Proposal update...
Posted 2005-03-14-2248
I discovered a mistake in my research proposal today, specifically how I forumalated my research problem. It's not quite back to square one, but it still feels like a major blow and I feel both upset and happy about it.
Originally, my proposal talked about the receivers resources
, which after some thought I
realised was silly. Any efficient media streaming system should only require the media currently
being displayed and the media about to be displayed. So I've had to remove that think-o.
The second mistake was to look at the efficiency of transport layer protocols first, and then application layer scheduling. A few days ago I deduced there was a problem but couldn't put my finger on it until today when I drew a diagram that will now appear in my proposal. I might start a gallery and put a photo of it online sometime, as I drew it on my whiteboard. Basically, there are only two significant schedualing algorithms (with a continuum between them), and the efficiency partly depends on which one is used.
That may not sound like a big change, but it reverses a lot of what I was thinking about, but makes the project simpler and clearer. So it is back to doing more writing. I will post my proposal to my website when I finish it.
In other news, I am applying to attend the EDICT - Entrepreneur Development in Information & Communication Technologies. It sounds like fun and should be really good, if I am selected. It is a good oppotunity, pity in it is in the holidays though.