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Issue #540 : : December 11, 2007 |
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In this issue:
Out of the Inbox and the other regular columns. |
Write the editor. Make him smile. Through Paypal, consider donating $25 in support of upFront.eZine. Or else. We're trendy. We have a Weblog. WorldCAD Access. |
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This is the last issue of upFront.eZine for this year, as we shut down production over the Christmas and New Year season. You can expect the next issue on January 7, 2008. In the meantime, WorldCAD Access will keep monitoring the CAD world's heartbeat at worldcadaccess.typepad.com Thank you for being our reader in 2007.
I slept last week at the shelter. One of the homeless guys asks me, "Do you get paid by the agency to do this?" I'm part of the eXtreme Weather Ministry. When there's too much snow, too much rainfall, and/or the temperature drops below -4C (25F), additional Community Services shelters open in my hometown with its population of 400 (est.) homeless. Last week, we had all three weather conditions. "No, I do this as a volunteer," I reply. He doesn't ask why, but later I wonder what I'd've responded if he had. Then I come up with three reasons to volunteer:
- - - Whenever I get the email announcing the shelter open, I show up around 7:30pm. The janitorial staff have already put out the mats, sleeping bags, and the tv/vcr/dvd station in the gym. The volunteer coordinator is putting out the coffee, fruit juice, and the snacks. I set up my sleeping area in the corner on the floor. Around 8pm, the Community Services van shows up, usually with six to eight guys. We have room for ten. I record their names, show them where they can hang out, and where they can shower -- in the women’s washroom, which usually elicits a remark or two. As we explain fire safety procedures, they stand around, nodding solemnly. And then another one or two show up as walk-ins. "I am so cold," shivers one walk-in. "I was walking along the sidewalk, when a car drove through a big puddle, soaking me." The other walk-in drives up in his camper truck, the one plastered with enormous signs against something or other. He doesn't say anything. Each man claims an area on the gymnasium floor, helps himself to snacks, watches the movie (tonight, the original Bruce Lee), heads outside for a smoke every so often, and apologizes after swearing. These men are good-natured, grateful for this church that opens its doors for them, and grumble mildly about one another. "John talks to much. He's always talking," one quietly complains to me. By 10:30pm they are asleep. Some wake at 4:30am for their first smoke of the day. At 6:15am, the breakfast crew arrives, and begin work in the church's commercial kitchen. By 7:30am, the men are out the door, bulging bag lunches in hand. Some leave earlier, to catch a bus to their jobs. One man complains to me that he has to make custom doors all day long. With a practiced eye, he tells me the cost of these metal fire doors and those sliding glass doors. "Made a door out of 18-caret gold once." It was a regular metal door, painted a gold color with 18k gold in suspension. There is a benefit, he admits: "The others leave me to work alone." Some of the others spend their day nursing a coffee at McDonald's. "If I can't find 16 pop cans to pay for my coffee, then there's something wrong with me," boasts the talkative one with white hair and beard. "MacDonald's is good," he explains. "They respect their customers." Even ones who look like slimmed down Santa Clauses on welfare. Normally, the faux Santa Claus lives in a tent in the woods. "Salvation Army gave me a room with no window. I couldn't see outside! The next night I moved back into my tent, and had the best sleep in my life. If the train engineer doesn't see me in the morning, he toots his horn to wake me up." Then he has free meals at Salvation Army. If you don't do drugs or drink, he lectures the young homeless guys and gals in the downtown core, then you have no problem getting by on your welfare cheque. Suddenly he stops talking and looks away, as if to realize that I'm one of those funding his carefree lifestyle. - - - So why is there homelessness? I argue that a better term would be "house-less-ness." (Many of these guys have homes that are non-traditional.) From what I have learned, here are some reasons:
- - - Me, I don't do much at the shelter, mostly hang around, waiting for them to fall asleep -- and then go to sleep myself. The guys help each other. "The MacDonald's five blocks from here is better than the other one." "The first bus leaves at 6am from the transfer center by the mall." "To get your cell phone working again, you need a chip from Rogers or Bell or Telus. It'll cost you $25." One guy has a cell phone that doesn't work. He doesn't want it for making calls. "I wanna get it fixed so I can take movies and pictures at Christmas," he grins contentedly. SAMCEF for Power Lines and Substations software designs and analyses power lines and substations, including electro-dynamic and aerodynamic loading, using non-linear structure numerical computation. http://www.samcef.com CrossCad/PLG imports Inventor 3D (v10 - 2008) parts and assemblies into Solidworks, without Inventor. datakit.com/en/crosscad_plg.php The Open Design Alliance releases of DGNdirect v2.5 beta, with a high level of compatibility between DWG and DGN applications. www.opendesign.com ESI Group's upadated CFD-ACE+ computational fluid dynamics and multiphysics software features honeycomb meshing and multi-step electro-chemistry for fuel cell modeling. www.esi-group.com/ CADDIT ships the Australian release of IntelliCAD-based progeCAD Smart, completely free, through prohibited for commerical use. www.caddit.net/progecad/smart.php And CADCourse offers a new set of TurboCAD Woodworking Movies with Geoff Malthouse ($49.95.) www.cadcourse.com/woodworking/Woodworking_in_TurboCAD_with_Geoff_Malthouse/WoodworkingTCADwGM.html - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
Seminars & Conferences The 10th anniversary of SolidWorks World 2008 International User Conference & Exposition takes place Jan. 20-23 in San Diego CA USA. Four thousand are expected to attend. www.solidworks.com/swworld 2008 3D Collaboration & Interoperability conference is May 15-16, 2008 in Denver CO USA. www.longviewadvisors.com/interop 24th Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference is July 21-25, 2008 in Charlotte-Concord NC USA. www.cmsc.org
People/Companies on the Move Autodesk appoints Betsey Nelson and Sean Maloney to its board of directors. Ms Nelson is a former executive vp and cfo of Macromedia. Mr Maloney is an executive vp at Intel.
Market News Autodesk is repurchasing another 20 million of its shares.
Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "Doctor Walt's KEYCREATOR 7 Workbook"
"Essential Tutorial Manual for Vectorworks 2008"
"Customizing Bricscad V8"
WorthWhile Web http://www.secureworks.com/research/threats/ronpaul/?threat=ronpaul
Letters to the Editor Re: Cloud Computing "It's not official marketing, but Carl Bass talked about cloud and cluster/distributed computing in his talk at the AU [Autodesk University] Tech Mainstage -- the IT-sponsored (HP, Intel, Microsoft) event not the main one. Where CEOs lead, marketing will follow. Maybe Autodesk will be first in the cloud. "While it's nice in theory, storing stuff/running applications
in the cloud required 100% bulletproof secure always on connectivity.
Where do you get that? The editor replies: "Darn, should have run the article a week earlier, then I would be seemed precient. (I had written it up several weeks ago.)"
"With reference to Cloud Computing, I am reminded of the
early 90s phrase 'vaporware' (US) and 'vapourware' (UK), software
not yet in development but which salesmen are compelled to promote.
While marketing people may come and go, the one constant in marketing
is vaporware/vapourware, always a wonderful, better product soon
to be available next year! Perhaps!"
"Off the record Ralph, I HATE jargon. Not just in the CAD
industry, but everywhere. I think what we need is an ISO standard
for terminology. Only in a perfect world, right? Ugh, and I especially
HATE the term 'value-added' --yuk. Allow me to apologize for all
the bad writers in the world." The editor replies: "A marketing word now being used by both Microsoft and Google to describe a pullback or negative change in plan, is 'evolution'." - - - Re: Table Top Computing "I really have to agree with Bill on this one, god help
me. I cannot see any reason why this could not be a true statement
in 10 years -- 5 may be pushing it a bit. 'The Power' demo in the
middle is excellent: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ "
"I've never yet had a table crash for no good reason. I'm
happy to keep it that way." - - - Re: Research and Markets "FYI, Research and Markets is just a clearinghouse of market
research from other organizations. In the case cited below, they
are citing studies from 01 Consulting, a Paris-based market research
firm." - - - Re: Drawing Disclaimers "I have been getting a lot of dwgs created with Inventor recently. I am going to get Inventor. This is how the revolution works: because my customers have it. "If you want to use the following disclaimer, don’t include my name, bad for business. Hope you get a chuckle out of it: "Standard Approval Drawing Disclaimer "This drawing is my good faith interpretation of the information I have received and been asked to provide <insert company product here>. When you approve this drawing for fabrication, we will provide what is on this drawing. If drawings we receive are not clear with fragmentary information, we will provide extra and reasonable effort to determine customer requirements. When the customer has sub-contracted his own engineering, and they are executed in a 3D CAD package, and the 2D drawings derived from that 3D model have 50,000 globs of lines, but do not have basic dimensions of length, width and height, and the near side and the far side are on the same view, so basic standards of drawings in use for 100 years are lost, but the contact engineer did not make the drawing and does not know anything is wrong with it - this drawing is what we are going to provide, after you approve it."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "We've probed this issue today very thoroughly. This incident
is an isolated anomaly. The online passport system is still a very
highly secure application."
Notable Quotable "Last year I lost $500,000 billion dollars to people stealing
my 'stuff'. By my own internal research, of course."
Copyright 2007 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.0 and up.
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