End of Term!

Literally so excited to go home, especially when I’ve only just realised that it’s like a week to Christmas now! I genuinely can’t wait. Now that we’ve all finished our tests and have no more lectures we can fully appreciate the magic that is Christmas :D

Now that im going home tomorrow im so excited to be back to the quietest town imaginable – good old Kenilworth. Seriously, Winchester is just a busier Kenilworth. The prospect of being able to watch TV again and see the Christmas coke advert, which I still haven’t, is enough to fuel my Christmas cheer – it’ll make me even more excited about Christmas. But yeah I digress, I just wanted to talk about Christmas and I can’t imagine I would post much while im back at Kenilworth!

So now that I successfully budgeted to get me about £10 left for tonight, which is just enough to get drunk at the end of term party! Hey, might as well end the term as I started it – blazing drunk. Cya after Christmas everyone.

Philosophy Revision!

Philosophy Revision – Hobbes’ Leviathan and Machiavelli

The Leviathan argues that to achieve peace and social unity a commonwealth must be established, this would be created through the social contract. This is important because life is, according to Hobbes, ‘nasty, brutish and short’. This can be linked to Machiavelli insofar as he states that men are all wicked and therefore you can see a link with their ideas on human nature – they both have a highly pessimistic view on it.

The Commonwealth is to be lead by a sovereign power (the sovereign power = the Leviathan). The Leviathan is portrayed as a person – the head is the sovereign and the body is the people. This is important because it is needed to ensure a common defence. Machiavelli shows to be similar to Hobbes with his idea of a dictatorial leader; however there is a difference, this is a need for an absolute monarchy which will in turn creates national independence, security and a solid constitution.

Hobbes states that a leader can be challenged if they fail to protect citizens and uphold social unity, whereas on the other hand Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ is far to deterministic, insofar as it assumes there will be no issues with the leadership so it leaves no room for a rebellion. While Hobbes states that the leader has to be noble and act accordingly to maintain peace and social unity, in ‘The Prince’ it states that the leader doesn't have to be noble, as “a ruler will perish if he is always good”. Machiavelli goes on to promote the idea of being an advocate of religion, as a way to share the faith with the people. Hobbes doesn't promote the idea of religion because he believes the sovereign must be the head of the state and not some belief in religion.

While Hobbes disagrees with the religious aspects of this, they both believe that humans are naturally selfish and only care about self-preservation. Hobbes pessimistic view on human natures means that he believes that the one and most important human right is the right to self preservation – and from this people try and find peace which allows the social contract to be formed. Machiavelli agrees with this and this is backed up by his quote on how self-centred humans are “men forget the death of their fathers more easily than the loss of inheritance”. From this we can see that Hobbes’ ideas put forward in the leviathan and Machiavelli’s ideas put forward in The Prince can be related, mostly when it comes to their views on human nature.

Philosophy Revision – John Locke’s theories of Government:

Locke is highly against the monarchy, this is because the people in power could easily abuse their powers and turn it into a dictatorship. Therefore he despised the idea of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ because the King or Queen could hide behind the defence that they were chosen by God and therefore going against them would be to defy God.

Locke has a very optimistic view on human nature; this is reflected through his views on the state of nature. In Locke’s state of nature he believed that people would naturally co-operate and respect each other, so he believes that the monarchy should be naturally selfless - do everything in the interest of the people and do nothing for self gain. He believes that all men are born equal so if this was the case then no-one could be born into the monarchy and so on. This is linked to Locke’s idea that people are born as blank slates – this means that we have no innate knowledge of the outside world, our knowledge has to be shaped by experience and through our senses; therefore, people have to earn the right to be leaders and no-one can be born “higher up” than anyone.

Locke does however believe that a government is necessary; this is mainly to try and solve or avoid any crimes or disputes about property. In Locke’s state of nature he claims that it is acceptable to kill people if they are protecting their property, although he also states that the government should stop such acts from being committed but goes on to say that the government should also advocate sticking to the natural laws wherever possible.

He believes that the government should be one of consent and this is his social contract theory. This is the idea that in order to live peacefully and protected people have to surrender a small amount of their freedom to the state in order for them to intervene in their lives. To ensure that the government doesn't get too powerful it also has limitations placed on it, it is mostly in place to protect people’s property and possessions.

Locke believes that there must be a separation of powers when it comes to government, so that the monarchy, government and the legislature are all kept separate, this creates a balance and stops one power from getting too grand.

Philosophy Revision – Descartes and Plato:

Descartes – He believes that there is very little evidence to suggest that the world as it appears is the world as it actually is. Descartes is highly sceptical in the existence of anything except for one’s own existence in some form. He came up with the Cogito – “I think therefore I am” this explains that by having any kind of thought process must mean you exist, but in what context we can pretty much never be sure, as everything that we are seeing could just be in our minds (yes matrix). Descartes also mentions the idea of a ‘demon’ trying to deceive you from what is reality and what is not.

Plato – Theory of the Cave; mankind are blind to the world while they are trapped inside this cave and the world outside is the real world. The people in the cave watch their lives play out in the form of shadows and outside of the save lays the true forms of what they see. When someone steps out of the cave and into the light they become enlightened and can see the world as it really is. We can experience the material world when we perceive the transcendent realm of the forms; this suggests that the material world is not our real reality.

Philosophy Revision – Hume: Deduction, Induction, Apriori, Aposteriori

Apriori knowledge can be understood without any previous knowledge or experience, for example, you will just know that by definition 'all bachelors are unmarried'.

Aposteriori knowledge, on the other hand, requires some experience or empirical evidence to understand that for example, 'some bachelors are happy'. Aposteriori knowledge alludes to a person’s experience; but the issue concerns how you know the claim in question.

Inductive Reasoning (Empirical knowledge) = reasoning derived from facts to figure out the cause, for example if you hit a white billiard ball, it then hits the yellow ball, the yellow ball will have moved. From this we can see that the yellow ball has moved because you have hit the white ball into it.

Deductive Reasoning = arguments that attempt to show a conclusion necessarily follows from a hypothesis. A deductive argument is valid if the conclusion does follow unavoidably from the hypothesis. For example:

1) All men are mortal

2) Socrates is a man

3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Here all objects classified as "men" have been given the quality "mortal". The second premise states that "Socrates" is classified as a man. Therefore we can conclude that “Socrates" has to be mortal as he gains this attribute due to his classification as a man.

One major problem that Hume had was the problem of Induction, stating that all science is a logical fallacy - The Induction Fallacy: just because something happened in the past doesn't mean that it will happen again, it doesn't matter how often it seems to happen. You can’t say that all apples are green because when someone shows you a red apple your whole argument is destroyed.

Hume is highly sceptical of all things; he took Locke’s idea of Empiricism and took it to the very extreme. This scepticism is over Apriori and aposteriori; this is because Apriori can be understood by logic without any observed facts and are therefore logical truths. Hume states that they are discoverable by the mere operation of thought and their denials are inconceivable. Hume then goes on to describe aposteriori as matters of fact; these are the opposite of ideas and some facts that are already in place.

Hume was so sceptical of induction he went as far as saying that we could never be sure that we even exist or we could never be sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. Logically the sun may not rise, but we know that it is a fact that can’t really be proven.

News Writing

As we say goodbye to the "Journalism Now" module, we are greeted warmly with a new module which is "News Writing", which is pretty much learning how to write for a news paper. I'm just going to go over the basics of the lectures, so it'll be a brief one people.

Firstly we need to know "what is news?"

• News could be many things - such as new stuff that happens
• People doing things
• You probably get the idea of that part...

When writing an article you need to have what is known as a 'news peg'. This is pretty much an angle that you're going to take with your article, for example you hear about a dog biting a child and this will be your news peg - it will lead to many stories about dogs attacking children springing up.

The difference between hard and soft news:

• Hard news is all about no holds barred, you must tell the story in all its brutality (if that is the case) for example start with people being hurt, just dive right in with "23 people dead in car crash"
• A soft news story tries instead to entertain or advise the reader, news such as celebrities or advice columns

When thinking about the story you want to report on you must think about the audience, for example if you're a journalist working for the Daily Star then you will be reporting on things such as Big Brother, whereas if you were working for the Telegraph then you would completely ignore any news such as that.

Quite possibly the most important things to consider when writing a news story is making sure you answer 5 key questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why?

You have to make sure you mention at least the first four of those in your top par - this is the most important par and it could make or break any potential article. The first par must be short and sharp, at least 20-30 words have the latest and most interesting information and it has to be fantastic. Then from this you can link in your second par with other important information that is necessary, also this would be a good place to put quotes in.

I've been told this before but now its official im afraid; no-one cares about your opinion... Sad times. We must be objective we can’t go round describing news as good or bad and let our values seep in through the writing process of the article. We're not trying to form people's ideas for them; if something is horrific let them figure it out.

Well I think that this will suffice for now, I’ll be sure to keep my blog updated and not slip behind, and ratings are everything after all!

Bye and stuff x

The Magical Month of December

Ever since going home last weekend im decidedly more Christmassy than usual and seeing as its now December I can talk about Christmas as much as I like without fear of people telling me it’s far too early for Christmas talk. So, to kick start this month off I feel I need to have a Christmas related post, enjoy!

It’s no secret to the people that know me that I love Christmas time and that I’ve been looking forward to it since August (more like April) I constantly talk about how much I’m in love with Christmas and going on about the joys that are Christmas songs and so on.

Christmas for me has always been a time of wonder and let’s be honest, magic. I mean, come on what’s not to love about it? Seeing people out in town wearing coats all wrapped up keeping warm, decorating Christmas trees, the phenomenal experience that is the turning on of Christmas lights, the ever popular Christmas Coke advert and best of all, Christmas films; you can’t say you don’t love watching them, just think about Elf!

Yes it is that magical time of year again, the Christmas coke is flowing and there’s that feeling of Christmas spirit charming its way into our hearts. Despite the obvious joy that Christmas brings, people still tend to dislike Christmas time and this is just an affront to Santa (who is totally real by the way), so don’t listen to them. Seriously, how can you not love the idea of a roly-poly red man breaking into your house and chugging can after can of Christmas coke as he goes?

I hope you all realise that this is going to be my first of many Christmas related posts, so you better get used to them! Seriously, so much excitement for Christmas I genuinely can’t wait. Sure it’ll be sad to leave Winchester when we break up for Christmas but I feel that Kenilworth has been neglected for far too long and I can’t wait to get back home. Hope you enjoyed this random Christmas rant and so on!

Bye and stuff x

I Think Therefore I Am... Awesome? Philosophy notes :)

Well here are my late philosophy lecture and seminar notes! During the 17^th century there was a huge divide between two key ways of thinking – these were British Empiricism and Continental Rationalism.

Empiricism = Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, however empiricism emphasizes the role of experience. For example John Locke is a huge figure when it comes to empiricism, along with David Hume and Francis Bacon.

Rationalism = In Epistemology rationalism is a theory in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but in fact intellectual – therefore it has nothing to do with experience. For example, key rationalist thinkers are Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant.

Descartes: Came up with the Cogito which is his most famous syllogism – I think therefore I am, or in its Latin form “Cogito ergo sum”. He argues that if you are ever doubting yourself or doubting anything then you can always feel safe in the fact that since you are able to think, you must exist! This is his Cogito.

A Syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two or more others (the premises) of a certain form.

Descartes was a 17^th century thinker and a contemporary of Galileo and as expected he held very similar views to Galileo, for example he despised the system of university and so on.

“I had gained nothing from my attempts to become educated but increasing recognition of my ignorance”.

He lived a much fulfilled life – travelling and being involved in many wars and so on but he grew wary of this decided to search for “true knowledge”.

As he was a rationalist he always questioned the validity of things – he would never take anything at face value apart from when it comes to Geometry – he believes that geometry is a constant; there will always only be one certain truth to its aspects. For example it is an unchanging truth that a triangle has 3 sides, nothing can alter this fact.

This is his method of doubt – reject any knowledge where there are grounds for doubt – senses can deceive you and to emphasise this deception he talks of a “demon” that deceives you with things that are false.

The Ontological Argument: This is an a priori proof for the existence of God.

A priori ("from earlier") and a posteriori ("from the later") are used in epistemology to distinguish two types of knowledge or arguments

Descartes argues that God's existence can be deduced from his nature, very much like the nature of geometry; Descartes uses the deduction of the sizes of angles in a triangle as an example. Descartes suggests that the concept of God is of a perfect form. He proposes that existence is perfection: it would be better to exist than not to exist. Therefore, God’s existence is a necessary process for thought.

Spinoza: Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment he came to be considered as one of the great rationalists of the 17th-century philosophy. His famous work, albeit posthumous, Ethics was only really taken seriously after his death and was then published. In “Ethics” he opposed Descartes' mind–body dualism; it has also allowed him to be widely known as Western philosophy's most important contributors.

Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" to signify an idea that was vastly different from the traditional Christian idea of God. He claims that God lacks personality and consciousness – stating that god also has no intelligence, feeling or will. This indifferent God painted by Spinoza is indeed the antithesis to the paternalistic God who cared about all things.

He believed that good and evil related directly to pleasure and pain

All things done by humans and animals, according to Spinoza, are divine acts. However he also believes that humans are naturally allowed to exploit nature in an attempt to further human understanding.

Leibniz: Basically, this dude was such a massive mathematics whiz and a boss when it comes to philosophy – so it’s no surprise that Leibniz occupies a prominent place in the history when it comes to mathematics and philosophy.

He was amazing with inventions and working with calculators, most notably Pascal's calculator.

But what we really want to focus on is philosophy; Leibniz claims that this universe that we’re part of is the best possible one that God could have created. Leibniz, along with Descartes and Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th century thinkers of rationalism

His writings pretty much covered all the main topics of mathematics, politics, law, ethics, theology, history and philosophy. Jeeze, dude did you want to let anyone else put some work in? Impressive stuff.

Leibniz's philosophical writings come down to two philosophical treatises, of which only the Theodicy of 1710 was published in his lifetime. Most of his other philosophical ideas were fairly fragmented, insofar as they came from journal entries and so on.

Leibniz dated his beginning as a philosopher to his Discourse on Metaphysics, which he composed in 1686 as a commentary on a running dispute between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld.

“Discourse” was not published until the 19th century. Leibniz made his public entree into European philosophy in 1695 with an article titled "New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances"

The Monads: When it comes to Metaphysics, Leibniz’s most dazzling contribution is his theory of “monads”.

Monads are to the metaphysical realm what atoms are to the physical realm. They are the ultimate aspects of the universe. The monads are known as "substantial forms of being”, from this Leibniz goes on to explain that they are also eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony.

Unlike atoms, monads possess no material or character. Furthermore they can be seen as different insofar as they have complete mutual independence. Each monad follows a programmed "instructions" very individual to itself, so it always knows what to do at each moment

So there you have it, my notes all about Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz – I did want to mention watching the matrix and how amazing that was but I feel that this should suffice! What a film, quite possibly Keanu Reeves’ best acted film (apart from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure obviously). Anyway, I’ve gone on for long enough I think.

 Im Jack Webb from Winchester signing off, you stay classy, Hampshire x

Law Lecture 7 - Investigative Journalism

It occurs to me that I am constantly falling behind on the blogging standards! This is never a good thing, and when I think back to what I was doing when I should have been blogging I genuinely can’t remember what it was! Here is my solemn vow to keep on top of the blogging - I promise! So here I am now, classic Saturday filled with doing nothing, however this time I have pizza AND The Shining to accompany me; this blogging will be done in no time. Anyway, enough of that, let’s get started on the notes! Enjoy my “avid” readers.

Investigative Journalism basically means that it is “off the diary”. This term is used by journalists because they will always have a diary with potential stories in it, there has been no set agenda as it will be you setting your own agenda – sort of trying to guess what the people want to know as the story will be in the case of public interest. Apparently we have to be supremely awkward with our questions and really be argumentative when trying to get a story or information out of someone. This kind of journalism is usually dubbed “Gonzo Journalism”, for example people like Lois Theroux and Michael Moore.

Investigative Journalism = “What someone, somewhere doesn't want you to publish” Brian Thornton

When you’re involved in this field of journalism you have to, obviously, steer clear of malice! For example trying to publish something just to get revenge on someone or spite them – so basically don’t pursue a story when your active motive is personal revenge... that sounds simple enough!

When it comes to investigative journalism on the matter of serious public interest, a well known example would be that of Harry Evans; this man created an insight team to expose the drug companies that released a new drug for women because the women who used this drug had their children born with deformities. This definitely falls into the category of serious public interest.

We’ve been advised to watch the YouTube videos about “Who Bombed Birmingham” here’s the link, I’ve watched most of it and definitely recommend it!
Episode 1 - Watch me :)

Miscarriages of Justice: The classic cases of something being “off-agenda” are miscarriages of justice. This is when people have been framed and go to jail for a crime that they haven’t even committed – this leads us to think that what if the Legal System isn’t as fair and accurate as we think? People tend to go along with “if the legal system said that they are guilty, then they must be guilty” people don’t think twice about the possibility that the justice system is actually corrupt, this brings us back to our earlier lessons on law about the media being the watchdogs that keeps all institutions in check. So journalists are pretty much a team of superheroes... I knew I picked this course for a reason. Life win.

The Sun Article - Puns

Pun in The Sun

The Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation, furthermore the Sun was first published as a broadsheet in 1964 and this was before Rupert Murdoch took over. So now that we all know about the Sun, the aspect that I’ve chosen is going to be about the Sun’s frequent and somewhat endearing use of puns that we all slightly hate ourselves for laughing at and even loving.

Now typically people tend to look down on puns because they might be seen as cheap wit and often frowned upon, especially when it comes to its use in a newspaper. That being said, we have all now come to expect the Sun to use these puns for any occasion, such as just for fun or to simply embarrass. An example of them embarrassing people would be the headline “Moron Terror” in reference to the 27/1 attempted bombings in London, four people were found guilty of planning the attacks and the Sun primarily focused on the idiocy and incompetence of the operation. When it comes to things such as headlines, that we all know the sun are pretty much famous for, they really hit it off big with the headline during the Falklands War – “Gotcha.” This refers to the famous sinking of the Belgrano warship; it was celebrated on the front page of the Sun in a somewhat mocking manner.

A more recent case of a typical headline delivered by the sun would be the story of Freddie Starr, who has been in the TV show “I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of here!” was made to eat the toes of a Camel. Needless to say the Sun jumped on the chance to recreate a headline and emblazoned in bold on their front page “Freddie Starr Ate My Camel” along with this, they decided that it wasn’t enough to just have such a headline, they clearly had to throw in pun now and then, I mean why not? As Freddie ended up having to be taken to hospital they thought it fitting to state “it was toe much to handle”. The significance of this witty headline is that it is pretty much a rebirth of a very old headline from the Sun about Freddie Starr, the famous case of Freddie Starr allegedly eating a hamster; the Sun used this as their headline - “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”.

The Sun has constantly been using these huge and over the top headlines to draw people in, this is a reflection on their target audience - the working class male. They would assume that the working class male would be interested in showbiz news and so on making the headlines and use of puns really appeal to their readers.

Nathan Week!

Basically now that I’ve blogged about all the work I meant to do this is my excuse for not doing it the day I wrote the notes! My best friend Nathan, who studies Graphics design in Huddersfield, came to visit us here in Winchester for 5 days. These 5 days have been filled to the brim with Ronalds and so much drinking, I’m not sure if I'm entirely proud of myself...

So Nathan was getting here by Mega bus, he set off at 7:00am and he arrived at Winchester 1:10pm so that’s pretty much a six hour journey on the coach. Me and Henry (Hooves) were to meet him at St. Catherine’s Park and Ride (which is like a billion miles out of town and in the country) needless to say, I was right on Google maps and writing down some dynamite directions for us to get there. Naturally, we managed to set off late (not really surprising) and instantly thought we were lost out in the country. Despite this managed to find him and we eventually got back to the uni.

From this we went into town and this set the precedent of what happens now when we go into town - we will always go to the shops and buy cheap snacks and alcohol and then finish it off with a trip to McDonalds. I can honestly say that we had McDonalds 5 days straight, I’m not sure if this is something impressive but I feel just fine... *passes out*

After this we get ready to go out drinking, we managed to go out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (well, drinking in the flat Thursday) and Friday which was the Harry Potter Flirt! This links in with what I was going to say next - Nathan doesn't like doing the theme that they tell you to do, im sure many of you at flirt saw a short blonde guy dressed as a Hobbit from Lord of the Rings - that was Nathan, im sure you'll have seen him despite how short he is.

But yeah, that’s pretty much my week this week, I successfully managed to juggle going out every night with being on time and alive for my lectures! Now thats something to be proud of really, needless to say I think it’s time to slow down on the going out - maybe just the two big nights a week or something or else I may actually run out of money! Haven't touched my overdraft yet - score!

Anyway people keep reading and so on, oh and most of all stay classy, Winchester x

Journalism Now and WINOL Review!

The Journalism now module is pretty much happening, well, now. We've had our first berating of not reading enough newspapers, enough to scare me into reading newspapers every second of the day, because well, reading newspapers = passing our course is the word on the street. Along with journalism now we had our very first "news clinic" which is pretty much our seminar groups being assigned a certain newspaper to read and then start to talk about what we've read in it while answering questions from our lecturers and so on.

Another thing from our journalism now lecture is that we have to review Winchester's online news feature "WINOL" this is Winchester News Online. So after watching through WINOL I have formed the following critique, sorry if im being harsh guys, but im pretty sure you won’t find it all bad! *looks awkwardly away* For the sake of simplicity I’ll just bullet point stuff out

• The intro is pretty cool, though sometime the music does interrupt but thats just down to the editing really
• The majority of the stories were very well reported I found, the one that I liked the most was about the laser machines being implemented into Southampton, insofar as the report was well spoken and well informed
• Some stories seemed a little unprepared, what with them having to look back and forth from camera to their notes - it kind of detracted from the story cause you would notice this quite easily
• I firmly believe that the sports section needs to be shorted, but this is because I have pretty much zero interest in sports and find it utterly dull, so really don’t listen to this point :)
• Some of the animations and transitions were very laggy, they just seemed a bit off
• Pretty much loved the animation in the whole WINOL Life thing, was a very nice touch
• Now, im sure it was just a small slip up but while the anchor was doing the all important sign-off, the music came in too early and interrupted it
• Sorry if im being too harsh, im being purposefully picky - you guys don’t want me to lie to you right? Didn’t think so, however, all in all it was done very well, there were definitely more good things than bad and it was an improvement from last week.

Good job guys and keep up the good work, I only hope that when we start WINOL we do nearly as good! With that, bye and stuff x

Philosophy Lecture - The Clockwork Universe

Key Terms / Ideas: Astronomy - This is the study of the heavens, so don't confuse this with zodiacs and that whole business. Celestial Heavens - This is the idea that anything above the moon is perpetual; it will always be permanent. Aristotelian and Scholastics - people who are heavily influenced by Aristotle. Which can be summed up as Aristotle + Bible = two main books and sources of knowledge. Sub-Lunar - The idea that nothing is constant, this is the world below the moon and so on, eventually concluding that God is constant and that the world below the celestial heavens is 'cursed'.

Aristotelians all tried to find a model of the earth that fits with the ideas of Aristotle: Ptolemy came up with the idea that the Earth is in fact the centre of the universe; He argued that the Moon, Sun, Planets and Stars all revolve and will never change.

Francis Bacon: Bacon states that things such as university never changed - it was merely a system of training clergy men and so on. Bacon was in such an institute and despised this - he violently turned on the Scholastics and Aristotelian approach and called their ideas barren and circular.

Bacon also claimed that the mixing of religion and science was a recipe for disaster because people are constantly trying to change the world - he wanted to break away from these somewhat outdated beliefs and other knowledge from the past that he deemed useless.

Francis Bacon and the New Organon: The Organon was the collective name of all of Aristotle's work. This 'New Organon' had 4 key themes. 
1) Knowledge is the source of human power, so we must harness and navigate through all knowledge. 
2) There must be a clear separation of science and religion, as mixing if caused too many problems in the past.
3) The idea "new knowledge" must be thought up from scratch - these ideas or general theories must be then tested to see if they can prove them, or more accurately in later years "falsify" them. 
4) Science is dynamic - you must always admit to failure when you encounter it as opposed to the archaic way of never admitting defeat or failure, this is the way that you learn.

The Scientific Method: This is the idea that you must always start a new theory from scratch - you must protect yourself from ideas from the past that might influence your ideas - it has to be original basically.

Locke and Human Understanding: Locke believes that natural understanding comes from experience, as we know he also rejected the idea of innate knowledge. He believes that we are all born blank slates, we need experience to help us discover who we are, and furthermore, he believes that God has given us reason so that we can then understand what we are seeing.

The Heliocentric Model, Copernicus and Galileo: The Sun = Centre of the Universe. A 16th century polish man called Copernicus wanted to make a calendar.This idea of his was suppressed and offered to the world as a model of how you can calculate it, this is however not a true picture of reality.

Kepler heavily influenced Galileo and they managed to prefect the Dutch invention - the telescope. For the first time ever this allowed people to actually observe the heavens, this sort of this was un-dreamed of by previous generations - it was a true revelation. The telescope brought with it the power of observation and when you link this with mathematical proof gives you the idea of precedent over presumptive authority. For example, the scholastic system says that the moon is completely smooth, but with the telescope we now know that there in fact creators and mounds upon the moon’s surface and that Jupiter also had its own moons. Galileo attacked Aristotle and his ideas, mostly his distinction between primary and secondary qualities:

Primary = real and quantitative (things like shape, mass, measurable things and so on)

Secondary = placed on all Aristotelian qualities, we're not real in the object it all depends on perception

Isaac Newton: Newton published the book "Principia" in 1687 and it was a mathematical demonstration of what came beforehand (people such as Keplar and Copernicus). Newton convinced people that the world was ordered and knowable - this is when he first mentioned "The Clockwork Universe" 

After Newton, Aristotle’s physics is discredited and the whole of his system of thought were undermined, all thanks to the ideas put forward by Newton and the people after him. This is arguably the advent of the Enlightenment - which is the dominance of science until it is destroyed by Einstein in the 20th Century.

Phew! What a hell of a long blog post, anyway that’s my "summary" of the philosophy lecture on the clockwork universe. 

Bye and stuff, thanks for stopping by, stay classy x

Law Lecture - Copyright

Copyright was first introduced after the birth of the printing press. This is pretty much a simple aspect of law, insofar as at its basic level it means that if you wrote it, then it’s yours; for example an article. The same applies to any pictures you take, poems you write, drawings you do and so on! Copyright is a property protection law that keeps in check how your own work or images are used by others. It protects a number of things; books, images, film and TV broadcasts and so on, anything that you've done yourself is rightfully and lawfully yours, so if someone is trying to pass off their work as your own then boom you can pounce if you can provide and show that you are the original creator of it.

However, you are allowed to 'license' your pictures, articles on to people who ask you to use them, commonly this happens with pictures - people will usually email the owner of a picture to ask if that they are allowed to use them, for example, in their blogs and this is absolutely fine so long as you stick to their terms - for example crediting the owner and source of the photograph.

The confirmation gained through the email is effectively solid, written consent from the owner that you're allowed to use their picture - you must make sure that they give the confirmation in the form of an email, or at least something substantial that will hold up in court if they decide to sue you for breaching copyright law. Basically, don’t steal other people's work, all right, because that’s plagiarism.
The length of copyright does depend on the material. For example musical works are under the copyright of the artist, so long as that artist lives. The copyright then lasts seventy years

Fair Dealing: Fair dealing is a beautiful thing - it allows you to use copyrighted material for free! This can also be referred to as 'lifting'. This means that factual stories in the news can be used, insofar as 'lifting' a quote or a story from another newspaper is allowed - so long as you credit the person who originally took the picture, wrote the quote and so on, because otherwise it seems like you're trying to pass off the quote as if you're the one who collected it. This is all upheld in the Copyright Act of 1976.

Fair dealing can have a defence in news, insofar as lets say a famous actor or musician dies - you would be writing an obituary or be doing a tribute - you can say that since it is relevant to tell the story you need to use footage from the past or from their most recent film and that covers you just fine; because it is warranted, however you must still remember to always credit the owner, otherwise it's like you're saying you filmed it yourself and that it's your footage. It's important to note that when using footage, you're only allowed to use around 6 seconds or so of it, something that is not deemed excessive because otherwise its like rubbing it in.

Second defence for fair dealing; if you're doing a film review then you're welcome to use any footage from whatever it is you are reviewing, this is because it's being used to illustrate and show off the film; as always credit the source and make sure its not a huge amount, like you won't be able to use 3 minutes of it.

Keep it secret... Keep it safe: Confidentiality

Whoa, so I totally forgot about this and thought I’d already blogged about it! Jeeze, im really falling behind on this business - note to self, be better at filing.

Confidentiality: When it comes to confidentiality there are three areas of concern, these are:

1) State Secrets - this is classed as any military secrets, such as the armed forces and their documents. This is upheld by the "Official Secrets Act" and this means that, among other things, you're not allowed by law to reveal the location of troops, for example.

2) Commercial Secrets - This is to do with the confidentiality of workers within a business, known more commonly as business to business dealings. this is the expectation that what a person says will be treated as private and confidential, for example if a boss tells you that they (the business) are commencing a price rise, it’s pretty obvious that you're not supposed to tell rival shops.

3) Privacy - This might be seen as the new libel, insofar as privacy has become very important after the publication of the Human Rights Act which brought with it section 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. This means that there is a clear divide between the public and private spheres of life. The Private sphere is protected by law and people aren’t allowed to pry on it because this infringes on their right to privacy - a major nuisance for the paparazzi and journalists in general.

Common Law Secrets: Secrets are allowed, so long as they are not against the public interest. Lawyers are a prime example along with doctors - they have confidentiality and cannot by law pass on any information that is discussed in confidence to any third party member without legitimate consent. The above point also applied to the Catholic confession system. 

There is my quick summary of the law lecture, Confidentiality is pretty much common sense really, bear in mind you shouldn’t just go and tell all your secrets to some random guy on the street or you know, people you just don't trust in general; you see? Common sense people!

Anyway, back to my mass amounts of blogging, bye and stuff x

Best mail time so far and other general things!

Here I am keeping to my promise of blogging about things other than work, exciting right?

So it was my grandma's (known to me as gram-gram) birthday on October 13th, so I obviously gave her a call. I believe that I may have joking said to her down the phone that I would love to have some birthday cake posted to me or something like that, (cause I have always wanted to do that), then I get a text a week ago from my gram-gram saying that she's sent me something in the post, I had no idea what to expect but at the time I had no email from any of the mail places! Full on gutted. So Tuesday 25th rolls around and I get an email to collect a message, but unfortunately I looked at my emails well after the place closed - so I had to wait another whole day for mail time! I was determined to get my mail on Wednesday so after checking the opening and closing times specifically in the email; I set off at about 2 to the Dytche to get my much anticipated mail to find that... it was closed.

Not gonna lie, I was borderline suicide now! But don’t worry guys; this story has a happy ending. That brings us to today, Thursday 27th, I wake up and stride purposefully down to collect my mail. After finally getting hold of it I decide that I would enjoy the surprise a lot more in the comfort of my room. I get back to my room, open the parcel to find a bright red box. When I open it im so beyond amazed to find a, can you guess? That’s right, a slice of birthday cake. Boom. So happy right now.

What's more amazing is the fact that it wasn’t even stale in the slightest! It managed to keep very well in that box, so yeah this is by far the best mail time I’ve had! Just thought I’d share it with you guys.

Yesterday us journalist students received the greatest news ever - we didn’t have any lectures what so ever today, which is just a thing of beauty! I needed this extra day off to A) recover and B) catch up on blogging and just life in general. But yeah, I’ve sufficiently managed to use this day for blogging and practising my shorthand for our speed test tomorrow, (which I’m severely dreading). I think that I’ve run out of things to say right now, but be sure to keep checking my blog for anything new and so on.

Thanks for stopping by, Winchester x

blogging catch up - law lecture 4 Qualified privaledge

This blog post is mostly to consolidate my understanding of QP from our lectures and the reading from McNaes. Unfortunately it seems to be work that is taking precedence in my blog lately! I don’t know how this happened but im gonna have to start blogging about "fun" things again; I know all my avid readers will love this news... awkward. I'll always remember this lecture as what I like to call the time that Chris Horrie pulled a phone off the wall. So! Here are my late law notes!

So the main thing I learned that lesson was that anyone who is on TV is instantly news worthy. Joking, but it’s one of many amazing anecdotes that Chris comes out with - using the example of Adele referring to herself as: "common as muck". 

• Justification - the true facts that we can prove
• Fair Comment - we can defend ourselves on the basis that what we have said is truly what we believe
• Qualified Privilege - If it has been said in court that someone is a thief, we are allowed to call them so.

Qualified privilege in common law rests on the case of Toogood v Spiring. Spiring accused his butler, Toogood, of stealing his silvers and other precious items and then wrote a bad reference and had to tell the truth in this reference, (very much like a tutor writing a reference for a student), even if it is defamatory. But there would be the protection of qualified privilege, only if the reference is without malice, and if it were fast, accurate and fair.

Reynolds v Times Newspapers: This is a UK legal case in the House of Lords which is related to qualified privilege for publication of defamatory statements when it comes to the defence of "in the public interest". This then came up with the term: "the Reynolds defence", which is the idea that a journalist can publish an article out of a sense of duty to his fellow man to inform people of something, even if the claim turns out to be wrong.

The Times claimed that Albert Reynolds (Irish PM) deceived the Irish parliament so he could cover up a child abuse scandal. The Times said it believed the allegations were true, Reynolds then challenged them saying they couldn’t prove anything because, as per, there were no witnesses.

The case then went into the Higher Courts. The judges thought the Times newspaper had a civic duty to the people to publish the allegations, as they were serious offences and allegations. This was very much in the public interest and it was of a key importance that that they be discussed. At this time, the Human Rights Act was then newly introduced bringing with it freedom of expression. This extends to things that people do in the public life and has no hold over what people do in the private sphere of life.

The Ten-Point Test: This refers to people trying to use the Reynolds defence in court, it claims that your argument has to meet 10 criteria to be entitled to the Reynolds defence. Lord Nicholls emphasised a ‘duty to publish’ if the newspaper or a reporter thought he/she knew there was anything wrong. Lord Nicholls came up with these 10 criteria: 

1. The seriousness of the allegation. The more serious the charge, the more the public is misinformed and the individual harmed, if the allegation is not true.
2. The nature of the information, and the extent to which the subject-matter is a matter of public concern.
3. The source of the information. Some informants have no direct knowledge of the events - people might be lying out of spite and so on.
4. The steps taken to verify the information.
5. The status of the information. The allegation may have already been the subject of an investigation.
6. The urgency of the matter
7. Whether comment was sought from the plaintiff. He may have information others do not possess or have not disclosed.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the plaintiff's side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. A newspaper can raise queries or call for an investigation.
10. The circumstances of the publication

Bye and stuff x

Radio Draft

After being asked to write about something for people to actually listen to me talking about and not just read it, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about one of the things I’m fairly certain I know a lot about – this happens to be Pokémon, shocking right?

When I mention Pokémon, I assume all of you listening will instantly think about making the toughest decision of your life as a child, in the old game boy games at least – do you pick Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle? It does take a long time to figure out which Pokémon you want because it’ll be with you for the whole game. For me however, this always ends the same way – picking Charmander. Then you’re enthralled with starting off your very own Pokémon adventure, ranging from beating up your rival, doing chores for Professor Oak and then eventually getting down to catching all the Pokémon and on the road to be a Pokémon master.

So the idea is to catch them all, this has been drilled into the heads of children who had what I like to call, a “complete” childhood as it is the theme song to the season one of Pokémon. Sounds simple enough right? Just go round beating up wild Pokémon and throwing balls at them to catch them. You’d think this would be an easy job when there are only 151 Pokémon, right? Wrong. The producers thought it would be great to add a million more Pokémon to the equation, making it pretty much impossible to keep track of the number of Pokémon, I personally get confused after 151. I mean, why change it? My best memories of playing the Pokémon games and watching the TV series were of starting out in Pallet town, seeing our hero who we all know and love, Ash Ketchum getting his first ever Pokémon, his famous Pikachu. 

So yeah, from this there are many adventures – everyone has to remember the emotional rollercoaster episode of Ash first obtaining his Charmander. There Charmander is, abandoned out in a storm with his tail, once proud and aflame, slowly dimming because of the treacherous storm. That is until Ash hears of an abandoned Charmander in the rain and instantly takes it upon himself to save this lost and afraid Pokémon, people around the world will remember this episode and it really embodies the love that our hero has for Pokémon and what they mean to him, in turn this Charmander wholeheartedly trusts Ash and agrees to go with him – rejecting his old trainer who left him in the storm. It’s episodes like these that I recall when I talk about Pokémon, not the newest episodes that have all kinds of different Pokémon involved in them - they just tend to sound silly to me.

As the years have progressed, Pokémon progressed with them leaving behind the old and, in my opinion, favourable “generation I” Pokémon and replaced them, essentially, with new kinds of Pokémon which I feel don’t measure up to the original. This process has been going on for many years now – the new Pokémon that are brought in are known as different generations, so it goes from Generation I to Generation V so far. I tried to watch one of the new Pokémon seasons and after seeing the starter Pokémon are called things like “Oshawatt”, I don’t even know what this is, but it’s blue and like the size of a small rock, I was disgusted that it was not the amazing Pokémon that we all know and love such as Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur, im fairly certain that the producers must be running out of ideas of new Pokémon until they eventually bring it all back to the amazing days of generation I. 

One thing that hasn’t changed through the years is, of course, the endeavours of the evil Team Rocket and their constant ingenious, but ultimately futile, attempts to try and steal Pokémon to appease their malevolent boss and leader of Team Rocket. Team Rocket is in every single episode as far as I know and they managed to sing their official theme tune to, foolishly, alert our heroes of their presence and even their intent in every single episode! These guys are a classic signature of Pokémon that I hope will never change, I mean who doesn't want to see Jessie, James and Meowth blast off again? Anyway, I believe that I’ve rambled sufficiently to bore you all, sorry about that! Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s broadcast.

I’m Jack Webb and thanks for stopping by, Winchester.

Just for fun... (I got very bored)

So I’ve been looking through my blog and it occurred to me that the majority of my posts recently have been all about work and no-one wants to read about it! So I thought I’d break from this trend and post about anything that I can think about (yes, instead of doing my radio piece and yes instead of my law notes *sad face*)

As I’ve made clear to many people recently, weekends are my days off from drinking and are days for doing nothing and just relaxing. So this weekend I’ve stuck to that and not done anything; I’ve got to tell you, it feels phenomenal. Not having to worry about spending my money, albeit it well, on alcohol is a great feeling - especially since I’m running out of money at an alarming speed :( something im not proud of. Maybe it’s down to the fact that the second I got my student loan the money pretty much went straight to my head! Then when the money for housing comes out of my account it’s like kapow. I'm now broke. But don’t worry, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can just like not eat for a few weeks (more like months) and it'll all be just fine... probably.

Devastated to learn on Friday that it was our last precision English lesson! Without the lessons I’d have saved like a whole tree going by the number of sheets we were given and how much I actually wrote! Sorry about that one nature. But it was needed so that I could finally learn how to spell the word Haemorrhage (yeah, its totes right). On the topic of precision English, I’d like to point out that im in fact procrastinating and not prevaricating, thanks Annette. When I think about it, Precision English gave me a chance to show off my "amazing" artistic skills, especially when it comes to decorating a certain "Sun vs. Guardian" sheet, the people in the amazing group of ours (you know who you are and im sorry that you'll never be as good as drawing as me. I've also got to give Ellen a mention for teaching me how to draw stars!) Will know what I’m talking about; along with the fact that you should never recycle robots (totes children’s toys). This "what not to recycle" poster is quite possibly the most informing thing to have on a wall. I'm also fairly certain that a Mr. Horatio Smith knows that you're not supposed to recycle robots (like the mention Tammy?), or maybe it’s just limited to robot fish in his case... yeah, I brought up Horatio, it was really Snow problem ;)

Yet more procrastination to come - instead of again doing work and being studious I managed to end up doing my ironing (what the hell) and tidying up my room... im not doing well it would seem! Yeah so after I tidied my room I took a picture of it, just to prove that my room is capable of being cleaned:

Just, A) ignore Henry's feet and B) don't look at my room in like a day’s time, because it will be horribly messy again, it happens and I just don’t know how.

Another thing I did tonight was rearrange the stuff on my pin board; it’s got some amazing stuff on it now and looks so much better! Going with the trend of posting a picture above I feel I need to add another one:

So yeah, this is my catching up of not blogging about random stuff for ages - enjoy and so on.
Bye and stuff, but mostly stay classy x

What makes a good journalist?

Me... I'm totally kind of joking... Hmm, interesting thought really, but from what i've learned so far, a good journalist has to be accurate, fast and truthful! The truth is pretty much the best thing a journalist can use because, well, as Chris has told us, the truth is by far our best defence, so we might as well stick to things that are true. This will decrease our chances, as a journalist, of being sued by like a million (more like 99) percent. Journalists should never jump to conclusions! this is tied in with the view that journalists should always be sceptical of every situation and never take anything at face value. What's more, journalists should know the law inside and out; there are many cases of journalists being sued because they've not obeyed the law when it comes to their reporting.

Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and the social contract

Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke: This lecture really takes me back to my politics days, which I still have nightmares about... Hobbes and Locke were two key thinkers that we covered in our Politics A level so the lecture was helpful as it consolidated my knowledge of them and brought in Machiavelli whom I had not studied previously unless you count the reading from good old Bertrand that we did. So it was all good times in this lecture, despite how hung-over / tired / ill I was. Anyway, let’s get down with the trumpets... I mean notes!

The ideas put forward by these thinkers that I’m going to cover are collectively known as "Social Contract Theorist". By that they mean that when we're born into society we instantly "sign" this social contract which is an agreement between you and the state, by surrendering some of your freedom the state promises to take care of you and you must obey the laws placed by the state and respect democracy. 

Thomas Hobbes and his Social Contract Theory: Hobbes first mentioned the social contract theory in this world famous book entitled "The Leviathan" as I mentioned up there, *points to the above paragraph* this is a contract between citizens and the state. The Social Contract Theory in its earliest form was in fact touched upon by Socrates (top lad). 

The whole idea was that when Socrates was sentenced to death by a court he was offered many ways to escape by his pupil Plato and other students but Socrates refused to run away from his fate on the grounds that he had respect for the laws of Athens and Democracy - the city of Athens provided for him and therefore he could not undermine the city of Athens that has brought him up. 

The idea is that by breaking from jail and running away he would be "destroying Athens", what he means essentially, is that "what if everyone did it" the city would be undermined and there would be no law. Wow, I digress! This is supposed to be about Hobbes.

So yeah, Hobbes believed that before the social contract theory came into play societies lived in a "state of nature" remember this because it’s kind of a big deal. The State of Nature depends on the thinkers view of Human Nature, so therefore in Hobbes view, as he believed that humans were naturally aggressive and were constantly looking for power and so on that during this state of nature it would be, what he referred to in "The Leviathan" as:

"Bellum omnium in omnes" The original Latin quote which translates into "A war of all against all" - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.

This is a widely known and famous quote from Hobbes and explains his bleak views on human nature, someone sounds Conservative... Another famous quote from the Leviathan is that life in general (according to Hobbes) is...

"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" - Thomas Hobbes

 My old politics teacher constantly drilled this into our heads, im' sure he'd be proud of me for bringing it up in my blog, totes for you Mr. McMahon. So yeah, from this idea put forward by Hobbes he then obviously believes that to stop this war of all against all you must bring in a sovereign state. This is idea of bringing peace by force, to an extent; citizens must willingly surrender some liberty to this sovereign power so that the power (state) can look after citizens - this is the social contract! Cool stuff...

The main things to note here is that:

• This is not the same as a dictatorship!
• You may depose of this power if they have failed to successfully and efficiently provide security to citizens, the people can revolt and bring in a new power - somewhat condoning revolution - this is where it differs from a dictatorship
• Hobbes states that there are limits in place on the ruler - as explained above you can depose and you are allowed to defend yourself

 John Locke - Treatises of Government and the Social Contract Theory

John Locke is widely known as the Father of Liberalism (left wing ideology), He was an English philosopher regarded as one of the most influential of "Enlightenment" thinkers.

First Treatise:

• We are born knowing nothing, there is no such thing as 'innate knowledge' and therefore believed that we gain knowledge through experience
• He despised the idea of the 'Divine Right of Kings' (known as his First Treatise from "Two Treatises of Government") he believed that the so-called Divine Right of Kings would eventually be the downfall of all governments

Second Treatise:

• This is Locke's views on the State of Nature - again it depends on the thinkers views on human nature; as Locke is a Liberal he would have a very optimistic view on human nature and therefore believes that the state of nature would be a peaceful time of everyone living together naturally co-operating - but there is still need for a state
• Laws of Nature = moral laws which every man knew through intuition, people always know the difference between right and wrong
• He claims that there is a need for a state and a stable government - which he calls a government by consent. the government will have limited powers, limited by the law specifically, for example the protection of property from the government
• People are born with natural rights - most important would be the right to revolution if the state no longer follows the law and turns into a tyranny

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Social Contract: Rousseau is another key thinker when it comes to the social contract and more importantly the state of nature. Rousseau goes one massive step further than Locke in his view of human nature - he believed that the state of nature would be a period of pure bliss and that any way of intervening would upset this peace, for example issuing laws and so on. He believed basically that it would be a Utopian society, living and co-operating together as he thought people were naturally co-operative. This links into the idea of the "General Will"

The General Will: For you sociologists out there it’s basically a general consensus of all the people. The General Will means all the people agree on something, is it therefore the general will - this means that what the people agree on is now the law and by following the law you will become free (so deep, just got chills)

Now the lecture goes onto the back-story on Plato and all about his forms and the idea of the Cave. I've covered this in my reading and I'm fairly confident that I get the gist of it and I believe that I can sum it up through the amazing lyrics from, wait for it, are you ready? Almost there! That’s a right a Pokemon intro song. Kapow and such. Bear in mind I'm going by the link that when you step out of the cave you then become enlightened and therefore:

"It's a whole new world we live in

It's a whole new way to see
It's a whole new place
with a brand new attitude" - Some dude with a heavenly voice.

Niccolo Machiavelli: Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher and humanist whose writing was done during the Renaissance. He is seen as one of the main thinkers of modern political science - he was also a diplomat and a political philosophy. He is most famous for writing the book on basically how to be the most bad-ass Prince in the world, called "The Prince". It was all about being tactful, it teaches maxims concerning politics, and it tends to concentrate on a "new prince". This then goes on to tell the new prince that in order to keep power he must stabilize his new-found power in order to build a stable political structure without changing the original order of things too much!

Well! That’s certainly a lot to think about - so pleased I managed to get this blogged up before its past 12:00 and that would mean its Sunday. Keep reading folks and perhaps offer some feedback? Kthnxbai.

Bye and stuff x