Quirky behavior of oocalc

A quirky behavior of OpenOffice.org Calc was observed. I uploaded the sample spreadsheet here [link to .ods] .

Would be great to know if someone else can reproduce it.

The first 3 columns have three dates and cell D2 uses the DAYS function to find the difference between the dates. Since the result is accurate, we also put that in cell D4 by-hand. We repeat a similar set of actions for E2 and E4.

Having done that, we divide E2 by D2 and E4 by D4 to obtain the results in F2 and F4. The results in G2 and G4 are obtained by F2 by 15 and F4 by 15 respectively. The contents of G6 are input by-hand.

For the cells H2, H4 and H6, the data is input by hand and I2, I4 and I6 are obtained by multiplying H2, H4 and H6 by G2, G4 and G6 respectively. Check the results obtained 🙂

All of the above would be obvious if you check the formula bits in the spreadsheet.

The real fun of course is in the remaining rows. G8 is obtained as a result of the expression F8*15 (note: G2 was 15*F2) which is somewhat different and thus we end up with different results on I8.

Check out the spreadsheet. It is fun. The OO.o issuezilla does not seem to work for me, so shall file a bug later.

Cobbling some thoughts together

  • My last blog post has had a surge of comments. Good to know. It hasn’t done what I was expecting it to do. And, frankly, I don’t think there would be GNOME-y stuff happening at FOSS.IN this year. I would have loved to see some Performance Testing stuff and bits of GNOME Mobile. So, either those folks are talking off-list and submitting proposals or, they don’t intend to turn up. So much for a few mails that I received gushing about ‘doing GNOME‘ at the event. Stop gushing and start doing is something I should make into a signature.
  • I started using duplicity to back up stuff. Wonderful piece of software and a nifty utility. Thanks to Rahul/mether for pointing that out to me. Being the GUI weenie that I am, it would be wonderful to have a GUI wrapped around it.
  • FOSS.IN this year would perhaps be less of a ‘conference’ and more of a ‘summit’+’WorkOut’. In case, you are presenting or intending to talk about stuff at the event, please take care to give your slides some love. Presenting doesn’t really mean that you would [i] be reading huge chunks of text off the slides or, [ii] be deviating from the slide content into something orthogonal. I saw both of that happening. The presentation/talk is a story and it would be good to spend some time during the run-up to the event to practise narrating without the slides. Lots of things can happen and thus, preparing an interesting narration isn’t a bad idea.
  • Interesting proposals for WorkOuts and Project of The Day being discussed on various project mailing lists and IRC channels. To be part of them, hop on to the nearest friendly IRC channel (#fedora-india, for example) and start participating.
  • Wrapped up reading An Indian Odyssey – quick read and a good one too.
  • This article (from the Online WSJ) kind of sums up the situation around ICICI for a quick read. The television media coverage related to ICICI has been all-over-the-park. Half baked statements, grapevine gossip being palmed off as ‘breaking news’ and a steady attempt to sensationalize the facts without an underlying comprehension. Senior media personnel haven’t been performing up to the mark. The global meltdown and the unheard-of-before statements from various world leaders would eventually walk their way to India. However, it isn’t an excuse for the private media channels to go all out and start adding rumors to the dismay of already shaky indices.
  • To all those who have contributed to the page on Subprime mortgage crisis – a round of thanks for keeping the English simple and easily understood.
  • If you have missed it earlier, don’t forget to take a look at the EKG Reports.