Well, it was "oil", it was "changing government", but if that numbers are true, then it must be more to worth it.
And what's more is to show USA's power... it's all about intimidation. I believe that all conflicts that USA started were not for the reason they claimed, but more for showing their capabilities, test the new weaponry and several other similar reasons. Kind of a new roman empire... yes, I am a bit radical, but the image with "the mighty America that saves us from communism and tyranny" seems to dramatic. There is no dragon with seven heads and the prince on white horse here...

Excuse me if I don't believe in USA's good intentions, but rather in a political interest.

So, as a conclusion, I think that $trillion were well spent. You can't intimidate a whole planet by investing in health, education, good life of the citizens, but surely you can when you go at war and let disaster behind.

For the guy with the gun, please read line 4

I can't use the plugin It crashes my model all the time. I made a magnifier glass and a ground plane (face) . I selected the face, that was oriented with front upwards (the shadow projected on front face), then ran the plugin. ... First time it made a grouped face over my selected one. Now it just crashes every time.
Model attached.

magnifier.skp

I often use cpoints and guide lines in my components as references, grip points, rotation axes and so on... so I would like to prevent them to be deleted by accident.

Some time ago, I tried to make a tool that will delete the guides (cpoints, clines) on a selective manner.
I tried to use observers and Attribute Dictionaries, but I failed... it seems that observers are too buggy and don't behave as expected. Or, maybe my judgement was wrong at the time.

Currently, the problem is that guides are deleted from entire model, so a cpoint inside a component can't be preserved. My thought was to have a tool that will create cpoints/guides and add a dictionary entry to them, like a label. Then, a observer that will prevent deleting the "marked" guides.
Any ideas/suggestions ?

@unclewk said:

Thanks, Yes, the grass looked flat even though I displaced the texture, I'll try the "grass brush" method .

Maybe you can replace the flat ground with some more realistic terrain, more rounded. You can use Sandbox Tools, or Artisan (SDS)...

EDIT - i wrote this before you posted the vray info. I don't know VRay, but I'm sure you can make layered materials.

I was talking about the grid.
Ohh, what renderer did you used? I thought that you used a PNG with alpha as grid and that image could have the transparent pixels not completely transparent. But, if you want to achieve 100% transparency in rendered image, be sure to have IOR = 1 and no absorbtion. I can't provide more info, as I don't know what renderer you used there.
My suggestion would be to make a layered material, if your software allows that. And use the grid as weight map, but be sure the grid to be only Black and White, no grays ! For mesh use what ever material you want (metal, or what you need), and the mesh properly. For gaps, make some material with no absorbtion (black absorbtion), color 100%white, refraction=1, transmitance(if applicable):white and the weight map inverted (negative).

Good luck !

Don't you have earthquakes there in Kuala Lumpur?
Anyway ... AWESOME ... the grass and the slopes could be improved a little. They are too flat.

Please post the PNG image that you used.

The search is working, but from some reason it freezes IE and still don't load the search bar in Chrome. I just have no more ideas about what to do...
Here are the files.
js_overlay.zip

@driven said:

try it in a div, maybe the key will let that work...

I made further tests... something blocks the loading of the search element in Chrome... I have no clue what it can be The iframe works in Chrome with static pages, but not with some loaded dynamical.

Div doesn't accept src, neither as html attribute nor as css . I tried, I documented on internet... I guess it would be possible with Ajax, but that is just too much for me

Any more suggestions?

It seems like it doesn't work in Google Chrome ... and as I could read on internet, it seems to be a problem with loading the iFrame. Isn't any approach, to avoid iFrames? Or to make sure that it loads in Chrome too?

Wow, thanks ! It searches, I tested it in the "classic way" ... now I had some trouble with the implementation.

EDIT - the CAPS were actually the original code copied from google. The entire gse.html is almost unaltered (except the line height, css modified - but I will restore it to actual size)

Still can't get it right In Chrome it doesn't even show the iFrame's border...
What I want to open in that overlay div is a Google Site Search Element

I'm attaching here the actual files.
js_overlay.zip

Any suggestions/solutions ?

I thought that image is somehow provided from a third party location. (like the transparent red background).. and I hoped that will be available when I ran the file from my local host. Now the (X) is shown (i had to add the image src), as there was nothing, but the page is not loaded. I'll try to make a custom page (with iframe), not that existing one... but I doubt it will work different I tested it with IE9, FF, Chrome... same result on all of them. The black overlay is loaded... but the page is completely missing.

I guess I haven't made myself clear I need that overlay from http://flowplayer.org/tools/overlay/index.html to work. The page I want to load externally exists. But, if I save the whole standalone page (this one http://flowplayer.org/tools/demos/overlay/external.htm ) and I run it from my station, it fails to work. The overlay div is opened, but no (x) button and no page loaded... Though, on the website, everything works fine.

I'm a newbie, I'm just learning JS... so it's very possible that I'm missing something obvious.

Thanks again. I attached the files, dowloaded from the website.

EDIT - added print-screen images:

js_overlay_bad.7z

js_overlay_bad.7z

I need a overlay div for something I am trying to do and I found this: http://flowplayer.org/tools/overlay/index.html . Actually, I want to open some external page in that overlay.The example for doing that is here: http://flowplayer.org/tools/demos/overlay/external.html .
Anyway, I failed. the overlay is unpredictable, I could make it to open, but no page was loaded inside.
I tried to copy the whole "standalone page", but no success. I'm sure there is something that I don't do.

Maybe someone here, skilled in JS is willing to help me and build an example for me?

Thank you very much.

Indeed, any edges or lines that are not needed to build the solid make that object to not be detected as solid.

Example: subdivided face, guide point/line, stray edge, hole, multiple faces (overlapped), inner faces ...all this can make a C/G to not be detected as SOLID.

But, there is a plugin than offers visual clues to detect where the problem is. It's called Solid Inspector.

Or render it with Maxwell Render (there is now a free version) and use some snow materials from here to map a sphere that is inside your globe.

@alan fraser said:

They forgot about Cerise.

Is that a color, or a texture?

@tridem said:

There is more ! http://www.bagofnothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Capturecolornamewheeldsfa.png