WorldCAD Access

The Limits of Evolution

Opinion Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False Book written by Thomas Nagel Reviewed by Ralph Grabowski There are some people, who believing in deterministic materialism, cling to Darwin's theory of chemical and biological evolution as if it were a life raft, kicking out into the cold any who dare counter them, such as, say, religious nutcases. But there’s a problem: the random mutations that drive evolution cannot explain the higher levels at which humans operate. Unlike animals, we have the ability to reason and to hold values. Evolution also lacks explanations for how... Read more →

Book review: The Secret Life of Groceries

Opinion The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket Book written by Benjamin Lorr Reviewed by Ralph Grabowski One of the greatest facades we face in modern life is the grocery store. Everything is plentiful, clean to the point of sparkling, and prices savings are galore. Behind the scenes, the facade crumbles fast, which you know when you’ve ever had a peek behind the swinging doors to the warehouse portion of the store -- or looked at the final total on the till bill. In our two-person household, groceries represent our largest monthly bill. The store... Read more →

How I Typeset My Dad's Autobiography

Background A couple of decades ago, my dad wrote his autobiography. Well, a lot of it, the most interesting part of his life, from about age 6 to 31. He experienced growing up barefoot on a farm in rural East Prussia (then Germany, now Poland), working as a 14-year-old in the Heinkel Aircraft Factory, winning an all-paid scholarship to a university, only to be drafted into the German army the day before, spending most of his war years in training or in hospitals, being captured by the British on the French coast, staying in Scottish prisoner-of-war camps until 1948, arriving... Read more →

Book Review: “Smart Until It’s Dumb”

Opinion Book written by Emmanuel Maggiori Reviewed by Ralph Grabowski An unexpected thing happened along the way to AI’s domination over humanity and the rest of the world. It got sued. Microsoft-funded OpenAI’s ChatGPT had produced a report stating that the current mayor of a town in Australia had been jailed for bank fraud. He hadn’t. Quite the opposite: he had, in fact, blown the whistle that led to others being charged. Until now, purveyors and apologists for artificial intelligence have smirked at its logical failures. When contacted by Washington Post about fake newspaper articles cited by ChatGPT, “Katy Asher,... Read more →

My 137 ebooks & 233 training videos

The List, part ii These are the 137 ebooks I worked on beginning in 2002 and going through to 2020, an average of seven per year. Many of these can be purchased from https://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/ebooksonline/. When added to my 108 print books, that represents 245 books in 31 years. The advantage of ebooks over print books is that I eliminate the publisher and make 97% of the cover price of a book. The publisher typically handles editing, printing, distribution, and marketing -- in exchange for paying me an average of 7% of the cover price. How I Began in eBooks I... Read more →

My 108 Books in Print

The List, part i These are the 108 print books I worked on, beginning in the summer 1990. I worked on most of these between the years 1991 and 2014, an average of five books a year. Many thanks to Colleen McColghlin, who as my agent found contacts publishers and encouraged me in my desire to become a book author. Then in 2003. I started producing ebooks and in 2015 began producing training videos. These are lists for another day. Author * *) I wrote these books from scratch, or else updated the book for new versions of software. 1.... Read more →

Understanding the Divide

Centers vs Borders What the Center was telling the Border, one year ago Martin Gurri's The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium (2018 edition) is the textbook for explaining the discombobulation that we peoples of the world feel today. We want discord to go away; he says it can't. Here's why. Gurri divides the world into two: a Center made of elites (gov’t, media, academia, corporations) directing their decrees and products at the Border, which is made up of all others. In the past, Border people tended to accept what was pushed at... Read more →

Ralph's new book: 'Best CAD Practices'

4th Edition This is the first time since 2001 I've updated my book on CAD management. Back then, it was known as CAD Managers Guidebook and was published by the Onward Press imprint of Delmar Publishing. Now it's know as Best CAD Practices. Little in these 15 years has changed in our industry. We still wonder about what to name layers, which dimension styles to use, and how to write a manual that catalog's our firm's standards. During the same time, agencies have tweaked their standards, more standards have entered our world (such as related to BIM?), CAD has spread... Read more →

The 2016 edition of "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users" now shipping

314 pages, and free for you I wrote my first "...for AutoCAD Users" book back in 1991. It was the idea of OnWord Press to come out with a new category of book. It was no longer unheard of that two or more CAD systems coexist in the same office. Until then, it was normal for just one CAD program monopolize design firms, because of the expense. Paying $50,000 or $100,000 per seat was considered normal, and at those prices just one vendor could win a contract. ("Per-seat" was literal, as in those days the CAD vendor provided the software... Read more →

eBooks I've written

The census says 115 I've written close to 200 books; what are they? Here is the list of (nearly) all e-books I've written. (The remainder are paper-based books.) Not in the list are bespoke editions, about two dozen e-books I've written for specific clients. Together, this makes the total of e-books written around 115. My very first e-book was "Tailoring AutoCAD," written for AutoCAD 2000 around that year. The e-book began as a series of articles I wrote for AutoCAD World, a now-defunct tabloid-style magazine. They called the column "Tailoring AutoCAD." The editor returned me the copyright on my articles... Read more →

Newest ebook on BricsCAD V15 now selling

Two of three I've been updating my line of books for BricsCAD V15, the latest release of the 3D and 2D software from BricsCAD, and here is my progress report: Pages from the new "Inside BricsCAD V15" ebook Now available: Inside BricsCAD V15 ($20) How to make 3D models and 2D drawings with BricsCAD Dozens of useful tips Bigger at 284 full-color pages Updated for BricsCAD V15: Coverage of BricsCAD V15 for OS X and Windows 10 New start screen and workspaces New ribbon, drawing tabs, and LookFrom and Tips widgets To order, see instructions below Now available: BricsCAD V15... Read more →

Geometric Modeling by Nikolay Golovanov

Book review by Ralph Grabowski This isn't the usual kind of CAD book. It won't tutor you on how to design 3D models or draw in 2D. No, it explains the underlaying mathematics that makes 3D CAD software possible. And so it is to filled chock-a-block with mathematical expressions, matrix transforms, and generalized diagrams of CAD structures, such as Bezier curves, 3D surfaces, and intersections between elements. These are the topics covered by its chapters: Curves Surfaces Construction of curves and surfaces Geometric models Geometric modeling building Geometric constraints Geometric model application Coordinate systems To give you a flavor of... Read more →

Available now: BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users

6th Edition It's almost hard to believe that I've written and updated 22 books on BricsCAD, and today I'm pleased to announce that #23 is available from the Bricsys Web site. BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users tells you just about anything you need to know about what's different and what's the same between the newest releases of BricsCAD and AutoCAD. It's loaded with hints on how to work with both CAD systems. In particular, Chapter 5 on how to operate a design office with both BricsCAD and AutoCAD will be of interest to firms looking to lower their production costs.... Read more →

It is time to declare browserCAD in a deep funk

by Ralph Grabowski It was a scant two years ago that a flurry of start-ups launched 3D MCAD software that runs in Web browsers. The catalyst was HTML5 and other browser technology that allowed users to interact with 3D models in their Web browsers on any hardware. No more installs to desktops; no more being limited to Windows. Wanna run 3D CAD on an Android ultrabook or a FirefoxOS phone -- no problemo. (Well, almost no problemo. There were a few caveats. The hardware had to be powerful enough; the Web connection speed had to be fast enough; the Internet... Read more →

Now in German: "BricsCAD V14 in 12 Lektionen" tutorials

Translated from "Inside BricsCAD 2014" The German reseller of BricsCAD in Germany is MERViSOFT GmbH, and in March they arranged with Harald Vogel to translate my "Inside BricsCAD V14" ebook into German. This week the 193-page ebook becomes available for purchase (e21.61 incl. VAT) through https://shop.mervisoft-gmbh.de/bricscad/vertraege-zubehoer/bricscad-in-12-lektionen.html. Some background on this edition: MERViSOFT used the title "BricsCAD V14 in 12 lessons," because there is no similar expression in German for my "Inside of BricCAD 14" title. As this book is a tutorial for beginners, it made sense to emphasize that it contains 12 lessons. All sample drawings were translated into metric... Read more →

How to customize all aspects of BricsCAD V14, in 448 pages

Customizing BricsCAD V14 If you are an BricsCAD user, then you will be interested to know that I've updated one more of my books for V14: Customizing BricsCAD V14 ($40) all about customizing BricsCAD and some on programming all-new chapter on Quad cursor and workspaces 448 full-color pages more information from www.upfrontezine.com/cb8 To order, go to www.upfrontezine.com/cb8 and then choose the edition you need. Editions are available for BricsCAD V8 through V14. After I receive you order from PayPal, I will either email you a download link through Dropbox -- or you can use the link shown above. Please allow... Read more →

Photobook reveals the solider's life in the war of Afghanistan

Book Review A publicist offered to send me a book to review of the war in Afghanistan. The war over there, in which my country Canada lost the most soldiers (on a per-capita basis), has always been a vague thing, and so I looked forward to seeing the book. After a few SNAFUs in delivery, the hardcover Afghanistan on the Bounce: Boots on the ground with the US Military and the International Security Assistance Force arrived last week. It is photographed by Robert Cunnigham and annotated by Steven Hartov. The photos follow the year or so US soliders put in... Read more →

PR: "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users" updated for BricsCAD V14

If you are an AutoCAD or BricsCAD user, then you might be interested to know that I've updated BricsCAD for AutoCD Users for AutoCAD 2014 and BricsCAD V14. My book shows you how the two CAD programs are different and similar. Chapter 5 "Operating Dual-CAD Design Offices" is a great resource for design firms transitioning to another CAD package -- not just BricsCAD -- because it shows you how to run a dual-CAD and dual-OS (Windows and Linux) office. This 272-page, free ebook has a whole new chapter on working with 3D in BricsCAD as compared to AutoCAD: direct modeling,... Read more →

Spell checking files for documents about AutoCAD

In my line of work, I need my desktop publishing and word processing software to recognize command and system variable names used by AutoCAD. This morning I put together all of them from AutoCAD 2014 into a single zip file, which you can download from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28941239/AutoCAD-Cmd-Names.zip The zip file contains the following text files (plain ASCII text, all lower case), which you can import into your document production software's spell checker. Note that I separated the command names into categories, in case you don't want to import them all: AutoCAD-2014-commandNames.txt AutoCAD-2014-Express-Commands.txt AutoCAD-2014-ObosoleteCommands.txt AutoCAD-2014-undocumentedcommandNames.txt AutoCAD-2014-sysvars.txt In total, there are 1,867... Read more →

Paper books dying, ebooks too

I can call 2013 "the end-of-the-line for book writing." After starting in 1990, I at one time was writing multiple books for four publishers, resulting in some sixty titles and updates. Thank you to Delmar, Wordware, OnWord, and Springer for taking on me and my words. My last remaining book publisher, Delmar, earlier this year entered bankruptcy protection. At the same time, I noticed my ebook orders slowing down over the last year. The good folks at Delmar tells me they think the problem is that people prefer to watch free YouTube tutorials, rather than buy and read books. I... Read more →

Synecdoche

Once in a while I come across a word I've never read before. synecdoche A figure of speech, in which: -- a part is used for the whole (as hand for "sailor"). -- the whole for a part (as the law for "police officer"). -- the specific for the general (as cutthroat for "assassin"). -- the general for the specific (as thief for "pickpocket") -- the material for the thing made from it (as steel for "sword"). Frequently in journalism (e.g."Ottawa" for the Canadian federal government) and sports (e.g. "Liverpool" for one of thd city's football teams). From Greek sunekdokhē:... Read more →

First Book for the new AutoCAD 2007

The very first book for the new AutoCAD 2007 software from Autdoesk is now available. It's my "What's Inside? AutoCAD 2007", a 106-page PDF book. It covers what's new, changed, deleted, and undocumented in the latest release of AutoCAD, which is due to ship on 23 March. More details, including the table of contents, are available at the book's Web page. The PDF book available now for US$15.90 through PayPal. If your organization uses more than one copy, please contact me for bulk rate discounts. João Brogueira of www.cad.blogs.com likes it: After receiving your eBook I spent an hour or... Read more →

Guy Kawasaki: "The Art of the Start"

Guy Kawasaki of Macintosh fame visited Vancouver Canada last month, spending a little too much time impressing we Canadians of his love for hockey. The remainder of the free 50-minute speech was an overview of his most recent book, "The Art of the Start." I took notes on scraps of paper while sitting on the floor of the overbooked conference room. He says he uses ten points for speeches, so that listeners can tell how far along he is -- and walk out if it's taking too long. Each of the ten points, however, had several subpoints. More of a... Read more →