Al, Congratulations on the release of NPR Tools. This is a wonderful and useful addtion to the SketchUp Modeling arsenal. I can't wait to see all the great looking output that I am expecting, using this great tool.

Aw, nuts. You peeked.

Oh fuddle duddle, you do realize that it was tongue in cheek, right?! I was carrying on the joke and then you went and got all serious on me.

I know perfectly well you didn't mean me, I know I am still "perky". ( Hee heee)

Ray, you were on that cruise with me. What, or more properly, WHO, exactly are you alluding to?

( Grumble, grumble: Anal need to correct: TO WHOM, exactly are you alluding.

I had a councillor at camp who had shorts like that. I couldn't look him in... the eye.

Frederik, you don't have to say anything, but are you saying you don't think it's funny?
Does it make yous sad? Trust me, not only do we find it funny, we also find it sad.

I just had to share this with you all.

Must be the flicker in the "refresh rate"

The recent post with the revolving lady, inspired this. I happened to be Googling on "TV Addiction" and found an article and this excerpt was of interest:

Watching TV may feel relaxing. TV has a remarkable ability to shut out the rest of our crazy world. All the worldʹs problems vanish as your TV program wraps you in a cozy Never Land; or so it seems.
In fact, your brain goes into an alpha brainwave state. This state feels relaxing. You become less alert and more passive. The state is comparable to hypnosis. Worse, your lowered alertness and feelings of passivity do not end after you turn the TV off. The culprit for this effect is most likely the cathode ray tubes in your TV monitors, which can produce a flicker that your conscious mind does not detect.
According to a Scientific American study, “survey participants commonly reflect that television has somehow absorbed or sucked out their energy, leaving them depleted. They report that they have more difficulty concentrating after viewing than before. 45
Other studies have linked the passivity to the left side of the brain shutting down. The left‐brain is primarily responsible for logical analysis and thought. In the Mulholland experiment, 10 children watched their favorite television program, while the researchers monitored their brainwave patterns. The researchers expected that the children would show a preponderance of beta waves. This would indicate that they were involved and responding to their favorite programs. Instead, they stayed in alpha. “They just sat back. They stayed almost the whole time in alpha. That meant that while they were
watching they were not reacting, not orienting, not focusing, just spaced out,” said Dr. Eric Peper.46
Similarly, in the early 1980’s, researchers in Australia found that the left‐brain ʺsort of went to sleepʺ once TV was switched on, but the right brain was busy ʺstoring information in its memory bankʺ.47 Scandalously, no one was able to follow up on these experiments. Researchers could not get funding. Aside from a few early experiments in the US and a few more in the 1970’s and early 1980’s in Australia, the neurophysiology of watching television has been relatively unexplored, even though the experiments discovered clear and frightening effects.

More here: http://www.trashyourtv.com/ebooks/ATATV.pdf

wow, I totally missed those "rim" lights as I was looking for reasons for the differences. Obviously they were being perceived subconsioulsy nontheless. Now that I know what I am lookin for I see it completely.

Thanks for that!

Works for me now, though the first one is apt to change direction for a moment.

I was looking to see the differences in the direction of the rings in the background and or the darkness. I honestly cannot see the difference. What am I missing?

PS> "me?" ????

so maybe you intended to mirror one of the pictures? They appear the same to me.

okay, I checked this out and it is totally debunked here: http://scienceline.org/2007/10/29/ask-hsu-spinning-girl-right-left-brain-hemispheres/

It really has nothing at all to do with left brain/right brain perceptions at all.

Anssi was completely right. It is about forcing a 3D understanding onto something that is 2D.

This is wild. I can actually take note of the second she changes direction. There is hiccup. A suspended moment when she seems to pause and then she changes direction.
When I first looked at her, she was consistently going counter clockwise. After a while she suddenly changed direction and I couldn't force the counter clockwise again. Until I started reading the text and then she reversed. It seems that when I first looked at her, I was 'analyzing' the situation. Then when I understood the situation, I automatically switched to right brain mode. Once I read, I was back into left brain. If I looked up at her again, she would switch and go clockwise. Wow.

I took that test abouot 2 weeks ago except the link I was given did not supply the 'supposed to look like" image. You had nothing to compare to expcept the block next to it.
I do think that doing it on the computer adds a layer of improbability in that your display settings may really affect what you see.
Nevertheless, first try, I got a 4. This is a great test for "artists" and it was on an oil painting forum that this was posted.

I was just getting ready to start up dating the manual for my advance classes, in which there is the spiral stair exercise. I thought I would check here to see the progress on this ruby and was so pleasantly surprised to see that it has arrived. Thank you so much for this. Really really appreciated.

http://www.goveg.com/factoryfarming_chickens.asp

So do you eat chicken?

Jim, why would you be a "bad" person if you personally are not doing something unscrupulous or unconscionable?

I suppose I personally could be a "better" person if I opted to boycott products that were not essential to my daily life if those products were known to be brought to market through some unfair practice. I guess I should really be careful about which grapes I am buying. I suppose I really shouldn't eat milk-fed veal. But then, I might as well not eat chicken either because bulk chicken farms are so very cruel. In fact, where would I stop? So I wouldn't consider myself "bad" because I am forced to slog through life by accepting the products on the market before thoroughly researching each and every one, and making a decision as to the degree of necessity etc etc before I decide to buy.
The point is, we should all really be in a position to be comfortable that the products that we buy are brought to us, for the most part, by companies that maintain fair and honest business practices: and we don't have that comfort. We can't each be a watchdog, but by golly, we shouldn't need to be.

I would tend to agree with Ross, disgruntled people are not usually the most reliable source of information on their former employer.
That being said, this subject is a perfect segue to a subject that has been really bothering me of late.

I must be really dense or something, because I have seen so many tirades on this forum with very anti-American sentiment from European members ( Remember I am Canadian and do not take these things personally) and have just taken it as nationalistic fervor and partiality. I have always generally accepted that the US was founded on very noble principles and that those principles are generally entrenched in the workings of government and commerce. I believed the movies I've seen. As compared to the unscrupulous despots that lead so many unfortuneate countries in the greater world, I was sure that there were generally enough checks and balances in place in the US that free and democratic elections and the press ensure that for the most part, things work better in the US than elsewhere ( Canada excepted. We do a pretty good job here)

So I always thought it was an exception that in places like Miami Beach, where my parents spend winter in a condominum, there is such a high level of bribery and under the table dealings. I thought that perhaps the preponderance of individuals who come from third world countries where bribery and pay offs are a necessary way of life was the reason for this in Miami. For instance, the condo association presidents hire contractors who are friends and provide kick backs. Th4e president lines his pocket, the unit owners have extra assessments and the work is done shoddily and needs to be done again under the next president with similar results. The City building inspectors need to be paid off to pass inspections, the concierge gets a kick back for calling his taxi driver friends for a choice fare and the cost is added to the customer. And on an on and on. The national health system in the US is an entrenchment of this sort of thing, in my opinion. So when I described this to a US friedn of mine, he said "Susan, you are describing the American way. This is not isolated to Miami. This goes all the way up to the highest levels of government. Every so often someone blows a whistle and everyone feigns righteous indignation, some sacrificial lamb is punished and the real bad guys go on doing it all over again.

I suddenly realized that he was right. Americans cluck over other governments with unscrupulous regimes, but how much better has the US been really. What happend to what I thought was the American way? Did it move to Canada?
Not that things are perfect in Canada, mind you. Are humans really so devoid of integrity and basic human decency that it is impossible to have a system where the greater good is supreme? I was ruminating that one's primary duty to do the best for ones' family is often at odds with the "greater good". Conversely, those who are the most involved in "saving the world" are rarely good parents; dedicating their time and efforts to the world's needs rather than the needs of their children.

How can you be good for the world, while still looking out for yourself and your kds. And if you do find some sort of balance, won't all those others who are still only looking out for number one walk all over you?

I think I must be depressed. Everyone looks really bad from here, right now.

No question. I agree with you. But I guess it would require an automatic "second material" creation on explode in order to maintain the materal positinioning on "non-scaled" components.