what separates an ‘open source dry erase whiteboard software’ from some software, like , say, paint dotnet?

Jokes on them. I never stopped using Winamp. 5.8 baby. With some of that ooey gooey milkdrop goodness. Sooooo good.

So, I enjoy creating front ends to automatically generate cadd drawings for me. It’s like a lucrative hobby. I started doing it in the early 2000’s using Visual Basic 3, Microsoft Access and AutoLISP. Not cartoons, mind you. Anyone can distribute a generic drawing with notes. That’s not what I’m talking about. A front end so that anyone without cadd knowledge can create a fully vectorized 2D drawing made in seconds and accurate to eight decimal places. I have hundreds of front ends that I use when I need to. I can surely feed it bad data, but it’s faster and never forgets to carry the two. It’s such low-technology, any version of Autocad will do. I still use my version 2010 at home, but they all work with version 2023.

Here is part of a video showing one of the front ends in action (though the audio had to be removed). This is a custom front end in Visual Studio 2007 (with my ultra nerdy paint dotnet/autocad graphics because they refused to give me photoshop) that accepts user inputs for a finished drawing of a self-supported brick dome. The calculations for these domes, if doing manually, takes about an hour per course and domes would tend to average about twenty courses. This required three days worth of math you had to write out for your checker, and then one more to actually make the drawing and bills of material. Checking took another day in most cases, so essentially a week to get a quote out. I changed that process to seconds.

In the video, you see the data entry for the dome geometry and skew line (the base the bricks rest upon) Then, the brick shapes permitted to be used are defined by their chords. In this case, it was a 9x4.5x3 series set of up to five arches and wedges in each of two keys. When used as intended, they create a 9" thick spherical dome. It calculates the best fitting key (4.5"-4.5" or 4.5"-4") and then calculates a three piece combination of arches (3" on the outside tapering to up to 2" on the outside) and wedges (also 3" on the outside tapering but up to 2" on the inside) in a ratio that best forces the ring to close. It then iterates over the courses from a specified starting end until it completes naturally or the geometry becomes a mismatch for the bricks turning potential at a certain spherical radius.

It then creates two reports, a count report and a math report (all engineering documents required checking at the time.). BUT (here’s the nerd coolness) it remembers ALL that glorious data it did during the calculations, and builds a custom lisp file with it, which can then be run on an empty drawing to generate the full vector content, as you notice, pretty quickly. To fully check it, I had it generate a top, front and bottom view as well as the brick count in a handy dandy lil chart. It overwhelms the lil laptop I had to use as it draws EVERYTHING except dimensions (though I would eventually nail that down too). I perform the generation process twice, slightly changing the skew to achieve a different combination.

As a note, the drawing portion became the actual check. You will clearly tell if there is a problem with tilts and closure by just looking at the finished cadd vectors since they do capture the bricks real world symmetrical posture. The math report itself generates a series of checks to ensure the count is appropriate. Volume check, four-point circumference check, key checks, anti-straight checks, negative quantities. Lot’s of crazy things happen in the formula when the bricks aren’t able to find a valid solution to the geometry.

So, I think I make a valid argument that when used properly, AutoLISP is possibly one the best tools an Autocad designer can employ, and it has the potential to outperform any modern cadd program that’s packed with features you’re paying for but never using. In the time it took you to read this, CREO and Inventor are likely still booting up, and Solidworks is having license issues again.

Lets not forget the fellow last week that hadn’t signed in to his PS3 account for a while, so they deactivated it and he lost all his data.

Keep reaching for those red flags there Sony. Sure it will pay off.

Pretty sure brave browser still supports uBlock Origin.

It depends on what the definition of ‘A’ is. Or some fries.

That’s what I thought too.

I wonder what would happen to a person if they were to install software onto LG’s computers without their consent.

I presumed it to be a feature. Yeah. A feature.

Ben is fantastic. I’ll be trying his waterproof cardboard later this fall.

I also have had very little success with SearXNG when I tried it. The results were limited and success was dependent on which instance you were on. I had better results using my usual web based. There were a few instances that were far better than other instances and supplied successful results. A lot of odd and weird results on certain instances that had the vibe of being a front for something else. I eventually stopped using it altogether after determining that to me it was worse.

It’s said a lot that if your need is dire, Kagi is worth the money. My need has not ever been that dire.

That is actually quite effective, though I would likely spell out the 35 and allow sylization to create numerics.

You can likely now remember that phrase “My-brain-isnt-made-for-35c” forever if you just reinforce the memory from time to time. Creating an absurd image in your head or even using a real image to associate is another good way of remembering something. For this, I would leave myself a clue of ‘I thought 36 was OK’.

Maybe not for everything though.

Look, the amount of negativity I’m generating for myself just trying to encourage a simple alternative and self reliance is really irking me. I’ve used this method for twenty years or so, and found it to be extremely effective. Consider it a door. Use it if you want. It is possible. You are better and smarter than a machine or software. Last post about it.

You offering to pay?

Write clues to your passphrase, not the actual passphrase. I spend a fair amount of time making my username and password. I choose something that I’m going to remember.

As an example, I was asked to attend a meeting to check out a point maker, a box that bombards objects with photons to collect the reflections, generating a 3d point cloud model that can be measured in cad. This particular one was fairly awful. Bottom of the barrel effort. The salesman was a complete slob, he was late, he took forever to set it up and had much difficulty getting it to actually work. When it did, it measured a 12.75" brick at 14.5". I knew right away it was shit.

They forced us to create an new account on the laptop with the software as it was too advanced and proprietary (pukes) for me to run it on my cad workstation. So, my password begrudgingly became a stylized derivation of “This Guys Balls Smell Like Cheese”. I still remember that password to this day 12 years later.

Not only that, but when we would have the guy out to troubleshoot, I would sometimes have to log in for him to repeat our steps. The salesman was always impressed with my typing speed and ability to remember my password. He probably never even knew my password was a total insult at him. My clue for the pass phrase was “Lynard Skynard”.

Don’t use random characters. Use absurd phrases that mean something to you.

Flashcards are your brains friend. They are no joke.

You can do it. That’s my point. Yes it takes time. Yes it takes patience. Yes it takes practice. Your brain is an incredible machine capable of so many things, much more by far than a computer. Computers are chunks of silicon. They do basic addition. They just do it so much quicker is all. Yours is superior. Keep it exercised.

I do keep a cheat sheet of clues. Things that I write to remind me of the actual phrase, but I rarely need it. Make a point to memorize 10 a week. Custom photo screensavers (I use jpeg Saver 5.3 by Goat 1000) are great for flash cards. I find writing it out to be the best way to learn, but reading is my second, and listening is third (but rather poor considering I lose focus and miss bits). Try to learn how you learn best and exploit that. I used to have an old braintest that was incredibly accurate. It would tell you whether you were more inclined for audio or visual learning. It also defined your brains inclination to be left hemispheric or right hemispheric in its dominance. It was called brainworks. I think it ran on windows 95. For sure Windows 98SE.

Honestly, a lot of the ones I ended up needing to lookup or reset were the ones that are restricted with a maximum length and I cant use an entire phrase. That just jambs up my plumbing, if you know what I mean.

Well, good luck when it’s your turn in the barrel.

It is possible. I have 78 unique passphrases. You only need to train your brain and not turn it over to a machine.

Oh really? What is it? Please tell.