Dear Fount of All Wisdom...

[neadods]

Dear Fount of All Wisdom, I have two questions:

1) Is there a good shareware word processor with spellcheck and word count? I've blown the brain on this tiny little netbook and could probably do with deleting Word 2007 off it. (I could also kill the mystery folders amd64 or i386, but after an internet search, I'm afraid to.)

2) Sherlock fans: am trying to get a smuggling idea to take flight, but can't figure out what is being smuggled. Jewels? Insider trading data? Col. Sanders secret blend? Throw ideas at me like dodgeballs! (Yes, I'm watching Glee.)

Comments

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Wheelbarrows.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Are they like mules?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

:p

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

The super sekrit script to the end of the newest movie series blockbuster?

Crates of Truffles?

Undiscovered DiVinci drawings? of a time machine that would work

Ferrets?

(Yeah, like you couldn't see that last one coming from me. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'll try to slip a weasel down someone's trousers for you.

[nonelvis]

Google Docs? ... though my limited searching on offline editing implies that if you need that feature, it isn't working quite so well.

[gonzai55.livejournal.com]

I'm using OpenOffice on my netbook. It was really easy to work with and I saved the report as a .doc, so I could use it in Word elsewhere. Worked out well. And it's free.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Perfect!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

OpenOffice is good; LibreOffice is another fork of the same code and may also be good.

Something radioactive? (I thought of last week's NCIS: LA.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'll look into libreoffice, thanks!

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

The third biggest black market, after drugs and weapons (not sure of the order of those) is wildlife and their products such as rhino horn, tiger skins, and ivory. A lot of birds, reptiles, and (especially baby) mammals are smuggled, as well as endangered woods, flowering plants, bulbs, etc.

But the people who do this are the scum of the earth. You're better off with jewels or the next Harry Potter movie script.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Indeed - my first thought for someone trying to get a smuggling idea to take flight was: PARROTS!

(Or birds of prey - big illicit market in the hunting and hawking business - especially since the ban on hunting with dogs (but not hawks).)

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Someone's done a "smuggled lovebird" Sherlock fic.

Also, talking of parrots, can I take the opportunity to rec castiron's A Study in Squawking?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Link, please?

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Here

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

In the UK? Hmmm....

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

If you do illicit falcons for falconry, you can bring in John's Afghan experience - falconry is huge out there.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

At this point I have so much John BAMF-ery that Sherlock is in peril of not solving the mystery!

But yes, I think I am, so very useful to know, thank you!

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Knockoff ipads? Human trafficking? Pharmaceuticals?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Human trafficking a bit dark for me, but ipads.... Hmmmm....

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you use it - we have a smuggling backdrop in our fic and I just realised we never said what was being smuggled. So if you don't use it, I will.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Use it yourself; I think I've got enough alternatives.

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

I use OpenOffice, too. I have for years, and have been very happy with it.

The entire OpenOffice Suite takes up about 360MB on my laptop.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Perfect!

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

Open Office!

And they could be smuggling cigarettes from Eastern Europe into the UK, and selling them at market price without paying taxes on them.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Weapons grade plutonium?
Semtex?


I once read a fabulous (for values of fabulous which read "extremely silly") Bernard Cornwell novel in which the Irish-American protagonist with terrorist connections was unwittingly smuggling the ingredients of a dirty bomb from Beirut to Washington DC in the keel of a yacht beneath a layer of gold coins (he knew about the gold coins; they were the ostensible reason for the smuggling).

The protagonist spent an awful lot of the voyage wondering why the yacht was so sluggish.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Extreme silliness is always fabulous!

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Heavy duty crypto-analysis tools
Dissidents

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Actually, I once had a case about the allegedly dubious provenance of 19th century shoe illustrations.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

But was it a murder case?

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

No but I got quite exasperated with my client at times.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Pity it's not the Original Sherlock, because the reason for the regulations banning pornography (which had such an effect on the import of early K/S fanzines) was a fashion among boarding school girls for importing pornographic chess sets.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

SERIOUSLY? I gotta do me some research.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Depends on the size: for antiquities, the big thing is stuff that is small & portable, so cyllinder seals (Near Eastern mostly, but found all through the Med on the trade routes), small statues (Cycladic ware, Sumerian eye statues, terracotta body parts from healing sanctuaries), tablets (lead curse tablets, wax writing tablets) coins of course-- Beirut is a hub for coins and forgeries-- and pottery, especially if it's in pieces at the time. You could use terra sig; it's distinctive enough when you know what you're looking for but a random customs person would think it's just a broken souvenir (esp if the smuggler said something like 'My souvenir! That was a gift for my mother!'). Canopic jars a bit more of a stretch, but... *shrugs*

For larger stuff sent illictly on ships you could do almost anything. You'll run into weight problems with column drums, obelisks, etc-- I think Italy used a C-130 to return an Ethipoian obelisk a few years ago-- but statues and smaller architectural features will work.

Let me know if you're interested in any of these and I can provide some visual refs. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Oooo! Let me get back to you, but the souvenier thing is perfect.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Other small & highly valuable items with a fanatical collector base: Japanese netsuke.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

And as they are often made of ivory, you get the CITES issue, too.