@solo said:
I normally model with two instances...I'm screwed.
Why do you need to do that? On my Mac I can open multiple windows on multiple files; surely Windows will do that as well? Is there some advantage to running multiple copies of the application?
One case where it is both possible and reasonable to edit the text in a SU dimension is to expand upon what it means. For example, you might want to note that a dimension is to be taken from the surface of a foundation wall an not from any drywall later installed. You're not altering the value of the dimension - which as previously mentioned is a very big no-no - but adding information.
To do this you double-click on the dimension text and replace the number shown with angle brackets - the < and > - and then your text. So for the example I gave you might type:
"The distance <> is to be measured from the concrete of the foundation and not from drywall"
When you click somewhere else to accept the edit the actual value is substituted for the angle brackets.
@ecuadorian said:
So.. using the same enegry, ARMs would be better for unbiased rendering?
As I have no particular knowledge what sort of computation unbiased rendering needs I don't have a clue! If it is a very parallel calculation then I imagine a large number of ARMs would be able to do more for less electricity. These days an ARM can include a vector floating point unit, a large on-chip chunk of memory (as well as a more normal cache), has instructions for manipulating pixel type values (ie saturating adds and so on), and can even directly execute some java code (blech!). Oh, I think they can have an expresso maker too.
@honoluludesktop said:
Btw, is the ipad's OS the same as the other Mac's? If so, what keeps SU from running on it? If not, why is it included in the statistics. Well, guess all PC's are not WinXX either.
iPads and phones and pods run iOS which shares the kernel with OS X - both are unix based. The UI code and many libraries will be quite different though I wouldn't be at all surprised if some were shared. And of course the CPU in the iOS devices is an ARM based unit, whereas the assorted Macs use one or other intel x86 CPU.
Given Apples choice to have a portable code base it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they made a Mac with a few dozen ARM cpus at some stage. Last time I cared enough to do a comparison you could power a score or more ARMs for the same watts as a single x86 core and get 10 times as much compute performance if your code was actually sensibly parallel. Which 99% of code floating around isn't. 
@gaieus said:
Tim, I did not say that. And I did not even argue for or against atheism or religion here either. What I said was that there was some deliberate misinterpretations here.
Fair enough, perhaps I anticipated the 'usual' kind of complaint I see far too often on other forums. Mea culpa.
But my underlying point stands on its own I think; atheists can usually be held to a higher standard with regards to facts since there is no agenda other than searching for facts and the theories that explain them. I am ignoring (as much as possible!) the strictly-speaking-atheists that are nonetheless woo-heads that differ from religionists only in their claim not to believe in gods but "I'm actually very spiritual" and so on.
As for red's 10 commandments - if that were the way they were stated you might get some agreement but we have to remember that the 'real' ones start off with 4/5 rules(depending on the sect) demanding that you believe what you are told to believe, that you never admit to any other gods, and in general hand over your life - or else. I always get a kick when some twit pleads that "surely we can all agree on the ten commandments". Sigh. The various Abrahamic sects can't even agree on what they are, let alone what they should mean.
@gaieus said:
There seem to be a bit of deliberate misinterpretation here and there as well... But hey, what should we expect from a militant atheist propaganda film after all?
So you suggest holding atheists to a higher standard than that adopted by most religious writers? Fair enough; atheists aren't lying for god, after all.
I hired an architect (John Gower of BC Mountain Homes) to help me get started on a good path and to help sort out some space layout issues I couldn't see a solution to. Because I was doing the general contracting and all the detail design (I have engineering and design degrees so I felt happy to do all that) I didn't need a full scale architect on-team and John was happy to consult on specific issues. That was, of course, much cheaper than having him do all the design, manage the project etc - which is just as well considering the project and the budget.
I have to say that I really don't like the concept of paying a % of the project. It doesn't seem like a good way to start building trust when the fee goes up as the costs expand. Now perhaps if one agreed a budget and a basic fee plus say 50% of the money saved from the budget? Maybe that would just encourage budget inflation.
Whatever route you take, enjoy the process and don't let the stress get to you! I didn't actually feel stressed at all, other than physically - I have damaged my shoulder rotator cuff (again), my elbow, my hip joint (again), my previously broken wrist joint and so on. But I had a blast while doing it and the house is simply fabulous. Oh, I lost about 40lb and gained a lot of muscle as well which beats paying for a gym membership.
@honoluludesktop said:
My daughter was scheduled to fly home the day after the earthquake
Hope you get good news soon.
@cobb89 said:
To keep more than one file open together...we have to launch sketchup for every particular file
Really? Is that actually what happens on Windows? Not like that on OS X, thank goodness. Since Windows used to be utterly in love with the MDI api it's hard to imagine they went so far the other way that you have to have separate copies if an executable for each file. And even if it appears that is the case, surely there is code-page sharing so that the data for each file is the only separate thing?
Just get a large aquarium tank, a few gallons of Flourinert, a pump and radiator and toss all the gubbins in there. Add some blue LED lights for extra cool. Better yet, add a divider so that one half can be water for tropical fish and the heat will help keep them nice and warm.
I use a 24" iMac and 20" second screen with no problems. I keep the tool palettes etc on the secondary screen, along with my various communications apps like iChat/skype/MSN etc. So basically, a 3520x1200 screen 
I'm hoping to upgrade to a 27" octo-core iMac + second 27" display later this year - ie 5120x1440 screen.
@honoluludesktop said:
Was he around when @last was acquired?
Page & Brin were the original pair back in the days when they used a corner of a friend of mine's office @ Stanford Uni. So yes, he was around then.
@honoluludesktop said:
@tim said:
.........That's Ayn Rand. Though I have no idea whether that's Ayn as in 'pain' or Ayn as in 'whine'. Either would be a pretty good commentary on the insanity.
Opps, now that's equally smart, to attack someones name.>_<
Given that she attacked pretty much everybody for just about every reason under the sun I think I'm being amazingly polite…
But really, nothing there to get over excited about. It's all completely off the topic anyway.
@honoluludesktop said:
Or as Ann Rand might hypothesize: "design that panders to the limitation of professional lay persons, and not to the individual genius that advances (and occasionally retards
society".
That's Ayn Rand. Though I have no idea whether that's Ayn as in 'pain' or Ayn as in 'whine'. Either would be a pretty good commentary on the insanity.
@anssi said:
@unknownuser said:
seems like a lot of structure just to get good cable tv reception. . .
I have heard it isn't quite as useful as that...
It's one of those things that is useful simply for existing; it says "we can get into space, even if only just and only to a pathetic low orbit". Kind of thing that might be useful when some alien visits to see if we count as sentient.
@jaxcoffee said:
If one has nothing to hide, one has nothing to worry about. I could give a rats ass who or what sees what I do on the net. I have nothing to hide.
And you?
Really? And if the regime changes - think Caribou Barbie getting elected prez, total tea-party victory in senate and house, complete theocratic take-over - what then? You have just publicly cursed, expressed anarchist tendencies and ungodly arrogance about your purity. Off to the re-education churches with you!
What you need to keep private is not a static thing.
@tfdesign said:
I think the worrying trend now is that there really isn't a lot of difference between the two, which isn't very good for consumers.
I don't agree; while the hardware has many similarities down at the basic function level as you might expect, the overall physical package is usually much nicer with the Apple devices. Just go to a store and compare. Obviously, your taste may vary from mine, which simply means that you are wrong 
Open up a Mac Pro and some Dell thing and consider how much more pleasant the Mac would be to stick your delicate fingers into for maintenance jobs. I still have scars from old PC-XT cases.
The software seems to me to be very different. I like my Mac because it hardly ever bothers me. It just gets on with doing things mostly the right way. Since I don't do Windows I can only go on the constant tales of woe and requests for help from friends and neighbours as to the pleasures of life with a Windows machine. Perhaps they're all just whiners, who can say.
I used to use Windows, back in the days of 3.0, 3.1, NT4 etc. It was possibly less annoying than the contemporary versions of Mac OS 6/7/8/9 but you certainly could never have called it 'good'. I used to use various forms of unix and later linux etc and they're generally horrible - in fact I'm having to do some work on Red Hat linux right now and I suspect it has actually got worse in the ten years since my last exposure.
The simple fact is that the only actually good OS was RISC OS and that isn't around (in any meaningful sense) anymore. If you can tolerate Windows and think that it saves you a meaningful amount of money then feel free to use it. I won't be joining you any time soon.
@redinhawaii said:
I decided to redo specifically the framing plan, with a new, less detailed SU model, i.e no plumbing fixtures etc. So I went in to the document setup and clicked "relink",
referenced the new model, and wow, the new framing plan fit in seamlessly. But all hell broke loose when I looked at the elevations, sections,etc....
dang, everything changed...
OK, why bother to do a new SU model for this rather than simply adding a new scene in the original model and setting it up to show less detail?
How about simply deleting the specific view and making a new one and linking in the new model? If it's just the one or two places it won't take more than a couple of minutes.
