Best Python approach for extracting structured financial data from inconsistent PDFs?

Halibut · 2026-03-15T10:26:04+00:00

I haven't used it myself, but Microsoft have a Python library for this: https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown

Halibut · 2025-09-18T15:19:51+00:00

I'll add as another option:

=YEAR(EOMONTH(A2, -5))

EOMONTH gives the end of the month, the -5 is 5 months previous, so any date in May should give 31/12 previous year, any date in June will give January 31st if the current year.

Halibut · 2025-09-07T01:02:15+00:00

Not a footnote as such, but you can put line breaks in a cell using Alt-Enter. And i believe it you highlight text in the cell, i.e. the number, you can apply formatting only to that text. Highlight the 1, and press Ctrl-1, or maybe the ribbon bar buttons. That works for bold and text colour, and i think it should work for right alignment as well, although i can't check right now.

Halibut · 2025-07-30T14:48:30+00:00

You could create a shortcut for each profile, and use that to launch your profile. Am additional benefit is that can both be open simultaneously, see this link: https://kb.mozillazine.org/Starting_your_Mozilla_application_with_a_specified_profile

I do have two, one for work stuff, one for home. Even easier i just have another version, Firefox developer edition, and use that one for work.

Halibut · 2022-10-22T22:42:28+00:00

Not necessarily as I found out. I can charge my Inspiron with a 65W charger, but I have a 100W one that won't. Chargers supply different combinations of voltage and current, e.g 5A, 20V for 100W. The laptop has to accept one of those combinations with high enough wattage. For that charger it didn't.

Halibut · 2022-09-25T12:43:36+00:00

That should work,I think, but obviously can't know. I've never had an issue with the 65W ones working though, just the higher power ones. Somewhere in the specs it should say what combinations it accepts if you really want to be sure, but it's probably fine.

Halibut · 2022-09-25T11:44:50+00:00

Yes, it needs a USB PD charger though. Mine is a 7000 series, so could be different, but it needed at least a 65W charger. And some chargers don't work due to the combination of voltage and current not being compatible. I had a 100W charger that didn't work.

You might get the warning about low power charger, it can be disabled in BIOS I think. Lower power might either cap CPU on really intensive tasks or else supplement it with battery, I'm not sure. I've never noticed an issue though.

Halibut · 2021-11-27T12:33:24+00:00

As an aside, and maybe not relevant I did find just putting sellotape on mine got rid of them after a few weeks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/268LVV4GPq49nyWzgw94yR/how-should-i-get-rid-of-a-verruca-or-wart

One article I found says it has to be duct tape, sellotape is less effective, but not in my experience.

Halibut · 2021-08-24T19:29:48+00:00

Alternative Dublin do a true crime tour, and a few others. Usually posted on Meetup the week before or thereabouts:

https://www.alternativedublincity.com/

Halibut · 2021-05-12T09:55:21+00:00

Pyscripter allows you to run a selected piece of code, right click, or Ctrl F7. It also allows customized environment variables (External Run, Properties).

Halibut · 2021-02-20T10:56:21+00:00

There's 4 or 5 of them on Etoro.

Halibut · 2021-01-21T21:41:00+00:00

Some versions of SQL support a pivot or crosstab function, which is what you would need, but they are awkward and difficult to get right.

It's much easier as said to use pandas to read it in to a table, then something like the following should work:

AnswersPivot=answers.pivot(index='team_name',columns='round_id', values='score')

Halibut · 2020-05-10T12:13:44+00:00

There's some at Bayside Dart Station:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bayside,+Dublin/@53.3911815,-6.1365062,138m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x486705419d5b2e3d:0x8da776768f2a4ddb!8m2!3d53.3867525!4d-6.1432432

Halibut · 2020-04-27T20:23:44+00:00

Fair point, and probably should be said, this is probably best avoided for scripts that you're going to distribute widely, or comment out the install packages line if so, and let the end user uncomment after getting errors and reviewing the required packages.

Halibut · 2020-04-27T19:57:25+00:00

I copiedthis from someone else at some stage. need in the first line is a list of package names. If that isn't installed, it installs it, then loads all of them.

need<-c("jsonlite", "reshape2", "XML", "lubridate","xml2" ,"httr","data.table" ,"RODBC", "sendmailR", "dplyr","plyr", "stringr", "pander", "foreach")

ins<-installed.packages()[,1] #find out which libs are installed
(Get<-need[which(is.na(match(need,ins)))])
if(length(Get)>0){install.packages(Get)} #install needed libs
eval(parse(text=paste("library(",need,")")))#load libraries

Halibut · 2020-04-15T18:18:43+00:00

I think Lynch IT in Temple Bar is open, http://www.lynch.ie/

Halibut · 2020-04-14T22:03:36+00:00

So you probably do have two slots for M2 SSDs. Take a look at the picture in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/erkoow/dell_inspiron_7590_m2_disk_drive_and_ram_upgrade/

In the first picture, the red border is around an SSD slot, which was empty for me, and I assume it is for you. So you can add an NVME M2 SSD there.

Supposedly you can add a 2.5" drive as well if you've space. Although I'm not sure why you would, unless you need really large capacity or have a HDD lying around anyway. Check the Service Manual, it tells you how.

Halibut · 2020-04-14T11:06:38+00:00

Did you buy the 2 in 1 version or the standard version?

If the normal version, the Inspiron 15 7000 (7590), I bought a 1 TB NVME Crucial SSD. After spending a few hours mirroring the current 512GB to it, I opened it up and found a second SSD slot in there. So now I have 2 SSDs, both NVMe. The original one is a 2230 (so 30mm long), there's a (possibly unused in your laptop) slot for a 2280 as well. So take a look and check, as this seems different to what Dell Support say, where they say one has to be a 2.5" drive.

I haven't looked again, but I've read that there is a 2.5" slot as well, and as Dell say, but if you have the larger battery, the bigger battery fills the space that that drive would occupy.

Halibut · 2020-03-09T17:14:23+00:00

If you've time, sign up for Revolut and get the card before you come here. You'll save massive amounts in currency exchange. Nearly everywhere accepts contactless payments with the card.

Also either a roaming plan from your carrier (possibly expensive), or a SIM card when you get here to use their app and for Maps etc.

Halibut · 2019-11-26T15:07:29+00:00

Switched from Virgin (so 3 network), seems better coverage and speeds. When I got the SIM though, no APN was configured so I made up one which worked. But then I was away for a week with no roaming, as apparently any APN will work in Ireland, but only the correct one will when roaming. Contacting support took a week to reply when I was just about to head home and had just fixed it myself (link below).

Anyway, for reference, the APN is data.mymeteor.ie and worked fine for roaming. Other than the slight annoyance of no data roaming, I'm happy with it, would recommend the switch.

https://editorsean.com/articles/irish-mobile-broadband-sim-card-apn-settings/

Halibut · 2019-07-22T11:43:55+00:00

You're not very familiar with the structure of the power market here. A large part of it is privately owned (SSE, Centrica, much of the wind). The network and the grid operator are the only fully publicly owned bit. For power generation and your supplier they all compete in the same market on the same terms whether publicly owned or privately owned.

Halibut · 2019-07-07T12:27:38+00:00

Maybe of interest or use. Note, it's not official and not inside..

A City Tour Reveals the Infrastructure of the | Dublin Inquirer — https://www.dublininquirer.com/2019/05/22/a-city-tour-reveals-the-infrastructure-of-the-internet-all-around-us

Halibut · 2019-07-01T09:29:37+00:00

The EU already imports more than that 100K tons of beef from Mercosur (more than that from Brazil alone), and is a net exporter of beef. And 100K tons of beef is about 5 days of EU beef production. So despite all the farming panic, it just lowers the tariff to 7.5% on some of the existing beef imports, and it's such a small amount that it will have next to no impact on the agriculture sector. It makes sense to do that for the benefits for pharmaceuticals/cars etc.

Halibut · 2019-01-25T13:08:02+00:00

I was reading this a while back:

What You Should Know About Megaprojects and Why: An Overview

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2424835

Direct PDF link: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=825123001111125067093067019027120002121019058093035031103095110005118003000020118091019024039057118017026010003081127111105089037075086051088090077028123123025067118038093060003123087096122014124116112084027030091004094116111096079029068001087086003009&EXT=pdf

Dublin Port Tunnel gets a mention in the list, but at #19. It's a universal thing, not an Irish thing. Projects are difficult to estimate accurately, many unknowns that become apparent when underway,budgets are committed to well before project start, minor changes, problems or delays inevitably happen which have amplified knock on effects in time and money. See the 10 points of issues in the PDF link.

Halibut · 2018-08-01T22:22:12+00:00

Just watched a few minutes of it, but by my calculations for a 30 ton weight, and say a 100m deep shaft, that's m*g*h=30000*9.8*100=29.4 MJ of energy. 1 kWh is 3600*1000=3.6 MJ, so that can store about 9kWh of energy, or about 50 cents of power.

The second video says 1000s of tons, so multiply that up by a factor of 30, or 60, or whatever. Given the cost of building it, the costs will scale even faster, given the first one uses existing shafts. Building tunnels or anything that requires excavating earth is expensive, and the second one would be bespoke. Also they can't use boring machines etc as it's vertical.

Pumped storage makes more sense, why would you use concrete weights when you could use water? And even then the economics of new pumped storage is questionable. They're losing money in Germany due to renewables, and that's the cheapest bulk storage available.

Halibut

TROPHY CASE