Rydra

I generally dislike flash based websites; they are slow, clunky, frequently difficult to navigate, and more often than not an assault on the senses. But to remove it completely from all their mobile platforms while allowing it on their desktop ones I find rather amusing (unless I've really missed something, their mac range still use it...)

"I reckon my hard drive would fit in your rack nicely.... Maybe I could pop up and test out the transfer rate sometime?"

I very much doubt it. There are a number of places where apple have stated their views on flash, and they have shown no inclination or willingness to support it anytime soon. God forbid they'd have to allow someone else access to their devices beyond a single button on the front to make it work...

If you read some of the sites of Jediism, there are a few who are now taking this fairly seriously; to now mock them by masses entering themselves as 'Jedi' would destroy those people's chances of becoming a 'recognised' religion. When you take away the Lucas interactions, and the lightsabers it's no more or less a credible religion than many others. Religion is a key part of a countries society; England (even the UK on a wider sense) is a christian country, our laws, rules and way of life all stem from this. At the same time, the UK's society is dictated by it's openness to accept other cultures and religions to work alongside it. We would be a very different country without our strong ties to the Catholic Irish, no more curries, kebabs, or chinese without the influence and acceptance of south asian culture; no carnival's as we know it without the influence of south/central america... If you have faith in something, then be proud of it and express your beliefs, and make the people who run your country aware of what you believe in; but if you have lost interest in organised faith's, then don't spoil it for those who have not. And remember, many people may not see themselves as 'christian' but I would bet many, if not most of us have been brought up as one, wheither you embrace it or not.

I'd quite like a tablet for working, but the ipad is useless and too expensive for that; a win 7 tablet would be good, but a google based one would work just as well for most of what I want/need to do. I just can't warrant the cost of something like that. I have a computer at home, at work, and a laptop for most computer-things, a mobile phone for most simple social networking things and music, and I have no great need to watch movies while wandering about; I have 3 TV's and a computer at home for that. I go OUT to get away from technology that drives me nuts, doesn't work the way I want it, and forever moaning it wants updates/charging/fixing.

Why not? Are you insinuating her rack is not worth viewing?!?

So the answer to all political troubles is to become an MP? Well it would sort the UK's unemployment problem...... Not sure it would help the defecit much though.

My first OU course was a 60 point lvl 1 chemistry course. I followed it up a year later with the Lvl 2 course that followed on from it, and the 2 10 point residential courses that go with both of them. I've since tried and gave up on the 30 point lvl 2 course in astronomy (others seem to like it, I found it utterly boring), and completed last year a lvl 2 course called building blocks of software (not for the faint hearted, takes a VERY mathematical, logical and almost philosophical brain), and most recently a 10 point lvl 1 course in Linux. You need to be methodical in your studying, and have good support from your loved ones; there's no mates around doing the same subject you can work with, and you don't get the same level of support from the tutors as normal I find. It's very easy to fall behind, or to get distracted. From my experience the difference between 30 and 60 points is not that much; 30 points is one assignment every 2 months or so, 60 points is one every month; but i found myself putting in the same level of work regardless due to the amount of reading required. I have yet to do a lvl 3 course, as I haven't really found one that I want to do with them yet.

Dual carriageways, motorways etc it should make very little difference what the 'speed limit' is, as long as people are taught to drive at it in a sensible manner. If every car on the motorway drove at 70mph, no more no less then the only reason for accidents or problems is people who drive without due care and attention, or mechanical failure. This would stand true if it was 100mph. Speed is not the killer here; it's variable speeds and/or errors that cause the problem.

i take it that is an annual cost?

Not quite right Domino. I suspect STA actually stands for Star Trek Anorak!

And of course what are the costs involved?

Old scout hut had a wierd problem where if you turn on the lights in the wrong order, it tripped the fuse box and all the lights went out. After a little while one of the leaders who's an electrician went up into the loft to take a look around, and found a squirrel attached to the end light, paws still on the outer mesh, and it's mouth still firmly attached to the cable. If you turned on that light first then the others, it was too much current and the squirrel-fuse would short If you fired that one up last it could handle the load somehow. Seems that squirrels have a polarity!

switch off your local firewall briefly to make sure it's not something just with your machine/software, windows firewall is a bugger for this sort of thing. also test can you connect to that IP on other ports, or just a problem with that port?

I frag dead people (and teenagers, noobs, peons and the occasional no-lifer/pro...)

I can't say i've gone to any great lengths to investigate it, but I believe the reason that when you shine a torch through your thumb/fingers and you can 'see though' them, is due to light reflection and density of materials. From what I remember/understand, it works in a similar principle to Optical Fibre, and the red comes from your skin acting as a light filter. Light is bounced off the bones of your finger, and reflected within the layer of skin. Your nail is is a change in density, altering the light reflection patterns and so light escapes in a different amount and pattern.

Now the real, 24 million pound question is...... Did Rolf Harris model himself on the colonel, or did the colonel model himself on Rolf Harris?

Pfft. All these wierd hot drinkers. Pepsi Max for me. Zero Sugar, just enough caffiene to get me through the day, meaning i can indulge on a choccie bar or two instead. Mostly 2 cans per day, 3 on a bad day. I drink tea and coffee, but mostly prefer cold drinks.

i still have a collection of them Since they are now 12 or so years old it's hard to find the make/models, but I remember a couple of them: Duncan : Bumblebee and I think it's one of these, or it's much earlier predecessor Henrys : Henrys Cobra Plus about 4 others of varying styles and complexity.

I bet THAT wouldn't fit in their weapons amnesty box outside the local station....

I want to goto america and get arrested/imprisoned for stealing toothpicks. I don't know why, but it sounds like one of those funny things you want to say.... like "I work in IT"

Similar position to Webman but with a little more urgency to move onwards. Already an NM, so no step up here for me, which means moving to somewhere else. I also feel that in the current economic climate, education IT is unlikely to suit me somewhere else. I want to develop my ICT knowledge and learn new tech, but don't have the knowledge now. Meaning anywhere that takes me likely has old kit, and with no money wont upgrade anytime soon. Anywhere with new kit won't take someone with no experience working with it.

I actually quite liked the new transformers movies, both of them. I think they get the balance of mindlessly blowing stuff up, comedy, and character development about right. Megan Fox is a little boring though; she's too up herself for the role really, and doesn't quite fit in. She's been axed for the 3rd one due out this year, she was too high maintenance and the director had enough of her! Makes the whole love story of 1/2 kinda pointless IMO, but from what i've read and seen, she was a real horror to work with.

I work in a neighbouring 2 tier system, but was brought up on the 3 tier in bedfordshire. The problem with this planned change, is the location, size and space each of the current lower/middle/upper's have. The uppers by and large have a lot of free space, but that is needed when you have 1200-1500 students in one site aged 13 to 18. They also sit on the outskirts of town mostly. The lowers however, are all very local, community based places, mostly 1 or 2 phase entry. The middle schools are about a 4/5 phase entry, and the Uppers are 9/10 phase. (Phase = number of classes per year on entry to the school) To split this, a good number of lowers will either close or become infants, as they just don't have the space to expand by 50%. The middle schools, some of them can be expanded, but many of them are not suitable for children aged 6-9; multi storey buildings with subject specific facilities do not really suit children aged 5-9, so goodbye all science labs, and the science techs with it, the music rooms will be gone, Design tech scaled back heavily... The thing I like about the 3 tier system, is the lower years are communal, very close knit, everyone knows everyone else student and teacher wise, and most of the parents meet eachother. The subjects are mutli-function single room based, with a single teacher teaching all subjects (mostly). When they go to middle school, things transition to being individual subjects, and students learn to be a little indepentant, but still enough of a nurturing environment that they don't feel overwhelmed. Once they hit upper school, it's less of a sudden transition, things just get bigger! With the 2 tier, you go from the kind and caring, single class based one teacher-for-all system and your own classroom etc, to being in the big bad world of different subjects, you have children literally double your size, and everything is different. Your almost immediately expected to be more independant, with little support to do it, just have to get on with it. And the Uppers, since most include a 6th form, will need to expand further to take in another 2 years worth of entry; so current stats, 4-600 new students, or new 6th form college facilities will need to be built on new sites. I'm sure this can, and has worked elsewhere, but the cost, effort, and disruption it would cause for years, if not decades in my mind isn't worth it. Is either system wrong? No, neither are perfect. But if I had a choice, I would much rather my future children to go through the 3 tier systems.

Why can plumbers/electricians/locksmiths charge that much? Because they don't work the same way as IT techies, and there aren't as many of them. I could insist I'm worth a million pounds a week in my abilities, but there's 1000's of you who are willing to work for less. A (competent) tradesmen can charge largely whatever they please, because nowadays there aren't really enough of them, and the ones who are there all want to charge a lot for their work.