OO calc 1.0.3 does some things rather well, the formula wizard in particular is a feature I expect to see in the next Excel release.
BUT.
Import a complex ss from Excel, and you lose most of the graphs. Real engineers use xy graphs and contour maps, guess what OO can't translate properly.
Secondly, VBA. VBA is laughably easy to get into, eight hour after trying to use it for the first time I had a working genetic algorithm solver. I have downloaded the OO language manual, but unfortunately have not been able to commit the time necessary to learn what I need to do. In an engineering organisation EVERY macro would have to be rewritten and revalidated. That is a huge cost overhead. Why do you think we still use Fortran? Because revalidating code is more expensive than training people to use clunky software.
I just run everything out of the box, and generally go for defaults when installing. Since Mandrake is the first distro I actually got running properly (if slowly), having tried and not really succeeded with much older distros of SuSe and Red Hat (6 I think) I thought my experience with Mandrake was most representative.
Anyway, I'll stick Mandrake on my fast computer and see what that is like, and look out for another distro to load instead on this one.
Congratulations on your insightful and informative post. I'm surprised you posted AC, such a post would garner accolades from the groupthink weenies round here.
Interesting that as usual the sensible post that flouts/. orthodoxy gets flagged -1.
Anyway. Most mechanical engineering (in man hours) is done on Excel. OO does not offer 100% compatibility, for instance with charts and VBA. Rewriting each spreadsheet into OO is a huge overhead. Until this is resolved I can't see OO taking over, in my workplace.
I have. Sorry, OO 1.03 spreadsheet doesn't cut it. At least my charts still work in XP, whereas they fall over in OO. Same with VBA, although I would agree that there are bizarro-world re-writes necessary for some macros (not mine, so far).
I really really want OO to work, but so far there is no way I can afford to swap over from Excel. I recently tried to set up a new multi-sheet ss and used OO for it from scratch. After two hours of head scratching at one point (associated with references to cells on other worksheets) I gave up.
At the risk of attracting developer's ire, I gave up trying to report my problems because the problem reporting database is completely inscrutable. I will happily forward the notes I wrote to anyone who is interested.
How can a 10 numeric grid reference be accurate to 1m, if you are dealing with anything bigger than a 62 mile square? 62 miles= 100 km (approx)=10^5 metres. Admittedly I'm assuming denary notation but even so.
He writes half a sentence, that is WRONG, and gets mod'ed to 5 insightful
Mechanical engineering - 6 mornings a week at lectures, 4 afternoons a week in the labs. One of our first electrical labs was building a multimeter from a kit - no big deal, and then adjusting it so that it calibrated rather well, on every range. We had to work out all the component values by hand.
You missed the other point, best power is developed at a richer than stoich mixture. So what happens under part throttle is that your engine runs under closed loop control, adjusting the mixture via feedback from the lambda sensor.
However, at full throttle the engine runs under open loop, for fuel, and psossibly for spark as well. This allows the engine to develop more power, and the extra fuel helps to keep EGT down, to stop the exhaust valve from burning. It is also used to cool the catalyst, which may explode a few myths.
Some on-line secure transactions require IE, and I'm pretty sure that some require Windows not Mac.
After a pathetically unsuccessful search the only ones I can actually find evidence of are
BAS on-line (Government sales tax, the ATO is the Austrlian Taxation Office)
http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/bas_online.htm l
"The type of businesses the ATO is interested in are those who meet the following criteria:
You have annual turnover of less than $2 million You have computer access and use Microsoft Windows (any version) You have internet access and internet banking access You have an e-mail address You have one of the following internet browsers: Internet Explorer 5.0, Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 or Internet Explorer 6.0 You are not currently using the ATO electronic commerce interface You prepare your own BAS You lodge a BAS on a quarterly basis (not monthly) You have lodged more than 2 quarterly BAS, Commonwealth on-line Banking. "
It may be that this restriction is because it just a trial scheme, on the other hand, why not gain exposure to all the browsers/OS that people use?
And the Commonwealth Bank's netbank system's FAQ includes an unpasteable table, with the following footnote: http://www.commbank.com.au/Netbank/Support/default.asp?b=BrowserTest.asp
"Netscape users: Netscape 6 + browsers are incompatible with NetBank."
Mozilla passed the test. Opera doesn't get mentioned. Linux is not an operating system, apparently!
I've only just read "The Forever War", a very powerful book.
I'd recommend Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey series (there are 20 of them) as a change of pace. Life in the Royal Navy around 1800.
If you do feel inclined to read them start with "Desolation Island" or "The Post Captain", to get the flavour, as the first in the series, "Master and Commander" is not immedately gripping.
Slashdot Mirror
OO calc 1.0.3 does some things rather well, the formula wizard in particular is a feature I expect to see in the next Excel release.
BUT.
Import a complex ss from Excel, and you lose most of the graphs. Real engineers use xy graphs and contour maps, guess what OO can't translate properly.
Secondly, VBA. VBA is laughably easy to get into, eight hour after trying to use it for the first time I had a working genetic algorithm solver. I have downloaded the OO language manual, but unfortunately have not been able to commit the time necessary to learn what I need to do. In an engineering organisation EVERY macro would have to be rewritten and revalidated. That is a huge cost overhead. Why do you think we still use Fortran? Because revalidating code is more expensive than training people to use clunky software.
'seeking enlightenment' is not the same as being 'enlightened', in many philosophies.
Zen may (or may not) claim that the journey is more important than the destination, but that is not a common theme.
like i said
Oh go on, explain why anyone would run anything other than a paper diary, if it wasn't cool. Synchronisation? Thou jest.
The comma has significance, young Luke.
"the "enlightened slashdot crowd""
oo oo, show me where they are. Want to see, want to touch, want to adore.
That has to be the oddest use of 'enlightened' I have ever seen in my life.
Now I have. Thanks.
OK, I'll give it another go and put them in. Thanks
That is a very reasonable set of comments.
I just run everything out of the box, and generally go for defaults when installing. Since Mandrake is the first distro I actually got running properly (if slowly), having tried and not really succeeded with much older distros of SuSe and Red Hat (6 I think) I thought my experience with Mandrake was most representative.
Anyway, I'll stick Mandrake on my fast computer and see what that is like, and look out for another distro to load instead on this one.
Thanks
Here's what I've got: AMD 400, 128 Mb
Here's what i run: NT4,
Office 97. - Speed is fine
OO start up time is horrrible, repsonsiveness is shite
Mozilla- start up time is pretty poor, responsiveness is OK (I use Moz as my browser most of the time)
Mandrake 9, KDE
OO 1.0.3
start up time is ridiculous, responsiveness is lethargic.
Moz - runs OK, actually.
I'm running NT4/office 97 on 128 Mb, 400 Mhz.
I hate to say it but this beats Mandrake 9/ OO 1.0.3 into the deck for responsiveness on the same machine.
So, either the guys in Florida didn't know how to set up an NT box (odd, since mine is default at every turn) or your informant has been misled.
Gotta agree, but posting AC isn't exactly a sign of conviction.
Anyway, good post, points well made.
Congratulations on your insightful and informative post. I'm surprised you posted AC, such a post would garner accolades from the groupthink weenies round here.
Interesting that as usual the sensible post that flouts /. orthodoxy gets flagged -1.
Anyway. Most mechanical engineering (in man hours) is done on Excel. OO does not offer 100% compatibility, for instance with charts and VBA. Rewriting each spreadsheet into OO is a huge overhead. Until this is resolved I can't see OO taking over, in my workplace.
No, it means the PP has never met a girl. Logic, guys, is your friend.
I have. Sorry, OO 1.03 spreadsheet doesn't cut it. At least my charts still work in XP, whereas they fall over in OO. Same with VBA, although I would agree that there are bizarro-world re-writes necessary for some macros (not mine, so far).
I really really want OO to work, but so far there is no way I can afford to swap over from Excel. I recently tried to set up a new multi-sheet ss and used OO for it from scratch. After two hours of head scratching at one point (associated with references to cells on other worksheets) I gave up.
At the risk of attracting developer's ire, I gave up trying to report my problems because the problem reporting database is completely inscrutable. I will happily forward the notes I wrote to anyone who is interested.
"Ok, I'm half kidding, but the article is hardly newsworthy or even understandable to me"
Oh. Good. I thought it was just me.
How can a 10 numeric grid reference be accurate to 1m, if you are dealing with anything bigger than a 62 mile square? 62 miles= 100 km (approx)=10^5 metres. Admittedly I'm assuming denary notation but even so.
He writes half a sentence, that is WRONG, and gets mod'ed to 5 insightful
Sheesh
Mechanical engineering - 6 mornings a week at lectures, 4 afternoons a week in the labs. One of our first electrical labs was building a multimeter from a kit - no big deal, and then adjusting it so that it calibrated rather well, on every range. We had to work out all the component values by hand.
Oh, I see.
6 54 /
You missed the other point, best power is developed at a richer than stoich mixture. So what happens under part throttle is that your engine runs under closed loop control, adjusting the mixture via feedback from the lambda sensor.
However, at full throttle the engine runs under open loop, for fuel, and psossibly for spark as well. This allows the engine to develop more power, and the extra fuel helps to keep EGT down, to stop the exhaust valve from burning. It is also used to cool the catalyst, which may explode a few myths.
Here's an early experiment into this subject
http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/reports/1938/naca-tn-
No.
What made you think that?
Some on-line secure transactions require IE, and I'm pretty sure that some require Windows not Mac.
m l
t .asp?b=BrowserTest.asp
After a pathetically unsuccessful search the only ones I can actually find evidence of are
BAS on-line (Government sales tax, the ATO is the Austrlian Taxation Office)
http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/bas_online.ht
"The type of businesses the ATO is interested in are those who meet the following criteria:
You have annual turnover of less than $2 million
You have computer access and use Microsoft Windows (any version)
You have internet access and internet banking access
You have an e-mail address
You have one of the following internet browsers: Internet Explorer 5.0, Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 or Internet Explorer 6.0
You are not currently using the ATO electronic commerce interface
You prepare your own BAS
You lodge a BAS on a quarterly basis (not monthly)
You have lodged more than 2 quarterly BAS, Commonwealth on-line Banking. "
It may be that this restriction is because it just a trial scheme, on the other hand, why not gain exposure to all the browsers/OS that people use?
And the Commonwealth Bank's netbank system's FAQ includes an unpasteable table, with the following footnote: http://www.commbank.com.au/Netbank/Support/defaul
"Netscape users: Netscape 6 + browsers are incompatible with NetBank."
Mozilla passed the test. Opera doesn't get mentioned. Linux is not an operating system, apparently!
I've only just read "The Forever War", a very powerful book.
I'd recommend Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey series (there are 20 of them) as a change of pace. Life in the Royal Navy around 1800.
If you do feel inclined to read them start with "Desolation Island" or "The Post Captain", to get the flavour, as the first in the series, "Master and Commander" is not immedately gripping.
It may not, in your opinion, be as good as his other books, but it is the only one of his I've read, so far.
I am looking forward to reading his other books.
Things I liked about it
1) Intelligent. Not scared of hard things
2) Funny sense of humour. eg the breakfast cereal thing
3) Way out there storyline, combined with nitty gritty details (similar to Miss Schmilla's Feeling for Snow)
4) nerdiness. The nerd-as-protagonist (if not hero) appeals to my inner nerd.
Still 'non degustebum' and all that...
Not knocking him, but several other people have designed and built human powered planes since then. eg http://www.nasg.com/hpa/birdman-e.html
Trouble is, it costs a lot, and the easiest (not easy), big prize has been taken.
Mind you, he has also worked on a lot of other interesting projects, http://www.aerovironment.com/
lists a few