Happy Birthday!

Hi all

There is local project here that is trying to identify which is best: 'smart occupancy' or 'behaviour modification'.

'Smart Occupancy ' = the use of digital sensors to turn on and off lights, adjust thermostats and underfloor heating, open windows etc.

Behaviour modification = encouraging the user to take more responsibility to turn things off, wear a jumper, accept that PV won't make their water really hot all the time etc.

An example of the need for this is a nearby new school that achieved Breeam Excellent, it has PV, wind turbines, super insulation, passive heating and cooling and other energy saving credentials. It also has smart occupancy sensors and some of the highest energy bills of any school in the area.

This isn't because the building doesn't work, apparently it's because the users have developed the attitude that they are absolved from all responsibility; the school generates its own power and has green controls. Therefore the staff are less inclined to turn things off and more inclined to turn the thermostats up.

Tig this is brilliant, wanted this for so long.

I'd like to raise a slightly different point:

In 1980 there was a siege of the Iranian embassy in London after it had been taken over by Iranian Arab separatists. The siege was ended when the SAS controversially stormed the building in Operation Nimrod killing 5 of the 6 hostile occupants who were members of the DMRA (Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan), a group that was virtually unknown before they seized this building. The incident was filmed and broadcast live by the BBC and ITN. News teams were camped outside the embassy. A unit from the British news organisation ITN, using recently introduced Electronic News Gathering (ENG) camera equipment, managed to establish a viewpoint at the rear of the embassy. It was images from this vantage point that showed the SAS raid on the building live on television after their correspondent had been 'tipped off'. (However the SAS insisted on a short time-delay between the live events and their broadcast in case the militants were watching the broadcasts). The footage is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p4DmuGyehc
source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_Siege

And this was in 1980's Britain where as a nation we generally did things discreetly and with very limited resources.

You are telling me that Barrack Obama and the US government with their record of showmanship, aren't releasing the film of the demise of the greatest criminal of our time because of some supposed higher principles?!
Or their consideration that they might make OBL an idol - He already is to his followers.

Persevere with the complicated permissions and authorisations, at the end of the day you are getting the best CAD system available for free!!! (also better than a fair bit of software you can pay for)

Yes Todd, it all helps

Please add your own tips, we will all become more efficient, dare I say 'better' people.

Tip #1: If like me you like to give your work trousers a pressing with the iron daily, but the trousers have a front centre crease down the leg, iron it out. It saves loads of time and requires a lot less skill to iron trousers flat seam to seam. This also avoids the often inevitable double crease which looks shoddy.

Fantastic idea

@unknownuser said:

On Yahoo Answers the other day, I saw a guy who asked for help and tutorials for SketchUp and some idiot came in and told him to use Blender instead. He justified his opinion with two links. He said, "this is what SketchUp can do and this is what Blender can do." People like this tick me off.

This is hilarious, really made me laugh. I've always thought Yahoo answers was crap.

In UK only option is to buy through a third party. I bought through Cabs-cad. Really nice people. No problems at all.

DacaD, thanks, yes I could do to be a bit more selective in post production, noted.

Tfdesign, Intaglio looks good, never come across that before. Already have blender and gimp installed
still can't use blender though

Edson I welcome all Brazilian visitors! And also thanks for telling me about Freeway, looks great.

Erhett,

I suggest you get the ball rolling with some of your own ideas and then post them here for some advice and support. Even "crazy" takes a lot of time to develop.

jon

Hi Edson

I'll have to revisit Layout then. Freethecity is my site with some support from friends. I haven't really publicised it yet because I think it needs to feel comprehensive from the first time you visit it. Thanks though Edson, the positive feedback is making me feel motivated to get on and finish the site!

Hi Edson

Well, most of the sheets I laid out specifically for the webpage. Most projects weren't originally reliant on Layout but I do use it a lot. I really like that template but recently I recreated in desk top publishing software because the lack of an image crop tool in Layout was posing a problem.

I must say actually, thanks for the comments about site design but I can't take any credit for it! It is a standard carbonmade portfolio - free! see here: http://carbonmade.com/. Eventually I plan to clone the style though and host a site myself. I also have a work in progress web project here: http://www.freethecity.co.uk/

No you have misunderstood there is only me in the office / building, the least of my worries is file sharing, the mac is finding devices I had not introduced it to. I'm anticipating a Hal / Demon Seed / Evil Kit from Knight Rider incident which I am far more concerned about.

It is Macbook Air if anybody was wondering - which you probably weren't. Im suspicious of it, it talks to other devices in the office too easily. At least with a pc I knew I was in charge.

I'm a bit scared of the mac actually, the last time I had to use one daily I think was around OS7

Hi all

It has been quite a while since I have made it into the scf so I just thought I'd say hello and hope everybody here is good.

I have witnessed the near meltdown of one organisation where I work due to all the public sector cuts in the UK so have even less hair now! But on the upside I now have an exciting new job managing an architects office. Also I've had a bash at making my portfolio a bit better so any feedback is appreciated. http://jwood.carbonmade.com/

However my new job has forced me to contradict the thousands of scf mac versus pc arguments at the defence of pcs, as I have finally had to buy a mac. I feel I'm fraternising with the darkside. It is quite pretty though.

Hope you are all well

I've dabbled with Draftsight. It works well, but it lacks the features of DoubleCAD and feels a little "lite". However as Draftsight have a Linux version coming soon I think they will win a lot of support.