Posts by Geoff

Warning sounded over black hole in UK physics teaching

Are people allowed to qualify as a specialised physics teacher?

I don't know if this has changed again but when my older sister was going for a career/lifestyle change and retrained as a teacher she wasn't allowed to train as just a physics teacher - she had to be a "science" teacher. I think she dropped chemistry and biology before GCSE and her A-levels were double maths and physics. There again, she went to Oxford so probably got a BA in natural philosophy or somesuch nonsense ;-) These days she mostly just stays at home looking after the kids... apparently more rewarding.

On a different note, another member of my family made the point to a linguist that if you can offer a combined sciences course then why not combined languages? Apparently "that's different" - so my idea of 'combined arts' might not be a flier either.

Flames because fire was a big part of my science education.

Apple rings in changes with iPod Touch

Nearly...

I have had a 20GB iPod for years - one of the ones with the touch wheel, not one of those new-fangled click-wheel things. It has all the music I've ever bought on it with space spare (we'll ignore the rumours that I have a portable HDD with backups of a few other people's music collections that periodically have to be tested). So I'd say 16GB is a sensible capacity for a music player - in fact I probably would have bought a nano if the capacities were double.

So a fancy iPod, with touch screen and WiFi and web browser as well as the ability to display photos and video... sure I'm bound to upgrade, right? And I'm not a real fanboy but I do rather like my Mac (I still use linux for most work though)... I'm surely going to run out and buy one?

Well no. Firstly, based on the iPhone, it looks like I should wait a couple of months for a sudden and large price reduction. Secondly, the device is essentially a PDA. It's kinda pricey and for that I'd expect an e-mail client really. And I'd really like to have things like an SSH client. And bluetooth. And the ability to install extra software.

Yeah they look nice but, for me, no thanks - I'll wait and see what comes out next. Maybe there will be a nice cheap nano with higher capacity?