the first 2 days since purchase, friday saw a nice rally leaving it at 6.38 (6.51 after close), which puts me not far into the red. hopefully if that repeats itself anywhere near like it did i’ll be seeing some profit, and time to do the same again.
Gambia Fundraising
Nov 17th
http://www.jimmybell.co.uk/gambia
Right!
Now that my gambia volunteering is confirmed, flights paid for and vaccines booked (some already received..), i’ve created a small page explaining the trip and its background, and how to donate.
hopefully i can raise enough to fund the trip without leaving me with no money to purchase people christmas presents (or feed myself..).
click here to see for yourself!
if you have any questions, email me and i’ll happily answer (especially if you’re considering donating!)
Quantum of Dissapointment
Nov 1st
Why Why why.
Spoilers follow…
Plot
Bond Gets Chased
Bond meets Bad Guy
Bond Kills Bad Guy (after bad guy kills bond’s first sexual victim)
END.
I have never seen a film (aside from iRobot, i’m told) with so much product placement. I now have huge urges to purchase hydrogen powered Fords, Range rovers, Euros, an omega watch. Oh, and 502 Sony Ericsson phones, Sony Vaio Toys.
Oh, and i want a microsoft surface.
Possibly, infact – Definately, the most annoying camera work of any film I’ve seen in my reasonably lengthly life so far. Has the director got ADHD? Or does he have slow motion cameras in his head? I feel like i’ve been abused by the cinema system. Bond? Bourne? neither. Hollywood action? Correct.
Oh – on the Positive side. Well. They did bring back some “dark Bond”, and the old school outrageous buildings from the 60s/70s films, there’s one of those too.
I am Angry.
Literary Search
Oct 30th
Library > subject directory > databases > engineering village
Google Scholar
Inter Library Loans for articles not found in the catalog.
Use endnote for referencing. reference + print as you go.
IT Fashion
Oct 18th
How do people working, living and studying in the IT academic ‘zone’ manage to fail so drastically at fashion?
Female lecturers are clearly dominant, dressing like badly clothed men, while the men go for tight shirts and tight trousers, looking essentially what we’d all like women to look like.
Meanwhile, the students are attempting to keep up with a world of fashion 5 years ahead of them, walking around like characters out of Tron.
I mean, im no professor of fashion, or by any means an expert, but i atleast make an attempt to dress neutrally, or moderately smart. If im going out drinking/eating, then dress appropriately, or going to uni, be a student, dress comfortably – but looking like a fashion victim on ‘Trisha’ or Jeremy Kyle is just not cool. Tight jeans and IBM t-shirts are just not a good idea.
We seem to get walked on by the visiting students from other countries, notably the Nigerians in the lecture theatre all seem to come in shoes and shirts, often out-dressing the lecturer – which might not seem like much these days, but trying to listen to someone who looks like an utter fool is difficult, and trying to accept what they say as expert knowledge just isn’t happening. Appearances count.
Obviously this is not the case for everyone, and no offence should be taken – but sometimes people need to question in the morning, before you leave the house – do you look like anywhere near how you should appear to others, or are you wearing your partners/computer game costume/gran’s clothes?
Wordpress vs b2evolution
Oct 15th
Well, I’ve done it again. Updated my blog site, this time not only from wordpress to wordpress upgrades, i have actually moved to a new CMS – b2evolution.
Initially the idea was to enable me to have multiple blogs within one site, dividing up content into relevant areas. Lecture notes and Project log entries really didnt sit well with stories about me and my girlfriend’s trips to the beach.
This then meant i would be able to create an electronic portable log of lecture notes and other references, not only helping my studies but also enabling others to access my progress (supervisors/moderators/clients).
After much research into various CMSs, both blog and non-blog oriented i came down to b2evolution or joomla. Joomla! seemed ideal, although not designed for the blogger, it does have masses of features, an active community and a generally more up-to-date and logical framework than most i’ve seen. After experimenting with both on test sites, i still like Joomla, but with a bit of extra work b2evolution excels not only for it’s multi-blog features, but also in general use and functionality. It far exceeds Wordpress and now its fully setup and in place, blog.jimmeh.net serves multiple purposes – while keeping me satisfied and entertained!
If you’re considering a new blog setup, treat it like a database to save you many later upgrades. It’s annoying having to regularly upgrade, update and change your CMS just because you didnt research all the features you needed in the first place. Or you could just cut to the finish – and consider b2evo. Which might have more than you require currently, but will certainly hold a longer shelf life in the long run.
Once apon a time in Falmouth
Oct 15th
falmouth i did go. nice little place. good cornish pasties, and some nice food. nice beaches, and town. a nice drive too. generally, nice.
would be a nice place to live if you had spare cash for a little cottage overlooking the sea. and a personal baker.
CFD, Red vs Black, Employment
Oct 15th
..are the options for earning some form of income.
Arguably they’re all the same, or very different, depending on your preference. Firstly, CFDs are pretty much exactly the same as Red vs Black, but hyper-complex. with almost an infinite amount of variables, CFD’s still manage to lead to one of two possible outcomes, money lost, or money gained. Now, obviously most of the significant and predictable variables you can educate yourself to be able to manage, and therefore base your investments on some well founded facts, managing your risk and potentially enabling you to earn an income. In the same way, i can limit myself on Red vs Black by physically removing my ability to risk all of my assets by simple taking only what i can afford to lose in physical cash. If i only carry £50 in my wallet, and leave my bank cards at home i’m relatively safe, and have still enabled myself to (potentially) come home with some form of winnings.
Employment is a whole other kettle of fish, it’s a guaranteed trade off. Time spent is proportional to money earned, however, the spent time in the first place can incur hidden costs, as well as provide a basis for a false sense of financial security, meaning you tend to blow money on things you wouldn’t normally buy, purely because there’s no overdraft limit telling you you can’t.
anyway, i’ll probably make some money on CFD’s like i do with RvB, and bog standard employment, but realistically, i’ll get bored, and do something else, until i really need money, and delve into it again.
ADD Generation.
but none of that is going to happen anytime soon, focus is on design and normal employment, topped off with a tonne of university. go me.