Completely OT - bedtime for children

[Simon Finnigan]

We? You at a uni or similar? When I did my first degree, half my first year was spent doing the same modules as maths students to get everyone to a suitable standard to do the physics degree. By the time I finished, it seemed everything was being dumbed down so nobody ever had to feel like they weren't good enough. Stupid really, as the people who could do the degree well would do well in the real world too - they got good transferable skills and knew how to advertise themselves. The people who only managed t scrape through the simplified version by the end of it didn't have the skills, nor know how to sell themselves.

[Simon Finnigan]

Does free include the tie taken to retrain every single member of staff using the system?

[Simon Finnigan]

I can maybe understand having to explain what the gradient of a line graph actually means in a sense of connecting the line, the units on the axes and the real world result, but I got depressed having to explain that "up divided by across gives the gradient". I really couldnt get any more complicated than that. Trying to mention differentials just got me confused expressions.

If I was going to have radiotherapy, I'd be doing the sums and modelling myself, given the confidence these students inspired in me :-)

[Huge]

Personally I prefer Moby's "We are all made of stars";

[Huge]

MS is not a "standard".

So 35 out of 35 can open it?

[Tim Watts]

Because it costs nothing for the school to click a different knob and make it readable by 35/35.

And because .docx is not a "standard".

Unless the other 34 are prepared to subsidise me with a copy of XP + Office in a virtual machine...

[Tim Watts]

They aren't even trained to use what they have now effectively.

[Bob Eager]

Yes. Computer Science.

We used to do that. Not any more. We have 25% of the first year on bespoke maths modules, omitting stuff that CS students don't need. And it's taught by us - not by the maths department. We have someone who used to be senior maths staff in a grammar school doing it, and her remit is to monitor what is needed for all compulsory modules and make sure they can all do *that* maths. Those with A level maths, who can demonstrate that they can do it, are allowed to miss a few (not many) lectures, and they have shorter small-group teaching classes. It's worked well for quite a while now.

In terms of employability, we do particularly well with those who choose 'year in industry'. We also offer modules in practical consultancy.

[Tim Streater]

When do they start calculus these days?

[Andy Burns]

Unfortunately, it is ...

Even more unfortunately, even versions of Microsoft Office don't appear to strictly adhere to the standard.

[Tim Watts]

That is encouraging. Accepted it does what you need. It wouldn;t run on my kids' hardware though.

Out of interest, does the Home edition come wiht terminal services?

Don't know about that... I spent 75% of yesterday helping a student install XP in virtualbox[1] on her Windows 7 laptop because some old academic software would not run (is this to do with the compatability layer not being in "Home" edition???) Followed by 2 hours+ of XP updates before the VB guest drivers would function.

[1] Including initial diagnosis, establishing host-guest sharing, proving the old software worked, explaining which "machine" the data files would really end up on etc.

Not my job at all - but there was no one else available and I'm actually mostly nice despite a cantankerous online persona.

That little excercise gave me a storming headache and renewed my intense and unremitting hatred of bloody Windows. I could have fixed quite a number of other linux related requests on my joblist in that time.

She's in Spain now so I can safely get back to my debian servers...

Cheers

Tim

[Tim Watts]

Then the bunch of crap I get given isn't "standard" ;->

[Tim Watts]

Oh and I forgot, the machine was in spanish. Not MS's fault that one - and I have a portugese colleague who helped with that...

[Tim Streater]

Because they can send it as a pdf. That is the right way to do it.

[stuart noble]

I think you might become a "difficult parent" if you're not careful. There are times when you have to go with the flow, however frustrating. At this age, anything that makes your child "different" is to be avoided at all costs IMO. Pimary school is about social skills and integration. Anything else they learn is a bonus :-)

[Tim Watts]

That's a general tru-ism for any *nix (which MacOSX is at heart).

The name is only relevant during the open() call - after that it is handled as data access to the file data section on the filesystem, do a rename() or unlink() has no effect on anything holding the file open (note: "moving" a file to a different filesystem of course translates to "copy + unlink()" so that does not work as some might expect.

Not sure why windows insists on locking the filename out...

[Tim Watts]

I accept your point in principle - but I do help out in other areas without causing a fuss. I simply have no "free time" to cope with any more work though and working around bad file formats constitutes "more work" so it is simply deemed unacceptable.

With a house in bits, both of us in new fairly demanding jobs with huge commutes, we barely have time to manage supervision of normal homework. Sillyness on top cannot be tolerated.

[Tim Watts]

I'm not whining BTW - this is the way life is for a lot of people now. Gone are the days with SWMBO at home, and the bloke being back from work by 6pm (leaving at 8am to go to a fairly local job, because sensible housing near the city were affordable then).

[dennis]

Can you still delete the file in a different session, work on the application, close the file and watch it be deleted?

See above.

[Huge]

Sometimes.