in this issue
Rube Goldberg's Spirit Lives On
If you are of a certain age, you know who Rube
Goldberg was...he illustrated cartoons of elaborate
mechanical devices which performed simple tasks, such
as frying an egg.
His cartoons inspired a children's game called "Mouse
Trap"...again, you have to be a certain age to know
the game...I don't think today's children play this.
Anyway, a fellow up in San Francisco named Mark Perez
has spent the past eight years building the world's
largest version of the Mouse Trap Game. Featuring a
70 foot crane that drops a 600 pound safe to crush the
mouse (or pumpkin or whatever sacrificial object one
decides to put under there), the game is testament to
Rube Goldberg and the inner child in all of us. (NOTE:
No live animals, mice or otherwise, are used in the
game. Only inanimate objects may be crushed.)
This past weekend to celebrate my birthday I invited
family and a few close friends to come and play the
Giant Mouse Trap game with me. Needless to say, we
had a blast! Since most of us in the group were
engineers, we had a real appreciation for the creation
and fabrication of such an amazing assemblage of
mechanical pulleys, levers, and springs (many of them
cannabilized from old trains).
Mark hosts a Mouse Trap party open to the general
public two or three times a year. If you want a private
party or demonstration, you have to work it out with
him. If you're interested in booking a party with him,
you can email him at maustrap@earthlink.net.
The photo is my husband loading a bowling ball into
a large bucket that will be "kicked" to start the device.
Pictures of the Mouse Trap
Quick Links...
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Greetings!
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A Question of Ethics or Manners?
Two to three times a month someone will contact me
looking for an employee...they email or call me because
they know I have contacts with local user groups and
the CAD community. I am always happy to help these
employers because I know a lot of people are out of
work right now.
So, I get the phone call and I write down the pertinent
information: part-time or full-time, entry level or
senior, type of software experience needed, location,
and contact person. I then forward the information to
two or three key people who are primary contacts for
their user groups with instructions to post the
information to their group. I almost always get
a "thank you" for providing them with the job lead.
Twice now, one of the key people to whom I have
provided the information has, rather than forward the
info to his group, taken the job himself. The person is
more than qualified and I am told that the employer is
happy with his work and qualifications. The employer
even thanked me for sending him his way.
In this tight job market, where contacts can be ever so
important since a lot of jobs are filled simply by word of
mouth, I am uneasy by this turn of events. I have
been advised by colleagues not to forward any more
job openings to this fellow. So, I guess I will have to
come up with some other way to get the word out
about job openings. I haven't quite figured out what to
do yet, but I am certainly open to any suggestions my
readers might have.
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Learning to Napster
For my birthday, my husband gave me a Napster...I had
requested an iPod, but he assures me that a Napster is
much better. Since I don't have an iPod, I guess I
have to take his word for it. Both of my sons have
iPods and they are keeping their mouths shut.
For those of you who are not into music, Napster, iPod,
and other assorted devices are used to play music.
You can upload your music CDs to your computer or
download music to your computer and then transfer it
over to the device. You then can carry around your
music library with you in a device about the size of a
cell phone.
First off, if there was an award for worst installation
manual and user help, the Napster would certainly be a
contender. I actually learned more from reading
product reviews on amazon.com than from the manual.
The manual and help makes it sound like you have to be
enrolled in Napster to use the device...that is not true.
Secondly, I am annoyed that I need to be connected
to the Internet in order to get the CD information,
which is important because otherwise, you see
Unknown Artist, Unknown Album, Unknown Track on the
listing...which is really UNhelpful. Additionally, even
with the internet connection, not all CDs can be
identified...for instance, Napster and Windows Media
Player were unable to properly identify one of my
Patricia Kaas CDs (je te dis vous). Perhaps it was
simply a snub of the French as there was no problem
with my Slim Dusty CDs (from Australia). Another CD it
couldn't identify was Charsette, a local Jazz singer....I
bought her CD at the Jazz in the Plaz series in Los
Gatos, and I could understand Napster never having
heard of HER.
Also, Napster has a serious problem if you simply unplug
the device from the computer...DO NOT DO THIS...I did
it several times, each time after I had loaded on a
couple hundred tracks, and each time the database
was corrupted and the Napster refused to work. It
took me three times of messing up all my efforts, before
I realized that I was supposed to go through a
sequence of ejecting the device through the Napster
menu or the desktray icon before I physically unplugged
it. I figure I am a technically savvy person...and if I
screwed up like this, Lord help the rest of you.
It comes with ear buds...so on my shopping list this
week is a set of nice ear phones that don't hurt my
ears or squeeze my head and a small portable speaker,
so I can set up my Napster when I am in my workshop
in the garage and still hear my tunes.
The sound quality on the Napster is almost as good as
my very expensive stereo system, but I am still trying
to figure out how to make it do all the tricks I would
like...creating playlists, shuffling tracks, and so on.
Like most technophiles, I spent most of the
weekend playing with my new toy...learning as much as
I can. I have about 500 tracks loaded onto it at this
point, a little less than half my collection....it definitely
gets slower as you put more data on it. With 18 GB of
space (20 GB advertised, but 2 GB is taken up by
software), there is plenty of room for my collection of
about 300 CDs.
Napster promotes their music download service
more than their mechanical device. The device is
manufactured to promote their music sales which seems
a bit topsy-turvy to me. But, what can you expect
when it's not an iPod?
Learn more about the Samsung Napster »
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Thanks to My Readers
It's likely you are having problems because his name
isn't Mike Kiker, it's Mark Kiker.
Here is his site:
http://www.caddmanager.com/default.html
Thanks for a good newsletter! I always look forward to
reading it.
Brian Myers
President - Gateway Autodesk User Group of St Louis.
Thanks for the newsletter! Always interesting. I had a
comment about:
Another reader complained that they are unable to
zoom or pan in the middle of commands. Again, this is a
training issue as you have been able to do "transparent
zooming and panning" in the middle of commands for a
while now...it is especially easy if you have a mouse
with a scroll wheel...press down on the wheel to pan,
turn the wheel up/down to zoom.
When I wrote my first VBA routine for AutoCAD, the
users were unable to zoom or pan in the middle of it. A
zoom or pan caused an error in the VBA method of
GetPoint and caused the VBA routine to crash. So the
reader might be using a poorly written VBA command.
Randall Rath helped me out in his newsletter...here's a
link to it:
http://www.cadvault.com/forums/showthread.php?
t=3122&highlight=getpointex
And my comment about:
Readers also weighed in against the new "jazzy" icons
that were unveiled in 2005. They are too hard to read
for baby boomer eyes...the old icons were a lot easier
to make out for those of us over 40. While other
software companies, like Microsoft, are adapting their
software for older users, Autodesk doesn't seem to be
paying attention.
is just Amen, I couldn't agree more!
Thanks,
Cathy Prasad
Shell International Exploration and Production Inc.
Houston, Texas
Another reader, who shall remain nameless, called me
up to complain that CADzette had lost it's "zing" over
the past month or so. Well, it was the holidays, and
there was not a lot going on in the CAD world. Look to
March when Autodesk will be releasing new versions of
most of it's software for some better material as I will
have a lot to say about the new features.
Unfortunately, I have to keep my mouth firmly clamped
until the products are released...I can say that many of
the software products have been revamped in ways
that will blow your mind.
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RTEXT vs. Fields
Reactive text (RText) objects are displayed the same
way normal Text or MText objects are displayed, but
the source for the text is either an external text file or
the value of a DIESEL expression. You can edit an
RText object with the RTEDIT command.
Fields use Properties or objects data (see previous
tutorials).
So, when should you use Fields and when should you
use RTEXT? Most users use RTEXT for placing plot
stamps on their drawings. AutoCAD now comes with a
plot stamp function, but most users still prefer the old
fashioned way using RTEXT as it allows them to insert a
block upon plotting. Thus, they can control the
appearance of the plot stamp.
For most users, fields are probably the easier choice
simply because you don't have to do any programming.
However, RTEXT still holds a fond spot in the hearts of
many a user.
Check out the RTEXT tutorial from AfraLisp »
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