The Prison of New Technology
There is a line in Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death that has been haunting me for months now. It ...
Ghost Authoring: How Professors Steal the Work of Their Students
I know several PhD researchers at prestigious universities who keep getting asked to “co-author” a research paper. Typically a senior academic will approach them with an idea and ask to “collaborate.” By collaborate, they mean that the student will do all of the work and the professor will get half of the credit. Sometimes they ...
Video Contest: What is a Meaningful Job?
Several years ago my girlfriend created Big Q Films, a group aimed at tackling the biggest questions with videos. Now it's your turn! Big Q Films is hosting a brand new film contest, accepting entries on the topic "What is a meaningful job?" Entries are ~1 min long and can be anything, from talking to ...
A Story on Poverty and Literacy Levels in Nottingham, East Midlands, UK
In 2010 The Guardian revealed that Nottingham had one of the worst reading and writing rates in the UK. By age eleven, 15% of boys and 10% of girls were two stages below their expected reading level in school. Children in the East Midlands performed particularly poorly in phonics - the ability to break down words into segmented sounds. Since then, various ...
A History of Law Schools: A Battle Between Law as a Science and Law as a Liberal Art
The history of law schools is a battle of ideas. Ideas over what the law is, how it should be taught and the kinds of student a law school should produce. Frequently, law schools have been the battleground of fierce intellectual rivalries, with rival schools of thought battling for supremacy.
Postmortem: Courtroom Drama Mobile Game
Initial Idea: In 2016, I had the idea of creating a video game based on courtroom dramas that I enjoyed watching at the time. My favourite legal drama at the time was Boston Legal, which included witty repartee, court drama and pressing moral and ethical decisions. I was heavily inspired by this combination of comedy ...
How to Write a Thesis Worth Writing
Recently I've been writing this book on how to write a thesis worth writing. It combines various lessons I've learnt along the way in my own PhD journey. Here's a brief synopsis: What I aim to do in this book is to give you some tips and ideas on how to write a thesis worth ...
Loot Boxes and Gambling in Video Games
Video game developers are coming under increasing scrutiny for the use of randomized digital rewards called ‘loot boxes’ that closely resemble gambling. Loot boxes have appeared in a range of popular games recently, including Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront 2. Loot boxes are part of a long-running trend of games introducing in-game purchases ...
