Monthly Archives: March 2004

another Douglas Adams anecdote

Posted on March 31, 2004 by acb

Though it seems to me that the joke was on Mac snobs here. At the end of the conversation I last blogged, I found another paragraph. DNA speaks: “I was talking to Nathan Myhrvold the other day, and I said … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Software | Comments Off on another Douglas Adams anecdote

the voice of Douglas Adams

Posted on March 31, 2004 by acb

There is an unnerving number of dead people in my contacts file. One of them is Douglas Adams, who I knew to get quotes from; attached to the phone number at his software company is a note of what he … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 4 Comments

pub crawling into handbags

Posted on March 31, 2004 by acb

Felix and I met in the Lamb, and discovered how to beam numbers with IR to each others’ mobiles. Could anything be sillier, or more fun? The Lamb, in Lamb’s Conduit Street, is a wonderful pub, the closest thing in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 3 Comments

cameras like computers

Posted on March 30, 2004 by acb

Engineers can see at once that something labelled the LC52C LA-DC52C is likely to be vitally different from an almost identical piece of plastic called the LC52D LA-DC52D. Shop assistants can’t. That’s why I’m expecting a new camera to take … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Software | 2 Comments

needy nerd request

Posted on March 27, 2004 by acb

Does anyone out there have experience of a palm tungsten T? I see some being sold off as binends, and I am horribly tempted. Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Strange Meeting

Posted on March 26, 2004 by acb

To the Guardian Unlimited party last night, which was painfully hip even by the standards of Guardian parties. For people of our impeccably fashionable instincts, thought only slows you down, so it makes sense that here you really couldn’t hear … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 3 Comments

Beelzebub addresses the Palestinian Authority

Posted on March 20, 2004 by acb

… what peace will be giv’n To us enslav’d, but custody severe, And stripes, and arbitrary punishment Inflicted? and what peace can we return, But to our power hostility and hate, Untam’d reluctance, and revenge though slow, Yet ever plotting … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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But he’s always been sweet to the poodles

Posted on March 20, 2004 by acb

Dr William Oddie, lately editor of the Catholic Herald, was appointed by Conrad Black, and kept on in the job after libelling, rather expensively, my friend Stephen Bates, of the Guardian. He was only forced to retire last year, through … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

Dear Abbyy

Posted on March 19, 2004 by acb

Software inefficiency can always outpace Moore’s Law. — Jaron Lanier, quoted in Scott Rosenberg’s column today. This is one reason why I don’t tend to buy software, and,when I do buy it, it never runs faster than the thing it … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Software | 3 Comments

Changing cases

Posted on March 16, 2004 by acb

Perhaps the single most irritating, because most brainless, bug in OOo is the one which means that changes of case are not preserved when exporting to other formats. This means that copy submitted in Word or Ascii (and what other … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in OOo | Comments Off on Changing cases