Change of plan

August 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am (University)

My plans have changed a little bit. I now plan on going to De Montfort this year, instead of deferring to next year. Don’t ask why, I just feel like I should do this first. It’ll be fun. I don’t feel like a grown up yet, so why do grown up things?

Because of that, I have a lot of paper work and Brighton is confusing things. I didn’t get the grades needed for Brighton, but meh, who likes the sea anyway? DMU is far less likely to flood. Anyway, instead of just releasing me straight away they seem to be taking their time so I can’t definitely get my place with DMU yet, since I’ve not gone into clearing, so can’t send my clearing passport.

I’m going through clearing, by the way, because they had to withdraw me from 2009 Computer sciences, and enter me into 2008 Computing (which I decided on). Less theory, more programming is the hope. Not that I mind theory, I just like programming.

Till Brighton reject me, UCAS won’t send my clearing passport, which I need to get a confirmed clearing space at DMU. I phoned Brighton and asked if they could reject me quickly, and they said “It’ll be sent electronically tonight, so UCAS will have it Monday.” “Why does it take that long to send an email?” “It’s not quite as simple as an email… Oh, wait. Computing student. Umm… Bureaucracy?”

I can send my bank application in now I have “confirmation” of my place. Yay, overdraft instead of £25 charges when something bounces…

I’m still ill. Damn you, Alex.

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We can all dream

August 12th, 2008 at 12:19 pm (Dreams)

I just woke up from a dream that I really liked, so I’m gonna quickly note it down before I forget it.

Basically, I went to meet my dad at his the house of a women he’s seeing. It turns out it’s Stella, my law tutor from college. I think it was somewhere in Wolverhampton, so I just road my bike to her house. When I get there, she asks me to talk the rubbish out and that she puts her bin on her neighbours house, across the street. I do that, and the neighbour is looking out of her window and waves; she was in the dream, but now I think about it she’s another IT teacher at college too.

Anyway, she invites me in and we chat for a little while. Then it turns out that she rents out two of her bedrooms, and staying in one of them is Kevin-Freaking-Rose! So, I meet him for about ten minutes, but then it’s like we’ve known each other for years and we’re really good friends.

At the back of the house, part of the kitchen has been converted into a ticket desk, and there’s a room that leads off into a “cinema”. It’s just a large room with rows of seats and a TV at the end. People are already filling up the seats to watch Shrek (someone yells “Can we watch Scream instead?” and the desk clerk - someone I don’t recognise, who has dark eyes and wrinkled skin - says back “I think that’s taken out.”) Apparently, they run a minicinema for students.

There’s nothing psychologoical about htat dream (dad because he woke me up slightly during the dream, college tutors because I’m worried about A Level results, Kevin Rose in the rented room because I know he’s moved into somewhere new, cinema because I was thinking of another business idea before I went to sleep and I’ve always wanted to open a cinema), it was just a fun dream to have.

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Never dressed for the occasion

July 19th, 2008 at 2:21 am (Job, World of Warcraft)

The biggest problem stopping me finding full time employment at the moment isn’t finding work, that’s actually easy. There are stupid amounts of people hiring full time programmers, so I’m not too worried about that. Unfortunately, I can’t go for any of those positions, since I don’t have a suit to be interviewed in… So, when I get paid from by my previous client, I’ll spend that money on a suit.

Well, I’m excited.

I’m also excited about getting to 70. Shamess is currently 53, and I’ve gotten to that “ugh, do I really have to keep leveling you?” part of the game. I guess I’m a little bit bored of WoW for the moment. I’m sure if I have a break, I’ll be up for it again.

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Hosted webcomics

July 15th, 2008 at 3:07 am (Freelance)

Webcomics are hugely popular - I can name about five that I read regularly - and I’m sure there are a lot of other people that write comics and just post them to ImageShack and link to them on their crummy LiveJournal. The thing stopping them having a website is because that’s kind of scarey to a non-tech-savvy person. Most people don’t even know where they’d look for a good quality hoster. I guess that’s where I come in.

This idea is currently still in the alpha ideas stage, so some of this may change. It’s basically my hosted WordPress package but tailored for people who’ll want to be posting comics, instead of lots of text. Here’re the changes I’d make, I think.

  • The current package gives 300MB of media space (that excludes databases storage and plugin files, etc - that’s unlimited). I’d drop that to 100MB of media space for video, audio, binaries, etc. However, They can have unlimited image file space; that makes sense because they’re going to be posting lots of images.
  • Still unlimited bandwidth.
  • Still full access to all the features (so, they can run the site as an image-heavy blog if they like).
  • Still get help with anything they get confused about, including setting up and upgrading plugins, and options.
  • A different default theme from the typical package, to give the best views for a web comic. All this stuff can be change if they like, this is just default.
    • Front page is static, as to not give any spoilers of the comic.
    • Show one “post” per page. Remember that each post is one strip
  • Advertising options, where the user gets a majority cut from the revenues.
    • No advertisements at all.
    • Google AdSense: Autogenerated advertisements.
    • My own ad system: I find direct advertising clients; meaning higher turn prices, and more control.
  • Cost around £5 a month (more than typical package due to increased hard drive space)

First three people that comment here about this service can use it free for three months (saving you £15), and you’ll most likely make money during that time. If you’re artistic, and have an idea for a webcomic, this service is perfect for you!

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Sentinal electrons ftw

July 14th, 2008 at 12:00 pm (Science)

I first read about the double slit experiment in Timeline, the Michael Crichton book. That was super awesome. Then this video showed up on digg.

Kinda makes you start to believe in some sort of god a little more, ne?

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Confidently inexperienced.

June 26th, 2008 at 7:27 pm (Job, Programming, WordPress)

I feel like there’s something I should be doing, but there really isn’t.

I just write up my CV, which I just need to get someone to check (I’ll probably email Paul, and ask him to take a look at the online version). It’s a paragraph over a page, so I’m not sure what to do with that. I read a post somewhere that the requirement for CVs to be only a page is silly now, since people have more roles within their jobs than before, so they take up more space explaining.

I have a list of job openings that I’m perfect for all printed off and ready for me to sort out. They’re based sort of around the West Midlands, which means I’ll be able to move out. I’m very nervous, and don’t feel like I have enough confidence to have other people relying on me yet. I suppose the only way to get that confidence is to do it; fake it till you make it.

I might actually start writing up a plug in for WordPress, for the competition, though I’m not sure when the deadline is. Either way, a useful plug in would still generate traffic, and hopefully donations! More importantly, it’d be something good to put on my CV as actual work experience. At the moment, I’ve had to really talk up what experience I do have.

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Naturally Speaking, for reals

June 22nd, 2008 at 1:41 am (Internet)

I thought I’d catch up on WebbAlert, since I’ve not watched it in a while. Naturally Speaking 9 is sponsoring them, and the software looks awesome. Although, she does have a really good accent, which an idiot could understand, rather than the quick talking, West Midlands accent that I have…

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Great unexpectations

June 21st, 2008 at 12:38 am (Exams, Job, Law, World of Warcraft)

The exam today didn’t go as well as I expected… I didn’t do horribly, but not as well as I hoped when walking in. They decided to abandon the judicial creativity quest completely, which messed up our revision. We were told, and understandably so, that judicial creativity was a topic that always came up, 100% of the time. And it did since the beginning of this subject. Today though, they decided to miss it out… Instead, I had to do justice, and just make up a tonne of stuff. I’m more curious than worried about if I’ll have the grades to get into university now… I hope I will. If not, I have next year to reapply and maybe retake an A2 unit or something, part time.

In Warcraft news, I really wanted to do Deadmines tonight, with Ratio, but my connection is being so stupid.

I went to the job center today! I felt crappy going in, like I failed at life or something… I know there’s nothing wrong with using the service, but I don’t feel like it fills its purpose since both my dad and mum have been going since… well, ever. I was pleasently surprised though; there are tonnes of jobs all listed on a touch screen computer and you can print off the details and stuff. I even though programming, PHP and HTML jobs. I printed a bunch off and I’ll start working on those Monday. I’ll probably start this weekend, but I doubt I can do anything (like phoning them up and stuff) till Monday.

Apparently, I’m entitled to job seeker’s allowance, but I really don’t feel like I’m entitled to it. I mean, I am seeking, but I’ve not given the government any money at the moment, so I feel like I’d just be 100% selfishly using other people’s tax money to fund my non-productive lifestyle…

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Underestimating exams again

June 20th, 2008 at 10:08 am (Revision, World of Warcraft)

It’s hours before an exam and I’m reading World of Warcraft pages… Thank goodness it’s an easy exam. Well, I think so anyway. It’s Law 6, where I just need to ramble about statutory interpretation and precedent, which I did awesome at last year, and I still know fairly well. The second and last question is on the Hart-Devlin debate, which I sort of know already. I just have to remember some cases; I’ll be shocked if I get less than a B on this.

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