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.