Proof

Surely they could have come up with a different name than "National Speakers Association"? Did they think that the initialism for "National Association of Speakers" was far too apt?

If he's not too busy, it would be great if he could log-in and provide a helpful comment on this story (I suggest a single-word reply such as "Yes" or "No" :-)

Danke,
--Q

Whenver I visit one of the intelligence agency websites, my webcam light turns on and it won't turn off until I reboot my computer :(

Although he didn't come with a storage case, there was a helpful note included:

I personally think the name LibreOffice is pretty good. Yes, the abbreviations aren't great ("LO"? "LibO"? "LibOff"? ...), but the name itself captures a bit more about the project and its purpose than some other names out there. When I tell people about the Free Software Foundation, I have to explain to them what "Free Software" means and how it's different from Open Source. Have you ever tried to google for "Free Software"? Now try "Libre Software" -- much better :-)

So basically you get the concept of "Free Software" + Office suite, wrapped up in a name that is much less ambiguous, at least in English. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it sets up all users/contributors to be in the position of explaining this to everyone they talk to. Tradeoffs, tradeoffs...

I wasn't involved in selecting the name, but I wonder if there was a strong preference for keeping the word "Office" in the title. I understand that the name might help people understand that the project is an Office suite in a similar fashion to Microsoft Office, Corel Office, etc..., but perhaps a distinct name like "Firefox" or "Inkscape" would make for a much more recognizable and powerful brand?

*concerned stare* ...that's very interesting.

Speaking as a LibreOffice user and contributor, I am impressed that the OpenOffice name is so well known these days. I remember a number of years ago when *nobody* knew the name "OpenOffice" ("Is that some kind of template pack plugin thing for Word?"). It's very interesting to hear that now the name is well known enough that technically-minded users use the OpenOffice name to refer to both LO and AOO. Brand recognition is really quite strong!

Questions for you:

• What do you think LibreOffice should do to make its brand more recognizable?
• How 'known' would the project need to be for you to start calling it "LibreOffice" ?

Well the binary is still called "soffice" :-)

Nokiastan...and where else?

(I feel like this is what a machine made by Dunderbeck's son might do...)

I'm surprised that there's not a page or at least a reference on Wikipedia for Dunderbeck/Dunderbeck's machine

"ubermix is based on Ubuntu Linux, the world's most popular Linux distribution."

First question in my head, anyhow... (the name did seem to hint in that direction, but I wanted to RTFA to confirm :-)

You must have written them in Unicode, because Slashdot doesn't seem to be able to display them...

Also, your scientists are really small. Or are you just approximating your scientists as a point mass when they fall down the well?

It's 23:50 and I'm debating the finer points of time policy with a 20-year old car on Slashdot. Woooooooooot! :-)

If you have to talk to the Paris office, wouldn't have have to either plan a meeting or look up their hours, anyhow?

Unless you want to experience some kind of IRL chatroulette, couldn't you just plan with the other party?

You could check his longitude/latitude. And anyhow, lots of people keep weird hours, so I'd just suggest pinging him via text, IM, or etc..

One way or another you're still dealing with the transit of the sun across the sky. Adjusting the "time" around to make 12:00pm match up with the sun being overhead is just a weird approach to the problem.

If we can treat time as monotonic and the same in all places on the globe, then that really simplifies a lot of things. Just plan to get 8 hours of sleep when it's dark (yes, we can make an app for that, or we can just look outside), and plan the rest of your day around when other stuff is scheduled.

I don't think it would be that crazy of an idea, but then again we still can't grok metric units in the US, so...

Seriously -- let's just all use GMT, and get rid of Daylight savings, and all use 24 hour time.

Want to schedule a meeting with your coworker 1 cubicle over? How about with your coworker over in the Paris office? Awesome: Let's meet on Monday the 22nd, at 17:34 via (insert voice/video chat system of choice).

Time zones?
Daily savings time?
AM/PM?

Ain't nobody got time for that!

I shouldn't have to check a whole suitcase just so I can have my pocket knife or Leatherman with me when I travel. That's just silly.

The old rule was something like 3 inches, or "diagonally across the guard's badge" (convenient measuring tool, that :-). Most ordinary pocket knives fall into that category.

(and folding knives with locks are safer tools to use, resulting in fewer self-inflicted user injuries... *le sigh*)