After completing my first standard summer AS-Level exam, I thought a post was in order to update you on what's going on in the next month or so.

I have roughly 10 exams left to do, stretched out nicely over the course of three (or so) weeks, which include Maths, Physics, English, German and Critical Thinking.

With regards to Critical Thinking, as I know some people commented previously about the legitimacy of it as an AS-Level, I think that despite its lack of real purpose when taking into account UCAS points, I'd recommend it. It's not an entirely demanding course, requiring (in my case) just an hour per week after school, with any revision/study for the exam completed either in those sessions or in spare time. Much like General Studies, which regrettably is compulsory at my school, Critical Thinking requires mainly pre-existing knowledge and skill when it comes to constructing and deconstructing arguments.

I digress, it's just something to take into account if you're choosing your AS-Levels next year, or indeed choosing to pick up an AS at A2-Level to plug the hole left by General Studies, which many people inevitably end up moving on from.

I've had to put my online ventures on hold somewhat in the duration of exams, but I still have 30 minutes or so per day in which I can focus on replying to emails and business-related correspondance. My work with publishmybookonkindle.com is all coming along nicely, with some legal loose ends currently being tied up.

I've secured some fantastic work experience during the summer holidays in London, along with a couple of conditional places in legal practices in my area. Whilst Law isn't the career I'll be most happy in, I don't believe, I like to be realistic about the future and focus on something I'm good at and that will provide the most financial gain in the early years of my postgraduate life. It's rather fascinating how valuable work experience is considered by governing bodies such as UCAS, and indeed by higher education institutions in general. Irrespective of the fact I've achieved a fair amount in an extra-curricular sense, with benbuffone.com, techvulture.co.uk, clichemag.com and now publishmybookonkindle.com, it all boils down to little when it comes to what I'm going to write on my UCAS application. 

I find it ever so hypocritical that universities, whom claims that students should present something as unique as possible come from, don't appear to place any merit on part-time ventures other than at legal practices, medical practices, or at any formal establishment pertaining to the degree you wish to study.

As nowadays ensuring your financial situation is secure, especially through your years spent in university with tuition fees and living costs being so high, is of paramount importance, one would have thought universities would place maximum merit upon those who succeed in securing their futures, as they would be less of a financial burden to the universities? Clearly not, it's all rather confusing.

I've been also making some extensive plans recently for extending my current setup to incorporate my new studio monitoring speakers and server arrangement. I'm getting two KRK Rokit 6's (RP6 G2) which will connect via a (male) XLR-to-1/4" jack on each side of my desk into my Pod Studio UX2. It regrettably doesn't have direct XLR-out, only via 24k 1/4" left and right mono-channel jacks. This should be fine, it's just I'll need some high-quality cables to ensure that fidelity isn't diminished through the converted connections (XLR to jack).

With regards to the server arrangement, two PowerMac G5s will sit next to my bed, one of which has internals from a 2006 Mac Pro (two 2.66Hz quad-core Intel Xeon chips) and the other just a dual-processor arragement at 2.2Ghz (PowerPC G5 architecture) which will act primarily as a web and file-server connected via ethernet to a router or directly into the second server. The first will act just as a powerhouse-machine, providing power for running equipment through Pro Tools and Logic Pro 9, probably running Snow Leopard because I don't really need the fancy visual features of Lion for a server machine, and I like the fact Snow Leopard comes as a standalone OS for server use rather than the single application you can now install in OS X Lion.

I hope to get a Xone 4D at some point and a more advanced MIDI keyboard controller for cueing samples in and out of ableton into the live workflow in Logic.

So yeah, that's what is going on in my life at the moment.

Tweet me @BenBuffone if you have any questions pertaining to exams or indeed my future/current setup.

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There is a large misconception in today's society, that online or electronic content is in any way less valuable than physical items. The world is, for the most part, run by computers and the exponential boom in terms of personal computer usage in the last 10 years results in electronics running both our social and work lives.

In the last few years, music downloads (or MP3 downloads) have hit an all time high, with the iTunes Store recently breaking through the 15 billion-download barrier. Music sales online far outweigh sales of physical CDs and with the influx of any form of downloadable content comes an influx of criminality. Despite seemingly huge sales of music, the reality is that most music downloaded is far from legally purchased.

Artists can work incredibly hard towards one single or album, spending countless hours in the recording studio excercising their talent. This talent is enjoyed by many people who, for the most part, legitimately acquire their content. But the actual figures for online piracy are quite staggering, and perhaps put the aforementioned legitimacy somewhat into question.

Since P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing was first commercialised with the release of Napster in 1999, music sales in the US have declined by 53%, from $14.6 billion to just over $7 billion in 2011. Between the years of 2004 and 2009 alone, 30 billion (double the total sales on the iTunes Store) songs have been illegally downloaded through file sharing platforms, with only a reported 37% of all music downloads legally acquired.

The scope of the issue can really be put into perspective with these figures in mind - when you illegally download a song, it's perhaps not so much of an issue. But when 63% of all music downloads are illegal, the toll on the music industry, the industry that provides the content so many people enjoy, is evident.

Which brings me back nicely to my first point. It's largely illogical to suggest there is any difference between the value of a physical item and an electronic one. After all, 'physical' CDs just contain electronically-compiled files printed onto a plastic ring, just a recycled plastic cup away from a song downloaded from iTunes. In modern society, it is widely adopted that stealing is immoral and a punishable offence. Without basic ground rules like this, civilization would cease to function and the wars would begin. Whilst the theft of online content isn't going to set missiles flying, the principal is identical. If you steal a song, you are commiting theft. If you haven't paid for something, you don't deserve to have it - it shows the utter negiligence of, for example, feral youths in the London riots who deemed it to be their right to walk into independent retailers and take what they wished.

Consider this. You're in HMV (other record shops are available) and you see your favourite single you've heard on the radio sat on the shelf in front of you. You consider how much talent that artist has and how much effort they must have exerted to deliver that single to your chosen shelf. You've got a crisp £5 note in your pocket and there's no queue. There's never a queue in hypothetical HMV. Rather than purchasing the single, you slip it in your back pocket and just walk out of the shop. You enjoy the music on the CD and listen to it every day, blissfully unaware of the despicable act you've commited.

If you're the kind of person who wouldn't bat an eyelid at shoplifting, you should be scraping chewing gum off the streets as community service, but if you're against shoplifting and the whole concept of stealing, the hypocricy of pirating music screams louder than a hungry infant.

Next time you discover a track you love, take the effort to actually purchase the music, rather than stealing it. You support the artist you like, obtain the track you want in the highest-quality and you don't hypocritically fund crime.

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