That's a great metallic paint texture, what renderer did you use to create it?

Wow...

Fantastic imagination.

It entails a reduction of choice for the home PC builder. You can only get X CPU on A, B, C, or D motherboards. Think of all the choices out there today, hundreds of motherboards to choose from for anything you might want; HTPC, NAS, home server, gaming, web only, rendering, the possibilities are endless. I also have kept motherboards and CPUs for re-combination at a later date or replaced a dead motherboard while keeping a CPU. It makes sense for Intel, they can make profit on a production line with less complexity and charge the consumer the same or more.

@pbacot said:

Beautiful building model, John! That's a lot of detailing. What year was that, do you know? I often wondered with plaster and wood, and the wet climate (so I hear) would there have been problems of shrinkage / leaking, and of rot developing by moisture coming from plaster to wood? Or were those English Oaks impervious to it all? Thanks for sharing this with us!

I've often wondered the same thing, though these buildings have survived hundreds of years with regular maintenance. We are looking at building in the NY area and after consulting with an architect he has pretty much told us that he isn't interested in designing anything with materials resembling those in the above building - no stucco, brick, wood or stone stating that they won't last in the area. Nevermind the existing stone structures from the 1700s, the brick from the 1800s, and all the stucco from the early 1900s. (Personally I think he's stuck in a design rut and doesn't care to deviate, but that's just me)

It would seem any well built structure with decent maintenance can survive nicely in that kind of climate, long enough for John to make a great rendering of them today!

Consider a 750W power supply with at least Gold rating, it will run cooler and quieter. That ultra is inexpensive, but it'll burn more power in the long run. That's a great motherboard, I have an earlier version. I'll second the comments about OCZ SSD, spend a few more dollars and get a better one. While you're at it another 1TB HDD would be nice, you can set them up as RAID 1 and have a very good size for backup and redundancy. I just set it up for my wife's computer, she has tons of files she needs to keep safe for her business. Good video card, I have one from the same series. You won't be disappointed.

Good stuff!

I'll be darned. Never would've thought of that within SU. Cool, and thanks for sharing!

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(www.smcars.net)

It's a good site for modeling car information, they also have a few HDRI images that are available.

Very nice, you can see the age.

Thank you for sharing your work.

That's some good stuff. Liking the watercolor style.

+1 for Pilou's comments. Also, if it is to be rendered, the scales would be better done by bump or displacement mapping rather than geometry.

Choose a different cartoon that doesn't paint the "47%" as freeloaders looking for handouts, that's what's mean - not the good logic of cutting subsidies for industries that don't need it. Cutting's fine. The republicans - scratch that - all politicians need to grow a set and cut the right spending. Romney choosing PBS as a target is weak, political, and cowardly. He couldn't handle the backlash from big oil, and he knows it. That shows exactly what will change if he is elected. Nothing. Except maybe some red states will see less Elmo.

@o2bwln said:

My daughter just found her old "Subsidize Me Elmo" doll.

The Obama Big Bird ad looks like the work of a campaign in panic mode. It's crunch time, when voters get very serious, very smart. So, this?

Now you're just getting mean.

Next you'll start using words like "Commie" and "Socialist", maybe a little Europe bashing thrown in for good measure.

I guess we're just talking past each other. You're justifying PBS as a target while seemingly ignoring the larger ones that cost families more. I'm saying it was a lousy target when there are bigger, more profitable fish to fry that could save billions, not a few hundred million.

Guess we'll just have to disagree.

@o2bwln said:

Excellent!! So you're finally realizing that government shouldn't be in the business of financing business.

Never thought it should. Never thought they should have blown taxpayer money to bail out big businesses. Don't believe that businesses should ever be allowed to get so big that they can adversely affect national or world economies for that matter.

My point is that NPR is small fry, there are billions elsewhere that could have been marked for retrieving government income. Those include tax loopholes for the wealthy, including Mitt's offshore wealth avoiding taxes, and the same goes for businesses (but we need to lower the corporate tax rate, it's insane).

NPR may be a business, but IMO it's simply a target for Mr. Romney because it's viewed as a liberal institution. He wouldn't dare say he's cutting off big oil subsidies.

@o2bwln said:

Sesame Street is a $400+ million business let them pay their own way. There's no reason a multi-million dollar corporation, and yes PBS and Sesame Street are corporations, should be getting my tax dollars to run their business.

I own my own business and the government doesn't pay me anything but has no problem taking more from me every year. As far as poorer vs richer states getting to keep PBS in this digital age of the government subsidizing computers, cellphones, education, transportation, groceries, I'm pretty sure if someone absolutely needs a fix of Big Bird the can always log on to youtube.

Very well, by that logic then all of these industries should be cut off as well:

PBS shouldn't be on the radar. It's a terrible target when compared to the billions outlaid for the other recipients on the chart. Their allocation is a pittance compared to the subsidies above. Perhaps the kids in the poor states can log on to YouTube and catch a clip of Big Bird, but copyright is going to prevent them from watching too many full episodes. Assuming they can afford a computer and internet connection.

That's true. I do find myself hunting for things that are a little spaced out, but I just blame myself for needing time to get used to the new layout.

The other half and I have already agreed that if we win the lottery we're making sure that it doesn't get knocked down.