Re: Actually, LibreOffice sucks too.
Real writers use Scrivener for book-length linear texts (novels, narrative history, etc).
Posts by Richard Gadsden
219 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2007
Never mind WinRT: Tiny Win8 slabs will ship with free Office, too
Amazon to deliver groceries in 20 markets by 2014
Wednesday 5th June 2013 13:21 GMT
Re: Seemed obvious
And Sainsbury's and Ocado.
Very competitive market, and the supermarket chains don't need to build warehouses, as they just use their pre-existing shops.
For the Americans, you place an order for food, with a delivery time (a one-hour slot for delivery). A couple of times a day, various staff shoppers are given shopping lists and go around the supermarket to collect your delivery, which is then loaded into a chilled delivery vehicle (a big van / small truck, which has a small freezer compartment and the rest is chilled).
You see the (logo'd) delivery vans everywhere. Loads of people prefer to get their food shopping delivered.
Sacked Zynga bods learn their jobs are gone via Facebook
Internet pioneer Vint Cerf predicts the future, fears Word-DOCALYPSE
Wednesday 5th June 2013 12:59 GMT
Re: Perhaps...
And if the presentation was created in 1997 using a version of PowerPoint earlier than 97?
Word file formats are different for Word/DOS, Word/Win1.0, Word 2.0, Word 6.0-95, Word 97-2003 and Word 2007-2013. Recent versions of Word can't read the Word 6/95 format, much less the three earlier ones; I'm sure PowerPoint is the same.
BBC boffins ponder abstruse Ikea-style way of transmitting telly
Microsoft SQL Server 14 man: 'Nothing stops a Hekaton transaction'
Google nuke thyself: Mountain View's H.264 righteous flame-out
Friday 31st May 2013 12:41 GMT
Re: Codec patents
If you want a good example of how physical patents should work, James Pickard patented a crank in 1780 as a mechanism for converting linear motion to rotary motion - ie for using a piston to turn a wheel (so allowing steam engines to drive many more types of machine).
Because it was a physical patent, it was only on that particular technique for converting linear motion to rotary, so when Pickard refused to license it to Watt, Watt used a sun-and-planet mechanism instead, which was not under the patent.
If it had been a software patent, it would have been "method for converting linear motion to rotary motion" and picking a different method would not have been enough.
... the point is that if you do a clean-room implementation and you don't come up with the same approach, then a patent shouldn't stop you. But software patents do.
Warming: 6°C unlikely, 2°C nearly certain
Wednesday 29th May 2013 13:11 GMT
Re: Solution to global warming is easy
... and we're already doing it. Everywhere except sub-saharan Africa. Hell, Latin America has a sub-replacement TFR. Sure, there's a baby boom going on because the biggest generation are having their 1.8 kids right now, but go and look at Brazil's population pyramid - their biggest 5-year group is 25-29.
Even India's peak generation is 10-14. So is Indonesia's.
Wednesday 29th May 2013 13:04 GMT
Re: “Waiting for certainty will fail as a strategy,"
What "rather obvious lack of a demographic transition" would that be then?
TFR is falling in sub-saharan Africa and is already around replacement in Latin America and most of Asia. Brazil is 1.8, for instance, which is well-past transition. What we're getting is the post-transition baby boom, as the last big generation goes through the fertile age.
Non-SSA territories with a TFR over 3: Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, Gaza Strip, Iraq, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Jordan, Papua, Marshalls, Philippines, Guatemala, Belize, Tuvalu, American Samoa, Samoa. There aren't a lot of people in all of those countries combined, and the one big one (Philippines) has a TFR that's falling rapidly.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
Now, sure, Nigeria has a huge population, and a TFR of 5.31 and a positively vertiginous population pyramid, but that's very unusual.
Forget tax bills, here's how Google is really taking us all for a ride
IT bloke publishes comprehensive maps of CALL CENTRE menu HELL
Oi, Google! Stop LIBELLING us Germans, fix your autocomplete
Mystery Sony big-screen ereader to sport E Ink bender
Tuesday 14th May 2013 14:41 GMT
Back of a laptop?
You could make a laptop with a big flexible screen across the back - make the hinge snap into a lock when it's fully open and you've got a big flat surface covering the back of the screen and keyboard.
Or, on a smaller scale, clamshell mobile with the eInk across the back as a reader and then open it up into a communicator-style mobile.
You want to put 3D gun designs on the web? You'll need a 2D printer
Apple's head bean counter boasts WORLD'S BIGGEST PACKAGE
The UK's copyright landgrab: The FAQ
Make cool shows, make money: Netflix's SHOCKING TV strategy
More and more likely that double CO2 means <2°C: New study
Monday 22nd April 2013 10:54 GMT
No-feedback sensitivity
That discussion you linked to appears to be someone who's being skeptical about the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Denying basic physics is a bit much, even for climate skeptics.
1C per doubling is the straightforward number, which gets the temperatures of the moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury right (a useful observational check on the theoretical physics).
The feedbacks have always been the toughest part of the climate models.
Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support
Monday 15th April 2013 09:11 GMT
Complaint-handling
I wonder if Amazon's problem is to do with complaint-handling; if there's a complaint about the content of a book (eg copyright, obscenity, libel), then they will want to check over the book to make sure that complaint is valid before pulling the book. If they don't have anyone who can read Welsh, then that's going to be a problem, whereas Amazon probably does have someone who can read Klingon - at least, well enough to be able to chuck out completely groundless complaints.
Entire internet credits snapper for taking great pic while actually dead
Thursday 28th March 2013 11:24 GMT
One thing that could be done would be to require any image that has been licensed, in exchange for a fee, for public use to be entered into a copyright database. And make that an obligation on the licensee, not the rights-holder. If it's a private photo, you don't have to enter it (though you can); if it's available to the public for free then you don't have to enter it (though you can).
As for orphan works, the easy solution would be a hugely-inflated escrow fee for use of an orphan work. Set it at "at least triple the usual commercial fee for work of the highest quality, but of the same nature". Instead of having a regulation on how much searching they have to do to find the rights-holder, just make it a lot more expensive to use orphan works than to pay the legitimate owner.
Orphan-preservation would be fine (what's the normal commercial license fee for a library making a second copy of something they have in storage? Not much; three times not much is still not much) but commercial use of orphan works would be sufficiently expensive that it would only be used when the legitimate owner really can't be found, and not just when the newspaper is too lazy.
When the owner turns up, they can claim the amount from escrow.
In addition, orphan use of anything in a copyright register would be infringement.
Crucial question after asteroid near-miss: How big was rock in Olympic pools?
Tablets aren't killing ereaders, it's clog-popping wrinklies - analyst
Friday 25th January 2013 15:00 GMT 
My lovely Sony PRS-300 is just fine thanks
Bought lots of e-books, but not any new e-readers in ages. I might, eventually, get one of the side-lit screens, if anyone made one that I can read with my gloves on.
Really, designers - I want a light on my reader so I can read on the way home when it's dark. If it's dark when I'm going home, it's also probably winter. And cold. Which means I don't want to have to take my gloves off to turn the page!
The 10 best … Windows Server 2012 features
Microsoft pats self on back over Windows 8 sales
Wednesday 9th January 2013 19:12 GMT
Doubt it includes volume licensing with software assurance
Else everyone who had SA for Windows 7 - which (a) you need for Enterprise Edition, which you need to get BitLocker and (b) is mandatory if you want an Enterprise Agreement or an Enterprise Subscription Agreement - will have been counted as having bought a Windows 8 license.
That would be an awful lot more than 60 million VL Windows 8 licenses.
Unlocked iPhone 5 on sale in US, cheaper than UK - but not cheap
How Intel's faith in x86 cost it the mobile market
Apple cultists slaver as Mothership landing now foretold in 2016
New York tech firms form 'bucket brigade' to fuel flagging servers
Petition for Alan Turing on £10 note breaks 20,000 signatures
Vodafone in bed with Gemalto in bonking-for-money transaction
Surface RT: Freedom luvin' app-huggers beware
Labour claims 'highest ranked UK politico in World of Warcraft' title
Friday 19th October 2012 10:39 GMT
Not true any more
Councillors get a basic allowance, have done since 1991.
Most councillors have to go part-time at their proper jobs while they're on the council; if you have to go to a three or four day week (with the consequent 20% or 40% pay cut) then the allowance compensates for that.
The amount varies: parishes pay only expenses, and often none of those; at the other end, Birmingham pays a basic allowance of £16,257.
Special Responsibility Allowances are usually a lot more - Birmingham's Leader (a full-time job) gets about £50K on top of the basic; £30K would be more typical for an urban (large) council, and rural (smaller) councils pay a lot less in general.
Campaigners roll out political-correctness Voight-Kampff CAPTCHAs
Target Silicon Valley: Why A View to a Kill actually made sense
Monday 8th October 2012 09:51 GMT
Component price spikes
We've had two huge component price spikes from natural disasters in the last decade or two, one in memory, and the other in hard drives.
I'd have thought that building a bunch of factories in one far eastern country and then dropping a "natural" disaster on all your competitors would be a good Bond plot.
Bloke jailed for being unable to use BlackBerry Messenger freed
Monday 1st October 2012 14:13 GMT
Re: Hmm, should this have ever gone to court?
This is why strict liability offenses (which this was) are so harmful - you can't be found not guilty due to a lack of mens rea if you performed the actus reus - and he unquestionably did perform the actus reus.
You'll note that they didn't get the conviction overturned. He's still on the sex offenders register (for, I believe, 14 years) and still has a criminal record. He's never going to pass an enhanced CRB check, which means he can't ever work with children again, so he's lost his job and will need to find a new career.
Windows Server 2012: Fickle pricing smacks Europe, Oz, Japan
Friday 7th September 2012 14:54 GMT
The licence doesn't restrict you
But the salesman will - these are corporate volume licences and you need to sign a contract; they will base pricing on the registered company address. If you have a US parent company, they can buy licenses for a non-US subsidiary, but a US subsidiary can't buy licenses and use them in their parent company.
One trick is to create a UK company, then create a US subsidiary, then create another UK company as a subsidiary of the US company. The third company is the actual trading entity, but the top-level company is the one you sell shares in. The intermediate US company can buy at US prices from a US registered office. Shell out a couple of thousand a year for it to exist (to rent a registered office address).
Of course, if the pound goes back up to $1.80 or so, then you'd be out of pocket.
Friday 7th September 2012 14:46 GMT
You had to ask, didn't you?
"Microsoft Windows Server Standard Single License/ Software Assurance Pack OPEN 1 License No Level 2 PROC"
What does that gibberish even mean?
"Microsoft Windows Server" - Windows Server
"Standard" - Edition
"Single" - An individual license, not a multi-license pack
"License/ Software Assurance Pack" - this purchase includes software assurance; being Open, that's three years of upgrades until it expires
"OPEN 1 License" - the agreement type; open agreements are individual orders, rather than a multi-year contract; this is a single-license order, so you could get bulk discounts if you ordered other things with it
"No Level" - Open agreements can come in several levels if you buy enough stuff; this is "no level", ie no buik discounts You could get a single order on level C if you had enough points accumulated from previous orders and that would be cheaper.
"2 PROC" - Two processor license (this is the usual for Windows Server Standard - if you want more than 2 processors then you just buy multiple licenses).
Note that this doesn't say "Windows Server 2012 Standard" because it's L+SA, and it includes future versions; if you looked at the License only SKU, then you'd find it did mention the version and would be cheaper.
Well, you asked.
Patent flame storm: Reg hack biteback in reader-pack sack attack
Monday 3rd September 2012 13:23 GMT
<blockquote>It would cost a fortune to screen all patents up-front when they are applied for</blockquote>
That's how the patent system is supposed to work.
If someone isn't examining patent applications, then you've just identified what's wrong with the patent system.
Patents require careful expert examination - that makes them, or should make them, expensive to acquire. Once acquired, though, they should require little defending in court because the patent office will have subjected them to a careful examination.
The whole process is wrong - the cost should be stuck into the examination process, not the courts.
PayPal co-founder sells out of foundering Facebook at VAST profit
Scientists find safer way to store hydrogen
Friday 17th August 2012 11:46 GMT
Re: Methane and Global warming
"Incidentally water vapour is an even more potent greenhouse gas than methane, but the atmosphere is naturally pretty much saturated with the stuff."
The atmosphere's capacity for water vapour depends on temperature; increasing atmospheric water vapour due to warming is one of the positive feed back effects that make CO2 emissions so concerning.
With no positive feedbacks, you can compare the mean temperatures of the moon, Mars and Venus and get 0.7C per doubling of CO2 concentration, which would mean we'd be looking at less than 2C between 1900 and 2100. But there are positive feedbacks, lots of them.
YouTube escapes Google's piracy site smackdown
Tuesday 14th August 2012 10:39 GMT
Isn't it obvious how YouTube doesn't get downgraded?
All the complaints to Google Search about YouTube get passed to YT, get processed, removing the video, and then when GS goes to look at the video, it's already gone, so their process determines that YT doesn't have any bad videos in the first place.
Don't get sued or cuffed on Twitter: Read these top 10 pitfalls
SHEEP NEED TWITTER, insist my noble Lords
IOC asks Olympic spectators to cut back TXTs and tweets
Monday 30th July 2012 16:42 GMT
Re: Belgian
Dutch - NOS.
And the coverage - the camerawork and direction - was good. They mostly had the motos in the right places (and "mostly" is pretty good). Shame they couldn't use a heli on Box Hill, but the trees couldn't be cut back enough to make that possible. Perhaps not quite as good as France 2 during the Tour, but much better than the complete shambles Spanish TV made of the Angliru climb on the Vuelta last year.
The problem was the data. Without gap info, a peloton/breakaway chase is tricky to follow. Without the GPS data, the auto-id of riders in a group was also missing, which left you with the commentary to ID the groups. Even the best commentators make mistakes; you should get the teams right nearly always, but until you see the number or a close-up, you can't be sure of that many individual riders.
But the BBC commentary was terrible. Porter was a complete waste of space, which kept Boardman busy identifying riders and correcting Porter's errors, leaving him no time to analyse. I suspect that Boardman would do fine in the Paul Sherwen/Sean Kelly if he had someone as good as Phil Liggett or David Harmon alongside him.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
