Occupational Thoughts -

I submitted this proposal to my school regarding what would happen if they go ahead with academy status. Either the school is taken over by a private corporation, or we save it by taking it into collective ownership, I’ve already had worries over the legality of children owning shares in a co-op, and I can’t [...]

I’ve just seen the latest piece of propaganda emanating from the Gaza aid flotilla shootings. And I’ve had the lyrics for Anatomy of your Enemy by Anti-Flag floating around for a while. They’re vaguely relevant to the situation, so I’ve re-published them here in a modified form: First step: create the enemy. Sometimes this will [...]

Over time I’ve been exploring the ideas of media ownership and how propaganda can be used for good. It’s raised serious questions regarding freedom of speech which I’ve tried but not entirely succeeded to dismiss. And so I present some more solutions to this problem. A disadvantage of a media industry influenced by capitalism is that it [...]

On Thursday I went to #Voicetweetup and got the chance to handle an iPad, imported from America by Amanda Clark. It’s by all means an impressive device, and I admire it’s aesthetic simplicity, yet overall it’s a flawed product. The reason I see it as flawed is that it’s not open. To help you understand what I [...]

I came across this in the local paper from two weeks ago, Tim Hobden makes an argument against the council producing news. It made me think back to an article George Monbiot wrote, here’s the relevant extract: There’s one respect in which the local press is confronting power: by campaigning against the free papers published [...]

I’ve been on a sort of waning buzz since I got home, partly because it’s the end of school and the beginning of the revision period, and partly because someone brought in their sketchbook and showed it to the rest of our form. Inside were sketches of various expressions and a character, when asked about [...]

Before I go full rant I should say that I totally understand the upset caused by state propaganda. I’m writing this in response to a former comrade who clearly flinched at the notion. It offends their libertarian instinct. I had that same knee-jerk reaction too, now after careful reflection and having read the first few chapters of this book, I’m [...]

The traditional argument against Wikipedia goes a bit like this: Wikipedia is a ‘web-site’, on the ‘internet’, I don’t understand it very well but apparently anyone can contribute to it. And since everyone on the internet is stupid then this ‘web-site’ must be full of lies. Unfortunately the traditional media is full of people who are fearful [...]

It seems I’m on a roll here, I’m doing 3 posts in one day. It’s coming at a cost though, I still haven’t done all the essays that were set over the winter holiday. For the moment I’m going to rage at something which has bothered me since I tried writing those damned essays: the [...]

Back from my last post I was thinking about design and I remember having played Bioshock this week. I returned and took some pictures: Apparently the game is a critique Ayn Rand’s philosophy. I don’t know Ayn Rand, or her theory of Objectivism. But I gather it has something to do with leaving humans to do [...]

On Friday I went to the London Design Museum, it’s a fairly small place with only three exhibitions. Nevertheless it was educational and I found some quirky facts like that Braun clocks were always kept at 8 minutes past 10 in promotion photos because that’s the time the hands look most evenly spread. The exhibitions were on the surface just [...]

I’ve been working on this sketch in ten-minute spurts for about a week now. I wanted to use the same iconography of capitalism on the flag that was displayed by the Clan Destined in this video and this post. It’s pretty self explanatory really, oh and the background is the London stock exchange. The image [...]

This morning I watched the documentary ‘Outfoxed‘ by Robert Greenwald. It’s about how Fox News in the USA is not a fair & balanced media channel, that it’s full of lies and right-wing propaganda. I didn’t really need a documentary to tell me this because I knew already but it was insightful nevertheless. Watching this comes [...]

This post is about video editing, it may be boring for some people, but bear with me. I have encountered some problems with editing MP4 files in the H.264 video format and AAC audio format from my Flip camcorder. These problems occur on the suite I use: Serif MoviePlus X3 Takes epic amounts of processing power, the [...]

In writing this I’m setting out with the statement that I actually really like Sixth-Form. But. I was promised a completely relaxed work ethic, in part due to the fact that I don’t actually have to be there. What I have found is not what I expected. It’s not unfair to say that the teachers [...]