Brian Don (not the MP)

Amazon played a pivotal role in the development of cloud computing following the dot-com bubble. Amazon modernised its data centres which has been using just ten percent of their capacity at one point in time! This sizeable internal inefficiency was to be remedied by the new cloud architecture which would eradicate all inefficiency and allow new features to be added quickly. In 2006, Amazon initiated a massive re-development effort to provide cloud computing to external customers through launching the Amazon Web Service. Eucalyptus became the very first open-source platform for the deployment of private clouds in 2008.

OpenNebula took this further in 2008 by becoming the first open-source software for the deployment of hybrid and private clouds.
In the middle of 2008, Gartner recognised the opportunities cloud hosting platforms offered. Gartner saw the opportunity cloud computing had “to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them”. Gartner realized that: “organizations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models” thus “the projected shift to cloud computing…will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas”.

I remember the best bunch of flowers I ever received. My boyfriend of the time was travelling in India whilst I was travelling in Central America. Sad to return home, my unhappy face quickly broke into a smile upon arriving to my house in London and seeing a letter from him carefully placed on my desk by my mother. Eagerly ripping it open, inside I found a letter and a host of flowers that he had pressed. They were beautiful flowers that he had collected over his travels in India and pressed in his books until he had sent them.

The thought behind it was truly original and lovely. Also, as the flowers were pressed and hence dried, they will last forever, I still have them at home. Why not use some Bunches discount codes to purchase a few flowers and press them for your loved one? It’s a lovely idea and they will be able to keep them forever and think of you each time they see them.

My little cousin absolutely loves Lego. It makes buying him presents for Christmas so very easy for the family. Every-time a new Lego set is released, the entire family races to buy it first because obviously he doesn’t need more than one version of the same set yet it is the only thing the family know what to buy him. I bought him a set from the Lego ninjago line and he was absolutely thrilled! Indeed, we only saw him for about twenty minutes on Christmas Day as he spent the entire time occupied with his Lego ninjago game!

My cousin has made some truly impressive and wonderful things with his Lego sets. My goodness, when you enter his bedroom it is truly like entering a magical land full of pirate ships, aliens and cars. I really do think Lego is one of the greatest presents you can buy for a child as it truly engages their minds. Instead of switching off like when watching television, Lego is a truly interactive toy which forces a child to think in an imaginative and constructive fashion. I know when I have children of my own I will buy them Lego for Christmas and for their birthdays. It is a toy which has been running for a long time now and I do hope that it continues well into the future.

Goya’s Black Paintings were created in the later years of his life between 1819 and 1823. The paintings depict intense, haunting themes which reflected both his bleak outlook on humanity, and his fear of insanity. The internal turmoil of the constantly changing Spanish government and the Napoleonic Wars had left Goya with a rather embittered attitude towards mankind. Goya had experienced at first hand the feelings of hysteria, fear, terror, and panic. Having experienced two very near-fatal illnesses, Goya grew increasingly anxious for fear of relapse. It is the combination of all these factors that many believe led him to create his Black Paintings.

Goya worked the Black Paintings directly onto the walls of his sitting rooms and also enjoyed co-location on the walls of his dining room, using oils to execute them. The paintings were not intended to be seen by anyone, Goya not writing about them whatsoever. The paintings certainly were not intended for public exhibition, “these paintings are as close to being hermetically private as any that have ever been produced in the history of Western art”.

I was at this friend’s place and I was looking around thinking how sexy he has made his house look just with the proper use of lights. The first thing that I noticed was that instead of all the regular light switches that I have in my house, my friend has adjustable potentiometers which allow him to turn the light in his house or just some parts of it up and down instead of just on and off. This is by far the coolest thing that you can do with your lights – make them adjustable.

At first I thought that he must be paying a hell of a power bill because usually these adjustable lights require regular light bulbs which simply devour electric power. But when I took a closer look, I found out what it was that made this possible even without the huge bills. All over his house my friend had installed Gu10 light bulb mounts and in them he had placed LED bulbs which unlike the neon ones also allow different power inputs and thus are able to be turned up or down.

I asked him about those Gu10 mounts because I thought that they were too expensive for me to install but he told me that it was the exact opposite. “If you install Gu10 lights”, he told me, “not only will you have a very cool lit interior space, but they will also reduce your power bill so much that in a matter of weeks, they will have paid themselves off by means of saving”.