Posts by ElReg!comments!Pierre 2711 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jun 2009
Open and edit were embryonary when I left the bleeding edge; I don't think there was much effort in that area since then as it's gimmicky at best (there are other, better suited tools to manipulate PDFs). Saving as pdf was a native feature in OOo almost from the start, long before anyone in Redmond dared to dream of it (although that is quite gimmicky, too, to be honest).
"Anyone sends me a .docx attachment I send back a request for a more compatible .doc version."
You might want to try that newfangled thing they call LibreOffice. Although I myself was amongst the extremely early adopters of OpenOffice (in the days it was still a Java monster, and, I must admit, a major pain in the nether regions to both use and maintain), I work in a very conservative environment where no-one will even think about using non-big name software for fear of... well, noone can remember precisely what they fear but they do fear it.
Yet in the past years I've been asked to install OpenOffice and now LibreOffice, on *shock* *horror* _work_ desktop machines. For MSOffice format mess makes it impossible to work with outside collaborators reliably, although OOo and now LO do seem to cope with the mess quite well. Even the diehard MS fans have a LO install handy so that they can convert the MSOffice file they receive to a version that they can open with _their_ MSOffice. Talk about an own goal.
The IRA also (historically) springs to mind...
It seems that being a clinically-diagnosed schyzophrene is a requirement for being a US politico (or, as the case may be, pencil-pusher).
What do you mean by "not only in the US"?
All hail Ísland, winner of the common-sense-of-the-week award.
Shame that it has to be so seldom as to grant surprise.
Then install ethernet-over-the-mains in all schools. That'll teach'em.
possible outcomes (from uncool to cool):
They end up developping good EoM kit with appropriate shielding
EoM dies a painful death when they get old enough
A generation of hackers able to steal your credit card number just by listening to radio interference arises.
is easier to figure out after the crash than before. Most of particle physics is actually based on that: make them crash to figure out what they had for lunch. It works surprisingly well (and to be honest there is no real alternative: subatomic particles don't speak intelligible English so you can't just ask them. Anyone having visited Inveraray -or Fredericksburg, for that matter- feels the pain of particle physisists).
https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next
It's also clearly not presented as a competitor to the GPL v3 but an experimentation project based on the GPLv3 (not even an actual license in itself, not yet).
It's actually closer to a *-ng version (bleeding edge experimentation on new things that might get put into the main, production version eventually) than an actual fork...
As much as the mainstream media love the concept, a fork does not mean war. Different persons can have different opinions and still play nice with each other.
When that happens in a monolithic entity the Fallen Angel and his backers get fired. If they are lucky they can gather enough cash to launch a small company, but hard feelings almost always ensue.
When that happens in the OSS community a fork appears, that may or may not gather sufficient community support to live on its own but most often keeps exchanging the good bits with the original tree. Often gets reintegrated within said original tree once the divergences are sorted out, too.
Not anything special. That's just how the OSS community works (also arguably why it is slow to gain wide layman support: the lack of strong unified marketting strategy...)
Am I understanding correctly? Are you saying that Mozilla people will be dispatched around and uninstall Thunderbird from machines? Are they going to send a secret "kill" signal that will prevent existing Thunderbird installs from working? Or will them even make it unavailable for download?
One of my users still uses Pegasus. When was the last time anything at all (including security patches or bug fixes) was added to that? The nineties? And still the guy seems to be able to read his emails just fine. Funny that.
> Reminds me of heterosexual sex before I became a lesbian
I feel sorry for your poor experiences but I seriously hope tha was not your only motivation for switching teams.
As a heterosexual male I have experienced _plenty_ of really crappy and insatisfactory (for me) heterosexual intercourse. Bad sex usually has nothing to do with the relative genders of those involved. It's usually simply down to either lack of experience ("what am I supposed to do with that?"), selfishness ("oh yeah baby that's good! Good night now. *SNORE*") or lack of involvment ("Sorry hun I REALLY have to answer that."). There are other reasons but if you look closely they often boil down to one of these 3.
Not that there is anything wrong with being a lesbian. As a heterosexual male I've always understood lesbians better than heterosexual women. What's not to like in a female body?
But all this would probably be best discussed in another place. This article was about dry things that go boom.
> (sorry, here come the down votes)
Why the fuck would you think that? I was tempted to downvote you just for that remark, then I remembered that some people care about votes for some unfathomable reasons so downvoting might be considered rude.
> Nobody even considers using WiFi for this.
What you meant was "Nobody _with actual knowledgẹ_ even considers using WiFi for that."
Stevie up there seriously suggested using fleshlings on the barges with manual ignition systems, walkie-takies and a central coordinator. The latency of that being in the seconds range obviously (for road safety purposes the reaction time of a human is estimated to be roughly one second; add the "stellar" clarity of radio communication to that...)
"Coordinator at the optimum viewing point with a radio and human beings with manual ignition systems in the barges is the way to go, because if Mr Boss goes off-plan and says "everyone light everything at once" the bargees will say "No"."
If I remember correctly they make damn sure that no soul remains aboard the barges at the time of firing. They even triple-check. Too dangerous.
Plus, big modern fireworks are very precisely timed ballets, often needing the firing of a dozen devices situated on separate barges at the exact same time, for example. The time between firings is also extremely precisely controlled to ensure that a rocket blooms in the exact center of the aftermath of the previous one for example. Humans just can't react that fast/precisely, especially not over a walkie connection. The way it used to be done was by using very precisely calibrated fuses but that's more much prone to errors and mishaps than a computer and electrical ignition.
Modern fireworks are actually an almost perfect use case for a computer.
"must be a virus" is the modern age equivalent of "the dog ate it". get it for all kind of things, from data deletion to forgotten passwords.
Last time it was for the inability to select the right printer queue. Apparently a "virus" (of which no trace could be found upon inspection) caused the change of the default printer queue hence much whining about the network being broken. I know it's bollocks, they know I know it's bollocks, but they keep trying. It has become a social convention, a bit like "how do you do" and "have a nice day". Meaningless converstation lubricant.
"we have a virus" actually means "can you come and show me how to find my own arse with the help of a map, a compass and a lighthouse. Again."
> What is he doing in the van for the first 5 seconds? Meditating? He's utterly motionless.
Perhaps he's a delivery boy and that's his 30 secs break. Perhaps he's trying to adjust the radio.
Perhaps he's putting Ballmer on hand-free.
Conspiracy theories: the sky is your limit.
> Perhaps I was reading into it more than you meant.
It would appear so.
I am certainly no MS apologist. I was actually not on the MS bandwagon when they were "hot" -read hacker-friendly- 20 or so years ago (at that time I was a 13-years-old fanboy dead-bent on fighting MS actually; with age -and the death of my platform of choice- I've grown out of that phase. I still don't use MS products when I have a choice: I'm that stubborn).
I was merely welcoming the outing of other dinosaurs...
> I don't think you do. Stratfor are selling intelligence analysis.
Indeed. Which doesn't make a difference. However they choose to price their stuff, for them it's mostly a fixed cost. Giving it away to x customers does not cost them the retail price times x, which you will find was my point if you climb down your high horse for a minute.
> shows how badly you are conflating different services.
I think you are blinded by the fact that one type is classified as "entertainment" whereas the other one is "work-related". The costs and distribution models are actually exactly identical. There is some initial investment to create what is now called "intellectual property" (be it Gandalf casting a spell or some information about nasty Chinese hackers). That is then sold to customers at a price that is determined mostly by the amount that said customers are ready to pay (not by the initial investment). If you hand it out for free, it is NOT costing you the retail price. If you hand it out for free _to avoid being fined to hell and back_, in addition to losing a lot of your customers' confidence, as is the case here, then you are actually MAKING money (I'm told that confidence is the very base of that particular business). These figures are total and utter bollocks.
> It may be insulting, but it is not incorrect. You plainly did not know simple things about the situation, yet you made a polemnical post about it in a righteous way. If that is not posting because you want to sound good, rather than because you actually have facts or insight to bring to this, then I don't know what other conclusion you expect me to draw or why.
I don't think I should share the conclusion I draw from that part of your post. Not on a public medium. That would make _me_ sound like an arrogant jerk.
Now I'm off for an actual pint.
> Admit it, you don't know much about this
I know a bit about the "value vs cost" of digital goods and how it's widely abused
> you're not nor ever have been a Stratfor customer
That is indeed correct
> but you saw a chance to pronounce some entirely made up numbers to the world because you like sounding like you know what you're talking about in the hope someone will be tricked into modding you up. Correct?
That is entirely incorrect, ridiculous, frankly insulting, and, if I may, says more about you than it says about me. You are either grossly underestimating my potential to be a dumbass, or grossly overestimating my ability to give a fuck about votes. Most likely both. Most likely due to your own obsession about votes. Which makes you a dumbass.
There you have it, I think we are even. Let's have a pint and forget about the whole thing.
>Claimants are Stratfor (ex)-customers which have been fed their "product" for a while at the prices usually paid for.
Oh OK. I guess I was not aware of how much of a captive market Stratfor customers were.
The numbers are still bollocks because that's entirely aimed at avoiding to pay much more in damage. But maybe not as much as I was assuming. "never assume anything", they say. Easier said than done. Mea maxima Culpa.
*own facepalm*
It's pretty safe to assume that none (or few) of the claimants would have bought the e-book, and that cost them nothing, sot that has to be taken out of the estimate.
It is also pretty safe to say that at least some of the claimant would not have subscribed to the month they are offered, and that doesn't cost them much (certainly not $29 per head) so a lot of that amount is bollocks too.
Lastly, they would have had topay real cash if the had not proposed freebie. So a more correct formulation would have been "will save Stratfor an estimated $1m in cash".
Thanks to the newfangled "topics" section I can now jump to the comments on Andrew's articles on copyright without going through the ordeal of reading the actual article. The only good bits are in the comments anyway. Although I am a bit disappointed by the lack of flames and theunder this time. Commentards must get accustomed.
It's a shame that the treaty did not go through the judicial review; it would almost certainly have failed it, which would have been good in preventing that kind of things from happening again. As it is we'll see an almost identical replacement smuggled in more discretely. Probably within a year.
> Oracles case hit the buffers long before the copyrightability ruling
That's indeed true, as I and others have said on el Reg's very forum, only to be answered that the rulings were "a win for Oracle" (by Any O. and some readers).
Basically the case was comprehensively taken appart bit by bit since the beginning, and I really doubt that Oracle's lawyers are going to be able to get anything. In my view this "0$" damage is a way for them to:
1) trumpet "we won, our IP was recognised", always a big hit with the shareholders.
2) try and avoid having to pay Google's massive legal fees (since technically, it's a win).
But I have been wrong in the past (never on that particular case though).
> I find it hard to believe that he is a political activist, and I believe that the USofA will be able to prove in court that he isn't one.
I think you'll find that in most countries, "political activist" is not accepted in court as an excuse for one's actions. On the other hand, he is a human being, and as such he has rights -and duties.
The "political activist" thing might or might not be taken into account by Ecuador when reviewing Assange's asile application, but that is a diplomatic matter and entirely irrelevant for a court of law (even a USofA court).
You've been watching too many TV series.
On the other hand I can't really blame you as Nobel Prizes tend to be handed out to convicted criminals on the basis that they are "political activists". That would certainly tend to cause confusion. Just remember that neither the Nobel Prize comittee nor TV channels are judiciary authorities.
> Why would this be costing Sweden any money? They just filed in the form requesting extradition.
I don't think the legal team on the case is working /pro bono/. That's at least a handful* of people working on the case, ever since it was launched a couple* years ago. That's REAL money. Far more than the few* hundred bucks that the alleged offense entails. I am not a lawyer, but if I was allowed a wild guess I would say that to date it has cost Sweden several* hundred times more than the maximum possible fine, in salary.
* http://www.xkcd.com/1070/
If it was me I would indeed have followed the same path.
There's been much confusion in official Australian circles as to what should happen to him should he come back to motherland (covered here on El Reg among others). The latest press releases from Australia.gov should not obfuscate this.
I know that Australia is not New Zealand, but the recent Megavideo snaffu certainly does not help...
Ecuador on the other hand has quite tense relationships with the US, and Assange would certainly be safer in Ecuador (where he is kind of a hero) than in Australia (where he is unofficially /persona non grata/).
I will not lay on the Swedish case, Assange did and I am not into sloppy seconds. However when considering this case one must remember that Sweden has a fast-track rendition treaty with the US (look up "temporary rendition) and that the US have a closed indictment ready.
Moreover, extraditing someone over allegation (without charge) of a minor civil offense (which carries only a small fine), would be a first for the european extradition system (and certainly a cause for it to be reviewed, in my opinion). Usually these kind of things are settled in the absence of the accused party, and should they choose not to show up to defend themselves, they have to pay the fine when they come back to the country.
The fine the alleged offense carries would not cover _one hour_ fee from a qualified attorney. Compared to the cash Sweden and the UK are currently spending (not to mention the US, most certainly), it is plain ridiculous. (It is also ridiculous compared to the cash Assange is spending to fight it, but he has good reasons to fear for his life so that's somewhat more understandable).
Now compare that to the effort (or lack thereof) which was put into bringing director Roman Polansky to jail over child rape (Which is a criminal offense, not a civil one, and of which he was convicted by default, by the way, so that's possible...), and the irony of the present case will strike you.
The whole thing reeks of a backended revenge scheme from the US.
"We take the security of our voters very seriously, unlike our dark-skinned opponent who (let others) deploy a fleet of spy planes over our sacred homeland, to help his terrorist brethen's plans to destroy America. Oh and they are kiddie-fiddlers, too"
I guess "they may even catch moonshiners and KKK ceremonies" is somewhat implied...
You've got to love US elections.
> 1) There are *two* women.
Not at the same time
> 2) One was asleep.
No. The condom broke.
> 3) If a woman gives conditional consent (wear a condom) and you don't meet that condition, then you don't have consent.
The condom was worn. It broke.
> 4) The laws are Sweden's laws. If you don't agree with them, I suggest you don't go there.
Yes, but you are not supposed to be extradited for minor civil matters. The offense he is accused of only carries a small fine under Swedish law.
> 5) Most importantly, people aren't pulling 'the "rape" stuff out'. It's what the bloody warrant is for and what it states - rape, unlawful coercion and sexuellt ofredande.
Mixing languages are not going to make you right. The only correct part is the part in (approximate) Swedish. I suggest you look into what that means in Swedish law. The "rape" and "coercion" you just made up.
6) he has not been accused of anything. I repeat: there is no bloody accusation. You heard me right. Extradition is usually for people who are accused of something (i.e. charged). There is no charge in this case absolutely none, and especially not a criminal one. There is a vague allegation of a minor civil offense. That is typically no ground for an extradition. That's akin to being extradited to France because someone says: "I think I saw him speeding on the highway last time he went shopping on the continent".
Total nonsense.
Assange is a smug bellend, no question about that. But that circus is ridiculous, and he is not the one responsible for that (for once).
> The ECHR will not allow a member nation to extradite to a country where they have the death penalty
I may be wrong but as long as he's not a citizen of a member country of the ECHR, they won't get involved. Australia not being in Europe...
> The guy is a possible rapist
The only thing that everyone agrees about is that there was sex between 2 consenting adults (well, between Assange and 2 separate consenting women; double-timing bastard.) The inquiry seems to be about Assange refusing to take a HIV test after his condom broke. That's /a posteriori/ sexual offense in Sweden, but pretty much nowhere else. Using the term "rape" is both inacurrate and inflammatory.
> "he didn't wear a condom therefore consent is automatically denied"
Apparently he _did_ wear a condom, which broke. Then he refused to take a HIV test. Yes, he's a massive dick. A rapist? not by my book. Does that grant an extradition? It is after all a minor civil offense even in Sweden (it's not an offense at all in any other country that I know of). You don't get extradited for a parking ticket. They could set a date for the trial, he would fail to show up, he would then be found guilty by default and he would have to pay the small fine that the offense carries.
Now pray tell, why are not doing exactly that?
> RS-232 - jesus - think most people accepted if you want that you use a USB to serial adapter cable
A lot of interfaces will not work optimally over such an adaptor. Some will not work at all. That's OK, Aye Hff vayz of makink dem vork anyway. But as I said I certainly wish my diagnostic laptop had a built-in RS232.
> You are the sort that will whinge
I am not. I get things done. This post was a response to the guy who implied that floppies, RS232 tape etc are long dead. They are not, and the latter 2 will stay around for the foreseable future (I am likely to retire before they do. Long before).
I use the floppy drive more often than I do the CD reader on my work desktop. For some things it is still an absolute requirement. Agreed, most people don't deal with old equipment and so don't need one, but I for one sure do.
Even some fairly recent kit communicates over RS232 and I often carry a RS232-to-USB adaptor for diagnotic work. I certainly wish my laptop had a built-in RS232 port. I'm actually thinking about buying one (some company still give you the option).
As for tape... certainly not for a laptop, but are you seriously saying that tape is dead?
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