Education or Vocation?

Many students face decisions in their life's, on what GCSE options they can take before there spiral to further and adult education.  However we have come to a paradox in school education, where we either go back to history and copy the regime of GCE O'Levels.  Despite clear evidence from our European neighbours that the route forward should be quite the opposite, where less testing and flexibility is the key to success.

So what is the right route, well maybe the students of today will not have an option, they cannot vote and their voices are relatively unheard and maybe their lack of education proves there knowledge of matters.  But then again as a teenager why would you care, its one of the hardest times in your life, battling your parents, freedom, anger, sexuality and puberty.

What I notice from working in the industry is that education only works in one that - the teacher inspires and entertains the student, nothing else works.  You can try and be tough or you can be relaxed but these will subsequently not provide the person you want to be or the person you want to employ.  Students quickly tire of the monotony of education, the lack of hands on experience, sitting, listening, thinking of other things.  So being tough is great but does it help all abilities, it may help the average student work, but what about those already gifted or those who struggle?  Clearly choices would help students individualise their learning to their needs and interest, it is far more useful in life to do the things we enjoy and are good at.  Some people are suited to the arts, of music or drama, some are scientific and become programmers, some are leaders, some are fighters, everyone has some talent and school should help you prepare for this.  Whether this means BTEC's or something more in line with apprenticeships, I believe a change is required.  These students need to learn using practical skills, tease their intellect, provide interaction, work with other students and peers, gain experience and more than anything work hard.  You cannot possibly sit there, listen and take in everything everyday for all your school life, you will become bored, lose concentration, act up and even get in to trouble.  Let the students get their hands dirty and learn real life skills, show them how you use things, then discuss why, or do this together.

So what am I rambling for, well I believe even after my academic experiment with university that a vocational education prepares you for the real world.  The academic route provides an excellent experience that is not comparable to training and learning on the job.  Take training over certification, take real life over theory, take a paid income over debt!  I am not condoning everything should follow this advise, I more than anyone I know enjoyed my university experience and would have loved to have carried on further to a masters, but would I do this straight from school and college???

Their is a Chinese that goes "Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand."    Makes you think????................

The future of the internet

Maybe like myself you have got used to your internet speed, maybe you are quite content, it works and you don't need any further improvements nor do you understand what this would achieve.Well 4g L.T.E. is coming to a city near you soon!  This is great in two ways, firstly it means the government is expected to earn about £4billion in licensing, which is great for the state of this country.  Maybe they took advice of Microsoft and Apple how to license off intangbile stuff, I mean they are licensing radiowaves, sounds weird to the layman, but if it helps the country so be it.

4g and you

The second reason is that finally our "modern" society are privileged enough to be receiving faster mobile broadband (4g) or L.T.E. as it's known. Though of course we are not the first, look at this article I read last year, 4g in Russia!  Though I should not complain a couple of villages away from my home have only had broadband (ADSL) a few years and have been on dial up up until then!  Also you must remember that the government promises fast broadband to all of the UK BY 2015 so you may have the option of mobile or land line broadband or both (for the greedy)!

To some of you this means nothing, but fast broadband is such a big deal to many people and businesses, that media companies can finally offer useful services to mobile people.  With streaming becoming mainstream to many households you will finally be able to access everything everywhere (I don't work for orange) just like the slogan goes.  For those unaware EE (everything everywhere) is the new trading style of Orange and the first to role this out around the major UK cities, which is great considering I just moved to the country!

Imagine your watching your favourite program or recording or a live event and someone says hey wana meet down the pub, well you can get your mobile out and watch it till you arrive at the destination.  Or for those households that someone hoggs the tv, you will be able to watch something else on your phone, tablet or pc whilst your downloading your favourite legal music downloads, your kids are playing on the latest angry birds etc.  It will also mean technology could change so that computers no longer need storage capabilities (cd drives/dvd drives/hard drives) so everything you ever do is in the cloud and accessible everywhere, but hey I expect we are going that way anyway.

I think the great thing about the potential of the technology is it will offer you choice, so for those who don't want landlines or move frequently, they can simply get a mobile contract that offers the benefit of quality internet where ever they go and not just one house in a street.   My (business) thoughts are that you could get a mobile contract and share this connection around a local area and share the cost and speed, maybe something I could suggest and create my own start up.

Anyway, as the advert says, the future is bright, the future is orange?

Return of slavery?

Technology has certainly changed many peoples lives, whether this is for the good or bad of humanity, but along with this brought a whole new level of intelligence.  Although this story relates to the ability of humans working algorithms, I am more referring to the level of autonomous systems or applications available, at the touch of a few key strokes.

Over the last few decades, only the educated scientist and geek could program his computer device to do things for him, this has radically changed over the last few years to the extent that we rely on computers and have no idea how to do things for ourselves.  You can think back to simple things like passwords, years ago you had to remember your password otherwise you would be in trouble with your IT department, now you can choose "remember your password" on your browser.

Moving this level of intelligence forward there are tools available now to help you automate tasks, that can save you time and stop you from boring repetitive tasks, after all computers were invented to help humans.  I draw your attention to ifttt.com, a truly useful and unique site that allows you to perform so many different tasks its unbelievable.  You can automatically get it to email you, text you, search for you, grad RSS feeds, grab news, upload, download to many of the popular tools and social media sites you use.  This may sound good, but think of the practicalities, if someone updates a web page it will trigger to send an email to you, wow, this saves time.  How about downloading photo's from facebook when you get tagged, imagine how much time that costs you, looking through feeds!  How about emailing or texting you today's weather forecast?  Really the only limits are the sites they can work with and your imagination.

Then suddenly I read today about a similar service but this one is an (beta) app for Android (iOS in development) that uses trigger in the same way iftt.com does, so this could perform tasks for you on your phone while you drive or walk around or go for a jog.  The product is called Atooma and looks nice and simple to use.  All you have to do is think of what actions a phone can perform, text, telephone, record, speak and of course has built in GPS if enabled, so you only have to imagine how location could be used with events.

Taking an overall look at these facilities you can look forward to many more services to make your life easier, soon you may not need to do anything for yourself.  With autonomous systems advancing maybe they will run your life, remind you to occasionally think, do your work for you, tell you the best response to immortal human questions.  Hell, maybe they will learn enough to communicate with each other, so we no longer have to go out and work for our salary?  So who will be the slave, us or machine?...............  Times are changing, technology advancements will change history, excited?

Mankind replaced, goodbye

via Storify http://sfy.co/f9mq -- September 28, 2012 at 12:32PM

Patents do not work

What do I know about patents you might think, personally I don't have any registered, nor do I have any plans to.  But you cannot escape the world of recent media, the press is full of legal battles and messy court cases, especially two of technologies largest - Apple vs Samsung.  This case was down to disagreements over technology, similarities in design and application of phones and the software.

I did actually start writing about this a few ago before the final decision was made in favour of Apple, so please just bear with my idea for resolving patent disputes.

I have a quick easy, sure fire, simple method to alleviate any claim of this magnittude, it is not like either side will be happy with any result or like paying any such royalties thereon.  What is my solution are you thinking, and why hasn't this already been used, who am I to put such suggestions forward, a mere speck on the horizon, a meloncholy man at best.  Actually I have two suggestions:

a) MAFIA STYLE
This entails a broker (lets call them the iPodfather) having a one to one meeting with the head of Apple and Samsung.  He/she then suggest they don't leave the room until a mutual solution is made, otherwise one of you will end up in a suitcase, henceforth a mafia style resolution.

b) PISTOLS AT DAWN
Yes the age old ceremonous act of bravery, each leader is given a (virtual) gun each, they are to take their devices and the first to kill an angry bird wins the cause and the other surrenders in true honourable fashion.

A new religion, devotion through donation.

Again, my musings turn to the world's largest company, the one and only Apple. There have been a few stories relating to this situation (like here BBC article), I'm sure you have seen it due to the importance of the implications and the fact its another by product of Western culture.

Well in case you have not or could not remember, I refer to some residents of that large country in the east, you know the one, its one that makes all the Apple products.  It's a place where people work hard to help us poor westerns accumulate computer wizardy to enhance our pathetic lives with non-meaningful assets.  Yes its true, people and even children are selling their body parts (like organ donations) so that they can buy iPADS's and such like.  This is truly amazing for 2 reasons, the first would be they are risking their health and indeed the article mentions someone having renal failure, which obviously means vast sums of money in care (no such free health care remember).  The second reason is, its only a computer, at least buy a car or something more worth while, a flight to somewhere else?

Obviously an appalling situation to us in the west, with our moderate wealth, most of us could not say the Ipad is beyond our financial means, sure its expensive but so are new televisions and computers.  So let's delve deeper, is there more here than meets the eye?  Think about the philosophical angle of this situation, where on this earth would people donate body parts to come away with something useful to them, something they could admire, use and devote their time to.  Is this sounding like religion, hours devoted to a cause, you believe in something, just like these poor individuals believe the Ipad will benefit their lives in some way.

Therefore, does owning a Iproduct compare to religion or a cult?  Most religions rely on people parting with donations to help the greater good, i am not sure Apple can be defined as the greater good.  I therefore submit to these policies and look forward to discussing their Adonis - the great Jobs!!!

England team donate to my friend

Thanks to Rooney, Carroll and the England team with their goals scored during the 2012 world cup, my friend is a benefactor of their efforts.  How does this work you may ask, what are you on about?

Well let me shed some light, after a recent purchase of goods from a national chain they ran a promotion where they would send you £10 for every goal scored during the world cup.  Due to our goal scoring record we, therefore, received a cheque for £50.  I have to admit I was quite negative about this said offer, whether the money would ever materialise and whether we followed the conditions correctly.  Happily we did everything correctly and after a delay on their part we received a cheque.

After banking this cheque I realised we had never counted on this money turning up and thought what would could spend it on, after all money does not grow on trees - well okay it does really, sort of.  We are not exactly in a great financial position ourselves but I could not help feeling a little bit charitable after recently reading a book.  This book highlighted how a very successful Microsoft employee left the realms of business to work with under privileged countries and their fight to educate their children.  I was completely taken in by his journey, he (John Wood) is a man of true honour, he finally set up a charity and worked around many countries to donate books to the help the kids.  Anyway its a great charity, education should not be privilege, so check it out www.roomtoread.org.

So, with my charitable thinking musing through my head I remembered a conversation with my wife about a friend of ours who was really suffering hardship, far worse than ours would ever be and a person in distress for other reasons.  I spoke to her about somehow using this money to buy her clothes, but she was in a country a long way from us and my wife came up with the solution, a gift voucher from a store in their country that sells clothes at very keen prices (along with lots of other useful items).  So today the voucher has been paid for, we are £50 ish lighter (after currency charges) and waiting to hear from our friend.  I may not donate to many charities, but I can say with true valour I have donated to charities I feel are important to mankind (like cancer research) and not just a select few.

I hope our friend uses the voucher wisely and spends it on their self, time will tell, charity gives you a warm feeling inside, so please give generously when you need to, its your job a rational human being.

iRobot sponsored by Google

It's finally come true, Asimov law of robotics will now be enforced, forget the film with Will Smith, Google is going to conquer the world.  Hey, what's this you are talking about you ask?

During May this year Google famously licensed an automated car to drive within the state of Nevada (USA), home of Area 42 and all things (supposedly) alien.  So quite fitting really, but this has nothing to do with the Fall of Man and any impending invasion by robots, no, this is clearly about being lazy.  The US (DARPA) millitary have been running competitions to see if an autonomous vehicle can perform a series of rugged tests (not just crossing a road or messing around) that involve roads, traffic and cross country.  Recently more and more contestants have successfully completed these, with Stanford University being key winners and working in tandem with Google on their car. I believe to date, Google have driven this car like 200,000 miles or something higher without any accidents, which is quite amazing really.

I believe this could be aimed at the stupid, the lazy and useless, imagine looking forward a few years, your car takes you to work (if you have a job), it takes the best route and avoids traffic by listening to traffic information whilst you sit and do what?  Play on you Ipad 7 or your Google sponsored chromebook, maybe watch a film on the dashboard, since there is no need for it you may as well appropriate this as a cinema screen and if your not driving why not swap the seats for beds???  You may also suggest that children will be able to drive themselves places to, so parents are free to do their own thing, knowing full well they will arrive safely at their sporting practise or dance class, so its all good then?

Well, lets think about this, its not really that simple, yes its autonomous, so it drives itself, however there is one large disclaimer here.  The car works by using navigational information, so in other words you have to drive the car along everywhere first so it can remember it and save it for future.  Obviously Google's journey across America has highlighted their reason for this project - safety.  They aimed to save many lives caused by accidents with human drivers, so quite a bold step to replace us at the wheel.

I think it's a great project personally, anything that helps save lives is important, but there are massive technology issues to sort and how can a computer react to the unknown or changes in weather, road conditions or layouts?  Also if it's using GPS what about in cities where large buildings block the signal, or tunnels etc.

In summary helping humans advance, but another skill set we may lose, our great great grandchildren may have no concept of what hands on driving is!

The future of business?

Another bold question, a new way to conduct business in the future, well this refers to a relatively new paradigm anyway.  This blog pays homage to peer to peer principles (referred to as p2p) and is now used in different arena's, lending is a major game player and also venture capital (funding).

You need to have an understanding of the principles to understand peer to peer otherwise this argument may confuse.  Basically it's people like lending money direct to people, but a company like Zopa finds you the customers, so acts as an agent for collecting the debt etc.  However, it is an investment so you have to deposit a sum of money with them and they lend it too lots more people.  This means in theory your investment is spread amongst 10's or 100's of different people, therefore, you don't have all your eggs in one basket and helps mitigate your risk (of non-paying customers).  Some people call this crowd sourcing or crowd funding, but its the same thing really,  that's just semantics.

Companies like Zopa have already lent approximately £223million (their figures) and is growing all the time and they are reporting very modest non-paying customers (bad debt), which actually forecasts this is reducing each year!  This sounds great in principle, its all Internet based, no banks to make appointments with or over eager sales men, you look on their easy to use sites, get your credit status checked and bingo.

So this provides a stream for investors and provides a portal for a people to attain unsecured funds, however, there are serious issues behind their whole model.  The regulation is limited, there is the Office of Fair Trading for unsecured loans, but this is nothing like the FSA.  As an investor you have no protection over your investment, its not government backed like the banks are, so if ZOPA suddenly closes what happens?  What happens if more and more people started skipping payments and defaulted on their loans?  What would happen if more competition join this market place (surely this is inevitable), there will be fierce competition for lending rates and thus investors returns will shrink.

Personally I believe its a great platform for certain types of borrowers and context but the market share has limited potential without better protection.  The industry cannot continue without thought as to how the finance industry has performed in the last century, especially our current economic climate and the near collapse of several banking institutions.

One useful avenue for P2P is sites like kickstarter, this website is truly marvellous.  Its a home to aspiring talent and there ideas, creations and inventions, they pitch their idea, ask for certain funding levels and if they manage to meet their funding requirement there project gets the go ahead.  There is one massive difference here, not the people no, its the reason it exists, people DONATE money to these ideas.  Some of the projects you will earn a reward of a mention in there artifact or get a limited edition dependant on the idea.  Basically its like donating to a charity but aimed at aspiring talent instead, I am a massive fan and watched the Kickstarter site for some time now.  Have a search on the web at some of the ideas, some have funded very quickly and gone on to success.  It's just  a shame talent has to beg for this money to help them, there are such good products and innovative ideas to be hold, go look now!

So you can see P2P is hear to stay, with the likes of Kickstarter and Zopa using this for very different causes, there are interesting times ahead, so you have to wonder who will the banks lend to in the future???????????

Childhood visions of a dream job

This post I dedicate to my wife, basically because I have copied her level of randomness for a suitable topic.

Looking back to my childhood I wonder what I wanted to be when I reaching adulthood. Clearly you would assume empirically speaking I should know, because am I not already there? I propose a suggestion that maybe adulthood is not much different to childhood actually, only the semantics are different or the importance of decision making.

If I was to review my career paths from childhood I would clearly conclude there really was only ever a couple ever envisaged...... These were like most boys, footballer or astronaut, though looking back maybe I was old fashioned or just different?

I mean, comparing these careers to my current position I find myself somewhat distant from these goals! Was it the horrific injury that ended my playing career or defective genes that stopped my study of science and all things planetary? Well that would be the easy thing, blame someone else, but unfortunately no single person is to blame. I am just too poor at football to make it professional and after ending my career I actually realised how much I had done wrong, especially training and fitness wise. Luckily I played for over a decade and thoroughly enjoyed a cup final, once, and before hanging up the said "boots" i managed to run both 6 a side and 11 a side.

So am I an astronaut? No, sort of though as i have read many science fiction novels! Okay, okay, I dream of space and get excited watching the latest science fiction, surely that counts for something? I thoroughly enjoy reading about mans endeavour in space, the sheer scale of such an enterprise is really too vast for a simpleton like me. I don't think I would have survived the launch out of the planets atmosphere to be entirely honest, I get dizzy just spinning my daughter round (kids rides are far too hard core for me) and thus motion sickness is the vain of my intended path. Oh well I could always help them out, just need to become a genius, move to the USA and that's sorted.

Anyway back to the real world,  to postulate I have no idea what role I will perform in the future.  I would choose knowledgeable over wealth and success too, like most homo sapiens I want to be comfortable enough to support my family.   Previously I had assumed by now life would not be so unpredictable and uncertain. I do wonder if the general population think the same, or is it just men who don't grow up?

All I know for sure is the journey has not finished,whether we are discussing job ambitions or life, in some ways it feels like it has just started..... Out with the old and in with the new.........

Steve jobs missed the big one

The biggest change to billions of people lives in the last two decades and Steve Jobs missed out, but how and why you say?

I am referring to technology that is so common place you call it by a different name, of course I am referring to the web. Most of you "users" happily surf the web on your phone, your computer, laptop,netbook or even your tv without realising how your life has been affected by science and corporation. Sure I could harp on and talk about capitalistic states but that's reserved for another time.....

Back to the web, where were we? Oh yes, Steve Jobs and the web. Most of you believe the net or Internet is the web, well sort, but to you refer to your 1.4 engine as your car? No, thought not, it's not the same thing. They are part of the same process (your engine provides the means for your car to drive) in the same way the web is to the internet. The Internet is the technical part that connects to everything and the web is used like a blueprint before finally a browser is used to display all this technical stuff so you can read it in simple human terms. Imagine your car dash displaying your speed in lots of 0+1's, what would this do to help you asses your speed? Or the fuel gauge simply showing two dots - green for full and red for empty, there would be many cars running on empty!

So where does Mr Jobs fit in to this lesson, well it's sounding like one. Aha, well interestingly enough Steve created a computer and operating system called Next on his time away from the mighty Apple. During this period (late 80's) a certain clever bloke by the name Tim Berners-Lee worked at the CERN labs and wrote a language called HTML in partnership with Robert Cailliau. The language was designed to allow pages to be linked to other sources (people) so everyone could view each others work (mainly science at this time). Well Mr Lee created this work on a Next machine, all down to his simple interface (this is decades before the iphone) Hence forth, we know call this the web.

Therefore, maybe Steve Jobs really did miss the big one. Sure he shaped the current taste for interface in modern era, but maybe he could have owned HTML, imagine Apple owning that patent (more on patents in future blog) Save us all, it doesn't bear us thinking about, just thank god (or whoever) the web is free, thanks to the academic world, what will they bring us next?

Hitler invented the Internet!

No this is not a mistake, I truly believe this, I appreciate it seems some what of a rash suggestion but please bear with me....

Between 1943 and 1944 Bletchley Park (our intelligence services) focused their energy and using science to help them with the war efforts.  Because the Germans had adopted the famous Enigma machine for coding all their communication, the allied forces were struggling for intelligence on their movements.  They then recruited thousands of mathematicians and engineers to start work on machines to help them with faster calculations (for aiding with decoding of messages).  Hence forth the beginning of computers began, with Turing, Flowers and experts from Poland the first few machines were built (Bombe, Colossus).  Fortunately the join effort of the scientists helped beat the Enigma machine only days before the famous D-Day landings with critical information.

And so the German forces were eventually defeated, by courage and fortitude from many servicemen and efforts from the collaboration of scientists, which started a new era in history, the computer.  From this point academics in the USA and Europe realised the importance of machines in calculation, which would provide faster results than humans could ever cope with.  In the beginning only a few computers existed so a time sharing situation of the resources was in effect, but academics soon persuaded Universities to build there own.  Obviously government and industry were building too, but since these would be behind closed doors, there was no access to the outside world.  So networking some came to the forefront, these minds needed some way of collaborating and sharing without having to use postal services or travelling in person.  The NSF net became one of the first projects to set up a network across state lines and thus the inter connected network world some became prevalent.  Universities and academics pushed congress for networks across the whole country, even though there were many problems in their way (telephony companies).

Thus I draw this argument to a close, you can see had Nazi's successfully invaded the UK and further maybe the computer would not have been invented and maybe the Internet would have never come about.  The British invested so much in intelligence and science during the second world war, which laid the foundation for computing as we know it, but Hitler was definitely the catalyst and therefore he invented the Internet!!

Where it all began

The end? Sorry only joking.......

It had come to my attention I had persuaded myself to writing my journey in digital format, due to the state of my hand writing, finding a suitable pen/paper, but mainly i'm too tired to find a pen. Then suddenly, like a gust of wind my wife beats me to it and publishes her first entry. Damn, I am supposed to be the experienced writer (due to uni)!

My attention span finally kicked in after I watched an episode of the big bang theory to clear my thoughts, actually I was feeding my youngest daughter - see men can multi task. I then sat down to prepare my thoughts.............  Er, where have they all gone, well although my kind flashes with ideas and inspiration in the morning, by the evening it is a very different place.  Do I blog on my subject area of choice - all things tech related or just babble and ramble on like the "an approaching middle aged man" I am trying to be? So after arguing with myself i decided to merge the musings of life and technology together, like some hybrid experiment.  I may insert a picture or something where I can,so I don't confuse you simple folk (please keep up the donations to our noble cause - cleansing the world of the stupid one at a time).

So that's my introduction, who am I you may wonder? Well using my superpowers gained from years of watching Mister Derren Brown I would hypothesise one of the following maybe true:

a) you already know me
b) your a future employer (in which case I am great so hire me)
c) your just plain nosy
d) your a crazy stalker
e) your a simpleton (that means you stupid)

I'm guessing most of you fit under category a, but also a little of c?

Anyway I hope you enjoy reading and please tell anyone and everyone.  I hope to bring you my perspective on life and love, hopefully some elements will make you smile, some may anger you or just bore you.  I am merely a man, you may say yes its just the musings of a man, a melancholy one at that?