Volume 2 of Vermaseren’s Corpus of Mithraic inscriptions and monuments has arrived. It doesn’t contain literary texts, as I thought it might (and probably should have done). Instead it’s more archaeology. As with the first volume, the further east you go the less there is, although this might also reflect the political problems of the 50’s, and what could be accessed.
Preparing for the conference today. Still adding the software I need to the new laptop. Curiously Finereader 9 is refusing to activate, claiming I’ve used up all my licenses. Well it’s possible; this will be the fourth machine I have installed it on. But there is no way to deactivate the product, and two of those old machines are not used any more. I’ve emailed them anyway.
Last week I learned of something interesting. If your office has a corporate deal for Microsoft Office, there might well be a “home use programme” option available, that allows you to buy Office for your home PC very cheaply. What it is, of course, is a bit of sanity by Microsoft. People who use the stuff at work will bootleg corporate copies if you force them to; so why not charge them a bit? The link is here.
You have to supply a programme code (which your work will know) and your work email address, so I think it’s something the company has to do. But if you do, you get Office Pro with all the trimmings for less than 10 GBP ($15). You can also order the language packs for the same very cheaply — spell checkers etc –, which is well worth it.
It arrived this morning, just in time to be installed on the new laptop. Serendipity can be marvellous, when it works!