tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88671247642598235382024-03-14T09:08:52.313+00:00David WilkinsTechnology, politics, business and social issues.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-2480990426597647862013-11-18T15:13:00.001+00:002013-11-18T16:58:30.470+00:00News: More Major Internet Injunctions<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Another court judgement has been made against the six major UK Internet Service Providers in the for providing access to copyrighted material via third party websites.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Paramount Home Entertainment, alongside a number of other major film studios, has been granted an injunction against the ISPs by the Chancery Division of the High Court, preventing them from providing their customers with access to a number of websites. These sites were found to be in breach of a number of copyrights held by the claimants in certain popular films and television programmes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">The judgement can be found in full here: </span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/lexispsl/ipandit/document/316762/59TM-5KW1-F0JY-C3JG-00000-00/Paramount-Home-Entertainment-International-Ltd-and-others-v-British-Sky-Broadcasting-Ltd-and-others---%5B2013%5D-All-ER-%28D%29-151-%28Nov%29">http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/lexispsl/ipandit/document/316762/59TM-5KW1-F0JY-C3JG-00000-00/Paramount-Home-Entertainment-International-Ltd-and-others-v-British-Sky-Broadcasting-Ltd-and-others---%5B2013%5D-All-ER-%28D%29-151-%28Nov%29</a></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com1London, London51.511215 -0.1198244tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-43673872288180962772013-08-10T09:33:00.001+01:002013-08-26T11:20:10.065+01:00Newsflash: Social Scientists Believe They Should Receive More Funding<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Earlier this week the <a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/education/of-course-we-should-stop-subsidising-arts-degrees?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adamsmithinstitute+%28Adam+Smith+Institute+blog%29">Adam Smith Institute</a> promoted a recent <a href="http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/ShowBinary/FSRepo/D031/Allegati/WP2012Dip_L&B/3_WP_Momigliano.pdf">paper</a> by Cristiano Antonelli and Claudio Fassio of the University of Turin. In their groundbreaking article they sought to trace the contribution of different academic subjects to economic growth, calculated using a data set from 1998-2008. Their controversial findings seemed to indicate that, while science graduates had the positive effect on growth that might be expected, humanities had a slightly negative impact, prompting the statement that "public support should be increasingly directed towards the most productive types of knowledge rather than across the board of all disciplines". What emerges from the analysis however is an unsurprising case in favour of an increase in state funding for the authors' own field.<br />
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The Adam Smith Institute appears to have taken these findings very much to heart: under the headline "Of course we should stop subsidising arts degrees", Tim Worstall wryly notes "well, have you ever actually looked at an arts degree syllabus these days? They might well instruct well on the importance of feminism to Jane Austen, say, but they do seem to misinform about everything else political and economic". Such self-congratulatory judgement does little credit to the Institute however, and I would urge a fair amount of caution before taking these findings as political canon.<br />
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The first thing that might strike a reader as immediately odd is the fact that the "medical sciences" are highlighted in particular as a range of fields that negatively impacts growth. This is already anticipated by the study in its introduction however, perhaps explaining the decision to include them as an entirely separate category to the other "hard" sciences. Professional disciplines such as "law" and "business" however, which might be expected to have an equally disproportionate effect on the results, are nonetheless grouped with the social sciences, while "education" is attached to the humanities. The negative influence of the medical sector is furthermore explained away as being due to it having a "narrow scope of application" and being largely publicly funded in a number of countries: the issue of funding creates a significant distortion that should be taken into account, and the question of scope might again be better addressed by attaching the medical sciences to a different category.<br />
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With these suggestions in mind, graduate destinations in particular could prove a fruitful area for further research. With a cursory look at fields in which an individual is able to make a significant economic impact, medicine is an obvious choice for those from a medical background, while those with an education in the humanities often find themselves well-suited to careers in a diverse range of fields, from the law to business management. These select routes however have in common a significant cost of training, often at personal risk and expense (encouraging hefty state subsidy) and potentially extravagant final salaries. This certainly does nothing to disprove the paper's findings, though it does point to the potential for further distortions.<br />
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I am particularly surprised to see writers from an organisation that tends in its publications to praise free market forces above all else support so wholeheartedly a paper that encourages deep state intervention in the supply of workers to meet (assumed and projected) demand from specific employers. This is especially difficult to understand when taking Britain as an example. Within the statistics used for the study, Britain has one of the highest proportions of science graduates alongside one of the smallest manufacturing sectors when calculated as a proportion of GDP. Presumably, were there such a substantial need for technical skills, as assumed, there would be much greater demand from employers, prompting the creation of more lucrative jobs for young graduates from those disciplines without the interference of the state. This is in fact largely already the case: as the study itself notes, for example, proportions of engineering graduates closely correlate with the size of the manufacturing sectors within the countries chosen for study.<br />
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The value of pushing students who may or may not be best suited to scientific training down such a route in the pursuit of assumed demand is also highly questionable, as suggested in an earlier <a href="http://www.davidalexanderwilkins.com/2012/10/second-guessing-digital-economy.html">article</a>. Messrs. Antonelli and Fassio here labour under the assumption that the only purpose of academic study is to provide economic growth. While this should certainly be one of the chief aims of state sponsorship, there are also significant quality of life implications that must be taken into account, standing bold among them the wealth of opportunity available in future life for promising graduates of the majority of disciplines. I need not mention in detail the damage that might be caused by the loss of the so-called "soft skills" - the ones that govern day-to-day activity outside the realm of academia - which are provided in large helpings by the humanities. Our legal services, alongside our civil, diplomatic and political services, would certainly lose out (although it is noted that some additional technical expertise among those who are increasingly responsible for making critical decisions on technical issues might not go too far amiss).<br />
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The most significant criticism to be made of this study however concerns the manner in which the multitude of different academic disciplines have been divided into the four highly unequal categories of "hard sciences", "social sciences", "medical sciences" and "humanities". The paper's source, <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/">stats.oecd.org</a>, makes no such distinction, though it becomes slightly more understandable when looking at the subjects included as "social sciences". While most professional fields have been included under this heading, "social services" inexplicably find their way to the "medical science" category and "education", as already noted, is a "humanity". The uncontroversial "hard sciences" are the subject of a hard topic-by-topic analysis, with "engineering" clearly coming out on top. The other headings encounter no such scrutiny, though it is well-deserved (indeed, the bias to the results caused by engineering alone is highlighted by the paper as in need of further scrutiny). The authors are, of course, themselves what they term "social scientists", and it is therefore difficult to avoid cynicism when looking at their findings on these terms, especially when taking into account the force they place behind their recommendations for additional funding in their conclusion.<br />
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The paper is of course an initial probing study into the use of OECD data concerning academic output, and for reasons that should by now be fairly clear should not be taken as any more than this. Antonelli and Fassio should be praised for their use of unusual data in a new and bold way; their findings as a whole have the potential to form the framework for a wealth of further research. Despite their claims to the contrary however, to take things further than this and to base critical decisions upon their findings alone would be foolhardy in the extreme.</div>
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When faced with accusations that the so-called "human sciences" deal largely with the "reorganisation" of old ideas and are <span style="text-align: justify;">"characterised by high levels of recombination",</span> I somewhat suspect that Adam Smith, a noted humanities graduate himself, might have had something slightly different to say on the issue than the bloggers of his Institute today.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-75766866335939469352013-03-18T19:10:00.000+00:002013-08-07T16:40:32.721+01:00Politics and Ethics in the Tyrant's Camp<div style="text-align: justify;">
The study of media, politics and society has for a long time been an interest of mine, and it was for this reason that when the time came for me to write up an undergraduate dissertation I chose to focus on the <i>Civil War </i>epic of Lucan, which I believed would nicely tie in these topics with my discipline of Classics.<br />
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This work is not what it at first seems however: far from presenting any kind of clear political manifesto, Lucan makes use of the nuanced complexities of the epic tradition to tear apart the flaws of contemporary Roman society. Like its companion, the <a href="http://www.davidalexanderwilkins.com/2012/09/compliments-criticisms-and-what-they.html">Masters dissertation</a> I wrote on the poetry of Statius, this essay deals with the literature of an imperial dynasty on the brink of collapse. Suddenly denied access to the familiar corridors of power however, Lucan's work has none of Statius' aspirant optimism and instead offers a glimpse of a world torn between tyranny and chaos, where the only constant is an endless crescendo of blood, gore and death.<br />
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What we find is a sickly parody of epic poetry, full of heroics without heroism and politics without any political message. This is at its heart an ethical text in which different political standpoints are one by one rejected, their hypocrisies exposed. No doubt this will be a sensation familiar to many participants in our political system today, with protest parties such as UKIP becoming increasingly present on British ballot papers.<br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-J5rzoXpUHOOG1XRmkxRFRhLVU/edit?usp=sharing">The Poet Lucan and the Literary Journey: The Presentation and Establishment of Political and Ethical Views in Lucan's <i>Civil War</i></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-26640107040475259442013-03-10T15:41:00.000+00:002013-08-09T17:54:52.810+01:00Home Alone<div style="text-align: justify;">
Marissa Mayer, the Chief Executive of <a href="https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=yahoo&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2F&ei=bqY8Uc7XBfKS7Abki4FQ&usg=AFQjCNG7Ba-stir4109vlLygPQX7QGf8bg&sig2=2iXqA4sLWSLoongBL0wf_Q&bvm=bv.43287494,d.ZGU">Yahoo</a>, encountered a considerable amount of <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572767-forcing-workers-come-office-symptom-yahoos-problems-not-solution">mixed press</a> last week with the announcement that, from June, all of her employees would be expected to come into the office in person to do their work. From a company formerly known for prizing the flexibility of its working arrangements this memo, leaked from the office of Jackie Reses, the company's human resources manager, comes as quite a surprise, being merely the latest in line of a number of bold moves brought about to halt the decline of the shrinking dot-com giant.<br />
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While no doubt representing a healthy receptiveness to change, this particular decision comes across as regressive to some, with academics such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21588760">Professor Jennifer Glass</a>, an expert on the US workforce at the University of Texas, criticizing its strictness as being more "in line with corporate America, not high-tech industries". Yahoo employees with young families are expected to be significantly affected by this change, among whom the flexibility of working arrangements is usually a major factor when deciding who to work for. To UK employers also, this new decision must seem baffling, moving as it is against the tides of workforce management. A <a href="http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/955608/2011.06-navigating_choppy_waters_-_employment_trends_survey.pdf">recent survey</a> for example found that the option of working from home is now offered by the majority British firms, increasing suddenly from a mere 13% as recently as 2006.</div>
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Taking a wider view of affairs, moving beyond the physical needs of individuals for whom the ability to work at home is a practical necessity (such as the disabled or those with newborn children), flexible working arrangements represent an important part of an increasingly personal approach to employment. Frans van der Reep, a Dutch professor, <a href="http://www.fransvanderreep.com/2012/04/20/humanization-cooperation-works-2012/">believes</a> that in order to get the best from their workers in an increasingly competitive market, employers are discovering the need to radically alter their attitudes to human resource management. In place of colourless teams populated by people generalised by bland job descriptions for example, it is becoming important to take a more nuanced and granular approach to team-mates. While having direct relevance to skills and competencies - does a colleague speak a foreign language that is likely to be of use in an upcoming project, or does one person excel at a particular task? - needs, hopes and desires should certainly not be ignored in this process. In a <a href="http://www.fransvanderreep.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FIVEA11-02-10-ART-SocialMediaandSocialCompanies-vanderreep-final.pdf.pdf">2010 paper</a> detailing the application of new technology to the workplace, Frans explored the possibility of integrating intelligent social systems to enable a much more bottom-up approach to group management. According to the proposed method, tasks could be allocated periodically based on vastly varied parameters such as past performance, day-to-day requirements or even temporary changes to personal circumstances. This, it is hoped, would also simplify the process of micromanagement, allowing managers to dedicate their energies more long-term and complex goals, improving the health of the company as a whole.<br />
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While this paper certainly indulges in a high degree of speculation, it serves to show that something as simple as being given the option of working from home can be an important first step towards improving employee satisfaction. Genuine personal interest on the part of an employer ultimately permits the development of a meaningful relationship between a business and the individuals working within it, building an emotional attachment and dedication to success otherwise easily lost as a company grows in size. Rarely noted for its progressive attitudes (perhaps unfairly), the "mission command" approach of the British Army is an excellent example of how personal <i>leadership</i>, as opposed to the more remote concept of <i>man-management</i>, can be highly successful in practise. The command structure of the Army allows its higher-ranked commanders to set mission statements and general schemes of maneuver for their sub-commanders, who then develop increasingly more detailed strategies for those working under them and so on, with the finest details developed by those with the closest knowledge of their individual soldiers. As part and parcel of this, an experienced platoon commander is expected to know his men in and out, and will adjust his plans according to the needs and skills of each one of them. This fosters a tremendous amount of mutual loyalty and respect which contributes to the high level of team efficiency that is absolutely necessary when regularly faced with life or death situations.<br />
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It should follow that, while an awareness and accommodation of the needs of employees is a vital component of workplace efficiency, allowances such as working from home are best made on a case-by-case basis and are not always necessary. For a manager there can be no substitute for real leadership: while blanket bans on a particular working style, as proposed by Yahoo here, should be discouraged, a competent manager should be given the freedom to decide whether particular working arrangements are or are not appropriate. Office attendance <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/1112/Yahoos-CEO-bans-working-from-home-but-are-her-reasons-valid">has been linked</a> to better promotion prospects, a more closely-knit team structure and the development of better communication between colleagues, while working from home has the potential to decrease perception of work performed, actually leading to longer self-inflicted hours on the same salary. In a dynamic start-up for instance, the benefits provided by an office atmosphere can be essential for providing the drive and creative instinct necessary for rapid growth. Although work in an environment filled with other people can provide numerous distractions for the plucky office-dweller, for many it can also assist focus and concentration. Developed as a tongue-in-cheek response to this for example, a web-based service named <a href="http://coffitivity.com/" style="font-style: italic;">Coffitivity</a> was recently created by lovers of a moderate amount of hustle and bustle. When activated, this app provides a small amount of background noise, apparently comparable to a busy coffee shop, for those struggling to find the optimum level of ambiance in their workplace of choice.<br />
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To speak from my own experience, a measure of balance has also been the most important feature of successful working arrangements. Often a quiet environment free from distractions and the freedom to allocate time as I choose has been an important part of the creative process, allowing a level of focus on a single task that is otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Nevertheless, most of my best work has been performed with an amount of collaboration, however small, to add a little perspective to an outlook that can too easily become sterile and unintelligible if developed entirely in isolation. As with most features and fads of the workplace therefore, moderation is needed. Today's managers must make themselves aware of the advantages of liberal working arrangements, while understanding that a huge shift in company policy is unlikely to have the desired effect unless accompanied by an in-depth and invested knowledge of employees among team leaders. Leadership and adaptability are increasingly the all-important variables of human resource management: without them, the chances of encountering another panacea are unlikely.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-17266296554888868302013-02-12T17:32:00.001+00:002013-08-06T19:48:33.609+01:00The Happiest Gulag in the World<span style="text-align: justify;">After its 2011 acquisition of </span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.zagat.com/">Zagat</a></i><span style="text-align: justify;">, a popular service that allows users to review restaurants, hotels, bars and places of interest, Google has made some headway in integrating its ratings into its own </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Places </i><span style="text-align: justify;">listings. A notable success story among many more questionable decisions (see a previous </span><a href="http://www.davidalexanderwilkins.com/2012/12/uneasy-aquisitions-and-polluted.html" style="text-align: justify;">post</a><span style="text-align: justify;">), </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Zagat </i><span style="text-align: justify;">has come to completely replace Google's own reviewing service and has as recently as this week become the target of a further </span><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/zagat-whos-serving-up-best-service.html" style="text-align: justify;">advertising campaign</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> from the search giant.</span><br />
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Perhaps clumsily, this surge of publicity happens to coincide with the addition of further detail to the <i>Google Maps </i>imaging of North Korea. While adding such elements as the assumed locations of several of the worst prison camps in the world, the company unfortunately neglected to prevent the creation of <i>Zagat </i>listings for the sites, which have since acquired as many as 70 individual reviews.</div>
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Drawing comments varying from the ironic and darkly humorous to the ideological, the gulags of the East Asian fiefdom have been described by users in such terms as <a href="https://plus.google.com/101019651244056999126/about?hl=en">"a family friendly retreat"</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/102975085325512962183/about?hl=en">"better than most places in the US"</a>, with discussion only occasionally turning to <a href="https://plus.google.com/104620393935760377702/about?hl=en">more serious</a> themes. While this mischievous and playful quality of internet culture might to some extent threaten to undermine the message Google might have sought to put across through the update, released scant weeks after the company's chairman, Eric Schmidt, <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-01/15/schmidt-returns-from-north-korea">visited</a> the autocracy, the new data certainly stands to raise the profile of the sites, <a href="http://freekorea.us/camps/">believed</a> to hold over 200,000 political prisoners and enemies of the regime.</div>
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Human rights activists have already found Google's satellite imaging service to be a valuable ally, assisting the <a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/special-reports/2013/0110/362107-google-earth-puts-north-korea-labour-camps-on-the-map/">earlier</a> location of additional prison camps and, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/02/12/north_korea_nuclear_test_site_as_seen_from_google_maps.html">today</a>, the identification of what is believed to be the country's latest weapons testing site. So long as users are willing to accept that others might not take the situation as seriously as they, the company's services offer an increasingly useful insight into the inner workings of one of the most secretive nations on the planet. As <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/12/north-korea-nuclear-test-threatens">events unfold</a> therefore, global commentators remain poised for future developments at the Secret Base hidden along the helpfully named "Nuclear Test Road"...</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-22294693353834759912013-02-03T12:13:00.000+00:002013-08-07T16:23:41.376+01:00What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Apologies for my extended hiatus from this blog: I suddenly had a great deal of time-dependant work to do, which has kept me fully occupied for most of January. While I prepare for my next post, I hope there might be some interest to be had in another one of my old essays.</div>
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In this short but somewhat steamy article I take a look at another one of the curiosities of the Roman world: the poetess Sulpicia, who remains the only extant female author of Roman love poetry.<br />
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Offering a very different perspective from her male counterparts, Sulpicia's poems reveal a great deal about the purpose of Roman love poetry as the unexpected reversals she makes suggest that, as a genre, it was far less subversive than it might otherwise have appeared. Valuable to feminist historians, she allows the otherwise ephemeral and artificial image of the Roman woman to take solid form, albeit briefly, giving us a glance of love on the other side.</div>
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An early example of my work as an undergraduate, this is too short, a bit rough around the edges and performs all sorts of mental gymnastics to incorporate the textual criticism necessary for assessment. Nevertheless, its conclusions are sound and, playing with the limits of what qualifies as "textual criticism", it demonstrates the mutual value of modern interdisciplinary research to the Classics. Attempting to utilise recent scientific studies, it makes an effort to certify the questionable authorship of the Sulpicia poems with reference to the measurable differences exhibited between modern male and female sexual fantasies, arguing that the poems are undoubtedly female in their sexual imagery. While perhaps doubtful in that respect, the end result is regardless an interesting read, casting new light on works formerly dismissed as either false or hopelessly naïve.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wR3cLlxf41g/UQ20VoLr5jI/AAAAAAAAhAA/95TGjLjilkw/s1600/Sulpicia+Cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><u><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wR3cLlxf41g/UQ20VoLr5jI/AAAAAAAAhAA/95TGjLjilkw/s200/Sulpicia+Cover.png" width="141" /></u></a><br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-J5rzoXpUHObXhycGZxVHNSaU0/edit">The Mirror of Tibullus: The Collapse of Feminine Metaphor in the Love Poetry of Sulpicia</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-76849902865354464332012-12-30T18:31:00.000+00:002013-08-06T19:48:44.136+01:00Uneasy Aquisitions and Polluted Ecosystems: The Google Conundrum<div style="text-align: justify;">
Regular listeners to the <a href="http://fullcirclemagazine.org/">Full Circle Magazine podcast</a> will know that I have spent a great deal of time pondering the value of "ecosystems" in the world of technology. What is meant by this term in context, much like its ecological equivalent, is the environment produced when a company's products are used alongside each other. In the world of technology, where services are interlinked and mutually reinforcing it also has a lot to do with "user experience", the sensation encountered when using a whole suite of products together. Look and feel therefore has an increasing impact on digital ecosystems as they grow, with an ideal outcome being that a user is able to work with multiple products from a single source together almost entirely seamlessly, finding little difference between them in terms of interface design and sensation, while having as many of their digital needs taken care of as the provider is able to manage.<br />
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An avid user of many of Google's products, including the <i><a href="http://www.android.com/">Android</a></i> smartphone operating system, I find its services tend to compare favourably with the products of most of its competitors. Much of this is due to the variety and consistent quality of what is on offer, whether it be the accurate satellite navigation provided by <i><a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a></i>, the office suite-cum-cloud storage system of <i><a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a> </i>or the timely search-linked information grabber that is <i><a href="http://www.google.com/landing/now/">Google Now</a>. </i>While other giants such as Apple or Microsoft have certainly made brave efforts at challenging its supremacy, Google, utilising its powerful advertising-based business model alongside the sheer weight of its market momentum, seems to be uniquely able to consistently deliver such high-quality services without charge.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cOrgHbdcUjc/UOB0v5cMz-I/AAAAAAAAfts/Oa1fiPGB1VY/s1600/iOS%252BGlobal-540.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cOrgHbdcUjc/UOB0v5cMz-I/AAAAAAAAfts/Oa1fiPGB1VY/s320/iOS%252BGlobal-540.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Click to enlarge) Source: <a href="http://blog.appannie.com/freemium-apps-ios-google-play-japan-china-leaders/">App Annie</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Click to enlarge) Source: <a href="http://blog.appannie.com/freemium-apps-ios-google-play-japan-china-leaders/">App Annie</a></td></tr>
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Obviously, Google's overriding goal in this is to account for every need a user could possibly think of (as well as many they probably won't), allowing them to largely corner the market in online advertising. From even a quick glance at the product ecosystem produced by this model however, it clear that this approach nevertheless faces significant drawbacks. Perhaps the most obvious of these is found in the <i><a href="http://play.google.com/">Google Play Store</a>, </i>formerly known as the <i>Android Marketplace, </i>which offers a comparable service on Android to the <i><a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/from-the-app-store/">App Store</a> </i>for Apple's iOS. Although Google offers a much less restrictive set of guidelines for developers hoping to sell their software, among a number of other factors the omnipresence of the internet giant's own free services has led to the creation of a smaller and much less lucrative market. Developers are certainly still able to earn a tidy sum from their handiwork, <a href="http://blog.appannie.com/freemium-apps-ios-google-play-japan-china-leaders/">though a much larger proportion of revenue is drawn from advertising than on iOS equivalents</a>, with Apple's store continuing to maintain a clear lead in direct sales. Recent data indicates that Google is rapidly closing this gap however, and it is not likely to be long before the two become much more evenly matched.<br />
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Far more worrying, though, is the confusing mass of products produced as an outcome of Google's efforts to dominate the digital world on all sides by land, sea and air. Apple, a design and device-based company at heart, has maintained its well-defended niche selling devices at a premium that offer access to a largely homogeneous set of services. Almost without exception, Apple's products offer the same user experience and, though expensive and now a little dated in appearance, it is smooth, well-maintained and neatly designed. The sensation of Apple's different services is broadly the same, allowing them each to feel like small components of a larger system. While Google's products make an effort in this direction, they still have a long way to go before they reach the same level of coordination.<br />
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To start with, the digital behemoth has a tendency for over-elaboration, adding unnecessary functionality to otherwise simple services and creating products that slip by largely ignored even within the same ecosystem. Many users of <i><a href="http://plus.google.com/">Google+</a> </i>will no doubt remember the mysterious <i>YouTube </i>button that appeared on the site for a few weeks to offer users the dubious value of being able to watch videos in a tiny window while browsing the site. On the other hand, it is unlikely that any but the enthusiastic few will recall <i><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-scribe/jhmhnnnhaligepdcpbaiaodpajjnkpfc?hl=en-GB">Google Scribe</a>, </i>the internet autocorrect engine that now, following the extinction of <i>Google Labs,</i> exists as little more than an amusing third-party plugin for the <i>Chrome </i>browser. Thirsty for innovation of any sort, Google hastily releases arbitrary new features in a desperate attempt to keep ahead of its competition, such as <i>Google+'s</i> "Party Mode"<i> </i>which allows event attendees to manually upload images while an event is taking place (doing little to commend the sorts of "parties" at which guests might actually be likely to do this). This is a mistaken policy, serving only to conceal genuinely useful features that the services have, such as for example the ability to invite people to events who are not themselves actually members of <i>Google+. </i>Such products often also disappear without warning when found to be unpopular, leaving people clueless as to how services are really designed to be used together. More detailed consideration should be put into future product releases as a priority, as hasty withdrawals leave a very poor impression among consumers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An uncertain start is at hand for Google's <i><a href="https://www.schemer.com/home">Schemer</a></i></td></tr>
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Acquisitions add a further dimension to the problem. Keen to avoid letting opportunities slip away, Google enthusiastically acquires small (and some large) services that show sufficient promise. Working with products, however clever, that were not originally designed to fit within any particular ecosystem raises significant problems. Ideally, they should be retrofitted to allow them to thrive in their own niches within Google's diverse portfolio. This is not easily done, as such products often have an existing user base resistant to large-scale change - losing these users would raise the question as to why the company did not simply set up a competing service in the first place. The more popular a service becomes, the more likely it is to acquire users other than the kinds of enthusiastic early-adopters who readily embrace change for its own sake. As a service becomes more firmly entrenched, so does its look and feel: <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a></i> is a key example of this, with <a href="http://newmediarockstars.com/2012/12/youtube-launches-completely-new-interface-with-improved-features-what-do-creators-think/">even high-profile users reacting fairly unenthusiastically</a> to the latest in a long series of interface changes designed to tie it in more closely with the rest of Google-land. The more companies a giant such as Google acquires, the more fractured its ecosystem becomes, threatening its stability in a manner akin to a house of cards.<br />
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Google's eagerness to find a place for every possible audience has also pushed it into competition on many fronts with countless other titans. Several endeavours, some quite poorly thought out, have caused the company to become an nuisance, if not an outright threat, to major players on the internet scene. Many will remember <i>Buzz, </i>the company's ill-fated <i>Twitter</i>-esque microblogging service which was eventually abandoned after being made redundant by the more robust <i>Google+ </i>(itself very close to <i>Facebook</i>).<i> </i>Some will no doubt also recall the disastrous <i>Google Wave, </i>which <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html">sought to revolutionise the world of email</a>, but which achieved precious little with regard to uptake, leading to its sad withdrawal with little fanfare. For its efforts, Google has found itself with few friends among its peers. Facebook, for example, <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/google-disables-contact-sync-in-facebook-for-android-only-nexus/">refused to play ball</a> when asked to make friend details available to Android's "Contacts", and Apple's Steve Jobs famously declared <a href="http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/steve-jobs-declared-thermonuclear-war-on-stolen-android-50005746/">"thermonuclear war"</a> on the competing mobile operating system as the rivalry between the two companies caused Eric Schmidt, then Google's CEO, to <a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/08/03Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Resigns-from-Apples-Board-of-Directors.html">resign from Apple's board of directors</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--d7LWbN-Um8/UOB6JKkIS8I/AAAAAAAAfus/oYSgakoQ9Y4/s1600/Google-Wave-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--d7LWbN-Um8/UOB6JKkIS8I/AAAAAAAAfus/oYSgakoQ9Y4/s320/Google-Wave-logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ill-fated <i>Wave</i>: quickly killed off</td></tr>
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Optimistically, there are still some surprises to be had from the giant. <i>Google+ Communities, </i>a recent addition to the company's social network, is hardly a revolution, offering capabilities comparable to <i>Facebook Groups </i>which had been sadly absent from the site previously. While it is far too early to measure the overall impact of the new feature, in my experience at least it has been a tremendous hit, almost tripling the number of quality interactions encountered. <i><a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>, </i>released <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/introducing-google-drive-yes-really.html">earlier this year</a>, has also been a tremendous time-saver, offering ample space to store files while granting access to a rudimentary but surprisingly powerful online office suite. Sceptical about the service at first (and disappointed that there is still no desktop client available for Linux!), I now find it more than sufficient for all but the most elaborate projects, with its sophisticated collaborative capabilities making sharing and editing much easier than any alternatives I have experienced to date. Google's creative engine, it seems, is still as lively as ever and more than able to produce a few hits under its own steam.<br />
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Ultimately, it seems Google is simply producing more products than it is able to keep track of. Many of these also have very similar roles, leaving users confused as to which they should use in each circumstance. <i><a href="https://www.schemer.com/home">Schemer</a> </i>for example is a recent innovation that allows people to create and share to-do lists. This places it in conflict with <i><a href="http://www.google.com/calendar/">Google Calendar</a>, </i>which offers the ability to create and share events by email along with its own more limited "Tasks" functionality. While <i>Schemer </i>is supposedly aimed more at life goals and "things to do before you die", this is not immediately obvious and likely to confuse first-time users. The parallel between the two also exposes omissions: where are shopping lists supposed to be stored, for instance (frustrated by this, I actually now use a simple text document for this purpose)? <i><a href="https://www.google.com/producer/currents">Google Currents</a>, </i>a service for downloading and viewing magazines, is another particularly glaring example, exhibiting overlap with both RSS manager <i><a href="http://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a></i> and <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.magazines&hl=en">Google Play Magazines</a>, </i>and equipped with an icon of a startlingly dissimilar design from those of other flagship products. Such clashes of functionality breed user uncertainty: ideally, should someone use <i>Google Reader </i>or <i>Google Currents </i>for their subscriptions? Where are photographs and images supposed to be stored - within <i>Picasa </i>and <i>Google+ Photos </i>or <i>Google Drive? </i>Such uncertainty is toxic to a healthy ecosystem, which thrives on unity and smoothness, giving the impression that the software developers had little idea themselves of how their services should be properly used. The best explanation seems to be that Google, unable to decide whether it wants its products to be seen as individual services or as a true singular "suite", is striving instead to have it both ways. This is a brave choice, though it is uncertain as to whether it will pay off in the long-run.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-68192469792822663962012-12-27T22:34:00.000+00:002013-08-09T17:54:12.695+01:00How to Build an Emperor<div style="text-align: justify;">
Having neglected the classics somewhat in recent months, the festive season seems as good an opportunity as any to publish some more of my university work.</div>
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Dealing once again with the theory of imperial power, this short essay examines how the idea of the "Emperor" came to be developed at the beginning of the Roman Empire by an individual damned by history: the Emperor Nero.<br />
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Having lived under the continuous domination of a single dynasty, with the death of Nero the Roman people came to learn that imperial power was not something to be wielded only by a single great man and his descendants, but that it could somehow outlive those who created it and come to rest at the feet of anyone capable of successfully understanding and manipulating its many complexities.</div>
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This is made possible by the simple fact that, within its outward illusion of stability, absolute power is something that is really fundamentally amorphous and mutable. Changing at the hands of all who possess it, with each holder struggling to outdo the last, it eventually comes to take on a life of its own, with the role of "Emperor" coming to exist alongside whomever the individual "emperor" might be at a particular time. Used well, this knowledge can invigorate leaders with understanding of the ideological might their positions loan to them; employed poorly, it results in the confusion, disconnection and irrelevance warned about in a previous <a href="http://www.davidalexanderwilkins.com/2012/09/compliments-criticisms-and-what-they.html">article</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-J5rzoXpUHOeGxSN0J0RnNLa1k" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OcWRlKmM3eI/UNzK2r-c7UI/AAAAAAAAfsk/lu1pAbchu0M/s200/The+Formation+and+Transmision+of+Imperial+Power+(Blog).png" width="141" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-J5rzoXpUHOeGxSN0J0RnNLa1k">The Formation and Transmission of Imperial Power: Ideological Domination and Transformation Under the Emperor Nero</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-40286962512431500022012-12-13T15:30:00.002+00:002013-08-09T17:53:51.344+01:00Gaming the System<div style="text-align: justify;">
A few weeks ago the <i>Schumpeter</i> column of The Economist published a stimulating <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21565926-video-games-are-behind-latest-fad-management-more-just-game">article</a> on the contributions made by modern video games to the art of management. After some initial comments, I promised a more detailed follow-up on the topic, as I believe there to be considerable value to be found in some elements of gaming not mentioned by the article.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Super Mario Bros.</i>, a popular game by <a href="http://www.nintendo.com/">Nintendo</a></td></tr>
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Gathering the majority of his evidence from the highly social genres of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) and casual gaming (of the Facebook-enabled <i>Farmville</i> variety), <i>Schumpeter </i>found that dedicated players could be encouraged to spend hours performing fairly boring and repetitive tasks when offered even minor in-game rewards as a pay-off. More avid users, especially those of MMORPGs such as the famous <i><a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/">World of Warcraft</a></i>, would often dedicate many hours of their spare time to managing real communities, or "guilds", of players, allowing them to band together to obtain more rare achievements. Most remarkably, rather than being compensated for their troubles, such people are often willing to pay for the privilege, with some games charging a subscription fee and others operating in-game "shops" from which individuals might buy items. Pricing for such items can range from the cheap to the downright outrageous - one recent game is reported by <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428684.200-the-ai-game-that-knows-you-better-than-anyone.html">New Scientist</a> to have a single imaginary "Diamond Chisel" on sale for £50,000 of real money. Needless to say, game developers appear to have uncovered a goldmine of productivity just waiting to be tapped by enterprising companies.<br />
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Management experts have made thorough attempts to exploit this through a current trend known as "gamification", which seeks to extract the key ingredients from successful games and apply them to the workplace. Much of what this amounts to however is simply an effort to exploit the human psyche's response to rewards of different kinds, such as the accumulation of "points" and the sense of superiority over peers acquired through success in company-wide league tables. <i>Schumpeter </i>cites a number of key cases of this, such as an error-spotting challenge posted by Microsoft and a set of badges offered to call-centre employees able to complete specific "achievements". While these examples may have been individually successful, point systems and league tables are nothing new, even though they may make use of more up-to-date terminology, such as the "Achievements" system used by gaming services such as Valve's <i><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/">Steam</a>.</i><br />
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Still building upon a similar model of delivering incentives to stimulate continued participation, some industries go further and employ much more sophisticated statistical methods to maximise both productivity and profit. Online gambling is an excellent example of this, as payouts can be carefully timed and planned to ensure the audience remains engaged and eager to keep playing in spite of overall losses. In a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html">lecture</a> delivered at the TED conference in 2010 Tom Chatfield, a "game theorist", explored the practical applications of this technique, which has long been popular among developers of MMORPGs. A key difference between video games and the real world is that the code that makes up a virtual environment can be easily manipulated, allowing programmers to alter the odds of a payout taking place in order to maintain player enthusiasm and keep them in the game. For example, as players tended to get very bored towards the end of lengthy and monotonous "fetch quests", in which they must find a certain number of a particular commodity item to proceed, developers were able to subtly increase the likelihood of such items appearing, allowing them to finish tasks more quickly than expected and to move onto the next one without losing interest.<br />
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Unfortunately, such techniques are clearly limited in their application to the real world. Nevertheless, there remain a number of further lessons to be learnt from features fundamental to good game design. <a href="http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm">Richard Bartle</a>, a designer of early multiplayer games, in 1996 attempted a categorisation of the different gaming "personalities" of players, identifying four elements he believed to be key to engagement. Labelled "<b>Achievement</b>, <b>Exploration</b>, <b>Socialising</b> and <b>Imposition</b>", they refer respectively to the opportunity to "win" and achieve high in-game status, the chance to explore the game world and its limits, the ability to socialise with other players, and finally the ability for players to make a nuisance of themselves, often, as Bartle puts it, by "applying [some weapon] enthusiastically to the persona of another player".<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Change of pace is key to the appeal of Valve's <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/380/"><i>Half-life</i></a> series</td></tr>
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For a company to develop an outstanding "gamification" strategy therefore, it must carefully manipulate these different elements. <b>Achievement</b> represents the already fairly commonplace approach of associating desirable behaviour with suitable status and rewards. Able to encourage "ownership" of projects, it plays the vital role of getting employees to associate team success with personal achievement. <b>Exploration </b>is a little more complex in practise, representing the lure of the unknown. <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pm22cans.curiosity">Curiosity</a>, </i>a game recently published by Peter Molyneux, a legend of sorts in the game developer community, demonstrates its successful application when paired with extremely dull tasks. Dubbed an "experiment" into the psychology of users, <i>Curiosity</i> requires players to spend hours tapping away at millions of tiny squares on the face of a giant cube in order to reveal an image beneath. Deliberately mindless and repetitive, its success demonstrates the value people ascribe to the sensation of progress and to the ability to uncover something new, however ultimately insignificant; achievable targets and the hope of eventually moving on to something different can be powerful motivators both at leisure and at work.<br />
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<b>Socialising</b> simply represents a healthy level of interaction with other people in the same environment. While not easily applicable to all workplaces, it perhaps explains the popularity of careers such as the military. While demanding a high level of personal risk for comparatively little financial compensation, these careers are nonetheless popular choices on account of the high level of social activity and camaraderie they offer. <b>Imposition </b>is the most difficult of the Bartle's categories to apply, being by nature counterproductive, though it does appear to have a part to play in the level of impact employees like to feel they have on the teams in which they work.<br />
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In an <a href="http://www.paconsulting.com/it-consulting/providing-innovative-solutions-to-new-business-challenges/gamification/">article</a> on the topic released last month, PA Consulting added <b>Challenge </b>to these four, noting that an element of risk and a chance of failure heightens engagement and encourages speedy learning - awards that are too easy to achieve quickly lose their value. The importance of careful fine-tuning is also noted: unfortunately, if it is to become more than a mere management trend, gamification cannot be deployed as a one-size-fits-all panacea. Each aspect must be understood individually and applied to each case by a competent manager who is familiar with his staff. As Bartle notes, different values appeal to different kinds of player, and poorly applied strategies, such as an inappropriate suite of social features in a game otherwise aimed at Imposers, for example, will at best confuse players and at worst detract from the experience and undermine its effectiveness.<br />
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An "experience", after all, is what video games seek to create, and is what remains at the core of their appeal. As a result, <b>Variation</b><b> </b>should be added to this list. This is another gaming fundamental, crowning popular classics from <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid">Metroid</a> </i>to <i><a href="http://minecraft.net/">Minecraft</a> </i>and from <i><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/220/">Half-Life 2</a> </i>to <i><a href="http://thesims.com/en_US/home">The Sims</a>. </i><b>Variation </b>represents a change in both pace and the character of work being done. For example, shortly after a heated gun battle in <i>Half-Life 2, </i>a first-person shooter, players will usually encounter either a period of relative quiet, in which they may renew their supplies, or a fast-paced vehicle battle offering a change of perspective and difficulty. Constant crescendos of activity rarely encourage high performance, and success is often best achieved when it contributes to either advancement elsewhere or an opportunity to recuperate, however brief. Likewise <i>Minecraft </i>allows players to either explore a virtual world, gathering materials, or to use their materials to build their own structures and items: achievement in either category is made much more enjoyable by the benefits it lends to the other, and a highly addictive level of interest is maintained.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Players gather materials and build their own structures in <i><a href="http://minecraft.net/">Minecraft</a></i></td></tr>
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<b>Variation </b>is also what fuels escapism, a sub-category that is also responsible for much of gaming's appeal. Role-playing games, such as the recent classic <i><a href="http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/">Skyrim</a>, </i>thrive on players' desires to experience and enact contrasts with their own lives, taking on roles as diverse as Norse warriors or futuristic generals. While difficult to apply in itself, this approach does have some worth in fields such as management consulting, in which the ability to understand situations from a radically different point of view can be very useful. <a href="https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Strategy_in_Practice/Battle-test_your_innovation_strategy_3038">Researchers from McKinsey</a>, a consultancy, this month spoke of the value of what is described as "war-gaming", a technique used to evaluate future developments in an industry. When "war-gaming", teams take on the roles of key competitors and develop a detailed strategy from their new position, identifying previously unknown threats or opportunities in the process.<br />
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Finally, there must be a sense of <b>Fairness </b>to drives players' progression through games. Game worlds, by their nature, operate according to an established set of rules. For a game to work, players must be confident that the time they they take to complete tasks will have an adequate pay-off in the form of advancement. Bugs in the game's programming therefore, along with other mistakes and oversights, can harm or destroy a player's immersion in the game, undermining their motivation to continue. If a player is unexpectedly killed, for example, or through a game crashing loses a rare item that took a long time to obtain, the environment ceases to be fair and the user will often stop playing.<br />
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Fair treatment in the workplace is not an uncommon desire and hardly deserves the aura of management alchemy that the title of "gamification" bestows upon it. Nor are any of these other elements especially new or revolutionary in themselves; they simply offer a new categorisation of well-known features that make workplaces more pleasant places to be. A recurring theme in gaming is that players are encouraged by achievement and the knowledge that their hard work will lead to direct and discernible benefits. Business leaders will therefore find advantage if they are able to divide projects into easily comprehended portions and reward employees with status and a change of pace upon completion of each one: continuous monotonous work towards distant deadlines leads only to a crisis of motivation. Essentially, good game design is similar to good management in that it requires a sound understanding of its target audience and their limits. Managers should be familiar enough with their staff that they are able to explore these limits while providing a well-rounded work environment that fulfils their individual needs. Gamification simply recognises that people have a desire to work towards making their lives more interesting. Companies stand to gain from building upon their awareness of this.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is a response to <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21565926-video-games-are-behind-latest-fad-management-more-just-game">"More Than Just a Game"</a> from the <i>Schumpeter </i>column of November 10th 2012 edition of <i>The Economist</i>. Credit also goes to Louis Burrows, a game developer, for providing me with some of my data.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-77869403934285699892012-11-30T17:21:00.000+00:002013-08-09T17:53:23.346+01:00REVIEW: Android 4.2<div style="text-align: justify;">
Having found the long-awaited 4.2 Android update pushed to my Galaxy Nexus earlier this week, now is a good time to take a quick early look at the new system for the benefit of those considering the pros and cons of installing it on their own devices.<br />
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To start with, the <i>"Photosphere"</i> feature is probably the most talked about element added in 4.2, granting the ability to take all-around shots of a location from multiple angles which are then composited to provide a single scrollable panorama, much the same as provided by the <i>"Street View"</i> function of <i>Google Maps</i>. While there are a few teething problems for the feature (for example, it sometimes struggles to sew the images together correctly, leading to mysterious gaps and duplicates of objects) it is on the whole very well done. The major computing work is carried out remarkably quickly and is largely completed in the background, leaving the phone free to do other things, and the effect produced is very pleasing when it works properly, making the <i>Photosphere</i> a solid flagship for the new system. It can be accessed from within the <i>Camera</i> app and, for the time being at least, exists alongside its predecessor, the <i>"Panorama"</i>, which now appears sadly lacking in comparison.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kcu1r9CCsbk/ULjcga_7khI/AAAAAAAAfGo/ypyV4f2BI7g/s1600/PANO_20121130_150004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kcu1r9CCsbk/ULjcga_7khI/AAAAAAAAfGo/ypyV4f2BI7g/s400/PANO_20121130_150004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful, but not without its errors: a "Photosphere"</td></tr>
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Also available now within the <i>Android Camera/Gallery</i> app is an updated suite of photo editing tools which, outshone by the <i>Photosphere</i>, seems to have slipped under the radar somewhat. This is a pity, since what it offers is arguably better and more useful. While the tools remain fairly basic and lightweight, they now give the option to apply a greater selection of <i>Instagram</i>-like effects to images as well as to perform simple enhancements, such as modifying image sharpness or colour vibrancy. They only add a little to what is offered by previous Android distributions, but they're fun to use and largely eliminate the need to employ <i>Picasa's</i> image editing in all but the most disastrous cases.<br />
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The new quick-access menus, taking on the role of the "Settings" widget, are easy enough to use, although they might frustrate those who were happy enough with the previous format by requiring one extra "click" to get to the standard menu options. The addition of <i>Swype</i>-style functionality to the keyboard should also please those users with the tenacity to stick with the stock keyboard in place of more function-laden alternatives, adding yet another way to type text messages quickly while on the move without resorting to voice control. <i>Google Now</i> maintains an increasing presence, although its progression remains largely independent of the Android version installed. The past few months have seen, among other things, <i>GMail</i> notifications, disaster warnings, stock prices and sports results added to the myriad data it offers. I was tentatively enthusiastic about it in my <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/review-android-jelly-bean.html">last review</a>, and <i>Google Now </i>remains the service to watch for those interested in serious innovation in mobile computing.<br />
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<a href="http://www.android.com/images/mr1/googlenow.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.android.com/images/mr1/googlenow.png" width="237" /></a>While it has certainly gained a lot of ground, 4.2 is unfortunately not without its fair share of bloopers. For example, upon finishing the upgrade, new users will be greeted first by the newly designed lock-screen. The ability to preview new emails, text messages and upcoming calendar events from this screen is a welcome addition to Android that has been a staple of iOS devices for years, although its arrival is heralded by an annoying shrinkage of the password keypad and the appearance of an inelegant white border to signify the presence of multiple widgets.<br />
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Even more noticeable however is the redesign of the clock app, also present on the lock-screen, which has already attracted a <a href="http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/mobile/8ZLLNFn7Dgk">fair amount of criticism</a> from the Android community. Abandoning the clean-cut lines of the previous distribution, the new clock opts for a black-and-white Century Gothic-style font that is better suited to a school newspaper than the latest mobile software on the market. Complaints have also been made about the fact that the hours alone are presented in bold lettering, making it easy to miss the precise time in minutes, and about the ugliness of the clock app itself, having a dull grey background and a series of unintuitive menus in place of the simple stylishness of its predecessor. In my experience so far however the most irritating element by a large margin is the lack of control given when the device is in a dock. Relying upon my mobile also as an alarm clock, it was frustrating to find I could no longer dim the display with a touch, instead needing to unlock the phone and navigate through a series of settings menus to set the default mode to "night". The white-on-black display is also considerably more jarring than the previous gentle dark blue, making it much more likely to disturb sleep when used as a bedside clock.<br />
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Much of this trouble emerges from the new <i>"Daydream"</i> system used to manage device behaviour when docked. <i>"Daydream"</i> controls are found in an obscure corner of the "Display" menu, making them easy to miss, and contain a lot of options (such as the "Colours" screen) which, while visually pleasing, seem fairly pointless. It is still early days for <i>Daydream</i>, so a few small mistakes should be fairly excusable, though when they affect the workings of one of the most important and visible functions of the device, blunders are bound to draw some well-deserved criticism. It is not all bad, however: while the <i>Daydream</i> clock lacks customisability, forcing users to adopt the ugly black-and-white digital display, it does allow the option of using an elegant analogue alternative. It also handles being prodded while in the dock a lot better, reverting back to the clock automatically after use.<br />
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While not as big a deal as the original leap to 4.1.1, 4.2 is still a significant version for Android, though it finds itself seriously marred by a number of details that still require a little tweaking. Coinciding with the release of both the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10 devices, it is tempting to suggest that this distribution was just "something" to release alongside these devices to make sure they had something extra to offer, and that it could have benefited from additional testing. This is a shame, since fairly minor aesthetic flaws here detract from a number of genuinely impressive new features. In short, it's worth installing for many very good reasons, though best avoided by those easily awoken by bright lights and bad typography.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">For more information on the features of Android 4.2, please see the official site <a href="http://www.android.com/whatsnew/">here</a>, to which credit for the above image is also due.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-92167749597991115942012-11-22T22:49:00.000+00:002013-08-06T19:49:37.842+01:00"Balkanising the Internet"<div style="text-align: justify;">
The views of Google, the internet search giant, and the British Government look to become increasingly opposed in oncoming weeks as David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is expected to formally announce the proposals for his long-awaited internet pornography filter. Shortly after Google's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20288077">appearance</a> before the Public Accounts Committee confirmed that the company had been using different national jurisdictions to ensure a much lighter rate of tax, its chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt, spoke out to warn of the possibility of a "balkanised" internet should censorship be allowed to proliferate. Delivering a speech at the <a href="http://www.rand.org/blog/2012/11/googles-schmidt-decries-balkanizing-of-internet.html">RAND Corporation's Politics Aside</a> event, Schmidt took Iran as an example of the dangers of such a move, claiming that it had limited the country to a "stone age" level of technology. Government policy makers would be wise to heed this advice, as <a href="http://www.claireperry.org.uk/claire%27s-news/news-archive/parliamentary-inquiry-concludes-isps-must-do/320">early reports</a> have suggested that the filter will automatically block all unapproved content from public access.<br />
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According to a new report from the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2234264/David-Cameron-ensure-parents-led-filter-process-new-computers.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490">Daily Mail</a>, the service will be made available to all users of newly purchased computers in the UK upon their first "log-in"; this would at first appear to indicate that it could take the form of a piece of local software. If so, then this recent announcement would in fact mark a significant step-down from previous suggestions, implying that the future responsibility for filtering data would rest with software on the user's computer rather than with the Internet Service Provider (ISP).<br />
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This would be a welcome move, with many writers on <a href="http://witteringsfromwitney.com/information-needs-to-be-mediated-in-the-name-of-free-speech-what/">both</a> <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/08/30/nine-commitments-to-a-progressive-digital-policy-the-labour-party-should-make/">sides</a> of the political spectrum strongly opposing content filtering by ISP, arguing that a filter of this kind would essentially represent the creation of a censored internet in which the company that provides the connection takes on all responsibility for ensuring the "safety" of the data transmitted. The establishment of such a filter in the first place would certainly be very tricky and prone to error: the internet contains such a vast quantity of data that it would seem inevitable that some pornographic sites might slip through the net and go unblocked, and that other non-offensive sites, such as those offering sexual health advice, might be inadvertently banned by the system (many readers will no doubt remember the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation_and_Wikipedia">controversial blacklisting</a> in 2008 of a Wikipedia page on the band The Scorpions by the Internet Watch Foundation, which serves as an example of how easily such a mistake can be made). Free-speech commentators have also spoken of the potential for a "slippery slope" scenario, with the <a href="http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/defaultblocking">Open Rights Group</a>, a pressure group, warning that future governments would gain the ability to instantly censor further information without having to directly inform the public.<br />
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I am however inclined to suggest that the prospect of a client-based solution (based within individual computers rather than under the control of ISPs) is extremely unlikely. All descriptions that have emerged so far have been painfully imprecise, and the Mail's account is also fairly vague, failing to mention any specific software that might come pre-installed on users computers. It does however seem to indicate that content blocking might <a href="http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/11/19/cameron-porn/1">also be available to current subscribers</a> of ISPs, making it unfortunately much less likely that the filtering would involve the optional installation of new software. Such software would of course also be very difficult and expensive to produce, would not be pre-installed on machines built by users themselves and would be unlikely to work on non-standard systems such as <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> and the rest of its Linux brethren. The future, it seems, is destined to involve the feared ISP-level censorship.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-62482679340807884212012-11-10T15:23:00.000+00:002013-08-09T17:51:16.583+01:00The Localism Agenda<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/winter-is-coming.html">continuing climate</a><b> </b>of widespread public disenchantment with the political <i>status quo, </i>the issue of localism has gained vital traction recently, encouraged by <a href="http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/files/folders/3344/download.aspx">evidence</a> that the British public is becoming increasingly interested in local issues at the expense of national politics. This is hardly a surprise, since in a period of hefty economic belt-tightening it is to be expected that people's interests might shift closer to home, pursuing interests more closely related to their personal well-being. This should represent an excellent opportunity for the Conservative government to pursue their <a href="https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=conservatives%20localism&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservatives.com%2F~%2Fmedia%2Ffiles%2Fgreen%2520papers%2Flocalism-policy-paper.ashx%3Fdl%3Dtrue&ei=6kieUJiiKNK3hAehi4DoCA&usg=AFQjCNHx0kHN894oSKJwKrO76016ZwWBgQ&sig2=yCMoZF0s7ldt-yxTEtcHKQ&cad=rja">localism agenda</a> in an effort to further reduce what they refer to as "top-down" decision making, thereby in theory making politics once again relevant to the average person.<br />
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While increased public involvement in government is a stated interest of all major British political parties at the moment, the Conservatives seem to be alone in their unique ability to make localism an important part of that strategy. Even <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/labour-must-give-up-its-instinct-to-control/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=labour-must-give-up-its-instinct-to-control">strong voices on the left</a> of the political spectrum have accused the Labour opposition of possessing too much of an "instinct to control" and of following a leadership style too close to that of a "management consultant". Noting an "adversarial" relationship between people and politicians and calling for a more "collectivist" form of politics, the <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/political-education-for-political-engagement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=political-education-for-political-engagement">Fabian Society</a> nonetheless fails to feature localism as an aspect of their own agenda, seeing education instead as the only element necessary for a renewed interest in their profoundly centralist style of government (they are also <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/why-progressives-should-not-favour-eu-budget-cuts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-progressives-should-not-favour-eu-budget-cuts">thoroughly wedded to the authority of the EU</a>, drawing opposition even from other <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9877/david-camerons-chance-for-real-reform-of-the-eu-budget">opinion-formers on the left</a>).<br />
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While they might not realise it, the Conservative government here uniquely occupies a position much closer to the desires of the public than its opposition does. With Labour <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100183632/we-are-luckier-than-we-realise-to-have-had-labour-as-our-left-of-centre-party/">increasingly being viewed</a> as the party of the advancing public sector, motions such as the widely-touted Localism Act and the <a href="http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPublica-s-recommendation-for-Community-Right-to-Bid-comes-into-force">Community Right to Bid</a>, which allows local people to bid for and buy assets and businesses they believe are vital to the local community, are a welcome break from the dominance of Whitehall.<br />
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Last week Lord Michael Heseltine published "No Stone Unturned", his long-awaited appraisal of Britain's growth dilemma, in which he makes a whopping 89 individual policy recommendations. Localism is unsurprisingly a prominent feature of the report, which has gathered <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9863/heseltine-report-puts-the-state-back-on-the-hook-for-helping-lead-economic-recovery">praise</a> for its awareness of the crucial importance of regional strategies in the journey towards renewed growth. At over two hundred pages in length however, the report suffers from severe overcomplexity that at times leads to it becoming almost contradictory in the advice it offers. Preaching the merits of small government, even claiming outright that "big government does not work", he then offers a policy of central government "picking winners" as the only feasible means of producing a sound industrial strategy, in spite of the serious failings suffered by this approach <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/there-is-no-economic-war-%E2%80%93-and-we-need-no-industrial-policy">in the past</a> (I have also disagreed with such a stance in <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/second-guessing-digital-economy.html">other contexts</a>).<br />
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Even among its supporters there are claims that the study simply does not go anywhere near far enough. The <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9846/heseltines-right-national-prosperity-requires-local-prosperity">Institute of Public Policy Research</a>, a think-tank, lauds Lord Heseltine's approach, though it notes that his proposed "devolved" funding arrangements in fact add up to an even more centralised single pot of money for which all regions must bid, in reality actually tightening the grip of central government on local prosperity. Unusually, this is a view held by thinkers on <a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-spending/michael-heseltines-report-the-good-the-bad-and-the-unlikely?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adamsmithinstitute+%28Adam+Smith+Institute+blog%29">both ends</a> of the political spectrum: while Lord Heseltine is clearly aware of the need for a sophisticated local agenda, it would seem that his political instincts return his gaze to Westminster and Whitehall at every turn. To reduce bureaucracy, for example, he sensibly suggests simplifying local administration, although he goes on to state his belief that this is best achieved by combining local councils into unitary authorities. This is perplexing, as such a move would clearly remove many of the decisions being made from a purely local level, making local councils fundamentally less local. He advocates widespread government intervention into foreign purchases of British businesses, adding a treacherous political facet to an important part of private investment, and even goes as far as recommending the establishment of city mayors in spite of the "no" vote in the referendum earlier this year. While I welcome the idea of city mayors, such a move would hardly be a victory for <a href="http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2012/11/01/when-it-comes-to-regional-government-i-back-the-government-not-lord-heseltine/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnRedwoodsDiary+%28John+Redwood%27s+Diary%29">democratic choice</a> and would be unlikely to help re-engage a disenchanted public.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/regulation-industry/heseltines-lessons-from-the-jungle-wont-help-the-regions?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adamsmithinstitute+%28Adam+Smith+Institute+blog%29">Adam Smith Institute</a> points out that Lord Heseltine seems sadly unaware of the natural movement towards more local decision making that is already taking place, facilitated in part by improvements in technology and communications infrastructure, that allows action to be taken on a more case-by-case basis. Likewise, while his recommendations for education reform offer some innovative suggestions, such as linking schools much more closely to local business leaders, they are nowhere near as radical or dynamic as the <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/on-free-schools-and-playing-fields.html">schemes</a> already put underway by Michael Gove, the Education Minister. While certainly a move in the right direction, the report seems unfortunately symptomatic of the tendency of those in central government to believe that important decisions are best taken by central government alone, keeping local politics on a very short leash. A sound growth agenda must fight this instinct and devolve decisions to those who understand them best.<br />
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I am reminded by this situation of the leadership techniques used by one of the most venerable state institutions, the British Army. Beyond its reputation for rigid hierarchies and strict conformism, the Army establishes a firm division between the types of authority possessed by NCOs and its Commissioned Officers, the former highly experienced, and the latter well-educated. While officers operate the big-picture plan and maintain the moral imperative, NCOs are responsible for conducting the operation on the ground, ensuring the job is done well and that the plan is successfully executed. Neither group trespasses on the territory of the other, and micromanagement by officers often results in disaster and embarrassment. Officers tend to lack the technical expertise to do the jobs of sergeants well, and as such are likely only to neglect their own important tasks should they attempt to do so.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is a response to "No Stone Unturned in Search of Growth", a report by Lord Michael Heseltine which can be downloaded <a href="https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=heseltine%20no%20stone%20unturned&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bis.gov.uk%2Fassets%2Fbiscore%2Fcorporate%2Fdocs%2Fn%2F12-1213-no-stone-unturned-in-pursuit-of-growth&ei=NXGeUKOfG4ORhQew4IHIDA&usg=AFQjCNERWMUCTLvdgEcHpnlJ2KGc4UgD0g&sig2=virv6Ia0afpUg9JKbE59vA">here</a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-9887216505834931262012-10-25T11:17:00.000+01:002013-08-09T17:50:47.973+01:00Winter is Coming<div style="text-align: justify;">
A <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-progress-of-patriotism.html">recent post</a> dealt with the way British political parties have started to redefine themselves in response to rapidly worsening public opinion; now is a good time to look at how the structure of party supporter bases has contributed to a stagnation of British politics in the first place, and how the situation is beginning to radically change.<br />
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The wealth gap in this country has been the topic of considerable <span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://classonline.org.uk/blog/item/the-austerity-strategy-has-failed-march-for-a-future-that-works#When:13:15:27Z">discussion</a> </span>recently, with certain regions, such as much of the North of England, being seen as poverty traps that can be extremely hard to escape. Beyond financial reasons, and those to do with poor provision of services such as education, there is talk of a "poverty of ambition", a mindset brought about by persistent daily experience that both familiarises a person with poor living standards and discourages him or her from imagining a better way of life at all, as their lifestyle has become an important aspect of their identity. Likewise, support for a particular political party has in the past for many people been an important issue of identity, as can be determined from the very <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2011/04/21/marginal-seats-have-reduced-in-recent-decades/">small proportion</a> of the British electorate composed of the sort of "swing voters" able to strongly influence the outcome of elections.<br />
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Recalling the 2010 general election for example, the scandal of Gordon Brown, the incumbent Prime Minister, publicly referring to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649476.stm">Gillian Duffy</a>, a voter in Rochdale vocally opposed to rising immigration and national debt, as a "bigoted woman". Surprisingly, rather than publicly switching her allegiance to a different party in outrage, she claimed in an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270337/Gordon-wont-getting-vote-Gillian-Duffy-reveals-REALLY-upset-devastating-exchange-PM.html">interview with the Daily Mail</a> that she simply threw her vote away. That is, when personally insulted by the leader of the party she previously enthusiastically supported, she opted to waste her vote rather than show disloyalty by changing her allegiance. What this episode suggests is that, for Duffy at least, what a person's support for a political organisation says about their self-image is much more important than the political consequences of that support. When initially offered the chance to talk to Gordon Brown, she was not asked whether she would be voting for Labour in the election, but whether she was "a Labour voter". To switch support would transform her into a "Liberal Democrat" or worse a "Conservative", an alteration of identity she was unwilling to make. Nor is Duffy's stance an unusual one. The Labour Party in particular is <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/listen-organise-campaign-include/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=listen-organise-campaign-include">predicted</a> to suffer from the unpopularity of national politics in the next general election, not on account of rising support of any other political group, but due to poor turnout from <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/a-majority-in-labours-grasp/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-majority-in-labours-grasp">committed Labour supporters</a> who are nonetheless disillusioned with "their" party.<br />
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Needless to say, none of this is particularly good for British politics. In such an environment, campaign managers are much more likely to focus their efforts on energising those who are already dedicated supporters of their party, thereby failing to take any interest in persuading hidden pockets of undecided voters or in converting supporters of opposing parties. Indeed, in my own albeit brief experience of political campaign strategy it is an accepted norm for volunteers to avoid at all costs those who might disagree with their views (it is, believe it or not, quite common for members of opposing parties to attempt to delay campaigners on their doorsteps for as long as possible to prevent them from completing their work elsewhere!). Such an attitude discourages the dialogue and flexibility that is essential for a healthy democracy.<br />
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This situation has the potential to change very quickly. A <a href="http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/files/folders/3344/download.aspx">recent study</a> by the Hansard society has revealed the sharpest ever fall in the proportion of people who intend to vote in the next general election when compared to previous years. Party membership also at a low ebb, and it was recently pointed out by <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21563715">The Economist</a> that the RSPB, a charity interested in the preservation of Britain's avian wildlife, currently has a much larger membership than that of the three main parties combined. This is no coincidence. Issues concerning everyday life are becoming much more important to the British people, with the Hansard's statistics showing that many people, including a large proportion of those who claim no interest at all in central government, have become increasingly interested in the administration of their local area. What this suggests is that the party politics of Parliament is, more than ever, failing to stimulate the interest of an increasingly agitated electorate.<br />
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<a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/political-education-for-political-engagement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=political-education-for-political-engagement">Opinion formers</a> have spoken of a "toxic" political culture that is leading the average voter away from mainstream political involvement. There has also been <a href="http://raedwald.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/we-dont-want-brands-we-want-politics.html">talk</a> of the problems of party "branding" serving only as an abstraction to further distance what is increasingly being viewed as a "metropolitan elite" from the interests of the average member of the public. This is particularly problematic when there exist many bigger and more powerful "brands", such as increasingly diverse religions or cultures, that already occupy a position more relevant to the self-image of many. For all of its "one nation" pretensions, Ed Miliband's Labour Party is still struggling to reinvigorate its core vote. While recognising many of the problems it faces, its leaders nevertheless continue to <a href="http://politeia.co.uk/blog/return-spin-ed-milibands-conference-speech">recommend</a> a return to strongly centralising policies that ignore what should be perceived as a strengthening public desire for localism. The Tories fare better here, with the Hansard study showing their core vote to be much (10%) more politically engaged than that of Labour. Perhaps as a side-effect of this however, Conservatives are a lot less uniform in their beliefs, with the party beginning to show serious <a href="http://www.cps.org.uk/blog/q/date/2012/10/22/all-over-the-place/">divisions</a> that both threaten its leadership and allow support to leak away to alternative groups, such as the UK Independence Party.<br />
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<a href="http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2012/10/03/who-is-on-the-centre-ground/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnRedwoodsDiary+%28John+Redwood%27s+Diary%29">John Redwood</a> recently highlighted an important problem faced by the major British parties. He notes that, in a seemingly endless struggle to avoid radicalism and appeal to the mass of voters that apparently cluster around the centre of the political spectrum, both Labour and the Conservative Party seem locked in a race to make their policies as centrist as possible, giving rise to the common complaint that there is often very little to distinguish them from one another. Striving to please undecided voters leaves parties with the serious problem of motivating their newly acquired supporters to actually go out and vote. While this happens, they are likely to neglect parts of the electorate which, while often possessing divergent political opinions that refuse to slot neatly into the centre, are largely self-motivated to do so. A recent <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/10/22/labours-lost-votes/">YouGov study</a> detected that a significant portion of former Labour voters (around 1.3 million!) now support non-mainstream parties. It is a safe bet that these individuals with strong opinions are people who will make sure they have their voices heard in the next election.<br />
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This is actually good news and should serve as a breath of fresh air to the system, opening to discussion many views that were previously forced outside the political norm. Nevertheless, observers should be cautious of the rise of the same kind of radicalism that is beginning to plague countries within mainland Europe. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the most apathetic group of voters, those under 25, is also the least open to the radical views discussed in a <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-ebbs-and-flows-of-radicalism.html">previous post</a>. The larger parties should focus on attracting the interest of this "mild youth" while stimulating more discussion within their own ranks of faithful. With this in mind, the schisms within the Conservative fold may yet turn out to be an advantage.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-19543777483297730642012-10-15T18:57:00.000+01:002013-08-06T19:50:03.640+01:00We Should Not Distance the Armed Forces From Politics<div dir="ltr">
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Today is likely to mark the start of a difficult time indeed for senior members of the armed forces as the government begins a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hammond-i-will-ban-military-chiefs-who-break-lobbying-rules-8211014.html">crackdown</a> on the political involvement of former military officers. Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19940917">announced</a> yesterday that he would "shut down the access" of former officers if they flaunted their former roles to lobby the MoD for business interests.<br />
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The immediate aftermath of this announcement saw the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e9b8268a-15db-11e2-9a8c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29NczBG6L">resignation</a> of Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszeley from his post as the President of the Royal British Legion. As part of a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19939022">sting operation</a> by the Sunday Times, General Kiszeley was found to allegedly have boasted to clients about his access to ministers, and among other things about his ability to use the Remembrance Day ceremony as an opportunity to promote his commercial interests with government officials.</div>
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The former Chief of the General Staff, General Lord Richard Dannatt, is another figure under close scrutiny. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/6268915/General-Sir-Richard-Dannatt-to-be-Conservative-defence-adviser.html">Widely known</a> for his support of the Conservative Party prior to the 2010 general election, Lord Dannatt captured widespread media attention in 2009 when he openly criticised the Labour government's attitude to equipment procurement for front-line troops. Now a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, Lord Dannatt is accused of using his contacts within the MoD to evade a ban on discussing a high-profile contract. This news in particular comes as a surprise, since while in the past Lord Dannatt has certainly been highly vocal in his support of the interests of soldiers, even at one stage receiving an offer to act as a Tory defence advisor, he has carefully avoided becoming entangled in political controversy. After the general election he famously stood down from his advisory position, deferring to what he described as sources of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10832682">"proper military advice"</a>.</div>
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These revelations therefore are likely to be damaging to all involved, and it remains to be seen whether there will be any long-term impact elsewhere within the armed forces, and indeed among more junior ranks. While business lobbying is clearly not a fair or transparent use of contacts belonging to former officers, it would be a huge mistake for the government to keep former military personnel from active political involvement. The military provides its members with vital experience outside the more common channels to power, such as law or finance. It also operates within an environment in which the decisions that are made have important and immediate consequences, fostering a robust and decisive leadership style that encourages commanders to quickly take responsibility for their courses of action.</div>
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The use of contacts within government to further the careers of former servicemen and women who choose to trade those contacts for financial profit is as unacceptable and dangerous as using them to further the interests of foreign powers (as one of the accused officers is alleged to have done). To make use of them in an official capacity as a member of the government however is natural and sensible. For example, <a href="http://www.desmondswaynemp.com/">Desmond Swayne</a>, the MP for New Forest West, is known for the tremendous value he provided to the Prime Minister during his long innings as David Cameron's Parliamentary Private Secretary. Soldiers, sailors and airmen have been equipped, at state expense, with some of the most useful tools available for political leaders. It would be a mistake to bar them from involvement in government after the end of their service.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Credit for the top image is due to E J Wilkins (<a href="http://ejwilkins.shutterchance.com/image/2009/08/12/at-rollestone/">http://ejwilkins.shutterchance.com/image/2009/08/12/at-rollestone/</a>).</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-36335782058623092932012-10-11T17:19:00.002+01:002013-08-09T17:50:27.043+01:00The Progress of Patriotism<div style="text-align: justify;">
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With a double-dip lurking in the very recent past and an environment of largely unpopular fiscal measures dominating the national press, this year's mood has visibly been one of spreading discontent with the political classes. This dismal spell is even more evident from <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/another-planet/">recent figures</a> on voting intentions, which suggest that British people are becoming more apathetic as they face a system largely perceived to be at the point of stagnation.<br />
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This year's conference season has given political commentators a great deal to think about however, as a positive side-effect of this environment has been that important thinkers from all sides of the political spectrum have becoming increasingly willing to rethink their respective received wisdoms in an effort to reinvigorate their causes and motivate their disillusioned supporters. The keynote speech of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was one such effort, and from <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/10/07/conference-season-shifts-polls/">polls</a> taken immediately afterwards, it appears to have been a roaring success, albeit among an audience of largely Labour-inclined voters.<br />
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Nevertheless, echoing the words of Benjamin Disraeli, Mr Miliband's speech sought to take <a href="http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/10/lab-2012-milibands-one-nation-vision-takes-fight-to-cameron-and-challenges-labour/">common ground</a> with Conservative voters by calling upon a national sense of purpose and, more importantly, by invoking by name the topic of patriotism. Patriotism has long been a point of difficulty for the left, often seen as a dangerous, emotional and jingoistic "preserve of the right". Recently however, prompted by winds of change gusting from the turbulent political climate, <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/in-support-of-patriotism/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-support-of-patriotism">powerful voices on the left</a> have begun to fundamentally rethink this position and also, surprisingly, to laud the merits of a largely decentralised government supported by a unified national identity.<br />
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Such a view has of course been Conservative policy for some time and has gradually been brought to government through such devices as the <a href="http://www.number10.gov.uk/policy/communities-and-local-government-dclg/">Localism Act</a>. While this move therefore seems to have been largely designed to encroach upon what was once exclusively Tory turf, it has had the effect of making patriotism much more accessible to those of other political persuasions. This might in turn open up further opportunities to the Conservatives, who should feel much more comfortable debating issues already firmly cemented within their ideology.<br />
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The same is not necessarily true of the left. Much-maligned during the latter part of the 20th century, patriotism, and its close cousin nationalism, are easily challenged for their contribution to large-scale armed conflicts. For observers concerned with issues of global equality, they may also raise questions as to whether it is appropriate to allow disproportionate economic advantage or disadvantage to be allocated according to the arbitrary designation of where someone happens to have been born.<br />
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While it may be true that to hold a group identity based on geography alone is fairly arbitrary however, most other group identities are equally arbitrary. Whether based upon shared religious belief, profession, or even something as irrelevant as taste in music, they all function by taking superficial aspects of individual experience at a moment in time and expanding them to form a highly generalised picture vaguely applicable to every member of the group. That being said, it is easy to underestimate the impact simple geography has on human life. Geography restricts movement, slows communication and, for the most part, decides the individuals with whom any person may interact on a regular basis. It is sensible to suggest that such things as government, defence and the establishment of law should be based on such a feature that naturally lends itself to their maintenance. It is also very reasonable to establish a group identity primarily with those whom you encounter most often and whom you are most likely to encounter again in the future. Among other things, it makes these simple tasks much easier.<br />
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It is still a valid criticism of strong national self-image that such identity often leads to opposition with groups deemed to be "others" and "outsiders". When fused with modern military power this can become a dangerous cocktail that continues to threaten lives around the world. Nevertheless, it is fundamental to the human experience that people naturally form identities based on their everyday experience. Such identities, along with actions associated with their affirmation and the opposition of "others", are very common components of violence in general. Such violence is a great deal less dangerous however once guarded beneath a national "monopoly" which seeks to limit the availability of groups deemed "others" with both a shared national identity and laws designed to prevent violent behaviour.<br />
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It is a pleasing result of the wealth and safety of western societies today that to be patriotic today does not necessarily imply a hatred of other nationalities. National identity need not be xenophobic, should not be exclusive and need not now even be mutually exclusive when the possibility of multiple citizenship exists. Those whose patriotism is a result of pride and an honest desire to work together towards a common goal, rather than a lack of self-confidence, should respect and honour those of other nationalities for the same qualities they see in themselves. Nevertheless, people are still restricted by and administered, fed and educated according to geographic limitations. While this remains the case, allegiance to a nation-state remains a rational and efficient way of working as a group towards technological, social and economic advancement. When organised on a large scale in this way, humans become capable of far more than they would when acting alone or within a small group.<br />
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British Conservatives should feel pleased that their fundamental beliefs have now come to be recognised by the opposition party as valid and highly mobilising. While it is certainly a challenge to ensure that patriotism does not take on the kind of xenophobic zeal that is found to be <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-ebbs-and-flows-of-radicalism.html">on the rise</a> elsewhere in the world, it has the ability to unite people separated within very different regions (as can be found today in areas administered by British devolved governments such as the Scottish Parliament) under a common cause. Rather than see the Labour Party's new direction as a threat, as some <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/the-many-layers-of-one-nation-labour/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-many-layers-of-one-nation-labour">political commentators</a> have suggested, Conservatives should take it as an opportunity to seize the initiative, knowing that their ideas continue to carry powerful traction across very diverse reaches of society.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-2943534234016424262012-10-03T09:57:00.002+01:002013-08-09T17:51:34.838+01:00Second-Guessing the Digital Economy<div style="text-align: justify;">
As mentioned in a previous <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/immigration-needs-lighter-touch.html">post</a>, government policy in Britain has seen a successful motion towards reducing net immigration, characterised most prominently by a significant toughening up of visa regulations this year. In spite of this, <a href="http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/category/item/relax-immigration-rules-for-digital-graduates-to-boost-the-economy">prominent voices on the right</a> have recently been calling for a selective easing of this approach.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aCQcVXxMsLg/TnTfVBxnPGI/AAAAAAAAN-Y/BR50qWNiwCE/s1600/2011-09-17+14.27.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aCQcVXxMsLg/TnTfVBxnPGI/AAAAAAAAN-Y/BR50qWNiwCE/s320/2011-09-17+14.27.24.jpg" width="240" /></a>In a paper devoted to the enrichment of the digital economy, Chris Yiu praises the UK's largely forward-thinking practices. Coming from a long standing "tradition of excellence", British universities are prioritising the expansion of their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) department, and London remains within the top three locations in the world for technology start-ups.</div>
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Nevertheless, there are some crucial problems with the current state of affairs. It is <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/09/computer-science-courses-digital-skills">apparent</a> that, while universities appear to be successfully upping the pace of education, the British school system is lagging well behind. School IT courses for example often merely involve training students in one or two common collections of tools, such as Microsoft's Office suite, while entirely neglecting fundamentals, such as computer programming, that allow secondary school leavers to be genuinely competitive on the international skills market. The quality of university graduates also appears to leave <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/913/Well-need-more-engineers">something to be desired</a>, as demand for skills continues to vastly exceed the supply within the UK.</div>
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It is important to note that, in spite of Britain's friendliness to its own graduates, even foreign students who come to the country with fully-formed ideas for enterprise (the sort of start-ups current government policy seeks to encourage) often find themselves unable to stay and are instead forced to look elsewhere. In essence, this allows other countries to tap Britain's well-developed higher education system with their best candidates without having to worry about the loss of their skills, knowing with some certainty that such students will be forced to return once fully trained. The immigration system currently makes allowances, in the form of the <a href="http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/visas-immigration/working/tier1/graduate-entrepreneur/">"Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur)"</a> visas that exist for highly skilled graduates with big ideas, although they require a prohibitively high amount of funding from British sources as well as being capped at 10 visas per educational institution and at 1,000 in total. With overseas students being natural targets to make up for such a skills shortfall, it is nonsensical and harmful to deny them access to the UK.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjl-OKUEFjE/TefGNh7koVI/AAAAAAAAMms/QPCMTokdhuM/s1600/IMG_20110602_153508.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjl-OKUEFjE/TefGNh7koVI/AAAAAAAAMms/QPCMTokdhuM/s320/IMG_20110602_153508.jpg" width="320" /></a>Nevertheless, it is a risky move to attempt to second-guess the future of the digital economy while ignoring the roles other highly skilled graduates might have to play. In this respect, Yiu's paper is somewhat short-sighted, recommending as it does specific visa benefits for foreign students completing courses in STEM subjects alone, allowing them to remain within the country for two years while looking for appropriate careers. While such a move would certainly be welcome, and would no doubt serve to bolster the ranks of suffering technology companies significantly, it would have even more benefit if applied to high-quality graduates across the board. A two year limit would allow Britain to retain many of the best candidates for a variety of professions as they leave university and would grant a much more wide-reaching advantage than such a narrow and <i>ad hoc </i>proposal.</div>
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As for the home market, it is quite rightly recommended that more emphasis is needed on the development of creative technical skills throughout all stages of education. This Conservative government would do well to learn from the mistakes of their <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/assets/docs/publications/262_Shaping_up_for_Innovation.pdf">Labour predecessors</a> who sought to increase the quantity of graduates while ignoring their quality, resulting in the current circumstance of only half of the available workforce of STEM graduates being employed in relevant fields. While attempting to retain talent attracted from overseas therefore, much remains to be done to improve the technological education of students in this country, both at school and university.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is a response to Yiu, C. "Bits and Billions: A Blueprint for High-Impact Digital Entrepreneurship in the UK" <i>Policy Exchange </i>(2012). The report can be downloaded <a href="http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/publications/category/item/bits-and-billions-a-blueprint-for-high-impact-digital-entrepreneurship-in-the-uk">here</a>. Reference was also made to Levy, C. and Hopkins, L "Shaping Up For Innovation: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Are we Delivering the Right Skills for the 2020 K</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">nowledge Economy?" <i>The Work Foundation </i>(2010), which can be found <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/assets/docs/publications/262_Shaping_up_for_Innovation.pdf">here</a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-38000542726904418072012-09-21T23:25:00.001+01:002013-08-09T17:49:40.566+01:00The Ebbs and Flows of Radicalism<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hxodOz3Y7R9SI34uzW5wQ6qAJsVQ?docId=fb7e65bfde0541dda8056da83a3876d0">This week</a> has seen a continuation of the chaos and controversy throughout the Arab world prompted by the release of the amateur video "The Innocence of Muslims". Very well-timed, therefore, is the release by the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Tide-of-Restrictions-on-Religion-findings.aspx">Pew Research Centre</a> of new data on global religious intolerance.<br />
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These statistics show not only an increase in the numbers of people suffering from religious harassment, but also an increase in the number of countries that seek to actively restrict different kinds of religious observance. Christians in particular saw a significant rise in opposition when compared to the previous year, and remain the most harassed religious group worldwide, according to the study. Buddhists also saw a large rise in opposition, although they remain the least troubled individual group covered by the study.</div>
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Initial analysis of the data has suggested that this is evidence of "an emerging generation that is both more tolerant and accepting". This is a fairly optimistic appraisal, as the study fails to take into account the data from previous years needed to draw such a conclusion. It might equally be evidence of a modern youth already familiar with and ready to accept the harsh realities of the present economic environment, or of a relationship between age and discomfort with social change, for example.</div>
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Whether this is a trend that will continue is therefore a mystery, especially in the face of evidence from the Pew study that suggests that Britain has actually become less tolerant of different religions since 2007. Nevertheless, it presents a hopeful light at the end of the tunnel. That, if nothing else, should be something to be cheerful about.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The data on religious restrictions can be found <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Tide-of-Restrictions-on-Religion-findings.aspx">here</a> and on the Guardian's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/sep/20/religious-restrictions-index-intolerance-rise#">Datablog</a>. The study on extremist views in Britain can be found <a href="http://extremisproject.org/2012/09/extremis-projectyougov-data-and-results/">here</a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-59995664610915400052012-09-12T19:42:00.001+01:002013-08-06T19:50:30.957+01:00Why Nick Clegg Mustn't Trivialise Gay Marriage<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nick Clegg has been attracting a great deal of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bigot-comments-were-not-mine-says-clegg-in-gay-marriage-row-8130667.html">media</a> <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/983827/clegg-speech-gay-marriage-opponents-bigots">attention</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/11/nick-clegg-bigots-email-marriage?newsfeed=true">this week</a> over the issue of gay marriage. No doubt he wishes to be seen valiantly defending the rights of a part of society that has historically been cruelly overlooked and abused by marriage laws. <i>"Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat us with, as they demand we 'postpone' the equalities agenda in order to deal with 'the things people really care about'"</i>, he has declared, urging social issues once more to the forefront of political debate.<br />
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Such a move hardly commends Clegg's qualities as a politician, however. It appears as a sadly transparent move to return to such an emotive topic at a time of such extraordinarily poor government <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/09/12/update-labour-lead-13/">approval ratings</a>, immediately after a reshuffle that has failed to successfully boost public opinion.</div>
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Gay marriage is certainly controversial, prompting vocal opposition on both <a href="http://raedwald.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/is-bigot-new-racist.html">moral</a> and technical grounds and achieving over 228,000 responses in a government consultation. Indeed, as I noted in a previous <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/marriage-and-modern-tory.html">post</a>, it is possible for someone to be an ardent supporter of equal rights while still finding issue with the manner of government involvement. It is a complex matter that deserves a reasoned debate. It is, however, a policy point that draws huge support from all corners of the political spectrum, making it the ideal issue for politicians to wheel out in times of need. This makes it especially useful for Clegg, whose ratings have been very low for a while. It is therefore very difficult to see this episode as anything other than a spot of cynical populism deliberately designed do incense.</div>
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In any case, he appears to have failed to successfully exploit this issue in any meaningful way, finding his words drowned out by recent <span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_276985.pdf">unemployment figures</a></span> and an unfolding<span style="background-color: white;"> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/sep/12/libya-egypt-attacks-muhammad-film-live">international incident</a></span>, leaving him with only an embarrassing gaffe. If anything, his "bigot" comment is likely to galvanise opposition to reform, hurting the chances of same-sex couples to enjoy marriage on equal terms.</div>
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The early indications are that Nick Clegg's popularity will not be improved by this incident. Hopefully the Prime Minister's response will be more mature, if he has even noticed it at all.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-82844479691219443802012-09-10T16:30:00.002+01:002013-08-09T17:49:09.788+01:00Compliments, Criticisms and What They Tell Us About Ourselves<div dir="ltr">
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In my post-degree euphoria, I feel that now is the perfect time to show off some of my recent work while my enthusiasm still lasts.</div>
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Here, therefore, is a copy of my masters dissertation, which I am quite proud of. It admittedly makes very heavy reading for those who are not so classically-minded, though it has a great deal to say that applies well to modern society.<br />
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What it offers is a very different way of looking at things: the waning reign of the last lord of a decaying imperial house is viewed through the eyes of a poet with lofty aspirations but little access to the political sphere, who seeks to glorify his friends in a way that fashionably echoes the style of the Emperor. The Roman Empire at the end of the 1st century AD is also at times compared to a 21st century corporation for the purposes of understanding the role of power and self-image in both.</div>
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The failing Emperor abuses his authority to better secure his position at the top of the social order. The result of this is a society that ostensibly seems more fluid, although this is eventually revealed to be only an illusion of social mobility disguising the same sort of wealth-based aristocracy that existed before. Through his efforts Domitian loses any kind of relationship with the rest of society that he might have had otherwise and makes his own position entirely untenable. This is a warning that might equally apply to corporate leaders today.</div>
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-J5rzoXpUHOUm1sczI2Qy1Wc2M">Going Too Far: Imperial Ideology, Self-Expression and Collapse in Statius' <i>Silvae</i></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-67757455198759497312012-09-07T13:52:00.001+01:002013-08-09T17:48:40.409+01:00Immigration Needs a Lighter Touch<div style="text-align: justify;">
Immigration is a rather hot topic right now, not least because the former Immigration Minister, Damian Green, recently announced a <a href="http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2012/09/03/letter-from-damian-green-detailing-the-latest-immigration-figures/">significant</a> fall in net migration and issued visas. This should be great news, as it helps Britain deal with a rapidly rising population while also stepping up to take on the challenge of unemployment with a powerful supply-side adjustment. In addition to this, there has been a 28% rise in Chinese tourist visas, meaning that more and more travel permits are being issued to those who are likely to spend a lot while they're here.<br />
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Nevertheless, there are significant problems with this announcement. For starters, in addition to there being a few <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/08/immigration?fsrc=gn_ep">questions</a> that need answering as to how the data was actually collected, the value of the net figures themselves is debatable. The numbers may give us a fairly good idea of the totals involved, but they do little to explain the likely effect on the economy, which can be expected to depend on the level of the skills possessed by those coming and going, a ruse which has not escaped commentators on the <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9580/stop-playing-the-net-migration-numbers-game">left</a>.</div>
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Indeed, it is also very questionable as to whether migration even has the negative impact on employment that might be predicted in the first place. A recent <a href="http://www.centreforum.org/index.php/mainpublications/380-a-demanding-job">article</a> by a prominent British think-tank believes that this is not the case in practise, finding no correlation at all between immigration and youth unemployment (the sector most likely to be affected by disturbances in the unskilled jobs market) in any of the areas it studies. Another recent <a href="http://ideas.repec.org/p/crm/wpaper/0803.html">paper</a> also goes even further than this, suggesting that immigration actually has a positive impact on British wages, presumably due to new immigrants taking underpaid jobs and producing more than they earn in order to impress their new employers.</div>
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Net figures therefore cannot tell us the true story and are of dubious value, useful for little other than last-minute announcements to boost personal prospects before an impending cabinet reshuffle. In fact, their use has the potential to be quite <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9581/net-migration-starts-to-fall--but-the-real-questions-remain-unanswered">harmful</a>, encouraging ministers to focus on the simplest means of reducing inflows. This takes place in spite of powerlessness against immigration from the EU which, in the current European economic climate, almost certainly means large numbers of people from struggling economies such as Greece or Spain. The result of this, of course, is that economically beneficial migration is significantly reduced to make up for an inevitable rise in the less beneficial kind. This is little cause for applause at all.</div>
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An example of this effect plastered all over the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19419395">news</a> at the moment is the recent crackdown on the London Metropolitan University. While this has prompted a lot of hot air and misguided attempts at starting a <a href="http://labourhome.org/2012/09/more-than-my-jobsworth/">class war</a>, there is some validity to the argument that students appear to be inappropriately targeted in the ministerial struggle against immigration. While student visa abuse is certainly a legitimate problem, genuine students who arrive for a course of study at reputable institutions are very much temporary immigrants, granted no right to stay beyond the expiry of their permits. They therefore act as nothing other than a distortion to net immigration totals, and should probably be discarded from the calculation.</div>
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While not absolving the LMU of its various significant transgressions, the Border Agency's actions will be nonetheless very damaging to the many students involved, denying many of them access to their education, while basing the impeachment itself upon statistics which are very difficult for any university to measure up to, as noted in another <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/immigration-crackdown-will-damage-uk-universities">article</a>. In addition to this, the damage sustained by other universities and by the economy in general must also be taken to account. Spurred on by Britain's glowing reputation for excellence, foreign students provide tremendous <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/09/01/the-press-eggs-on-crack-down-on-student-visas/">benefits</a> to our higher education through their patronage and the huge fees they are willing to pay, factors which are very susceptible to threats from falling international confidence.</div>
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Students therefore have a right to feel inappropriately targeted by efforts that disproportionately focus on areas of immigration that are easiest to control, rather than those that have the most negative impact on the economy, as <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/09/population?fsrc=gn_ep">The Economist</a> noted recently. This is very unfortunate, as such activity also ignores the intangible advantages of student immigration, such as the significant benefits that foreign students bring to the British intellectual community. <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21549938">Governments</a> not widely praised for their fostering of innovation are delighted to be able to send students to the UK, and are doubtless even more happy to bring their newly acquired skills back to the home economy after their inexplicable ejection by the UKBA. It is now almost impossible for non-EU students leaving university to remain within the country even if they want to, a fact which can have unexpected repercussions, such as unfairly threatening <a href="http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/07/young-couples-suffer-under-immigration-clampdown/">young people's relationships</a> in an effort to discourage sham marriages (for once I can fully sympathise).</div>
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The Conservative Party long ago rightly turned its back on the widespread use of imposed <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Local_Government.aspx">top-down</a> targets in central government policy. Rather than clinging to this relic of the past, the new Minister, Mark Harper, should be prepared to embrace the difficult challenges facing the economy rather than focussing on deceptive empty statistics. <a href="http://www.centreforum.org/index.php/mainpublications/380-a-demanding-job">Research</a> has suggested that poor levels of skill, poor education and poor quality work experience are major contributing factors to youth unemployment, with immigration being a comparative irrelevance. It <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/884/Despite-the-recession-the-battle-for-talent-is-as-fierce-as-ever)">has been shown</a> that the British workforce is increasingly failing to match its skills with the qualities employers are looking for, as I mentioned in a recent <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/university-should-not-become-necessity.html">post</a>. The last thing we should be doing right now is jettisoning those who are in the best position to help our struggling economy back to their countries of origin.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-15665699610649282622012-09-02T23:33:00.000+01:002013-08-09T17:48:08.554+01:00Social Status and Skyrim<div style="text-align: justify;">
A chief aim of mine in this blog is to use unconventional sources to comment on modern society. To that effect, I would like to draw attention to an <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100176602/posh-bashing-has-replaced-prole-bashing-as-the-nastiest-strain-in-british-politics/">article</a> in the national press on the topic of so-called "posh bashing" in Britain. Brendan O'Neill places his stance largely in defence of the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who has apparently recently become upset about <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9473337/Posh-baiting-may-drive-Benedict-Cumberbatch-to-the-US.html">people calling him names</a>, and against the famously juvenile campaigning tactics used by Labour party in <a href="http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=1980&offset=70">Crewe & Nantwich</a> in 2008. He then goes on to draw an interesting comparison with the populist technique of stirring up anger against European immigrants and the spread of Polish culture in the UK (that is, leaving alone the important factor of the influence of immigration on the jobs market, to be dealt with in a future, more serious, post). This is a deceptively important point, which is summarised neatly when he notes that this is all rather indicative of a hidden obsession with the value of heritage. This becomes even more interesting when examined in parallel with popular forms of entertainment, such as video games.<br />
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Now, common sense tells us that circumstance of birth should not automatically confer any additional rights or advantages and that all men are created equal. Elements such as wealth and a sound family upbringing continue have a major impact on people's lives, although it is a major aim of all serious political parties to bring the advantages conferred by these to all people and to grant equality of opportunity (with some political positions taking this view even further). Beyond this, everything else must come from hard work and from the sort of natural talent that is encountered more by chance than it is inherited.</div>
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Gaming grants a different perspective however - one that resonates with the implications of Brendan O'Neill's article. Fantasy RPGs in particular, such as the recent <i><a href="http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/">Skyrim</a> </i>and, perhaps more famously, the ancient <i><a href="http://baldursgate.com/">Baldur's Gate</a> </i>series (currently undergoing a remake) show a special fascination with the advantages of birth. The former grants the player the soul of a dragon trapped in a mortal body, while the latter makes him the heir of a deceased god, each permitting the use of different unique abilities by the player. This interest is by no means relegated to the one genre however, with other titles such as <i>FEAR, Bioshock, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X </i>and <i>Silent Hill 3</i>, to name the first few I can think of, also sharing this characteristic.</div>
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I would like to believe, rather than suggesting anything especially insidious, that this merely reflects the tendency of video games to bestow upon the players a "special purpose" or "destiny" to grant additional meaning to their activities and make the game a more special and appealing experience. A predetermined end-point to an adventure, after all, is much easier to motivate if the main character also has a predetermined start-point that points towards it, and birth is indeed the ultimate starting-point to any story.</div>
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A more likely halfway house between these views is to see the use of heritage in these games as an aspect of the kind of unquestionable self-worth that is loaned to the player by the lead character. Games are fun; they allow us to feel powerful, to act in a world without consequences, to roam around without any real chance of lasting failure and to explore our fantasies. Players have a chance to be the centre of the universe for once, and to have a glorious birth as an aspect of this seems very natural - after all, heritage did not always carry the taboo it bears today.</div>
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What this does tell us however is that the issue of birthright continues to influence people's minds and affect their aspirations. Regardless of policies put in place today, these insecurities will continue to affect the way people behave and the way they view themselves, as I noted in a recent <a href="http://davidalexanderwilkins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ouca-and-strange-world-of-university.html">post</a>. Video games can therefore, in the same way as television, be a valuable social indicator, and one particularly useful when looking at trends among young people. Concerns about birth and innate status seem, for the time being, to be here to stay, in one form or another. Let's ensure they remain well within the realm of fantasy.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-12690514947580640142012-08-27T11:58:00.003+01:002013-08-09T17:47:57.432+01:00On Free Schools and Playing Fields<div style="text-align: justify;">
There has been a lot of fuss made lately in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/20/michael-gove-school-playing-fields?newsfeed=true">national press</a> about free schools, specifically the sale of the Hillock Lane playing fields in Woolston. Most of the blame for this row has been laid squarely at the feet of Michael Gove, the Education Minister. This is quite an unusual turn of events, not least because Gove himself has until now had fairly uncontroversial success in his ministerial post, as opposed to many of his colleagues. On top of this, rather than being used for housing or converted into a business park, the site is in fact being used to build the King's Leadership Academy, a new state school for the area.<br />
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Surely this should be good news for everyone, no? The land, after all, is still being used to benefit the educational needs of the local community. Apparently not. Indeed, the King's Leadership Academy is one of the oft-derided new "free schools" to be constructed in accordance with the government's education reforms. This is all quite perplexing, especially since free schools have been one of the government's most visibly successful policies so far. No reliable results can yet be brought forward as evidence of their usefulness, although their uptake has been quite enthusiastic, with <a href="http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/freeschools/b00197715/free-schools-2012">68 having already been approved</a> and many more still to come.</div>
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It is also quite surprising that Woolston was chosen by opponents of the policy to be such a key case-study in gathering support for the popular <a href="https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/school-playing-fields-petition">petition</a> currently doing the rounds. Even the <a href="http://www.manchestertuc.org/news/913-gove-made-council-let-free-school-be-built-on-playing-field.html">news sources</a> seeking to fight the proposal admit, amidst their bluster, that the school that formerly used the site has been long-closed and that the Leadership Academy is currently operating out of a disused infants school in the area. This also makes excellent use, it would seem, of vacant local education resources for the good of the community.</div>
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Outwardly this appears to be a masterful piece of marketeering that seeks to use the warm zephyr of the Olympics to whip the public into an idle frenzy about the state of British sport. <a href="http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/08/michael-gove-38-degrees-school-playing-fields-petition/">Left Foot Forward</a>, for example, spends a lot of time talking about "the Team GB of tomorrow" and the damage the construction of new schools will do our next medal haul. This does fly slightly in the face of the facts however, especially considering that playing fields have <a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/i-can-think-of-better-ways-to-defend.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DickPuddlecote+(Dick+Puddlecote)&utm_content=Google+Reader">very little role</a> in the kinds of sports in which Britain tends to excel. It would be much better to simply point to something like <a href="http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/opad12">UK obesity figures</a>, for example, which make quite a good case for the importance of sport, though there seems to be little rational about this knee-jerk argument in any case.</div>
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In most sources there is a lot of talk about <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/08/22/why-is-the-media-ignoring-michael-goves-school-privatisation-bonanza/">"private development"</a>, which really reaches to the core of the issue when it is seen as a reflexive backlash against the evils of market forces which apparently must be fought at all costs. Free schools are finding themselves depicted as butchers and cowboys, with Michael Gove's efforts to encourage them seen as sly and backhanded, as though there were some sort of ulterior motive involved. In reality, free schools are hardly even representative of private enterprise at its most liberal, with the schools remaining under the careful guidance of Ofsted, forbidden from selecting according to ability and established only at the go-ahead of <a href="http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/freeschools/b0061428/free-schools">central government</a>.</div>
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There has however been quite a lot of recent talk about the prospect of for-profit schools. With free schools at the moment being prohibited from making a profit of any kind, this would very much represent the next step down the privatisation route that is so abhorrent to the Left. Last week saw heated debate between two major think-tanks, the <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/ippr-report-fails-to-provide-persuasive-arguments-against-profit-making-schools">IEA</a> and the <a href="http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/9562/private-profit-is-at-odds-with-role-of-schools-in-society">IPPR</a>, as to the viability of the proposal, with the final word seeming to be that the <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/research-not-ideology-should-guide-the-for-profit-school-debate">evidence from around the world</a> consistently suggests that profit can be a powerful stimulus for the promotion of achievement of schools, especially those in deprived areas. Again, a great deal of left-wing ideology is involved in the counterargument, complaining that radical reforms such as these have no place in a child's development. This treatment as a special case however seems to emerge to hide the obvious inconsistency when these views are placed alongside a devotion to free markets in the <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/the-anti-profit-mentality-in-education">press</a>. This is not convincing.</div>
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While the prospect of for-profit schools remains far in the future, the issue at stake right now is that of choice. Free schools enable parents to select which schools they would like their children to attend, allowing poor ones to fail and enabling the best institutions to grow, and it is this element of choice and chance of failure that is profoundly unpalatable to the Left. Parental choice is admittedly not perfect, though it can be improved considerably, as the IEA notes, by the provision of additional useful data for schools, such as parental satisfaction scores, along the lines of recent motions towards transparency in <a href="http://data.gov.uk/">central government</a> and in the <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Pages/HomePage.aspx">NHS</a>. So far the markets themselves have accommodated for the choice gap by tragically permitting private schools to create a two-track system where the wealthiest children emerge best equipped to succeed. Gove's reforms are a sensible effort to satisfy this demand without resorting to heavy-handed measures, such as a ban on private education outright, which would be even more tragic in outcome.</div>
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Frankly, all of this is somewhat indicative of a general inclination to distrust the decision-making ability of the individual, forcing him to rely instead on the wisdom of central government. We hopefully do not need to be <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/School_enrolment_and_levels_of_education#Database">reminded</a> of the failures of this policy in the past, which suggests that such wisdom might not be as great as it sounds. In spite of unfailing improvements in test scores (until this year) on the national level, British schools have consistently yielded astonishing failure on the international spectrum. If nothing else this should make it clear that, if radical education reform has ever been needed, it it needed now.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-35331441330145463762012-08-24T18:39:00.003+01:002013-08-09T17:47:38.902+01:00REVIEW: Android Jelly Bean<div style="text-align: justify;">
To inaugurate the <i>Technology </i>column with something worthwhile, I take a look here at the recently released <i>Android 4.1.1: Jelly Bean. </i>Below my column you'll also find an exhaustive list of features, courtesy of <a href="http://www.android.com/about/jelly-bean/">Google</a>, which I have included for easy reference.</div>
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Please note that, at the time of writing, I am fortunate enough to own a <i>Samsung Galaxy Nexus</i>, one of very few devices currently running the official version of 4.1.1. Most of these features are therefore very new and likely to contain bugs which will (hopefully!) be ironed out with upcoming versions. This is therefore a quick preview of the upgrades coming soon to Android devices everywhere.<br />
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Switching the device on after the upgrade, the first feature to come to my notice was the smoother activation of the "face unlock" software, which unlocks the phone via face recognition (if you choose to activate it). Jelly Bean features a few improvements to this service, allowing a "liveness check" which asks you to blink at a certain point to eliminate the possibility of a photograph of you being used to activate the device. I used this for a little while, though I found that it caused the verification to fail a lot of the time and, moreover, that I had to close my eyes for a few seconds for it to notice my "blink". While this did allow me the smug satisfaction of appearing to passers by as though I was controlling my smartphone with my mind, it also made me look completely stupid, so I ditched that idea quite early on. In general, I have also had more problems getting the verification to work even without the new feature, so I suspect another thing Google did was tighten various parameters. Sadly this is not an improvement, as even a few strands of hair misplaced across my forehead now sometimes prevent recognition, causing me to waste time inputting the alternative unlock code, which is thankfully still included. I would prefer it if Google retained the other unlock methods for the really security conscious out there while retaining the pre-<i>Jelly Bean</i> sensitivity of the facial recognition. Any security gained is in any case lost by the greasy marks I leave on my screen when entering the second code, betraying my password anyway. The main advantage of the service is to enable rapid unlocking when only one hand is free, such as when walking somewhere. The new changes make this a lot more difficult, and as a result cause me to question whether there is any point using it at all, reducing it to little more than a fancy gimmick.</div>
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After opening the home screen, probably the most striking change that you'll notice in <i>Jelly Bean </i>for is the new look of the search panel at the top. This panel indicates the presence of the much-touted <i>Google Now, </i>a fusion of sorts between the <i>Voice Actions </i>and<i> Google Search </i>functions, already familiar to most keen users of Android, and the much-touted <i>Knowledge Graph. </i>After either hitting the search panel or swiping upwards from the bottom of the screen to activate the program, new users will be greeted by a disclaimer screen asking whether they wish to use the new service. I don't believe it constitutes any risk at all to your personal privacy, although the new ways in which it makes data accessible to the user may be a little disconcerting for some. <i>Google Now </i>forms a centralised hub where the information it believes is the most important to you at any given time is gathered (determined by past actions, other data and by manual settings in the menus). It tells you the weather forecast, the schedules of nearby buses, any approaching appointments you might have as well as quite a few other things.</div>
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Some features can be rather creepy. If you sync Chrome on your desktop with your phone, for example, it gives you the quickest route to places you recently searched for on <i>Google. </i>It also calculates, again based on recent searches, what time your flights leave and how to get to them on time, and even gives you the sports results of your favourite teams, all without you having to input any data or even request anything directly: it simply works out what data you are most likely to need and when. It silently calculates travel times to your next appointment and automatically gives you ample notice of when you have to leave, as well as the quickest route there. It also works out the time of your normal commute to work along with your usual route there, and it is smart enough to know not to notify you about it every day. If it however discovers, using its magical space brain, that there is heavy congestion along the way, it lets you know in advance, allowing you either to leave early or to use one of the alternative routes which it will helpfully provide for you to beat the traffic. I think this is all very cool and look forward to using it a lot in the future, though I can well understand how it might make some people a little uncomfortable.</div>
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The few issues I have with <i>Google Now</i> include the fact that it is largely aimed at US customers, with flight and sports data, for example, only existing for the United States. This is annoying and makes me feel a little sidelined. Travel notifications are also only available for public transport and driving, which is precious little use when you live in a small city like Oxford where pretty much everything is within easy walking distance, speaking volumes, again, of the software's American origin. I have also had a few days when the service simply refused to work, failing to send notifications of leaving times or weather information. I suspect this was a server-side issue, since everything worked again as usual a few days later without me having to do anything, which makes me a little hesitant before becoming completely dependant on this growing hive mind.</div>
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For other British users out there, the "English (UK)" voice package in 4.1.1 is actually rather good, and seems to be constantly improving. It sounds a little like "Jarvis", the robot from the <i>Iron Man </i>films, which can another little ego boost for users, and speaks with decent fluency and accent. Speech recognition can also now be downloaded to the phone, which gets rid of those little episodes when showing off your flashy new technology when it just refuses to work. Voice typing, as a result, should work even in areas with no data connection. I am actually amazed at the quality of the "English (US)" package, which sounds increasingly human and is even able to pronounce British place names, including my confusingly spelled home town. This is yet to transfer to the UK package however, though seeing it already working elsewhere gives me hope that such improvements are only a matter of time. The fusing of <i>Google Now </i>and the knowledge graph with voice control also allows you to feel like you're having a conversation with the device, quizzing it about factual questions and giving it instructions which it promptly carries out. One feature that has impressed everyone whom I have shown it to so far is the versatility of the alarm. You can ask it to "set alarm for x" as before, though telling it to "remind me to take the bread out of the oven in 25 minutes" now works with astonishing fluidity and with very little error, in spite of the apparent complexity of the request. Indeed, many of the previously US-only voice actions are now available in the UK, such as the "note to self" feature, which comes in handy at times. I keep discovering new amusing features all the time, such as "I am hungry" giving me directions to the nearest restaurant, and I believe I'll be having a lot of fun with this for some time to come. You are also supposed to be able to activate voice control from the <i>Google Now </i>screen just by saying the word "Google", though I have never been able to get this to work, and I wonder whether it's even available without the <i>Nexus 7 </i>tablet.</div>
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I believe these are the most noticeable changes in the new OS, though I feel I should also give a cursory nod to a few other details. Rearranging icons and widgets is now much less of a headache, with things resizing to fit available gaps and moving to make space for new objects rather than simply refusing to be placed. A few design elements, such as the <i>Music </i>app, have also had small makeovers, while some, such as the <i>Calendar</i>, have had minor and barely noticeable changes to the interface. The Camera app now allows much easier shifting to and from the photo view, while managing recently taken photos is much easier now due to a feature that allows you to pinch to zoom out while in photo view and then to flick through and delete images you don't like. <i>Project Butter</i> is a major element of Google's advertising literature, though it makes very little impact (as well it should), simply making everything work a lot better and more fluidly. Notifications notably now have interactive elements as well, allowing you to selectively dismiss the ones you don't care about and to take actions on the most important ones without even having to open an app, which is rather useful.</div>
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All in all, this is a fantastic release that probably represents one of the most important changes in Android functionality in recent years. I will be particularly interested to see how voice control progresses beyond this point, as I suspect it will gradually become a much more important aspect of smartphone interfaces.</div>
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A complete index of all new features is now included below for those who are interested. I expect the next phone to get the upgrade will be the Samsung Galaxy SIII, with the it <a href="http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s3-jelly-bean-coming-august-29-alongside-samsung-galaxy-note-2-108011/">anticipated</a> for the end of the month, so there is a lot to look forward to for Android owners over the next few weeks.</div>
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Feature List</h2>
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General Features</h3>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Everything in Jelly Bean feels fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens and switching between apps is effortless, like turning pages in a book.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean features improved performance throughout the system, including faster orientation changes, faster responses when switching between recent apps, and smoother and more consistent rendering across the system through vsync and triple buffering.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean has more reactive and uniform touch responses, and makes your device even more responsive by boosting your device's CPU instantly when you touch the screen, and turns it down when you don't need it to improve battery life.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">With Jelly Bean, blind users can use 'Gesture Mode' to reliably navigate the UI using touch and swipe gestures in combination with speech output.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With the new accessibility focus feature, you can move a cursor between controls to maintain a target for the next action or a source for the next navigation event. You can double tap anywhere to launch the current item with accessibility focus.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Text traversal in accessibility now gives you more control – choose to move between pages, paragraphs, lines, words or characters.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">TalkBack, a screenreader for Android, now supports gestures to trigger actions, to navigate applications, and traverse text.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Get full support for braille accessibility services (download BrailleBack on Google Play).</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Android Beam</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With Android Beam, you can now easily share your photos and videos.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Instantly pair your phone or tablet to Bluetooth® devices like headsets or speakers that support the Simple Secure Pairing standard by just tapping them together.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Audio Accessories</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Support for USB audio docks, shipping later this year.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Browser and WebView</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Browser has improved performance, CPU and memory efficiency. With better performance for animations and HTML5 canvases and an updated JavaScript Engine (V8), pages load faster and feel smoother.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Browser now has better HTML5 video support, and has a new user experience. Just touch the video to play and pause, and smoothly transition into and out of fullscreen mode.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Browser now supports the updated HTML5 Media Capture specification on input elements.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">WebView now supports vertical text, including Ruby Text and other vertical text glyphs.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Calendar</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Calendar is more buttery. Content fades in, animations are sprinkled throughout, and swiping/paging between days is smoother.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Calendar will now display event colors if you've given your event a color on your PC.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The 'Today' button on the action bar now shows the current day. When viewing an event's details, you can now email all the guests with a single tap.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Notifications for upcoming events now display more of the event description to let you quickly see relevant details without having to open the app.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Notifications for upcoming events now let you email all the guests without opening the app, and you can choose a quick response such as "Be there in 10 minutes" or type your own.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new option in Calendar settings lets you create your own default quick responses for emailing guests.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now snooze an upcoming event reminder right from the notification.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Calendar has a new 7" tablet layout that is optimized for the form factor.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When viewing Calendar in portrait orientation on tablets, you can hide or expand controls to give you complete control over how you view your Calendar space.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Calendar will now remember whether you've chosen to hide or expand controls so you have a consistent experience viewing Calendar whenever you open it.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Camera and Gallery</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now swipe from the camera viewfinder to quickly review photos you've taken without having to leave the camera app. You can swipe back to the camera viewfinder to start snapping photos again.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When viewing photos in Gallery, you can pinch to zoom out to enter "filmstrip mode" and rapidly review photos. When viewing photos in filmstrip mode, you can swipe up or down to delete an individual photo. You can also undo the delete with a single tap.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When taking a photo, a new animation sweeps your photo off the screen. There is now a new paging animation when swiping between photos.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Camera features a new animation for switching between the front-facing and back cameras.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When focusing on an object in Camera, a new animation gives you visual feedback on your focus state.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gallery features a new animation when selecting a photo from within the album view and back.</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Data Usage</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now dismiss a data usage warning without changing the data threshold set for warning notifications.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Disable background data usage on certain Wi-Fi SSIDs by designating them as mobile hotspots.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Android now automatically detects when one Jelly Bean device is tethered to another's Wi-Fi hotspot, and intelligently enables or disables background data usage on the SSID.</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Face Unlock</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Face Unlock is now faster and more accurate, and startup is smoother with a new animation.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can improve face matching accuracy by calibrating your face in different conditions and with different accessories (e.g. hat, glasses).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Face Unlock can now optionally require a 'blink' to verify that a live person is unlocking the device rather than a photo.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Internationalization</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean adds support for bidirectional text and more input languages to make the platform accessible to more people around the world.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">There is improved support for Arabic and Hebrew, including a new Arabic font, in the platform.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now enter text in one of 18 new input languages, including Persian, Hindi and Thai. Additional Indic languages Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam are now supported by the platform.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Emoji from Unicode 6.0 will now render when received or viewed.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">If the system language is set to Japanese, Japanese specific versions of glyphs will now be properly rendered.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Keyboard</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The platform's dictionaries are now more accurate and more relevant.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The language model in Jelly Bean adapts over time, and the keyboard features bigram prediction and correction.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now switch languages quickly with the dedicated language selector key on keyboard.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can use custom keyboard input styles for more than 20 languages, with keymaps for QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, and PC styles.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can choose the input styles that you want to use for each keyboard, and use a hotkey to switch between them while typing.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Messaging and Talk</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New notifications display the full text of incoming SMS messages. When receiving an MMS, you can view the full photo in a notification.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When entering recipients for an SMS or MMS, a new UI collects recipients as chips, making it easier to compose messages.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Talk features a new notification style.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Notifications</b></div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now take action on notifications directly from the redesigned notifications shade.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Notifications from the same application are grouped together, and the first item is automatically expanded. You can also pinch notifications to expand or collapse them.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You now get an image preview in notifications after taking a screenshot. You can quickly share the screenshot directly from the notification.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can lock automatic display rotation from the notifications shade on 7" tablets.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">For Wi-Fi only devices, quickly see the SSID of the access point you're connected to from the notifications shade.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now touch-hold a notification to identify the application that created it and turn off notifications from that application if needed, as well as uninstall the application.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Networking</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Wi-Fi protected setup is now supported with WPS push button and PIN support.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new setting lets you stay on mobile data and avoid nearby Wi-Fi networks with poor connections.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>News and Weather</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">News and Weather is updated to improve freshness and power consumption.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>People</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The People app is more buttery with smoother animations and improved search performance.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The People app now retrieves high res photos automatically for Google contacts with public Google+ profiles and displays higher res photos (720x720) on certain devices.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">High res photos set on Google accounts will be backed up and synced across devices.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The People app has a new 7" tablet layout that is optimized for the form factor.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now quickly add your favorite contacts to a home screen, directly from the contact's details page.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The People app helps you organize your contacts and reduces duplicates with an Improved auto-joining algorithm.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now clear the frequently contacted list from the favorites tab in the People app.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Phone</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When you miss a call, a new notification lets you return the call or reply by SMS with a single touch.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Incoming visual voicemails are displayed in a new notification that lets you play the message with a single touch.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When a call is ongoing, a new notification lets you hang up the call with one touch.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">As part of Project Butter, the dial pad is more responsive. Call log scrolling is buttery smooth, and swiping between tabs in Phone is quick and fluid.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now clear your frequently contacted list in the favorite tab of Phone.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now add phone numbers from the call log to existing, read-only contacts.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Settings</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Accounts are now displayed in the primary Settings view so you can easily see all the accounts you're signed into on your device.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now easily access all Google Privacy Settings in one place by selecting your Google account from Settings.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>System</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Device encryption is now more reliable, and periodically reminds you to decrypt your device. Now, SMS messages and calls are declined when waiting for decryption.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can long press the 'Power Off' option in the power menu to boot your device to safe mode.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new 'Reset app preferences' button lets you quickly reset default applications for specific activities, background data restrictions, notifications suppressions, and more.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A redesigned dialog with larger icons lets you intuitively choose your preferred application for specific activities.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Google Apps Device Policy on your device may now override the 'keep screen awake' option from developer settings.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Text-to-speech</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean introduces a new conversational text-to-speech voice in US English, available as both a network engine and an embedded engine via the TTS API.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Voice Typing</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new embedded speech recognizer lets you use Voice Typing even when you don't have an Internet connection.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Widgets</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean makes it easier to personalize your home screen. As you place widgets on the screen, everything else automatically moves to make room.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When they're too big, widgets resize on their own. If you choose to resize a widget, apps and widgets will now also move out of the way.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now quickly remove apps or widgets from any home screen by picking them up and flinging them to the edge of the screen.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Launching apps and returning back home are now faster and smoother.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The New Google Experience on Android</b></h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Search</b></div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With Jelly Bean, a redesigned experience uses the power of the Knowledge Graph to show you search results in a richer way. It's easier to quickly get precise answers to search queries and explore and browse search results.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Get to Google Search faster: Google Search can be opened directly from the lock screen by swiping up. For devices with software navigation keys, you can now swipe up from the system bar to quickly access Google Search with Google Now. For devices with a hardware search key, you can tap it to launch Google Search.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">If you're using a wired headset, long press the headset's button to activate Voice Search. You can quickly perform a search query by voice and have the result read back to you.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can say "Google" to activate Voice Search from within Google Search.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">For many search queries performed through Voice Search, you can now hear a spoken answer.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Voice Search recognition is now significantly faster so you can search quickly on the fly.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Voice Search can now recognize queries even when you have a poor network connection.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Now</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Google Now brings you just the right information at just the right time. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them, and appear as a notification when they're important. Learn more.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Weather card: When you start your day, Google Now shows weather for your current location and work.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Traffic card: Get traffic conditions and alternate routes before you leave home or work.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Transit card: When you're near a bus stop or a subway station, this card shows you what buses or trains are next.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Places card: When you're on the go, Google Now will suggest nearby bars, restaurants, and places of interest.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Flight card: See flight delays and traffic conditions to the airport for flights you've recently searched for.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Sports card: You can see live scores and upcoming games and also buy game tickets on the fly.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Currency card: When you're traveling, quickly check the local conversion rate.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Translation card: When you're in a foreign country, you can quickly translate words into the local language.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Apps</b></h3>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google+</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">As you swipe through the stream, large bold photos now fall into place with animations giving you a more interactive browsing experience.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Google+ on tablets has a new magazines layout in the stream.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now create and manage Google+ Events right from your device. Posts and photos are saved to the event so you can relive the party any time.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Party Mode lets you instantly upload and share photos during an Event so you capture all the right moments in one place.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New notifications let you +1, comment, or reshare without having to open the Google+ app.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now see live video streams of all participants in a Hangout.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new navigation menu lets you easily navigate through the app and quickly see Google+ notifications.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When viewing a post, you can now swipe to expand and view comments.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
Gmail</h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gmail has an optimized view for 7" tablets in portrait orientation to give you a better experience reading email.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gmail and Email feature updated notifications will give you a preview and digest of your inbox. Notifications will also now display the full text of new mail.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>YouTube</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">YouTube has a new, more intuitive user interface, including a guide that provides quick access to your channel subscriptions.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">YouTube can now preload videos from subscribed channels for seamless playback even on slower networks.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With a new integrated menu, you can easily watch YouTube on the big screen with Nexus Q or YouTube TV.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Chrome</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">As a part of Project Butter, Chrome is optimized for fluid and responsive interaction with web content.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">To get you started, a new product tour guides you through Chrome’s features.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Quickly change tabs by dragging your thumb from the edges of the screen.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Chrome has a new look and feel for the "Other Devices" page.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Chrome now has simplified application-level settings, which are most consistent with the rest of the platform.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Chrome is the standard browser on Nexus 7.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Maps</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With support for offline maps, you can select an area to cache and access it even when you don't have a data connection.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Compass Mode for indoor views and street view is more accurate and responsive with gyroscope support.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With Zagat ratings and reviews built in to Maps, you can quickly get the information you need about places you search for.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now browse Google Offers within Maps to find local deals.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Get indoor walking directions in Maps.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b>
<b></b>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Currents</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With performance enhancements throughout the application and updates to the user interface, you can browse articles quickly and intuitively.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">With an enhanced layout engine for articles, you can enjoy dramatic, large images on a variety of articles.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Currents now uses hardware acceleration to make moving between articles smoother.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Currents has a new 7" tablet layout that is optimized for the form factor.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">For editions written in other languages, you can now translate text into your preferred language.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Play</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new set of recommendations widgets use a variety of signals — content that people with similar tastes have purchased, stuff that's popular around where you live, content people in your Google+ circles have +1'ed, and more — to recommend new content like apps, games, music, and movies.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new My Library widget, which displays all of your recent movies, books, music, and magazines and dynamically changes based on what you've been engaging with recently.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Smart App Updates ensure that only the parts of an application that have changed will be downloaded when you next update it, saving on time, bandwidth, and battery when updating apps.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jelly Bean introduces app encryption for paid apps.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Play Books</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Embedded audio tracks and videos can now be easily streamed directly within the book you're reading.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can now add bookmarks to remember important information for later or pick up where you left off reading.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Play Books now offers fixed layout books, optimized for tablet-reading of books with beautifully designed graphics and layouts, like children's books and comic books.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">For visually impaired users, automatic text-to-speech settings have been enabled.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><b>Google Play Movies and TV Shows</b></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Movies and TV shows can be quickly downloaded for viewing offline, now with just one tap.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">When you make a new purchase from Google Play, that item will be synced directly to the Play Movies and TV Shows app, ready for you to watch when you open the app.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can watch Movies and TV Shows with Nexus Q by using the integrated media routing menu.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can zoom in during video playback.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Google Play Music</b></h4>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new Sound Search widget lets you identify songs you hear and purchase them directly from Google Play.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The Google Play Music widget now lets you thumbs up songs as they're playing and features a new design for better readability.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Playlist art is automatically created based on the album art of songs in that playlist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In the now playing bar, you can swipe between screens.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The Recent screen features larger album art.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">You can delete tracks within the app.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">There is a Now Playing queue of tracks.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">There is an integrated media routing menu for listening to tracks on Nexus Q, Bluetooth audio devices and headsets.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-2593849436461599052012-08-24T00:05:00.000+01:002013-08-09T17:47:15.690+01:00Marriage and the Modern Tory<div style="text-align: justify;">
A huge amount of debate has been raised by the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18405318">national press</a> over the past few months on the issue of gay marriage, incensing many on both sides of the opinion spectrum. One group that faces a rather peculiar dilemma as a result of this is British conservatives.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
As a conservative, I believe that the family is an essential building block of our country. Good social behaviour and, for that matter, good citizenship both begin at home and are strongly encouraged by a stable family life. To young children, the family can act as an analogy of the state. Being taught to behave well in a family environment from a young age can therefore have huge advantages in later life. These same beliefs were in the Conservative Party's election manifesto, and remain on its <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Family.aspx">website</a>. On account of this, it seems reasonable to encourage the raising of children in such an environment with <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/04/Recognising_marriage_in_the_tax_system.aspx">tax benefits</a>. These benefits are bestowed according to the official recognition of the relationship between the couple who wish to raise their nuclear family in this manner as a "marriage".</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is something slightly odd about this, and it certainly has nothing to do with the recognition of same sex couples in such a system, although that serves to highlight the issue quite nicely. Why does a party primarily concerned with restoring rights to the individual and removing state interference where it does not belong feel the need to judge whether a couple's relationship is or isn't "valid" in its eyes? Surely this is yet another manifestation of swollen central government, leading to such debates as are being encountered <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9335616/Will-gay-marriage-end-in-divorce-for-church-and-state.html">now</a> as to whether, for example, the state has the right to set such a precedent before the various religions that a country is host to.</div>
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The abolition of state control over the institution of marriage would eliminate these problems. Choice would be left instead to the beliefs of each individual couple and to whatever religion they might choose to attach themselves. The result of this, however, would be a complete loss of the much-needed ability to reward and encourage the growth of stable families. Instead, this would probably have to be conducted on a case-by-case basis, calculating how many people of each age group there are in a household, how long they spend at home &c., matched against the key features of the government of the day's "ideal" family. This is also not a very good system, leading to further problems of its own without even reducing state interference in a particularly meaningful way.</div>
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It is very unlikely that there will be a satisfactory solution to this issue soon. For the time being, people's relationships and family lives will remain a political football. The point remains, however, that a government taking such a powerful hand in private lives as a matter of course should leave a very bad taste in the mouth of any right-thinking conservative.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8867124764259823538.post-88123920863983723472012-08-18T00:47:00.000+01:002013-08-09T17:46:55.336+01:00A University Education Should Not Be a Social Necessity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A very interesting and thought-provoking <a href="http://www.fabians.org.uk/why-we-need-a-veterans-champion-in-every-area/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-we-need-a-veterans-champion-in-every-area">article</a> was published recently by Neil Blower of the Fabian Society. He writes of a proposal to attach "veteran's champions" to local councils to fight for the rights of former servicemen and women. I am of course strongly biased in favour of such a proposal, despite the obvious issues that arise whenever there is pressure to champion one sector of society above others. Mr Blower is of course correct when he notices the challenges that face veterans today, many of whom join the services at a young age and leave with a far below-average experience of the requirements of civilian life. Where he falls short, I feel, is in his citation of the commonly-held belief of the universal necessity and suitability of a university education, which he sees as the ideal solution to this.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cps.org.uk/blog/q/date/2012/08/13/education-and-the-economy-debunking-the-philistine-myth/">Statistically</a>, the most significant advances in science and technology are achieved by a very tiny percentage of the population that emerges largely independently of financial resources and which is largely self-taught. This is a distressing truth, which unfortunately does little to commend the ability of our universities to inspire and improve our finest minds. It should be obvious that the intellectual health of a nation largely dependant on its ability to find these individuals and to enable them to work as efficiently as possible. This is not assisted by striving to drag everyone through university, which reduces the scope of many courses to match the average person's understanding and interest and, by greatly increasing class sizes, drastically lowers the quality of education provided. Placing everyone at the same standard encourages apathy among the most able and does little to benefit our best and brightest.</div>
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Even from the standpoint of the average Brit, completely open access would do a great deal of harm. Take this very silly <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/05/29/to-boost-post-college-prospects-cut-humanities-departments">article</a> by Peter Cohan, which suggests that humanities degrees should be scrapped on account of their failure to lead directly to employment. Perhaps Peter is in a better place to offer judgement than most of us, having a BA in the History of Art from a liberal arts college himself, though it seems more likely that his opinions reflect a general trend in higher education within the United States. More so than in Britain, tertiary education is viewed as an essential rite of passage, justifying astronomical fees even when matched with such poor employment prospects. The US population has almost the highest <a href="http://completionagenda.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/reports_pdf/Progress_Report_2010.pdf">percentage of graduates</a> in the world, and yet he is surprised that having a degree does not automatically grant preferential treatment when it comes to employment. Even those who ultimately decide not to undertake higher education in such an environment are placed at a disadvantage, lacking qualifications seen as an essential part of civilised life, resulting both in them being overlooked for jobs as a direct result of this and suffering from a poverty of ambition by seemingly falling short of the standards held by most of their peers.</div>
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What this attitude leads to is the sort of reverse reasoning that concludes that, since a university degree is essential, it must therefore provide the kind of necessary training required for immediate employment. This leads to the dangerous belief that education is the equivalent of training, and suddenly all intellectual pursuits that don't directly lead to a career in business become worthless. The outcome of this is a tragic disdain for such disciplines as History and the Social Sciences, the very subjects that lead to further understanding of the operation of humankind as a species, and which make blog posts like this one possible. Possible solutions to this have been offered, such as <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/privatise-business-schools">the study</a> which this week suggested that business schools be jettisoned by universities into the world of private enterprise. This would supposedly give students the necessary experience of the hard realities of the business world and free them from the clutches of the lazy student lifestyle. There may be some scope for this if business degrees are to be seen as a special case (they under-perform terribly at the moment, prompting many employers to doubt their worth entirely), although I suspect the experience encountered with "hard realities" may be more practical than planned. Noting as well the complex funding needed to avoid limiting access to only the most wealthy, this plan for now remains little more than a pipe dream.</div>
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Financial restrictions to entry are patently not the answer. A <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/08/14/fees-alarming-misunderstanding/">YouGov survey</a> recently revealed that the complexity of finding funding to pursue degrees is putting more and more young people off applying for university places. That is, people are being discouraged from attending university solely for financial reasons, entirely interdependently of intellectual ability. This is a disaster. Already a decline in funding for graduate degrees has made the leap to performing valuable research impossible for many. This has resulted in the scandalous "broken bridge" to PhD and DPhil level that was noted by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in his <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwoxacuk/localsites/gazette/documents/supplements2011-12/Oration_by_the_Vice-Chancellor_(1)_to_No._4964.pdf">speech</a> last year, as it was discovered that there was almost no funding available for masters programmes in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This inevitably leads to further selection according to financial ability, with many places being given to second-choice candidates, with ability to pay trumping academic quality.</div>
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Markets do many things very well. With a few drawbacks, they are excellent at encouraging competitiveness and at ensuring resources are delivered to those who will make the most efficient use of them. They do not however work very well when used to select people for tertiary education. Prospective students are for the most part at the beginning of their working lives. Lacking the opportunity to have built up their personal finances, they must rely instead on the affluence of their parents and the meagre generosity of banks (for graduate degrees, only Barclays, the Co-op and RBS currently offer career development loans, and even then they are only appropriate for a tiny percentage of <a href="http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/educationandlearning/adultlearning/financialhelpforadultlearners/careerdevelopmentloans/dg_10033237">qualifications</a>). This is a terrible criteria for selection and can do nothing but harm to both the economic and social well-being of a country.</div>
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On the other hand, Mr Blower condescendingly declares that "caring for people is surely very much the purview of the left". There is little caring about watering down research at a time of economic hardship, when high-quality innovation is needed most, and about creating false expectation with <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026858/Bosses-condemn-useless-degrees-leave-graduates-lacking-basic-skills.html">worthless degrees</a>. There was nothing caring, either, about the Labour party's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/jan/27/tuitionfees.students">introduction of tuition fees</a>, which forced a huge, productive and vital sector of the population into crippling debt. There is no easy solution to this, but a good start would be to discourage a US-style mindset, encouraging on-the-job training for those who see education only as a direct route to employment in a single field. Also, in tandem with Michael Gove's <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/university-clearing/9481199/Clearing-2012-fewer-students-win-university-places.html">recent actions</a> in secondary education, institutions might be served by becoming more selective. Such a move would be wildly unpopular however, and does not play very well with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/17/university-funding-cuts-institution-hefce-universities">recent cuts</a> to university budgets.</div>
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Ultimately, a good principle to follow is that tertiary education should be open to all, although equally that it is not appropriate for everyone. Education enriches not only the individuals who possess it, but a country as a whole, leading people to become better informed in their political decisions, to relate better to others and to develop a greater stake in society. As Mr Blower rightly says, it grants, focus and purpose. While it continues to be viewed by many as merely a necessary evil, a tool on the path to a job, it loses a great deal of this essence, delivering instead only disappointment and a negative bank balance.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Acknowledgement is due to Professor Peter Kruschwitz of the University of Reading for his valuable insights into university funding, provided for the purposes of this post.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973160343680461434noreply@blogger.com0Radcliffe Square, Oxford OX1, UK51.753091074043638 -1.254351139068603551.752476574043641 -1.2555851390686035 51.753705574043636 -1.2531171390686036