Mike, I place little to no faith in our government to do much of anything currently. We're struggling to bring some common sense back to our democracy, but it will take some time if it's to be done without an outright revolution and bloodshed. I have strong reservations about the Tea Party and it's destabilizing influence in Congress right now. Watching the mid-term elections will provide some insight into the future control and direction of our Legislative Branch.

@unknownuser said:

You are the one in front of TV (see picture in may later post), thinking that bombing and killing other innocent people is ok as long as your government gives you "logical" excuse for doing it- something like "they are not ordinary guys, they are evil!".

SRX, Actually, I don't watch broadcast TV at all and haven't for over 20 years. Can't stand the brain killing crap it serves up. No, I don't think it's "ok" to justify the bombing and killing of ANYONE, innocents or otherwise, just because my government provides some rationale. Diplomacy is the best course to take when it can be. Sanctions are preferable to bombs ...

Cheers.

Life in the US if fairly good, not perfect but good. We muddle on, just like most other ordinary folks despite the image of being "warmongering liberal capitalists" with a perchance for "neo fascism".

@unknownuser said:

Case in point, for many years now Ireland has had Milk Quotas. This meant that dairy farmers could only produce a certain amount of milk! I could never fully understand the logic of this policy when a large proportion of the world is under nourished.

We have the same in the US. I live in an area with a lot of dairy farms and I know quite a few dairy owners who under produce due to Federal guidelines.

The problem, it seems, is this: if you glut the market with milk, or any product for that matter, it drives the prices down and has a destabilizing effect. For instance, if the US were allowed to produce all the milk it wanted, and it was being sold at a lower price due to the large quantity, it would have an adverse effect on milk prices in say, Ireland (or any other milk exporting country).

Seems silly that economic principles would trump humanitarian ones, but it does. That being said, still, a large part of the milk surplus we do have is converted into other products like cheese and distributed as aid in humanitarian programs.

"The thing is, we were expecting all these features to be resolved back in V8. And yet we are in 2014 and not much has changed. We all use Sketchup because we love it and because we see great potential in it. But it seams like the SU Team is either not able or not willing to innovate as much as we would like them to, and we get more and more disappointed with every new release."

So then, why not consider forming a "study group" from users and programmers in these forums to evaluate the creation of a completely new application? If, for whatever reason, SU is not evolving as people would like, build something new that will.

Forums like this can provide the perfect "stone soup" talents to make it happen. All it takes is a vision, realistic goals, some organization and some commitment. The rest is just code and a licensing model. Instead of being a forum for an application that appears to be headed for a developmental "dead end", consider investing in a different future and "roll your own".

Just tossin' it out there ...

Well, I didn't change to 2013, won't be changing to 2014 either. No need for my non-professional usage. Good 'ol SketchUp 8 with a few plugins and my life stays simple.

Businesses and the politicians that support Keystone XL can spin the story(ies) anyway they want. It's good for Americans is a popular theme. Well, some Americans. Usually those who have some vested interest, not the rest of us.

I'm not in support of it.

I find 2013 to be, in a word, unimpressive.

"Science can fix natures failings."

Seems to me that science is used more to fix human failings ... Nature has done pretty well when left to her own processes.

If I wanted a "businessman" to run my country, I can think of several others who are much better qualified than Mitt Romney.

Well, the world wanted economic globalization, now we have it. Of course, no one thought about the further ramifications of tying all the worlds economies together. We've seen the effects of that in the Euro and the weakening of the dollar too. Shoring up economies that don't play by the same rules, ie; 3rd world countries that exploit child labor but are allowed to compete economically despite human rights violations, manipulation of sovereign currencies like the yen, deforestation for economic gain, etc.

Greed and avarice already run this world and at my age, I'm tired of fighting it.

It will give my grandchildren something to do ...

There are several parameters that influence printing translation from screen to printer. This site: http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/printing/resolution/1_which_resolution_print_size_viewing_distance.htm has quite a bit of good information you may find helpful. Most of what you need is on the first page.

There is a very good chart and calculator that will give you the image size and printer dpi necessary to get fine results.

This page: http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/printing/1_calculators.htm has a simple to use calculator where you can "fill in the blanks" to determine the image size ppi and printing resolution in dpi for almost any size print you need to do.

I hope this may be helpful.

Cheers.