WorldCAD Access

Finding that Second Screen

Opinion During an extreme cold spell earlier this year, the 12V battery in my car died, and so I replaced it. Imagine my surprise when the car’s clock no longer displayed anything; it was blank. On the car’s interactive screen, the menu item for setting the time was grayed-out. I could no longer set it. See the image above. Same for the calendar display. For me, this is a problem. When I drive, I frequently glance at the clock to gauge time remaining. I did find online a bunch of "solutions," but none worked. The local Ford dealer offered to... Read more →

The Machine Never Had a Soul

Opinion Tracy Kidder's groundbreaking 1981 "The Soul of the Machine" book described the speed at which Data General's Eclipse MV/8000 mini-computer was launched. The "soul" consisted of the engineers who brought the machine to life. Today, however, we realize the machine, which now dominates us, has no soul. Robert Sterling expresses our frustration for us. (Robert Sterling’s cry against the machine with no soul was first posted on Twitter at https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1889097312103747776.) --- I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive I don’t want to download an app... Read more →

Why We Didn’t Take Screen Grabs in the 1980s

Opinion We couldn’t. The operating system on our micro-computers (today known as PCs) was text-based DOS [disk-based operating system], so there were no images to grab. (You could use the DOS '>' redirect function to save screen text to a file, such as dir /s > dir.txt.) So, marketing firms would send out prints and slides of their software to show off the products, in the hope that we magazine editors would use them in their print publications. Marketing slide from Nth Graphics of its software running in AutoCAD A very few programs included a screen grab function. WordPerfect for... Read more →

How fast can a microSD card be written to?

Opinion I got a Samsung microSD card rated at up-to 130MB/sec write speed, 'cause it was on sale. I use cards like these to put (big) movie files on them, for viewing on my Windows laptop or Android tablet while travelling. The cards need to have a large capacity, It’s not unusual for single seasons of a tv series to take up 15GB to 28GB. Multiply that for multiple seasons. At first I grabbed the nearest microSD adapter, and began copying files onto the card. It was taking forever, and I noticed the speed was about 16MB/sec. So slow! So... Read more →

Trying out Haiku, the operating system

Opinion There are basically only two operating systems popular in computing, Unix-derived Linux and VMS-derived Windows. (MacOS is Unix-based.) So, it's semi-interesting to try out a unique OS like BeOS-derived Haiku, which, due to the universal WIMP -- windows, icons, menus, pointer -- interface, is easy to pick up. The two big differences in the BeOS/Haiku interface are the Deskbar (upper right in the screen grab) instead of a taskbar, and the tab-like title bars. To access apps, right-click the Haiku icon, and then choose System > Apps. It comes with a large number of simple apps and system apps,... Read more →

In Early Reviews, GPT-5 Flops

Opinion AI, the Theory: As it grows, it grows exponentially, until it eclipses the human brain. AI, the Practice: As it grows, it grows asymptotically, until it grinds to a halt under the weight of its innate limitations. - - - People on Bluesky had a hoot upon learning OpenAI's GPT-5 [which I've, for a hoot, nicknamed Generic Plagiarism Technology] Is behind schedule Suffers high computing costs Has access to limited high-quality training data (according to the Wall Street Journal [source]). - - - seed-corn-thoughts: Well, well, well, looks like we're probably at the top of the exponential growth curve... Read more →

The Wonders of the USB-C Port Extender

Opinion I really only cottoned on to the amazing properties of the USB-C port in the last year. Sure, my five-year-old phone has one, but that’s just for charging and data transfer, right? -- just like the prior standard, microUSB. Wrong-o! I’m surprised at how slow I was in taking full advantage of USB-C. It finally hit home when I realized my Dell laptop, which has the standard round-pin charging port, could also be charged through its USB-C port. I have two laptops on my desktop, and so I used a single multi-port USB-C charger to power both of them... Read more →

I Replaced My 14-year-old Desktop (Finally)

Opinion After 14 years, my Acer desktop computer needed replacing. It was a remarkable beast. Quiet, handsome, and powerful: 3.1GHz back when it was built in 2010. I updated the hardware a few time to maintain its speed over the years: Samsung solid state drive, a discrete graphics board for triple monitors, a USB 3 port expansion board, and the full 16GB RAM. Windows 7 is still being supported with regular security updates, surprisingly enough. But in late 2024 I made the decision to switch. One program I depend on -- Chrome Remote Access, to access this computer during my... Read more →

How I Came to Write 39 Books About BricsCAD. And Make 161 Videos

Opinion Sometimes, it’s useful to look back to see where you came from, and why you are the way you are today. You may well find a thread of events, of decision trees, and of opportunities taken -- or avoided. The most convoluted for me, perhaps, was how I came to produce so many books and training videos about BricsCAD. Each time an outside event changed my direction, I've noted it below as (Decision Tree). 1991: From AutoCAD to Corel Draw It began with Corel Draw. Or, rather, it didn’t. (Decision Tree.) In 1991, Wordware Publishing asked me to write... Read more →

Snaptrude AI Render

Opinion At a Webinar last week, Snaptrude, the company, introduced its rendering command. AI Render is part of Snaptrude, and not an add-on or external program. It works like this: 1. Provide it with a detailed model from Revit or Rhino, or else a massing model from Snaptrude. 2. Enter text that describes the kind of rendering you want. 3. Wait for the rendering to be generated. 4. Renders can be saved to disk or as views in the model. (The image at left shows three kinds of output from AI Render. All images are from screen grabs I made... Read more →

AI’s Alignment Problem

Opinion Geoffrey Miller wrote on Twitter [source], “If you understand the AI alignment problem, you understand that advocating for AI accelerationism means betraying humanity” [my italics]. He’s a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico. As I pondered the tweet, I began to realize that there is a vast gulf between the two, as they can never be reconciled: Alignment is an unsolvable moral problem Accelerationism is an unsolvable technical problem What Alignment Means Alignment means “encoding human values and goals into AI models to make them as helpful, safe, and reliable as possible,” IBM tells us... Read more →

I'm Satisfied. With My Cell Phone Plan.

Opinion I’m very satisfied with my cell phone plan, so when I get door-to-door salesmen bugging me to switch or send me offers by other means, I get annoyed. Not annoyed with other cell phone providers trying to get my business, but annoyed that it’s pointless, as none can beat the plan I have. When I tell them its features, the salesmen's eyes widen and they ask, “Who’s offering that?” I tell them that if I could do the research to find it, so can they. Actually, I’m cheating; you’re not going to find the plan I have. I started... Read more →

Repairing a 42-year-old Loudspeaker

Opinion In the 1970s and 1980s, when it was fashion to have big component stereo systems, and whenever my dad asked me to buy him another component, I’d use the opportunity to spend his money on stereo equipment that, in those days, I found interesting. Back then, components typically cost $300-$400 each -- multiply those by 3 for the cost in today’s inflated money. A typical stereo setup that a university student bought himself had a receiver (pre-amp, amplifier, and tuner in one), a tape deck, a turntable and a pair of speakers. So, we’re looking at nearly $4,000 in... Read more →

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Generative Design?

Opinion Generative design software isn’t as popular as it could be. In today’s green-aware environment, minimizing resources in manufacturing ought to be a no-brainer, a task at which generative design excels. And yet. There are reasons for the reluctance to deploy generative design. It has been expensive; Autodesk at one time charged US$8,000/year/seat (source), though now it’s less It’s an extra step in the manufacturing process: design -> generative optimization -> simulation -> machining The organic output typically is meshes or NURBS, which traditional MCAD programs find difficult to edit Its use of bone-growth algorithms (source) result in knobby-looking, spindly... Read more →

AI Isn’t in CAD

Opinion Generative design (image source Autodesk) Matt Lombard wrote about his thoughts of AI and CAD at https://dezignstuff.com/cad-and-ai, which caused me to think about what he said. There is a huge gap in what so-called AI can do now, and what we wish it could do to help take over tedious tasks: Step 1: AI is amazing! Step 2: ??? Step 3: AI is actually useful. As Matt noted, AI is mostly used by marketing, and AI firms are desperate to maintain their valuations by promising AGI RSN (real AI, real soon now). I think that what CAD vendors call... Read more →

I Can Understand Why Logitech Wanted to Charge for Software

Logitech's 25th anniversary ClearCase mouse Opinion The ceo of Logitech caused a stir, musing about charging a subscription for software that helps its hardware (source). We would be paying over and over again to use a really well-built, $200 mouse, she reflected. The idea was laughed off the pages of the tech press, the idea was retracted. Good Idea I think I understand why Logitech broached the idea. It writes software that lets us customize how the mouse works -- its buttons, its wheel, its motion, even options specific to specific applications. This costs money. Then, Logitech frequently updates the... Read more →

How I Lost Faith in iTunes

Opinion For music lovers in Canada, iTunes is pretty much our only go-to for buying albums online. I tried a few of the others, like Google Music and HMV, but I found them too painful to use. Despite trillionaire Apple taking 30% from struggling musicians, I liked that iTunes kept track of what I have already bought in my song library, now at 2,810 pieces. Also nice that Apple keeps a copy of all my purchases on the cloud. Should I lose a computer (as I once nearly did on a business trip through Stockholm airport), I can re-download my... Read more →

Prismatic Generative Design

Opinion Generative design optimization has a big problem, in my opinion. It’s been around for a long time (since 1994), and it seems to be just not that popular. Michael Bogomolny formed a new company whose InfinitForm software outputs prismatic generative designs that can be cut by regular machine tools, which are much more common, much faster, and much cheaper than 3D printing. I interviewed Mr Bogomolny last week. Here is our chit-chat, edited for clarity and brevity. Ralph Grabowski: I want to talk about your current company, InfinitForm, but also get a little bit of background on CogniCAD, your... Read more →

New CAD Systems For 2024

Opinion In the early days of the cloud, everything was going to run on it, according to the enthusiastic CEOs of certain CAD companies. Then reality hit, with users not necessarily keen to transition from desktop to cloud, and, worse, rewriting desktop software to work in multi-user, multi-server environments being hard enough that some vendors gave up on it. It’s easier to write new CAD software for the cloud from scratch, partly because user expectations of what desktop programs can do aren’t there. Over the last decade, numerous new ventures received funding to build on-line CAD programs. After a while,... Read more →