Posts by Mage 9270 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007
PDFs
You need 9.7" DXG (gone) or 13" Sony (gone) or at a minimum the 6.7" Kobo Aura H2O, but it now has dropped the SD card slot. The Kobo One ought to work, but rubbish SW.
Ten books is too few. My eBook is about 1/3 full (excluding SD card which I use for PDFs) at about 1100 books. About half are read. Many are from www.gutenberg.org but some from archive.org. No pirate copies.
It's up to the publishers, not actually Amazon unless it's their copyright or publishing rights title.
I provide DRM-free copy (any format) of eBook if people buy paper version. No mechanism on Amazon or CreateSpace or Barnes & Noble, so folks have to use contact form and some sort of proof of purchase.
http://www.corvidspress.com/contact-us/
I'll be shipping audio versions soon. But Audible only lets you stream, so I'll offer CD, Cassette or download on Corvids Press with included eBook.
Most stupid things are because of actual publishers. Like DRM, which is just as evil as copyright violation, aka "Piracy". Piracy isn't theft, like nicking a physical book, CD or DVD. It's really worse if you make it available to others.
The cheap kindle is only 6" and 167 dpi.
Better Kindles and Kobos are 270 to 300 dpi.
Font support is limited. Only serif, sans and mono can be reliably used on all platforms. Stupidly the early Kindles couldn't (and still can't) do non-Latin fonts
Yes forget about images.
Ironically the internal content of ePub and mobi/AZW is basically HTML and "responsive". But eBook GUIs and the management on device are garbage, like some sort of DOS program. Internally all eBook readers use either Android or Linux, so the 10 year ago lack of support for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic was inexcusable.
Basically Amazon ported the Mobi reader and since has hardly more than updated DRM and spyware. It's sad how crap the Kobo and Amazon software is.
Anyone with an eReader, or reading eBooks on a phone or Tablet App needs Calibre (free). Lets me read Amazon Kindle books on my Kobo, my old Kindle DXG is too heavy and awkward for annotation.
The Kobo Aura H2O is better than Kindle Touch for annotation via Calibre.
It's a pity Amazon never did audio support properly and then ditched 3.5mm jack.
It's a pity Amazon is ripping off readers, authors & publishers with the subscription service / Prime / KDP Select.
It's a pity Amazon now sells eBooks that don't work on ANY eReader, only on an App.
It's a pity Amazon now have a format that if you download direct to eReader (3G or WiFi) you can only ever use their so called Cloud to transfer if ereader lost/broken and can't personally backup. Always choose download via PC, transfer via USB and keep WiFi/3G off on any eReader from any maker. They want to spy on your reading habits.
A broken dream, due to greed and carelessness.
Also let you have Classic GUI, build in NoScript and User agent (esp needed on Linux or Mac & Windows download links vanish on stupidly designed sites).
Disable URL guessing
Allow easy toggle to turn off Awesome to have URL only bar.
Fix all the blank pages that print before selected point on webpage.
Etc.
Sadly it's possible.
Noooo... I cried as the CEO pulled out a hot swap SCSI HDD on a RAID5 system running NT4.0. He wanted to demonstrate the ability of the system to cope with failures to a customer.
Except (1) The SW doesn't expect that sort of failure. (2) Even then rebuilding RAID5 took hours.
Pulling out the mains on one PC making up an NT4.0 Enterprise cluster is less disastrous time and data wise. (3) He didn't check to see if there was already any issues with the array, he could have lost all the data.
Or the "technician" from the IT support company that was asked to move the server, and did so without shutting it down. One of the internal HDD wasn't well mounted so touched off PCB of neighbours. Two HDDs failed, whatever the reason.
A little knowledge is dangerous.
LIDAR has a few problems.
1) It's not that reliable
2) Interference / performance if every car is using it
3) Vulnerable to DOS, spoofing and other attacks.
"but these days everything has to be called "deep machine learning" and neural net sounds so last-century."
Yes. True. I'm very sceptical, fuelled by my own 35+ years programming experience and so called AI research.
I only use my smart phone as a feature phone since I got it years ago
Location off
WiFi off*
Data off.
Only voice & SMS calls.
FM Radio, notebook, camera, media player used, eBook Reader (Had to replace Amazon one).
All book, music, photo transfer via USB Mass Storage.
Even so it seems that Google is breaking the law and controlling my phone and illegally tracking?
[*WiFi used several times to get apps that don't need online connection]
Like Google's Android TV when you unpack a Sony TV. You can't scan for TV stations or set it up without agreeing Google's T&C. Surely illegal in EU?
My solution is never to connect it to Internet. It would tell Google which BD/DVD, satellite or Terrestrial program watched and all voice commands.
It's bit tricky now to have a phone.
man breaks automated tests at 00:30
The "carbon emissions" are moved, not saved and may even increase due to grid losses, charging losses and battery losses. UNLESS you have most electricity sourced from non-fossil sources. Electric cars in UK really need Nuclear or hybrid Nuclear /Fusion power.
Autonomous electric cars might increase on road congestion if they are single person carrying "taxis" as the journey distance can be nearly doubled, worst case.
Ban MS, Apple & Google so called "Telemetry" (Not just phones but PCs, TVs, watches, IoT).
Ban 3rd party tracking JS, images, resources and 3rd party cookies on Websites.
Ban Facebook entirely.
Mine's the one with an Android phone with WiFi off, Location off and Mobile Data off (voice only). Watching TV on my Sony with nothing in Ethernet socket and no WiFi.
Linux on my Lenovo laptop.
"In an unrelated move, Broadcom's also announced it will move its global headquarters from Singapore to the United States"
Well, that would certainly help lubricate the deal past the United States' Committee on Foreign Investment.
I wonder what activities are in or will be in the HQ?
Next up: Broadcom & Qualcomm as well as other mergers/takeovers.
Another great as yet unsolved mystery. Seemingly unrelated to universe expansion/Red Shift and also to the strange rotational behaviour of all the galaxies (spiral?) we have been able to measure. Andromeda is only the nearest spiral galaxy. Some other galaxies are closer than the diameter of our own galaxy, a staggering 100 ly approx. Note the "dark" bits between the visible arms have a mind boggling number of stars. The numbers are all really not comprehensible.
"Is there any basis for knowing that half the galaxies we see aren't entirely anti-matter?"
Possibly Cosmic Radiation? (Wikipedia says so)
There are other issues too with Antimatter and the birth of the universe.
"There is considerable speculation as to why the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter."
Anyway, if the Enterprise Star Trek was real, it would be like making batteries, badly. The only way to get the Antimatter would be a scary automated Fusion powered factory at a gas giant.
Antimatter / Matter fuel pods are essentially insane batteries that make the worst made and managed Li poly batteries look really safe. I won't travel on such a vessel. Icon for likely fate of such a vessel the first time its OS crashes. It's a worse idea than a car with a fuel tank of nitroglycerine as fuel on a pot holed road with no shocks.
Because the don't actually match observations and they are not theories, just fudged equations claiming gravity varies with distance other than Inverse Square Law. It's more likely that dark matter and dark energy exist. However there may be something else we haven't thought of.
The MOND theories do not meet an Occam's razor criteria as they are a complication with no explanation.
Actually a good test of a theory is not just does it fit, but does it predict something we can test or observe.
Quantum Theory and Relativity did make predictions. Actually some semiconductor devices, lasers and atomic clocks used Quantum theory, otherwise we might not have invented/discovered them.
The orbit of Mercury didn't seem to match Kepler laws / Newtonian predictions, but Relativity added the solution (it's closest to sun). It also later transpired the axial revolutions were not tidally locked as the moon is to us, but a more complex resonance.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy are both fudges to make observations match what we think we know.
A solar system follows the rules. Further away stuff has a much longer orbital period. A spiral galaxy ought to be the same. Instead the outer bits rotate nearly at same rate, as if it's a giant solid disc (like how a record or floppy spins). This seems to contravene Kepler's laws (originally Newtonian stuff) as well as Einstein's stuff.
Also the rate of expansion of the observable universe seems wrong (viewing galaxies), considering mass and energy.
Dark Energy and Dark Matter make the the macro scale of the Galaxies (our own and others) and the observed universe fit the known "laws" and physics.
So one solution is finding out what Dark Energy and Dark Matter are, the other possibility is that on a Macro scale something else is happening. Adding an extra non-inverse square law term to "gravity" doesn't seem to work well and what is the theory anyway?
The observations of the expansion have been revised, due to interstellar dust and gas reducing photon/EM energy and thus making red shift seem larger than it should be. More dust and gas has been found in the galaxy, but not enough to account for the lack of difference in orbital period of outer and inner parts of spiral arms.
It's a really interesting detective story with both space observation (I look forward to James Web) and lab tests including LHC.
That's what they want you to believe. Actually it all went pear shaped in the 1960s.
I feel I fell down the wrong trouser leg of time during the UWC strike in 1974. It "won" due to mass intimidation and no electricity. People in the Belfast Shipyard (a Loyalist hotbed) ignored it till the word went round that the cars in the car parks would be set on fire. The second one was bad too, but collapsed because the people and the government decided to oppose it.
The Coca-Cola Company
Still, their stupid red truck visits across UK etc should be boycotted.
A really nasty company that targets poor, 3rd world and tries to make their drink addictive. Even the sugar free version may promote diabetes.
Their marketing is unethical. Ever wondered why so many fast food places, even independent, only have Coca-Cola branded soft drinks, fridge and signage? That bears an investigation by Competition Authority in UK, Ireland and other places.
A major purveyor of diabetes, tooth decay and obesity. Possibly even part of American Cultural Imperialism? The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald's, Disney, Budweiser, Google, Apple, Facebook, KFC, Starbucks, Nike, Levi are not signs of Democracy. We outside USA have enough stupidity of our own without importing it.
STUPID
I don't have a problem with browser speed if I'm using real broadband.
I DO have a problem with stupid GUI decisions, stupid default settings, lack of built in "NoScript" and useragent changer (what is it with websites that only offer download for OS that the browser reports, idiotic design),
Also long time bugs not addressed.
Mentioned several times in the past
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/user/13122/
Mozilla has lost the plot.
And you STILL have a choice of
1) Windows, but now "broken" GUI, privacy and updates. Stupid IoT services added to all the default services that should be off, despite some internal improvements. Less legacy compatible, main reason to buy.
2) Chromebook, really a persistent terminal which never had and never will have privacy. Needs Google Cloud.
3) Apple MAC OS, locked in more than MS or Google. Expensive. Increasingly iTuned/walled OS, dumbed down and difficult to upgrade. Only one vendor/source.
If you want Linux you have to research or find a friend (if an ordinary person that's a refugee from Google, Microsoft or Apple).
The 1950s wants their synthetic cloth and synthetic leatherette cabinet cabinet covers back.
Ah, History written by winners.
The Romans (and Julius Caesar in his writings) knew most of their gods were re-labelled Greeks. They and later scholars assumed this applied to everyone. Mainland European Celts, particularly in Julius's time.
While there are certain themes that are universal, Freya is NOT a Norse Venus/Aphrodite/Astarte/Isis.
Lugh is not Mercury/Hermes. The Dagda, Odin/Wotan etc are not Zeus.
"demi" means not exactly or half. The Norse and Celtic mythic figures have a complex relationship to the idea of Worship. Legend gradually grows the godness of them, especially Celtic. The oldest major Norse texts are quite late, maybe 12th C Icelandic, I'm not sure. Irish texts are the oldest texts not about Greek/Roman myth in Western Europe. Some echo ancient Hindi / Indus valley stories, few Irish or Norse texts are like Greek or Roman.
Neo-pagan Celtic and Norse stuff is mostly made up in the 19th C as no actual written record of any rites exist. There are ornaments presumed to be religious amulets in Norse/Scandi graves. Loads of Scandi places are named after Freya.
The connection between Danu and Ireland seems to be a quite late post Christian invention as she was river goddess of the Danube. Ancient Irish texts mention goddesses of Boyne, Shannon and other Irish rivers. The Tuath Dé Danaan (Tribe of Goddess Danu) were originally only called Tuath Dé, the Tribe or people of the God. (Asterix's By Toutatis means by the God of the Tribe).
I'm not interested in being one. I think you can join them in some small US towns? Not sure. I think they have given up hanging Catholics and burning witches, so I suppose as long as they keep the laws of the land it's OK if you want to be one.
I'm not interested in joining things generally. I suppose I admit to being a member of the human species. I'm suspicious of stereotypical labels as much as most organised religions.
Almost nothing of the Christmas activities has any connection with Christianity. It's not even the proper date for the birth, no shepherd will be having sheep out in the Bethlehem fields in December.
I don't mind people having mince pies, Christmas trees, parties, decorations, fairy lights, alcoholic drink (drunkenness is wrong as is drink driving), Christmas cakes, Yule Logs, Christmas presents and "Santa Claus", because I'm not a 17th Century Puritan. I can't exactly see why Muslims and Ultra Orthodox would ban it because it's Christian, it's not. Perhaps because it's pagan, worldly, greedy self-indulgence? That's probably why Cromwell's crowd and the US Puritans banned it all.
Lidl had a set of ladies socks for Advent and then a Cien Beauty products Advent Calendar (I think both might leave your female friend underwhelmed). Chocolate is popular.
Lego had one. I see this year MegaBloks are copying them with a set of pseudo "minifigs". Lego is better.
Born much later and they think they recently know which formerly Byzantium Church has the tomb. He was a bloke that distributed stuff in his own locality to some poor people.
I've no idea when folk myth added flying reindeer or the necessity for a large red truck.
As Pratchett pointed out, people do love stories. Boar drawn sleigh? Sort of Nordic. Vanadis / Freya had a sleigh drawn by cats and rode a large boar. Possibly naked. Any connection between the formerly popular Norse Demi-godess and any original Vanir chieftess may be tenuous.
It does seem a lot like the X37.
More similar to X37 size?
The X37B specs from Wikipedia:
Length: 29 ft 3 in (8.92 m)
Wingspan: 14 ft 11 in (4.55 m)
Height: 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m)
Max takeoff weight: 11,000 lb (4,990 kg)
Payload bay: 7 × 4 ft (2.1 × 1.2 m)
It does easily.
Also you can create sections that restart page numbers, or continue them and optionally have no first page number, optionally no header optionally no footer, on first page of section or all pages.
It also does a binding offset more sensibly in a page style.
Perhaps you use direct formatting instead of styles?
What's more I can export as Office97-XP format (works all later MS-Office) or the later Office format from LibreOffice and users of MS Office get it fine (do remember to include fonts, which you need to do with most MS Office versions!).
PDF export and HTML export works far better in LibreOffice than MSOffice. Have you seen the bloated insane HTML MSOffice generates?
I've produced hundreds of 100+ plus documents in LibreOffice.
I used Wordstar, Wordperfect, DOS MSWord, Supercalc, Lotus123, Visicalc etc before using Windows MSOffice for nearly 20 years. I used to teach computer applications. So perhaps I spent half an hour figuring out the differences between MS Office and LibreOffice. Now only takes a few minutes to setup a new install properly, you have to spend as long or longer properly configuring MS Office applications at first install.
I don't install the LibreOffice "fast starter" and it's still far faster than MS Office.
LibreOffice.
1) Change default settings!
2) Disable Java. It doesn't need it.
3) Change Toolbars etc
The evil ribbon is available, I heard, but not by default.
I used MS Word since 2.0a, then Office since Office 4.3, then Office 95, Office XP and Office 2003. I tried a later Office and went back to 2003. Switched to LibreOffice in Jan 2016 completely on Windows, though I had used Star Office, Open Office and LibreOffice before that.
In December 2016 I switched main laptop to Linux Mint with Mate instead of Win7. I still have a Win10 tablet/Notebook (32bit) and a win10 desktop (64bit). Both just get occasional check and update. I tried Classic Shell and its Explorer patches. Win10 still a crap pile of excrement. At least Vista could have Aero turned of and settings changed to make it nearly sane till it was replaced by Win7.
Access is GARBAGE compared to MS SQL. Absolutely nothing should have used it since MS released a free SQL runtime service for windows, I think about 2000. MSDE was far superior to Acsess "Jet Engine". MSDE support ended in 2008, but MS I think still offers a free engine. If you need multiuser, Access is garbage and you need a full SQL. Porting to Maria DB or MySQL isn't hard.
There is no good reason to migrate BACK to MS, there may be reasons to stay with windows for now (existing Windows only applications). Some legacy business applications don't work on 64 bit windows (do work on 32 bit). The 32bit Windows 10 is only on some "toy" atom tablets (max 2G RAM by cpu design). Win10 seems worse than Vista and Win ME. The GUI is worse than Windows 3.1, reducing productivity by up to 20% (NNG study).
Everyone should have migration plans away from Access over 15 years ago and at least have secret feasibility studies to move away from Windows Server, Exchange, Sharepoint and Desktop.
Anyone adopting MS cloud is ignoring real future costs, backup, disaster recovery, security, privacy, reliability, legal aspects and more, such a lock in.
Just when MS is treating Business users badly and promoting their Cloud.
Many people are going the other direction.
Who is deciding this, who is advising them?
I smell money.
Exchage, Outlook, MS Office, Azure and Office365 are not reasons to GO BACK to Windows on the Desktop. The ONLY reason to have a Windows server is Exchange, which is horrible.
Windows update, GUI and privacy are now junk compared to Windows XP or even Windows 7. Do these people know what sort of monster Windows has become or is it nostalgia?
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