The chap just had a bad back and could not bend down to inspect the camel's toes.

I don't think a Labour + LibDem coalition would have a majority either!

@remus said:

And as a demonstration of why some people think the current voting system is flawed:
Conservatives have 36% of the vote and 48% of the seats
Labour have 29% of the vote and 39% of the seats
Lib dems have 23% of the vote and 8% of the seats

The percentage seats are out of the seats that have declared so far, so theyre not indicative of the final proportions.

It would still be a hung Parliament, though. Just what we need, political instability on top of an economic crisis.

We should run a sweep on how long it will be before the next election.

Proportional Representation.

Currently, the winning party can win even when more people have voted for an opposition party.

The LibDems get a lot of votes in very large constituencies, but only one member per constituency.

The Labour and Conservative parties get lots of members from smaller constituencies.

The LibDems want the number of members to be related to the number of votes. They'd get more members, but we'd end up with no party having an overall majority (a "hung" Parliament http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8427233.stm.) The current system makes a majority party more likely.

@daniel said:

@john.warburton said:

Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..

I hear this all the time, but every vote is important. Not too long ago we had local elections where only 16% of the electorate bothered to vote. Yet, I'm always hearing/reading the complaint that politicians aren't accountable. When 84% of the voters are apathetic, of course the politicians are gonna get the message that people don't care and they don't have to be accountable. 16% is an extreme example (our turnouts have improved since), but regardless, anytime there is a low turn out it sends the same message. It also sends our children the message that voting in a democracy is not important.

Also, voting reflects the mood of the electorate. There's a difference between winning with 51% of the vote as opposed to 75% or 90% (although, in this country some think 51% equals a mandate).

...and I will vote of course. It is a safe Labour seat - I'll not be voting Labour, though.

The way it is looking, I suspect that we'll be voting again by the autumn anyway.

Specific issues are probably a red herring in this election. There's little to choose between the parties. None of them are telling us the full story, especially on the economy. You just know that whichever party gets control, the true state of the economy is going to be revealed as much worse than any of them want us to know ahead of the election.

I'd be happy just knowing that the winning candidate had the integrity and morality to act in the best interests of the country and put those ahead of his/her own interest and ambition (and greed.)

Sadly, I suspect that would be a vain hope.

Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..

@alan fraser said:

To be honest, the best thing to do would be to ask them to send them again in another, more useful format. Even top-end converters like Deep Exploration and Okino Polytrans will only deal with max files if you have a valid install of Max on your system. If you don't, they won't even open them, much less translate them to another format. Lesser converters just don't bother with the format at all.
Sending someone a Max file when you're not sure if they have Max or not is utterly pointless.

How right you are - and some manufacturers still have their products available for download only in Max format.

I've tried to explain the problem in the past and never been successful. In one case the nearest I got was for them to send me a set of 2-D DWG's of entirely different products! We actually used a rival manufacturer's products in that case.

Someone once explained to me that the issue was to do with Max not actually saving a component file as such, but storing a set of instructions that enable Max to re-create the component on the fly each time that you load the component. Which is why there is not really anything for the usual converters to convert and why the Max engine is needed I guess.

I'm not actually familiar with Max, but presumably Max could export the data in 3DS format?

I love the mix of colour and grey scale. For me it works very well and is a style that I find many people prefer to photo-realism.

@gaieus said:

So the conclusion here is; do not share anything with others unless you do not mind them using it without credits given. What is the "border" between derivative work and just repainting a couple of faces? As we cannot tell, we cannot get the Google Folks to go into action either.

A long time ago, I was told not to put ANYTHING anywhere on the web that I did not mind people ripping-off. There is no security that will prevent determined content thieves from taking whatever they want.

@3eighty said:

I remember we used to look at pictures like that in Playboy and say.."Right, who lives like that"?

THAT is what you thought when you looked at the pictures in Playboy...?

I'm guessing that nothing will happen. There have been posts like this before. I think that the Google terms allow models uploaded to be taken by anyone else, changed slightly, and they can then claim ownership of the altered model.

Hi - you could do a lot worse than Tom's Desk 2.5 D trees.

Have a look here - http://solosplace.com/Tomsdesk.aspx

It's definitely not to my taste. It is hardly iconic, and lacks any kind of visual appeal.

nice try

@solo said:

Ah crap!!!

Now I have THE reason to ditch Paintshop and start learning Photoshop.

I started using PhotoShop years ago, but still kept my trusty PaintShop X around. There are still things that PaintShop let's me do so much more quickly than PhotoShop.

Riley the human dog!

It's broken again....!

BBC News - LHC to shut down for a year to address design faults

The Large Hadron Collider must be shut down for a year starting in late 2011 to address design flaws, the BBC has learned.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

@roger said:

You have an elevating wedge to aim the gun mine has an elevating screw. Mine also has lifting dolphins to lift the barrel into the carriage. Otherwise they seem quite similar.

Are you doing this for yourself or do you have a client for this kind of work? Are you working off the real dimensions or like me working from a model. I should have scaled everything up. I am running into follow me not working for some of the fine detail. What renderer do you plan to use.

Will the cannon be polished or have some patina? And the wood? Oak I suppose. Did they oil it, varnish it, wax it?

I used to work for a tech company and was visiting the UK office in Isleworth. Went into the cafeteria and ordered beans and toast and they threw the beans on top of the toast. Walked into a tavern called the Prince of India and hit my head on the ceiling beams. The story has it that the country was being deforested to supply the Royal Navy, but the inn keeper traded free food for for the oak beams used to make the tavern.

I am working from measured drawings. The HMB Endeavour is an extremely well documented vessel. I also have the advantage of having had extensive access to the replica! This is a personal project, so progress will be sporadic and slow, I expect. I have several photos of the replica canon and one of an original on which the replicas were based that was recovered from the seabed.

As for the carriage finish - the Australian National Maritime Museum experts came up with the matt red finsh as the most likely to be used!

I plan to try a range of rendering solutions.