Tech

Hedge your bets

Excel is the sort of thing that gives software a bad name with its seemingly random behaviour and arbitrary limits. Here's an error message I saw yesterday:

This file was created with a later version of Excel. There is a remote possibility that certain workbook properties specific to the later version may be lost if you save the file in this version.

"Remote possibility" and "may be lost"? Don't tax yourself, Excel. Hedge your bets. What you really meant was "certainty" and "will be lost". You also omitted "I'll make such a hash of saving this file that it won't even open in the other version".

Angels

The Time of Angels

Four episodes in, and it looks like Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are a roaring success as Doctor and Companion. And with Stephen Moffat at the helm now it was inevitable that the Weeping Angels would make a return. Can't wait for next week's episode.

(If you've not seen it, track down Blink and see the Angels' debut in possibly the best Doctor Who episode ever.)

Comment

Blue sky thinking

Boo hiss, it looks to be all over for now (with apologies to Jay who was due to fly to Vancouver tonight).

I've thoroughly enjoyed the past five days: the wide blue sky arching from horizon to horizon uninterrupted by jet contrails. The morning chorus seems louder, the day seems more peaceful.

The aeroplanes fly high enough here that they don't interrupt conversations, but being within a dozen miles of Heathrow they're a permanent presence in the sky.

How about we do this every month? The aviation industry could rest one week in five. We'd breathe again. We'd remember how much produce we ship in from overseas, how we've lost the art of journeying in favour of departure lounge servitude.

Until that happens I'll think about a place where no planes fly.
("Between the click of the light and the start of the dream.")

Chilterns and Thames Valley

Beneath the kites

Distance: 8.45 miles
Ascent: 263 metres
Duration: 2 hours 57 minutes

Walk 25: West Wycombe, Hughenden and Bradenham