Tuition Fees

The average salary in the UK for non graduates is £23,088 a year (http://bit.ly/fH6CNL) and £28,860 for graduates . Once you have taken away income tax, national insurance, council tax (based on the current UK average of £1440 a year) and paying off a student debt of £40,000 (plus 3% interest and inflation currently 3.2%) equally over the new 30 year period this would leave a net salary of £19,326.59. Whereas the average person after everything other than the tuition fees loan would have a net income of £16,414.92. That means a graduate is earning £242 a month more than a non graduate. In the current economic climate most people would bite your hand off for that kind of money as well as 3 more years in education.

So why shouldn't people pay for that privilege? Especially as the current COALITION government (not solely the Lib Dems) have decide to severely reduce their support for UK higher education. For universities in the UK to maintain their 'world class' rankings that money needs to come from some where, and why not the students?

iMadness

So the iPad came out in America last Saturday and has sold over 450,000 units in it's first week. I was initially sceptical of the iPad but I have to say it's massively grown on me. Having a quick web browsing tablet notebook is an extremely useful device especially if you just want to quickly browse something without having to switch on a computer.

The interface itself is receiving rave reviews and being a fan of the iPhone and the touch screen for that I can imagine the iPad is just as good if not better. The use for it as a musical interface is also really interesting as with the touch screen interactivity and the accelerometers built in it leads to an extremely interesting control surface.

It seems Apple look at small upcoming markets and aim for dominance, the mp3 market with the iPod, the smartphone market with the iPhone and now the tablet market with the iPad.

Chinese Democracy?

So the digital economy bill was passed in a 'wash-up' period of parliament. Potentially the most important bill of the foreseeable future was passed through by out of touch politicians with the majority simply not even bothering to take part in discussion. A mere 2 hours of debate were needed and it only got 2 full read throughs (rather than than the usual 3 full read throughs minimum). What on earth do we pay these guys for? Especially after over 20,000 letters of complaints were written to MPs.

There are parts of the bill that really do threaten to change the landscape of the internet in this country. Mainly the potential blocking of websites, a la the Chinese government with Google that had so much international uproar, and the power to now switch off the internet to whole households. Yes they are trying to prevent piracy particularly in the creative industry but they threaten a whole host of other industries. From ISPs (who have rightfully said that it is their job to supply the internet and not police despite these new government regulations), bars and cafes that use free wifi as an incentive for customers, as well as libraries and universities who have so many users it is difficult to keep track of all of them.

The problem is the serious 'pirates' will always find ways to download. Either by hacking other people's addresses, rerouting IP addresses or using public Wifi spots they're going to find a way to download the material they want.

Other issues such as giving Ofcom extended powers and a complete switch over to digital radio are also potential sore spots. Giving so much power to one small group is never a good idea and switching completely to digital radio could alienate it's main users, the elderly and car radios as they do not want the expensive switch to DAB radios.

The government really should have taken it's time and discussed this properly by whoever wins this next elections, but no they rushed it through and now the general public will be the ones who suffer when people begin to receive warnings that their internet will be switched off, their radios do not work, websites being blocked and a huge decline in public Wifi.

Everybody gets an education but do some people deserve one?

I am the government's latest weapon. I am a member of the SAS. No not the SAS I'm currently partaking in the student associates scheme, the government's latest way to encourage kids to stay on post-16. They hope by having university students in the class room that we can lead by example to encourage students to stay in education after GCSEs.

I currently work at Bristol Metropolitan Academy. As a district central Bristol has the lowest GCSE scores in the country, far from the average of around 55% of students who achieve 5 A*- C grades nationally.

I was introduced today to the lowest achieving troublesome students, so much so that they are taken off site for special activites 2-5 days of the week. I have to admit I wasn't expecting big things but I was pleasantly suprised. Yes there was the play fights, the running outside in the rain and climbing onto the building's roof but the kids responded well to 1-on-1 tuition and proved that it was just attention they needed. One kid who I worked with suprised me with his attitude especially towards the others kid's playfighting and his general perception of drugs.

In the afternoon i was placed back into school and suffered the worst kind of abuse from a student. Her lack of respect for me was truely shocking and according to her classmates was the norm for this girl. It made me wonder when there are kids struggling, crying out for attention, who are willing to work hard if you have the patience, then why do other more intelligent students with a complete lack of respect for staff and surrounding gain that attention despite their obvious discontent?

Hopefully which ever government takes over smaller class sizes must become a priority as it seems all kids need to make them achieve is some attention.

Avatar

So Avatar won best film, best actress and best director at last night's Empire film awards and I have to say this is a triumph. Yes Avatar isn't a particularly original idea, yes the script is never going to inspire somebody with its magnificent use of the English language but it has done something no other movie in recent time has done, get people's asses off the sofa and into the cinema.

Now it may have cost over $200 million dollars to make but it has raked in over $2 billion dollars back! Not a bad return. Being interested in performance technology the idea of 3D films does add another dimension, sorry for the pun, to the movie. Having this innovative way to watch the movie has definitely defeated a lot of the piracy around the movie which is currently present due to the rise in broadband technology. And with broadband speeds hoping to reach 100mbps in the future having movies that can only be seen in cinema is the only realistic way to fight piracy.

So just like the current battle in the music industry against piracy, which some people are arguing the case that albums are now just adverts for live performance, downloadable HD trailers and extended clips should be freely available or even 2D versions or versions with no computer graphics(a la Wolverine) could be released to get people interested in not downloading their movies and getting back into the cinema.

Who Needs An Education? We All Do...

Firstly let me state I am completely against drug abuse. The idea that a chemical compound can control, constrain and destroy your life is a terrifying thought to me. However as we live in a democratic society everyone is free to make their own mistakes, so I try not to judge. What I do have a problem is lawmakers passing unfair legislations in order to win a few extra votes. For me this is one step away from democracy and one closer to dictatorship.

I am of course talking about Mephedrone, the latest drug taking over clubs. Little is known about the drug apart from it was made roughly around 18 months ago and casual drug users haven taken to use it as it has similar effects to ecstasy, yet unlike ecstasy it is not 'illegal'. Firstly the idea that it is a 'legal high' is a misconception. It is intended to be sold as plant food, not a legal high and as such is actually illegal to sell for human consumption. However if a human wants to eat plant food, similar to a tramp drinking methylated spirits, there is nothing by law the government can do to stop you.

This looks soon to change however after recent deaths linked to Mephedrone, the keyword being linked. Of the 18 deaths in this country and 7 in Scotland none can positively be attributed to have been caused by Mephedrone itself. However this has not stopped the current government from rushing through a regulation to make the drug classified as illegal. This is despite the fact that there has been no scientific research completed into Mephedrone yet. Without having the evidence to make an informed and intelligent decision there is the possibility of a spate of unfair punishments to both users and distributers.

The main problem with the drugs policy in this country is the attitude of the enforcers, similar to that of the current sex education policy. There should be a greater concentration on educating people, particularly youths, into the problems and negative effects of drug use rather than a complete 0% usage idea. Making them illegal pushes the drugs to the fringes of society, which can cause more deaths as the drugs become harder to come by and poorly made. It also adds an air of 'being cool' to the drug, which many young people in particular will abuse as a form of rebellion. Some of the blame for the romanticism of drug abuse must lie with the media, with programs like Skins and 'characters' like Pete Doherty seemingly abusing drugs without consequence. By educating people and allowing them to make their own informed and intelligent decisions hopefully there will be a decline in drug addicts and a cleaner society.

Spring Clean

So in my quest for inspiration I've decided to have a little spring clean. Starting with a brief visit to my wardrobe and ending in my more comfortable domain of the online social network, I began to browse Twitter for some interesting characters to follow. After some standard routes adding technology companies and uber geeks I stumbled across Zoe Keating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYrcXX4nWOA

Who says you need a band when you have a loop pedal and an apple mac?