Yes. And when I tell a table to "float" in MS Word and then open it in OOo, the table is wrapped in a text box ("frame"), which works rather well. But it's nowhere near as easy to get a table in OOo inside a text box.
Sections, what the fubar are those?
Many of the functions of sections--denoting page number styles and columns throughout a document--are done rather well and in some cases better with OOo's "page style" feature. However, there's no way to have a different "columns" setting at different areas of a page--something that I have done in about half a dozen instances over the past year.
But wrt word-count, what's wrong with the one under File>Properties:Statistics ?
The fact that it's three or four clicks to get, and it's automatically a count of the WHOLE document. Measuring what one has written by word count is not an unusual task--and by tripling the requirements to get a word count, OOo has made the task dramatically harder than it is in MS Office.
What do you use floating tables and sections for, how do they convey information that can't be conveyed by OOo? Remember this is a word processor.
I'm currently formatting the Prometheus Reference Document (http://www.thefga.com/), and the basic layout for readability reasons is going to be two-columns per page. However, a number of tables are far wider than the column space, and this means that the tables need to "float" so that they are not in the way of the columns.
All of these are more annoyances than problems, and OOo has other features that do outweigh the problems--but the shortcomings do exist, and macros cannot fix all of them. OOo simply is not bug-for-bug or feature-for-feature a match for MS Word, and it'd doubtful that it ever will be.
Only if one places unnecessary limits on the capabilities of human imagination, and that is something that is outside of human control.
The universe exists in spite of us, not because of us.
Our understanding of said universe has advanced at a phenominal rate lately--but it's been in leaps and bounds, not a constant or predictable curve.
I challenge you to name one basic principle that we HAVEN'T got a fair grasp on. In the 18th century this was easy--flight, the power of the sun, electricity, etc., etc. In the 20th and 21st centuries, however, we've got a fair understanding of everything we see--and barring a major oversight, we are going to slow our current pace of "technological advancement" in a century or two.
As the evidence suggests the contrary, it seems to me that the burden of proof is on you.
What evidence? The basic technology in use today is hardly different than what it was fifty years ago, unless you only count the bleeding-edge. Heck, the rate of "advancement" was fastest in the early part of the 20th century, when nationwide elecricity, electrical communication, and fission all rolled out in the space of a few decades.
The latter half of the 20th century is NOWHERE near as frentic a pace of advancement as the first half. My car, computer, telephone, house, etc. all were of a quite similar form and function in 1999 as they were in 1949, and totally different than what they would have been be in 1899.
Or the ability to run that custom app you use for that one situation...
Or floating tables, or word count, or SECTIONS.
OOo is good, but it's a LONG ways away from "feature for feature" compatability with MS office, much less "bug for bug." (Thankfully, it's got a few cool features of its own which make up for the problem.)
I'm Canadian, and may not have a full understanding of the american legal system, but there appear to have been quite a few laws in the past 20 years or so that have made regular, harmless, day-to-day things illegal, sometimes possibly for the effect that they will serve as a catchall for people committing crimes not yet on the books.
Kindly name one.
Your first example, Pot, is a substance deemed to be ruinous enough to a person's health so as to have no redeeming value. It's not entirely an untrue statement, although not as clear cut as, say, heroin.
Your second example, Bernie S., was charged with having various things "knowingly and with intent to defraud", intending "to obtain unauthorized use of telecommunication services through the use of public telephones."
If he can convince the judge and/or the jury that he had no intent to defraud the telephone system, he's fine. If not--he's breaking a law designed to protect the rights of everyone. (Or would you rather have the alternate method of stoping phone phreaking--constant monitoring and oversight of all telecommunications?)
Your third example, an uncited law, is a bold-faced extension of the President's war-power. A rather overzealous one that won't stand up to constituional muster, but one that's worded broadly enough to catch terrorists plotting to blow something up. As far as meeting my requirement, it's a damn good one--because, like the PATRIOT act or the DMCA, it takes a descent idea and goes way too far.
The fact is that it's impossible to convict someone of a law that isn't on the books. And most of the "bad law" that IS on the books is either a heck of a lot older than twenty years, or is perfectly reasonable law that is worded horribly.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
*sigh*
You're a bigot. A rude, close-minded, bigot.
I am 100% certain that *I* believe in God. Whether or not He actually exists has no bearing whatsoever on my belief.
When someone who speaks English says "I believe", they immedately frame their statement at the scientific level of a hyothesis--whereas "I know" frames it on the level of a conclusion.
I know that I believe in God. I can interview myself, give my own testimony, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I do, in fact, have religious beliefs. It's far, FAR more provable and falsifiable than "I know God doesn't exist."
I think the best case scenario for EVERYONE involved but microsoft is for SP2 to have even more severe security vulnerabilities and instabilities than the current incarnation.
No, the BEST scienrio is for WinXP to break every insecure POS program out there, and for MS to discontinue support for Win2k (or patch it a'la WinXP.)
Nobody should trust a windows system for anything remotely important, and I hope SOMETHING will open the non-slashdot communitys's eyes.
A properly configured windows system can handle a good number of jobs as well as the same hardware running Linux. For lighter-duty jobs (the type that you would have X running all the time on if you had Linux), Windows Server can handle the job just fine.
What about when I want to watch DVDs on my linux box?
Buy a licensed DVD decoder, or write one yourself. The DMCA doesn't outlaw someone writing their own--it outlaws telling someone else to do it or selling one that does it.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
What planet do you live on??? They *always* sound arrogant because their position is inherently arrogant. Changing the phrasing to be polite is irrelevant to how arrogant they are being.
So, you find "I believe in God" to be an arrogant statement? If so, is it any less arrogant than "I know that God doesn't exist?"
What country do you live in? I've heard of people who can't politely discuss religion, but I have yet to meet any.
I do not subscribe to the notion that the arrogance level of something is lessened by saying the exact same thing in a more polite manner. This is because the arrogance is inherent in the position being put forth, not in the phrasing of that position.
Go back and read my post. Note the word "sound."
The difference between confidence and arrogance is rudeness. You do nothing to advance your position or to enlighten others by being both rude and arrogant, and if neither of those targets are your goal for a conversation, then you're just wasting my time.
Every direction I turn I see something that I do in my daily life that uses technology to make things more fun or convienient are put up as "evil" and neede to be made illegal.
Such as?
P2P isn't any more convenient than the half-dozen music stores that already exist. It's a halfway convenient source for movies and television--but the former you have extant mail-order services, and for the latter you can just build a box and record the darn shows yourself.
Name me ONE thing you do that has been made "illegal" that isn't a dangerous act or an infringement upon someone else's rights.
Congress isn't calling P2P "evil." They're calling it "wrong." Or, if you rather, "against the law of the land."
There are P2P schemes that don't "induce" copyright infringement, by making the distributor postiively identified or embeding identification in the file.
The Constitution was a document based on personal liberty and responsibility. How does enforcing the law of the land infringe on either of those?
As I mentioned in reply to another post, you are equating 100 years forward with 100 years backward..
And as I said, you haven't given one spec of data to back up your claim that technology increases exponentially, and that this increase would cause any problems at all with peaceful or agreesive contact between us and a hypothetical alien civilization.
The exponential nature of tech growth implies that we are like apes to a civilization even 100 years ahead of us, and like ants to one thousands or millions of years ahead of us.
"Like apes" and "like ants" is a clear indication that you were talking about intelligence. If you WERE talking about intelligence, then the encounter wouldn't be as harsh a difference as you suppose--see the problems the British had with far-less advanced natives in Africa, or the current struggles we're having in the War on Terrorism.
100 years ahead does not translate to 100 years backwards.
Not on an exponential scale--but first you need to prove that we are on an exponential scale, and not merely riding the exploration of a half-dozen core principles.
At some point we will run out of basic principles to rediscover. To use a common/. example, eventually Moore's Law will run out--if nothing else, it'll hit plank-length constraints and speed limitations imposed by C.
I'm sure that after the discovery of the sail, ocean travel and its benefits increased exponentially for a time--before finally the basic innovation ran its course, and was as fully understood as it could be. Multiple core principles doubtless build upon each other, but eventually the rate of "invention" will decrease and slow.
The exponential nature of tech growth implies that we are like apes to a civilization even 100 years ahead of us, and like ants to one thousands or millions of years ahead of us.
Bullocks.
Are people from 100, 500, or 1,000 years ago "apes" to us? They didn't have all of the modern conveniences, but a lot of them did exist--and the average person, though less educated, was not a good deal less intelligent than they are today.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
The only way for me not to sound arrogant when talking about religious people is for me to lie.
Bullshit. 100%, grade-A bull shit.
Religious people have managed to talk about the anti-religion lobby without sounding like arrogant bastards. There's no reason that the reverse cannot be true.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt and allowing for your own mistakes is all that it takes. Here's an example:
"The Crusades, although likely a religious choice for many, was in large parts a natural outcome from parts of European society and history that had nothing to do with religion. Whatever ecclisiastic trappings the endeavor was wrapped in, the secular causes of the Crusades cannot be ignored and in all likelihood were more influential on the contintent's decision to go to war than the words of a religious authority."
Sometimes honesty *is* arrogant.
Yes, it is. But even the most arrogant statement can be spoken without that arrogance clouding out the statement.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
They thought they were doing it for religious reasons, yes. But they were wrong.
Oh, so you're not close-minded, you're just arrogant.
Any rational person would have understood that my definition of 'anything' wouldn't include harm to other people or property.. Thats just silly.
No, that's linguistic honesty.
When you say "I can do anything I want", it's pure hubris to assume that you're talking about a different anything than, oh, the use of the word in "you can believe anything you want."
Don't belittle your claim by saying "that's not really what I mean, but it should have been."
And I'm not alone, next time some company comes by and tells you what you can and cant do with the device you bought, you will agree too.
Nope. I have DRM'd files on my desktop right now, and I have exactly zero incling to run over what they said I could do with them.
Where did you get this assinie idea that your not profiting in any way changes your legal rights? The ONLY thing that it does is effect whether or not it's worth it for the megacorp to come after you.
And, in a like vein, there are a lot of things that you shouldn't be allowed to do with things that you buy:
i like the idea of a book for life (mine usually end up in tatters, i read at the beach a lot, especially the books i read several times over, they get splashed with salt water etc) but i think id rather be able to lend the book to friends and get it replaced every so often (which im sure both the publishers and the authors would appreciate) than not
You only ever lend one of you books to one person at a time--even if they exchange it between them before getting back to you, you can't let two people borrow two copies of your one book.
I'm going to have to hire a good contract lawyer--I don't want you giving all your friends copies without paying me the $1-$2 royalty, but I do want you to be able to hand a friend a book and say "here, read this--it's cool."
The best balance, IMO, is to let the reader lend out one copy at a time to one person at a time. If the book's good enough, people will pay the $1-$2 for a lifetime copy. If it's not good enoguh, well, I wouldn't get any money anyway.
How do you plan to deal with transfer of ownership of their 'Licence' to your book ?
It's a license. I'm not going to have a provision for it.
If you don't like the book, don't register it. Then you've got a regular book sale, that you can return to the store, give to a library, etc., etc.
However, I do intend to allow folks to "lend out" one copy at a time. Which is, of course, exactly what they can do now with a physical book.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
You're applying modern views to people who really would never see the distinction.
If you can't recognize that, to the Crusaders and their Kings and the Pope, the Crusades were a religious act taken to further what they saw as God's will, then you're rather likely thinking about them with a closed mind.
And you'll probably misunderstand the Arabic terrorists, Arabic anti-terrorists, and Christian members of the army who feel the exact same way about what's going on in the Middle East right now.
The Crusades were not about increasing the power of the church. They were about righting a wrong and bringing good to the world--even though they went horribly off track and may even have been mistaken in the first place, the religious nature of the whole conflict cannot be brushed aside as "the church was trying to expand their power."
I'm going to spend three-six months and a few hundred dollars trying to go the traditional route, first.
Like the music industry, the advantage to going through the big boys is mass distribution and printing. It's one thing to be in the catalog of Amazon.com--it's something else entirely to be on the shelves of every Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, and Borders across the nation.
(Not to mention access to an editor, a profesional cover artist, and a few other valuable persons of talent to help turn a novel from "good" to "great.")
Sitting on my hard drive is a novel waiting to be published. I'm going to find some way to get it published, hopefully by a big house--and whenever you or anyone else buys my book, IMO they're buying the right to have a copy of that book for the rest of their lives.
If they contact me and supply a verifiable information, I'll send them an electronic version of the book and give them secured written permission to copy, print out, or just read on their palm my book... just so long as they don't give it to anyone else.
Yes, I know authorization is going to be a pain. But, honestly, folks who would by it are going to buy it, and folks who won't buy it won't buy it.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 1
The crusades were very obviously secular in nature, despite any rhetoric to the contrary.
So, then what would have been a non-secular war?
The first Crusade began when the Pope commanded Europe to go and take the Holy Land, after pilgrims were killed by the Moslem rulers there.
If that doesn't make it "non-secular", then no war can ever be "non-secular."
Slashdot Mirror
I'm more than aware that Macros exist, and that most of what I want to do can be done with OOo--it's just more work.
Are floating tables like a table inside a frame?
Yes. And when I tell a table to "float" in MS Word and then open it in OOo, the table is wrapped in a text box ("frame"), which works rather well. But it's nowhere near as easy to get a table in OOo inside a text box.
Sections, what the fubar are those?
Many of the functions of sections--denoting page number styles and columns throughout a document--are done rather well and in some cases better with OOo's "page style" feature. However, there's no way to have a different "columns" setting at different areas of a page--something that I have done in about half a dozen instances over the past year.
But wrt word-count, what's wrong with the one under File>Properties:Statistics ?
The fact that it's three or four clicks to get, and it's automatically a count of the WHOLE document. Measuring what one has written by word count is not an unusual task--and by tripling the requirements to get a word count, OOo has made the task dramatically harder than it is in MS Office.
What do you use floating tables and sections for, how do they convey information that can't be conveyed by OOo? Remember this is a word processor.
I'm currently formatting the Prometheus Reference Document (http://www.thefga.com/), and the basic layout for readability reasons is going to be two-columns per page. However, a number of tables are far wider than the column space, and this means that the tables need to "float" so that they are not in the way of the columns.
All of these are more annoyances than problems, and OOo has other features that do outweigh the problems--but the shortcomings do exist, and macros cannot fix all of them. OOo simply is not bug-for-bug or feature-for-feature a match for MS Word, and it'd doubtful that it ever will be.
Only if one places unnecessary limits on the capabilities of human imagination, and that is something that is outside of human control.
The universe exists in spite of us, not because of us.
Our understanding of said universe has advanced at a phenominal rate lately--but it's been in leaps and bounds, not a constant or predictable curve.
I challenge you to name one basic principle that we HAVEN'T got a fair grasp on. In the 18th century this was easy--flight, the power of the sun, electricity, etc., etc. In the 20th and 21st centuries, however, we've got a fair understanding of everything we see--and barring a major oversight, we are going to slow our current pace of "technological advancement" in a century or two.
As the evidence suggests the contrary, it seems to me that the burden of proof is on you.
What evidence? The basic technology in use today is hardly different than what it was fifty years ago, unless you only count the bleeding-edge. Heck, the rate of "advancement" was fastest in the early part of the 20th century, when nationwide elecricity, electrical communication, and fission all rolled out in the space of a few decades.
The latter half of the 20th century is NOWHERE near as frentic a pace of advancement as the first half. My car, computer, telephone, house, etc. all were of a quite similar form and function in 1999 as they were in 1949, and totally different than what they would have been be in 1899.
unless you want games, that is
Or the ability to run that custom app you use for that one situation...
Or floating tables, or word count, or SECTIONS.
OOo is good, but it's a LONG ways away from "feature for feature" compatability with MS office, much less "bug for bug." (Thankfully, it's got a few cool features of its own which make up for the problem.)
I'm Canadian, and may not have a full understanding of the american legal system, but there appear to have been quite a few laws in the past 20 years or so that have made regular, harmless, day-to-day things illegal, sometimes possibly for the effect that they will serve as a catchall for people committing crimes not yet on the books.
Kindly name one.
Your first example, Pot, is a substance deemed to be ruinous enough to a person's health so as to have no redeeming value. It's not entirely an untrue statement, although not as clear cut as, say, heroin.
Your second example, Bernie S., was charged with having various things "knowingly and with intent to defraud", intending "to obtain unauthorized use of telecommunication services through the use of public telephones."
If he can convince the judge and/or the jury that he had no intent to defraud the telephone system, he's fine. If not--he's breaking a law designed to protect the rights of everyone. (Or would you rather have the alternate method of stoping phone phreaking--constant monitoring and oversight of all telecommunications?)
Your third example, an uncited law, is a bold-faced extension of the President's war-power. A rather overzealous one that won't stand up to constituional muster, but one that's worded broadly enough to catch terrorists plotting to blow something up. As far as meeting my requirement, it's a damn good one--because, like the PATRIOT act or the DMCA, it takes a descent idea and goes way too far.
The fact is that it's impossible to convict someone of a law that isn't on the books. And most of the "bad law" that IS on the books is either a heck of a lot older than twenty years, or is perfectly reasonable law that is worded horribly.
*sigh*
You're a bigot. A rude, close-minded, bigot.
I am 100% certain that *I* believe in God. Whether or not He actually exists has no bearing whatsoever on my belief.
When someone who speaks English says "I believe", they immedately frame their statement at the scientific level of a hyothesis--whereas "I know" frames it on the level of a conclusion.
I know that I believe in God. I can interview myself, give my own testimony, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I do, in fact, have religious beliefs. It's far, FAR more provable and falsifiable than "I know God doesn't exist."
I think the best case scenario for EVERYONE involved but microsoft is for SP2 to have even more severe security vulnerabilities and instabilities than the current incarnation.
No, the BEST scienrio is for WinXP to break every insecure POS program out there, and for MS to discontinue support for Win2k (or patch it a'la WinXP.)
Nobody should trust a windows system for anything remotely important, and I hope SOMETHING will open the non-slashdot communitys's eyes.
A properly configured windows system can handle a good number of jobs as well as the same hardware running Linux. For lighter-duty jobs (the type that you would have X running all the time on if you had Linux), Windows Server can handle the job just fine.
Watching a fscking DVD with mplayer or xine (made illegal thanks to DMCA).
"infringement upon someone else's rights."
What about when I want to watch DVDs on my linux box?
Buy a licensed DVD decoder, or write one yourself. The DMCA doesn't outlaw someone writing their own--it outlaws telling someone else to do it or selling one that does it.
What planet do you live on??? They *always* sound arrogant because their position is inherently arrogant. Changing the phrasing to be polite is irrelevant to how arrogant they are being.
So, you find "I believe in God" to be an arrogant statement? If so, is it any less arrogant than "I know that God doesn't exist?"
What country do you live in? I've heard of people who can't politely discuss religion, but I have yet to meet any.
I do not subscribe to the notion that the arrogance level of something is lessened by saying the exact same thing in a more polite manner. This is because the arrogance is inherent in the position being put forth, not in the phrasing of that position.
Go back and read my post. Note the word "sound."
The difference between confidence and arrogance is rudeness. You do nothing to advance your position or to enlighten others by being both rude and arrogant, and if neither of those targets are your goal for a conversation, then you're just wasting my time.
Every direction I turn I see something that I do in my daily life that uses technology to make things more fun or convienient are put up as "evil" and neede to be made illegal.
Such as?
P2P isn't any more convenient than the half-dozen music stores that already exist. It's a halfway convenient source for movies and television--but the former you have extant mail-order services, and for the latter you can just build a box and record the darn shows yourself.
Name me ONE thing you do that has been made "illegal" that isn't a dangerous act or an infringement upon someone else's rights.
Congress isn't calling P2P "evil." They're calling it "wrong." Or, if you rather, "against the law of the land."
There are P2P schemes that don't "induce" copyright infringement, by making the distributor postiively identified or embeding identification in the file.
The Constitution was a document based on personal liberty and responsibility. How does enforcing the law of the land infringe on either of those?
As I mentioned in reply to another post, you are equating 100 years forward with 100 years backward..
And as I said, you haven't given one spec of data to back up your claim that technology increases exponentially, and that this increase would cause any problems at all with peaceful or agreesive contact between us and a hypothetical alien civilization.
Let me quote you:
The exponential nature of tech growth implies that we are like apes to a civilization even 100 years ahead of us, and like ants to one thousands or millions of years ahead of us.
"Like apes" and "like ants" is a clear indication that you were talking about intelligence. If you WERE talking about intelligence, then the encounter wouldn't be as harsh a difference as you suppose--see the problems the British had with far-less advanced natives in Africa, or the current struggles we're having in the War on Terrorism.
100 years ahead does not translate to 100 years backwards.
/. example, eventually Moore's Law will run out--if nothing else, it'll hit plank-length constraints and speed limitations imposed by C.
Not on an exponential scale--but first you need to prove that we are on an exponential scale, and not merely riding the exploration of a half-dozen core principles.
At some point we will run out of basic principles to rediscover. To use a common
I'm sure that after the discovery of the sail, ocean travel and its benefits increased exponentially for a time--before finally the basic innovation ran its course, and was as fully understood as it could be. Multiple core principles doubtless build upon each other, but eventually the rate of "invention" will decrease and slow.
The exponential nature of tech growth implies that we are like apes to a civilization even 100 years ahead of us, and like ants to one thousands or millions of years ahead of us.
Bullocks.
Are people from 100, 500, or 1,000 years ago "apes" to us? They didn't have all of the modern conveniences, but a lot of them did exist--and the average person, though less educated, was not a good deal less intelligent than they are today.
The only way for me not to sound arrogant when talking about religious people is for me to lie.
Bullshit. 100%, grade-A bull shit.
Religious people have managed to talk about the anti-religion lobby without sounding like arrogant bastards. There's no reason that the reverse cannot be true.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt and allowing for your own mistakes is all that it takes. Here's an example:
"The Crusades, although likely a religious choice for many, was in large parts a natural outcome from parts of European society and history that had nothing to do with religion. Whatever ecclisiastic trappings the endeavor was wrapped in, the secular causes of the Crusades cannot be ignored and in all likelihood were more influential on the contintent's decision to go to war than the words of a religious authority."
Sometimes honesty *is* arrogant.
Yes, it is. But even the most arrogant statement can be spoken without that arrogance clouding out the statement.
They thought they were doing it for religious reasons, yes. But they were wrong.
Oh, so you're not close-minded, you're just arrogant.
Any rational person would have understood that my definition of 'anything' wouldn't include harm to other people or property.. Thats just silly.
No, that's linguistic honesty.
When you say "I can do anything I want", it's pure hubris to assume that you're talking about a different anything than, oh, the use of the word in "you can believe anything you want."
Don't belittle your claim by saying "that's not really what I mean, but it should have been."
And I'm not alone, next time some company comes by and tells you what you can and cant do with the device you bought, you will agree too.
Nope. I have DRM'd files on my desktop right now, and I have exactly zero incling to run over what they said I could do with them.
And, in a like vein, there are a lot of things that you shouldn't be allowed to do with things that you buy:
Hit somone over the head with them
Fire them from a canon
Leave them in the middle of the highway
Set fire to them [purposefully]
i like the idea of a book for life (mine usually end up in tatters, i read at the beach a lot, especially the books i read several times over, they get splashed with salt water etc) but i think id rather be able to lend the book to friends and get it replaced every so often (which im sure both the publishers and the authors would appreciate) than not
You only ever lend one of you books to one person at a time--even if they exchange it between them before getting back to you, you can't let two people borrow two copies of your one book.
I'm going to have to hire a good contract lawyer--I don't want you giving all your friends copies without paying me the $1-$2 royalty, but I do want you to be able to hand a friend a book and say "here, read this--it's cool."
The best balance, IMO, is to let the reader lend out one copy at a time to one person at a time. If the book's good enough, people will pay the $1-$2 for a lifetime copy. If it's not good enoguh, well, I wouldn't get any money anyway.
How do you plan to deal with transfer of ownership of their 'Licence' to your book ?
It's a license. I'm not going to have a provision for it.
If you don't like the book, don't register it. Then you've got a regular book sale, that you can return to the store, give to a library, etc., etc.
However, I do intend to allow folks to "lend out" one copy at a time. Which is, of course, exactly what they can do now with a physical book.
You're applying modern views to people who really would never see the distinction.
If you can't recognize that, to the Crusaders and their Kings and the Pope, the Crusades were a religious act taken to further what they saw as God's will, then you're rather likely thinking about them with a closed mind.
And you'll probably misunderstand the Arabic terrorists, Arabic anti-terrorists, and Christian members of the army who feel the exact same way about what's going on in the Middle East right now.
The Crusades were not about increasing the power of the church. They were about righting a wrong and bringing good to the world--even though they went horribly off track and may even have been mistaken in the first place, the religious nature of the whole conflict cannot be brushed aside as "the church was trying to expand their power."
I'm going to spend three-six months and a few hundred dollars trying to go the traditional route, first.
Like the music industry, the advantage to going through the big boys is mass distribution and printing. It's one thing to be in the catalog of Amazon.com--it's something else entirely to be on the shelves of every Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, and Borders across the nation.
(Not to mention access to an editor, a profesional cover artist, and a few other valuable persons of talent to help turn a novel from "good" to "great.")
I've actually got a better idea.
Sitting on my hard drive is a novel waiting to be published. I'm going to find some way to get it published, hopefully by a big house--and whenever you or anyone else buys my book, IMO they're buying the right to have a copy of that book for the rest of their lives.
If they contact me and supply a verifiable information, I'll send them an electronic version of the book and give them secured written permission to copy, print out, or just read on their palm my book... just so long as they don't give it to anyone else.
Yes, I know authorization is going to be a pain. But, honestly, folks who would by it are going to buy it, and folks who won't buy it won't buy it.
The crusades were very obviously secular in nature, despite any rhetoric to the contrary.
So, then what would have been a non-secular war?
The first Crusade began when the Pope commanded Europe to go and take the Holy Land, after pilgrims were killed by the Moslem rulers there.
If that doesn't make it "non-secular", then no war can ever be "non-secular."