jamesb

I can't see the console makers going for this. If you don't have to worry about compatibility how are they going to differentiate themselves from the competition? More importantly, where's the room for innovation (such as the Wii when it came out) if you have to use the same control interface for everyone?

What's new about it? Just a reworking of religion.

Yep - at that rate she'll be a widow soon and inherit everything. I'm sure the jury will be sympathetic.

Not a personal recommendation, but a friend has one of these and speaks quite highly of it: Chocolatières and Hot Chocolate Makers

using Twitter for server-monitoring :: nonsmokingarea.com - any use?

That term's open to debate, but it's not below average for the role as described. It's kind of the opposite - you get paid the standard for your position (with increases every year at a fixed amount) rather than being paid what you work to/can argue for. Technically a fairer system I suppose. I'm the same way on that one. Unfortunately that's pretty much how it seems to happen in many schools. You get dropped onto a pay scale, and gradually move up the scale over the years. Others probably have more details (and I may be completely wrong).

I put it on my N8 as soon as I could - took about a dozen text messages to get used to and then I was completely hooked and haven't looked back since.

Got to agree with RTFM here - if people don't show up to work due to snow then they get deducted a day's holiday. This is why I bought a set of snow chains, which aren't expensive and are fairly easy to put on. Even without snow chains if you drive sensibly it isn't really an issue. Yes, your employer does have a duty of care regarding your travel to and from work but you've also got to take some responsibility yourself. If you're really in doubt phone the school in the morning and explain the difficulty to them, then see what they say.

What about just encouraging students to do a few years of work before university? Let them see the real world a bit, get some genuine experience of something other than education, and have a little time to figure out exactly what they want to do? A 29 year old graduate with a few years of real work experience is in a much, much better position than the brand new graduate who's never seen anything outside a classroom. They're also less likely to abandon their degree mid-way, or change subject.

Given the topic of this thread, this might be interesting to people. Webcast tomorrow at 11 am (proper time) about desktop virtualisation.

Well, with the Kindle whispernet you could set up addresses for each of them that'd convert the PDF to work on their Kindle, then download directly to the device over Wifi or 3G when they next turn it on. I think it's about 10p per file sent this way, so if you know what your printing and mailing costs are you can work out whether it's cost effective.

I'm now on my second eReader (the first was a Sony and got accidentally left behind in a pub). I don't know whether or not they'd encourage the kiddliwinks to read, if they don't read already, but one advantage is the free books available for them from various sites. Admittedly these do tend to be classic books, though in a school library five eReaders populated with a few hundred classics would work out a lot cheaper than just a copy of each one. The drawback I can see with a Kindle would be the link to an amazon account, though if you were buying one per student you could buy them unregistered, and get the students to register themselves. A few free books could then be stuck on a webserver in the school so that the kids can pull them down and have a few to be starting with.

After you have an operating system installed. If you want a free one that'll run bare bones then ESXi's your best bet.

Grab VirtualBox (free), slap a trial copy of XP into it and have a play around. See if it does what you want. If the basic concept is what you're after then you can probably stick with VirtualBox, if it's close but you want more capabilities then you can look at more commercial virtualisation.

Would be nice, although it would also have been nice if Gates had picked them up and digitised them, like he did with one of Da Vinci's notebooks.

So far I've had this warning five times from various different people. The last four have contained a link purporting to be about the scam, but in fact detailing the virus e-mail about the scam. Is a prereq to running an e-mail client switching off brain first?

Forget the Apple, I wanted the Enigma machine and the Turing papers. Sadly I was just shy of the £300 000 reserve price for the papers.

Not exactly, I'm just trying to explain why I believe we'll go to a streaming model rather than a download model. With the size of the downloads requiring certain speeds anyway, you'll be better off streaming the game directly rather than pulling it down to your computer and having your own local copy. This'll also allow games to be much, much bigger (since local disk space is irrelevant), DLC will now just unlock new areas/levels, and DRM will no longer be an issue since you won't be able to copy the game. All of this, however, requires the infrastructure to be in place and possibly a brand new networking model based much more on a web of server/clients rather than a single server (meaning anything up to a full datacenter). I can see the day when the gaming methods described in Halting State become a reality much more easily than I can the day when digital distribution is the rule.

I did mention that it would be throttled - if I go over 10GB a month then I get throttled to 1Mb/s for the next month. At the time I got it they were offering an 8Mb/s package, which is the fastest my line will handle and I refuse to pay for speeds 'up to' 20 Mb/s if I can't get them. Yes, which'll give us great high-speed connectivity. Now what about server bandwidth availability? While we're on the server-client model still, we'll need servers which can cope with all of this new high-speed access. Again though, if CCNx comes in then the game's going to change completely and we may actually get the speeds they're boasting about. At that point streaming live games to consoles with no local storage at all (maybe a few gig for saves) will be an option. Even if that happens though I doubt it'll be adopted immeadiately.

I'm with BT, on the best package they provide in my area. In five years I doubt there'll have been a completely revitalised infrastructure capable of supporting so much additional demand (although if there is it does raise the question of why you'd have any content downloaded locally at all), unless CCNx gets going which'd change the ballgame completely.

Mine's unlimited too, so long as I don't go over 10GB/month...

A couple of game downloads each month, which is much less than I'd buy normally, would probably bump me over my download limit and get my broadband throttled\suspended. Of course, that's not a technical reason but is something to bear in mind for us poor people stuck with very little choice on broadband.

It would be an easy one, but also a bit of a waste. Lets be honest - the Wii is never going to compete on graphics with either of the powerhouses, and very few people play the Wii for photorealistic graphics as they might other consoles. You'd also need to (probably) go back and rewrite the existing library of games to take advantage of any new graphics capabilities. I'd be very surprised if they did a re-issue with shiny new graphics, and suspect they're much more likely to just bring out something new and different.

I suspect Nintendo will be the next to bring something out, but I've absolutely no idea what it'll be. I wouldn't have seen the Wii's motion control coming, and it wouldn't surprise me if they bring in something else new to differentiate themselves. Maybe those thought control helmets?

Congratulations! And that's a sincere, impressed congratulations. I've never put the effort in to learn myself, but I did used to (not quite legally) listen in on a set I built when I was younger. Got your callsign and everything?