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Michael Gumbrell

Covering bases

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I have registered for my final module, DD309 Economics. I have also put in my Student Finance Hades application.

I thought it was better to be registered and then can withdraw if the Probation service make me an offer.

This weeks OU jobs fair was good. I also have registered interest with Network Rail, Hampshire Police, BAE and the Civil Service graduate scheme's, so that is quite interesting.

Work is back to normal now, 48 hours a week, 4 on 4 off. I am expecting the email from HR to sort out the huge holiday entitlements we have all accrued.

They also have ended the emergency contract for us to cover ward staff in cases of high levels of sickness, i am delighted about that, i hated doing 12 hours shifts on the wards, not my thing at all, and now i will not need to do one again.

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Michael Gumbrell

Getting shot of economics

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I will be glad to be shot of economics.

Such a dry course.

So much rereading to check understanding.

It has been a dull module.

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Michael Gumbrell

oh yes, where was i?

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Thank you to everyone who commented on my moany/ quitting/ why bother post from March....

I have not bothered to blog since then, such was the depth of my disenchantment.

Just stuck to the study planner, kept my head down and got the course materials completed.

Completed they are now, all TMA's submitted and marked, just the exam to do....

Made a decision for next year, after being so frustrated/ bored/ wound up/ pissed off by the last two years, I decided I may as well plough on, after all,

 I am in for a penny, so why not be in for a pound?

Although my student loan balance statement came through this week, so it is more like...

In for £11,000, so why not be in for £18,000.....

Heart stopping isn't it... £ 18,000.....

I have decide to do DD316 for my next module, it is a brand new course, came out this year, and it's set book is George Orwell's 1984.

I thought that after hating philosophy and economics so much, I would do Politics next year as I have enjoyed all my politics modules.


That leaves me with Hobson's choice for my final year, Philosophy or Economics?


At the moment I think I would find a final year of Philosophy tolerable, Economics not so.

That decision is still ongoing, T+C's apply, actual decision may not match promotional material, may not be available in you area, model shown is a May 2018 model.


We will see,

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Michael Gumbrell

Tma 3 score

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So i got 81% for tma 3.

That is my best score, so far this module.

Happy days 

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Michael Gumbrell

Economics

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Wow, it gets harder every week!!!!

This week has been the Phillips curve and the Inflation curve.

Must not get confused by the fact that the IS and Phillips curves are not curves  just angled lines, in fact when output is in equilibrium with inflation, the Phillips curve is a straight vertical line.....

Simple really.

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Michael Gumbrell

DD209

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Just spent a couple of hours rereading week 4 of DD209. It is really challenging so far. There is alot to take in... including the algebra...

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Michael Gumbrell

DD209- Week 2

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Crikey, week 2 is dense stuff.

Now we have moved onto balances of income ( flows) both credit and deficit of national economies and the current accounts ( stocks ) of those countries and how flows and stocks are balanced across three main national activities, public, private and personal spending.

This is a very intense and demanding module so far... best pay attention and make sure i set aside re-reading time for the materials.

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Michael Gumbrell

Woah-- DD209

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Wow, DD209 chapter one is hard... CPI,GDP calculations, inflation, real wages verses monetary wages..

Formulas, difference between percentage point change and percentile change.

From week one the first thing that becomes clear is that notes are going to be important, i am going to have to add in 3-4 hours every week to produce the revision notes... they do provide a downloadable revision note template, i am going to be using that plenty.

But wow, what a lot of algebra and formula's to take in...

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Michael Gumbrell

Readings

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Working through chapter 1 of book 1 for DD209.

Lots of mentions of JM keynes being a key topic is book 2.

So have set text book 1 aside for 2 weeks and am reading Kenyes' General theory of employment, money and interest.

Its a good book... no honestly it is...and because i bought the Wordsworth classics version, it also has the book economic consequences of peace printed in it as well.

So that is now my pre-reading, will need to get a move on though, the module opens in 2 weeks

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Michael Gumbrell

And so it begins again...

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Well, it all begins again tomorrow.

The DD209 books will be sent out tomorrow and the module website will open in 2 weeks tomorrow.

So off we go again, for me this will be year 4 of study out of 6 and my last level 2 module.

So as i sit here now i am 50% done and after this upcoming module it will be 66% done 

Starting to get a view of the home straight now.

So roll on DD209- Economics, lets get level 2 done. Getting level 2 complete means i will have completed diploma level. Happy days.

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Michael Gumbrell

DD209 books

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According to my study planner, my text books for DD209- Economics will be arriving with me in 10 days.

How exciting, the cycle begins again 

I must see if there is a DD209-September start Facebook group i can join for a couple of months and then leave because i find the comments so frustrating.

So lets see - books, apathy quitting a facebook group and probably finding out the tutorials are 60 miles from where i live... yep i am ready to get this academic year under way...

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Michael Gumbrell

Summer reading

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I changed my mind about my summer reading.

To get my next module DD209- ECONOMICS of to a good start, i bought Das Capital by Marx, the communist manifesto by Marx and Engals and People, interest and money by Keynes.

I also bought the DK book of economics.

So that will give me some light summer reading.

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Michael Gumbrell, Thursday, 21 Jun 2018, 19:35)
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Michael Gumbrell

Tma 5

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Tma 5 was done and sent.

One more block 'political philosophy' and the exam to do and thats #bloodya222 done and dusted.

By that point i will be exactly half way through my degree, by moving into the economics module and waiting to see how the new vice-vice-chancallor deals with the challenges facing the OU.

But most important of all..  i will not have to go near another philosophy module..happy days. 

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Michael Gumbrell

Interesting things

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Quantum game theory looks very interesting. I have been doing some reading about it.

Got to love a qubit.

So once i get a222 out of the way i move onto economics, covering game theory, and once that is covered off i can look at quantum game theory in more detail.

Looking forward to that.   

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Michael Gumbrell

Politics, philosophy and economics

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On the pathway for a Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree, the last two modules are a free choice.

You can only study two of the three subjects in the last two modules.

At the moment i can quite happily say that philosophy will be my dtopped subject.

I wonder if i will still feel that way after i have slogged my way through this module?

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Michael Gumbrell

Some social science pictures from berlin

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I have some more pictures from our berlin trip to share, so I thought I would bundle them up here, with how they relevant to the key themes and idea's discussed in my Politics, Economics and Philosophy course...

Marx, the political and economic philosopher, and his backer, Engels.

The Reichstag, power, sovereignty, Legitimate use of violence.

The Berlin Wall, boundaries, international relations, globalisation

Wearing an old soviet republic t-shirt outside the rebranded Russian federation embassy.

International relations,

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Michael Gumbrell

weddings and tutorials

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so i have a tutorial this Saturday, all booked are ready to go,

I might be hanging at the tutorial,because my sister in law is getting married on Friday, so that is a busy day and evening for me.

Not sure I will have time free to write a blog this Sunday, which is a shame because we have the SNP demands for a second referendum and the Dutch elections this week, plus we might see article 50 triggered in the next 7 days.

I will try and find time to cover the Dutch election, I mentioned it in my 'summer of brexit' article, so it will be interesting to see the results.

For the SNP independence blog, I fancied having  look at that from an economic perspective, did you know that the IMF has predicted that the UK economy will grow to larger than Germany's  in the next 10 years, so Scotland might have to think very carefully from an economic perspective, after all, when isolated, Scotland's GDP is the same as Slovakia or Estonia. Is Scotland's economy big enough to survive in a globalised world? In the first independence referendum, the SNP made much of the income from oil, they estimated in to be 12 billion in the first 3 years, where as the actual figure was 800,000 million! Can the new predictions from the SNP be taken seriously when they got it wrong last time by 1400% ?, also it is very interesting because if there is a second referendum, Scotland and the SNP will be talking a lot about 'freedom' and from a philosophical perspective, is seeking independence from England and staying on board with the super international aspirations of the E.U more 'Free' than remaining in a union with the U.K that is removed from the E.U? something to write about there, for sure.

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Michael Gumbrell

automated cars, a blog post

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Here is one about the onset of driver less cars:

all available to view, like and comment on at:

https://thespecialistgeneralist.net/



Car Automation:


 or ‘how everything we do is NOT driven by you’


 


I was reading something on the BBC the other day which I found very interesting. I decided to put a few words down about it myself, I think this might be another post that will veer from one topic to another and back again. I perhaps should not have used the word veer, since this topic of thought is driverless cars!


Ford, that bastion of production values, the founder of the production line and creator of the Ford Capri is no longer a car maker. No longer a car maker? They still produce millions of the metal wagons every year. However last year Ford starting calling itself a ‘technology company’. I found this very interesting, Ford are part of the chase to achieve driverless cars, in fact they have declared that by 2021 they will be selling the things. Google, Apple and Tesla are also in the race, along with Honda.


The most interesting part of this race is, rather like motorsport itself, there are classes of driverless cars. Level 0 is an old-fashioned car, rather like the Ford Capri I mentioned earlier, it looks fantastic but it does nothing to help you drive. It came as a surprise to me to find out I already drive a level 2 car. I say I drive it, but being a level 2 (there are 6 levels in all 0-5) it sometimes drives me. How does my car fall under level 2? Well the fact that my car has front radar and automatic collision braking got me into level 1, the fact my car also has cruise control got me into level 2. The Tesla is a level 3 car, it will change lanes for you. The real interesting things happen when you get to level 4 and 5. Level 4 means the car will do everything for you, but does have the controls fitted so that you can intervene if you need to, level 5 is the top step on the podium, no steering wheel or pedals! You will quite literally be passenger to your own fate.


So to get to level 5 you need software, lots of software. This is how Ford has reasoned that they are now a technology firm. The biggest car makers have all been buying up software and radar firms for the last couple of years because it is their future. The report from the Economist about the future of car making is very interesting. The predictions are that some firms will thrive, driven by the role out of driverless vehicles, others will fold. The idea that some car makers will go under, primarily because they have not got on board with the shift of technology, leads in nicely to the buyout of GM by Peugeot/Citroen. It is a very old economic principle that buying out your competition and becoming the biggest fish is the pond is a good way to consolidate profit and market share. But set against this complex idea that car makers are going to stop being car makers in the next 10-15 years, that they are going to become technology firms that produce hi-tech ‘movement pods’, is a stab at buyout and creating a bigger firm the best bet for Peugeot/Citroen.? VW did there amalgamating years ago, to create a super large production stable of several brands. VW might yet enter the driverless stakes, in fact my level 2 driverless car is a Skoda, part of the VW group. VW have the software, they managed to get millions of cars through emission tests they could not pass with it, so the processing power must be there for the next steps.


Having a Level 5 car is only part of the step though, both Google and Apple talk about the idea that apps for car sharing will be part of the future. So I might not need to own a driverless car, I might just need an app so that I can arrange a car share with another owner to get myself to work every day. So a network of unowned cars, acting like minicabs, picking people up and taking them to where they need to be without the need to ever own the car itself. If I was the UK government I would be getting straight to this, imagine the lost revenue from, less driving tests, less licences, less car tax, less fuel duty and all the other stealth tax (10% VAT on insurance). It is going to cost them a fortune! Of course the new driverless cars will need transponders in the roads, fixed radar mapping points and band width to function. So the UK government might be able to reclaim some of the lost income with infrastructure improvements to road systems that will charge the car users (or the cars themselves) to keep everything on the straight and narrow. Also look at all the driving schools and instructors who will be redundant.


Do driverless car actually cause a lack of choice in ownership? Is this shift in technology anti-capitalist? If we are car sharing rides in driverless cars, the need for ownership is removed. No longer might I hanker after a Jaguar, fine looking things they are, if in fact I do not need to own a car. If I am just sharing it to get me to work, will I really care what it looks like, is the fact that I will not drive it going to break the mould of ownership engagement? If we break the emotional relationship with our cars, I still love my old Capri-30 years since I sold it, is that going to ruin the business model for the luxury, pretty car makers? If we do not own the driverless car, then who will? Leasing firms will be interested in getting as many paying customers into their cars as possible, so 2 seater coupes are not going to be popular, driverless or not. No taxi firm has thought ‘let’s get 16 Ferrari’s, it will lose us money but we will look fantastic’.


The last question to consider here, is will it make our roads safer? I watched the test session last week with two robotic racing cars. No drivers, just software guiding the two 160 mile an hour cars round the track, it took 2 laps for one car to crash. We will all be safer with driverless cars. Perhaps the most pertinent question is, how we the transition take place? If driverless cars are safer, then all the person driven cars would have to get off road the day before the driverless cars take hold. Could we mix the two categories safely? Will cars driven by humans need to stick to one lane, whilst the other lanes are for driverless cars? That is a massive stress on all parties involved.


And perhaps the most important question of all, will Prof Brian May have to update his Ford advertisement jingle to ‘everything we do, is NOT driven by you’


 


Mike Gumbrell


Thespecialistgeneralist.


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Michael Gumbrell

Philosophical economics infographic

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Edited by Michael Gumbrell, Tuesday, 24 Jan 2017, 20:10

Just one more for the mean time, I would not want to wear out my self awarded welcome..

This one is philosophical again, economic and Portsmouth based.

For those of you not my from home town, a 'din' is a slang word for a foolish person.


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