@jessejames said:

However then you realize they forgot to include an API for the most ground breaking 21st century programming language ever invented…

You're annoyed that there is no Smalltalk API as well? Join the club.

@box said:

8. When you keep trying to Orbit images, web sites and documents!

Not so much orbit, but zoom/pan/zoom is now sort of possible
http://www.raskinformac.com/
Interesting idea. Might even become an important one.

@rhysifan said:

Hi
Can anyone tell me whether its possible to draw dotted lines, centre lines and hatching in layout

Yes for the dotted (and dashed and dash-dot etc) lines, yes for centre lines (depending on what you precisely want) no for hatching unless you do it manually.

@rhysifan said:

Also, is it possible to get an A0 page size in Layout?

I'm pretty sure you can set any size you like. I've been using 36"x24" for my house plans since that matches my local print shop's big printer.

@chris fullmer said:

I'm not sure that I've ever really seen a full basement in California. I'm not sure why.

Partly a side effect of frostline depth. In the Frozen North like Minnesota the frostline depth is, oh, about 350ft down - in California it's about 18" above ground . Since you need to have the base of your footings below frost depth to avoid frost heave ruining your building you inevitably get a high likelihood of basements in Minnesota and a low probability in California.

I'm building on a slope, so it made sense to do a walk-out basement, also known as a lower floor with a dirt back wall.

@tig said:

I only use the pen/pencil as an example of the US's general 'technological fixation' versus the Russian's 'pragmatic engineering' approach - both have their place, but neither is always THE answer...

It's a very bad example to use. A ballpoint pen (that cost a private company around $1m to develop, not the govt. and went on to make a profit for said company) is not overly likely to shed fragments of graphite and wood in a spaceship. Said fragments make for a lovely fatal fire risk - the graphite could cause an electrical short, the wood provide convenient fuel. This is especially worrisome in an all-oxygen environment such as the Apollo era vehicles.

Not to mention that engineering is technology.

Congratulations David. Are you having fun yet?

I'm about 3 months into our build having designed the place and I am doing the general contracting. Details for those of you with nothing better to do at http://www.rowledge.org/tim/building/building/blog.html

Bah, it's a poor taste 'joke' by some bunch of Windows W@^2ers. Jealousy is such an ugly thing.

I simply export from Pages/Numbers/whatever as pdf and import the pdf into a text box.

@tig said:

An opinion is not a belief, or a statement of provable fact.

I'm going to have to disagree with you somewhat. First, I think an opinion is in fact a belief about the way things are. Apparently the etymology of 'opinion' actually go back to Old French 'opinari' meaning 'think, believe'. Certainly in colloquial use most people appear to hold an opinion as strongly as a religious belief, and usually at least as noisily and obnoxiously. This leads to point the second - most people think their opinions are in fact proven fact - after all they're their opinions, dammit! This may be one of the major causes of war.

But the real problem is that reality is not decided on the American Idol model, no matter how dearly one holds to the ideals of democracy. Facts are not up for a vote, fortunately. To return a bit closer to the current topic, I know a little of biology and genetics, so my opinion is of small but positive worth. Most of my neighbours know just about nothing germane to the matter and so their opinions are worth pretty much nothing. One particular neighbour is a retired professor of a biology department, which might make you think his opinion would be very valuable, except that he is a wingnut, religionist and thinks the Plimer book on climate change is the complete and utter truth. Guess how valuable I'd rate his opinion?

I would love to live in a world where most people had opinions based on sound education, careful thought, polite debate and wisdom. Ain't gonna happen any time soon. That's my opinion, anyway.

@tig said:

Seems to me that no one asked 'us', 'Should we create artificial life ?' - they just did it.

In which aspects are you (both specifically you and the plural 'you' inferred by the plural 'us') qualified to have any sort of opinion?

@unknownuser said:

Why do people always want to invent artificial life? Does it have benefits?
/quote]
Curiosity - to see if they understand enough about the makeup of the genome and chemical synthesis to be able to do it. Financial reasons - someone paid them to try, and/or they think they see a way of making organisms with properties not available in the currently known natural state. To piss off religionauts.

@unknownuser said:

You can't clone a human and then harvest his organs. A cloned human would be a human just as a regular-born human would.

I can almost guarantee that if cloning (which this work was not an instance of) a human were shown to be viable the religionauts would shriek and wail about how this clone had no soul and could not be a proper human and on and on. Then some of the more avaricious ones would realise that this gave them the perfect excuse to return to slave owning.

@unknownuser said:

What's wrong with natural life anyway? Is it not precious enough?

Precious? Have you not noticed how life treast life? Not seen how pretty much every plant, fungus and animal eats other living things without pity?

@i.materialise said:

@tim said:

@i.materialise said:

For Mac users the manual is available here.

Small problem - that document refers me to a manual which seems to be included only in the Windows based wizard….

Dear Tim,

The document is in PDF format, you will probably need to install Adobe Reader to be able to view the file.

Let us know if you need additional support.

Alex

No problems at all reading a PDF (this is a Mac, after all), but on page 2, section 5 it refers us back to your website (http://i.materialise.com/Tool/CreateYourArchitecturalModel) which in the section 'Design Tips' says "Please check our manual (enclosed in the wizard) for design tips". Of course, there is the cunningly hidden part 2 of the "How does this work" section where I should have noticed a download for the actual manual.

@i.materialise said:

For Mac users the manual is available here.

Small problem - that document refers me to a manual which seems to be included only in the Windows based wizard….

@tig said:

Makes me wonder what else we aren't being allowed to see by 'them' ?? Just because I'm paranoid it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get me !

I checked with 'them' and yes, they are out to get you. You specifically. Sorry about that; the computer is down and there isn't much chance of getting the list fixed before the highly trained team of 'getters' gets you.

@watkins said:

Ferrofluids are used for rotary vacuum seals

Ferrofluidic seal - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

And also in some clutches and dampers.

It's the Daily Fail. The rag that considers Mad Maggie to have been too soft on… well, everything and everyone. Even the TeaPalins would think it a bit extreme.

@i.materialise said:

@tim said:

Sadly, since there is no OS X version of the plugin, I can't enter.

Dear Tim,
We are currently working on your problem. Since there's no plugin for OS X, and you would like to take part in this challenge, we will create a brief manual for OS X users, so you and other Mac users could take part in our challenge. We hope it will work for you.

Jolly decent of you - I look forward to giving it a go.

Sadly, since there is no OS X version of the plugin, I can't enter.

@dale said:

@solo said:

or trying to orbit a pdf.

Yeah, whats with that, they don't rotate worth a damn, jpegs either

Nor do Word, Pages, nor browser windows! It's stupid. I'm used to it in SU, on my iPhone, why can't everything?

Actually, if you read jef Raskins' book "The Humane Interface" you'll see that he proposed something like that. Although jef & I disagreed on a number of things about UIs I'm convinced it would be an interesting experience to have the system he wanted to make.

@redinhawaii said:

Tim,
yes, the vector vs rastor style helped with the lines.

Excellent. IT also makes the file much smaller in general.

@redinhawaii said:

Now how about page scale in LayOut....it would seem this should be a competent "two d drafting program" too, I have not found a way to work that though.

Nor me, yet. It would be nice to be able to use LO for quick diagrams etc.