With the sudden run on lawn chairs and beer, this dialog could create enough spending to put a serious dent in the deficit. And if I were to post the same kind of unfounded, inflammatory remarks about conservatives that you made about liberals, then the resulting upsurge in gun sales and airfare to Arcata would probably put the State firmly in the black. As a liberal, I only ask that you use organic bullets.

Conservatives tend to have more class than Liberals Dear Mr. Meyette, As a proud liberal, I suppose I should take offense at your rude generalization of a significant proportion of the populace of the United States. Instead I'll just pump you for the documentation upon which your comment is based. Assuming that you were making a statement of fact, and not merely stating a personal bias, then I would trust that you must have some data on the subject. Please share your source, so that I can understand exactly what it is about myself, my wife, my parents, and most of my friends and acquaintances that is so particularly lacking in class. If you choose to support your comment with merely anecdotal information, then I will happily counter that with the plethora of racist, homophobic, misogynist, and xenophobic comments that have been posted by self-described conservatives on this forum. I eagerly await your further judgement of my character. As to Schwarzennegger's victory speech, it is standard practice for the victor to be concilliatory towards his (or her) opponent. In fact, it is so standard so as to be meaningless. The test will be in his actions. He now has less than 3 months to draft a budget for the State that accomodates the current $8 billion deficit (down from last year's $36 billion). If he chooses to cut the vehicle tax, as promised, then he must come up with another $4 billion. If he wants to cut taxes, he has to cut back further on State programs that already are staggering from $13.7 billion is spending cuts. Yes, it's easy to tell people what they want to hear, but far more difficult to actually do it. My overall take on his victory: As in any election, the people will get what they deserve.

...if a CEO of a Corporation/Company were to have had the same performance as Davis, should he be fired or should he be allowed to "Serve out his term/contract?" Under the current corporate model, he would be given $100 million dollars to step down.

Don't get me wrong here, guys. I can't stand Davis for largely the same reasons as you guys. Neither am I fond of Bustamante, nor do I expect much to change under him. But here I am, ready to hold my nose and vote No Recall/Bustamante just to save the State from the kind of embarassment that Minnesota went through. I would have voted for either Riordan or Ueberoth in a heartbeat over any of the 3 main choices (Davis, Arnie, or Bustamante), even though I am (usually) a Democrat. 135 candidates, and they are all overshadowed by simple star power. No platform, no posiitions, no ideas; just a name and an image. I see nothing, nothing, to recommend Schwarzennegger. Voting for him is simply an admission that name recognition and party affiliation are all that matters to you. He has not articulated a single position on a single issue, other than to say the system's broken and we have to fix it. Hell, anyone can say that (and most people could actually deliver the line better, too). From looking over the posts here, most of you can articulate the issues a hell of a lot better than Arnold. So why him? Would you vote for Michael Jordan if he was a Republican? How about Jeff Gordon? Or Shaquille O'Neil? What, specifically, makes Schwarzennegger qualify as gubernatorial material? Face it folks, it's just name and party. Scharzennegger's candidacy has made a mockery of our electoral process. He has bumped aside all of the qualified Republicans, and reduced the level of political debate to an all-time low. He is the least-qualified person to ever stage a serious run for Governor. Voting for him is an admission that politics is nothing more than a football game anymore. People want their team to win for no reason other than that it's their team. James, I agree completely with your 3 recommendations. And, in posting those, you have displayed greater gubernatorial (gotta love that word) potential than Arnold has ever shown.

If you enjoy the benefits of a smoke-free work environment, thank a liberal democrat.

I was born and raised in California, and have lived here all my life. The State has always had its problems, but it has always been the envy of the rest of the country. I have never felt embarrassed to be a Californian until Schwarzzennegger entered the gubernatorial race. I've only heard two reasons to vote for Schwarzzennegger: 1) He's cool. Not exactly a position based on intelligent scrutiny of the issues, now is it? 2) He can win. See the above comment. This belief that the worst Republican is better than the best Democrat (or vice verse) is a sure way to get us to the gutter. We don't even need to have actual candidates anymore, just someone with name recognition. They don't have to have any relevant experience or anything. After all, it's only the highest position in the State! Hell, they don't even have to have any ideas or knowledge. They can just say that, once they're elected, they'll hold a few meetings and start learning. Brilliant. I wonder how much some campaign staffer got paid to think up that one? I don't know who to be more pissed at: Schwarzennegger for being so openly and candidly ignorant of any of the issues, or Republicans for voting for a lowest common denominator name 'because he can win', or Davis for being such a f***-up that he's gonna hand off the highest position in the state to someone with no more right to be governor than any one of us here on the forum. And, y'know, it's really quite an accomplishment to beat out Larry Flint in the competition for biggest pig, but Arnie's done it. And he's admitted to it, too, in language that shows that he still has no concept of why his actions were objectionable. Of course, comments in the posts above show that some here don't get it, either. The same people who blasted Clinton for consensual sex see nothing wrong with their guy aggressively groping unwilling women. What if it was your 19 year-old daughter he tried to undress in the elevator? Or what if it was your wife that he groped in the gym? Would you really say that she should have been flattered? You do know, don't you, that Schwarzennegger is a close personal friend of Kurt Waldheim? Yes, THAT Kurt Waldheim, the Nazi war criminal that the US won't allow into the country. Schwarzzennegger even invited him to his wedding, but he couldn't get in, so Arnie just toasted him, to the horror of the Kennedy's who were persent. Arnie also spent over a million dollars buying up copyrights, notes, and records of old interviews, including the one where he praised Hitler for 'building himself up from nothing into a leader'. That's why you won't find the text of that interview. Just the personal accounts of those who were there. He then gave a million dollars to the Simon Weisenthal center as cover. By the way, this is all old news. It's been out there for years, but that old 'Liberal Media', they just wouldn't cover the story, not when Arnold made such a colorful candidate. Yeah, the same media that covered Monica like flypaper, and eagerly tagged along for $90 million worth of investigation into 'White Water' (and finding nothing, btw). That darned liberal media. They're so unfair. Do I sound pissed? I should, because I am. I am sick at what the right-wing is doing to our country and now our state. And you guys jsut go along with what you're fed by the right-wing media. They are dismantling the very foundations of our democracy. They are systematically taking the control of our country away from the people and putting it firmly and irretrievably into the hands of the super-rich, shattering the boundary between big business and government. They are merging the corporate state with the government state, which is the very definition of facism (as defined by Mousolini himself). It's not the government that controls the media and the corporations; rather it's the media, the oil companies, the energy companies, the telecommunications companies, and the defense companies which all control the government. Did I get off target here? Not really. Again, just look at Arnold's idols; Hitler and Waldheim. And look at his meetings with Kenneth Lay to scuttle the State's lawsuit against Enron. Yeah, things are really gonna change under Arnold. For the better? Well, that depends on the size of your wallet. I'll close my rant here with 3 promises about what will happen if Arnold is elected: 1) He WILL raise taxes. 2) California will be in a worse energy mess than 3 years ago. 3) I will personally take out papers to have him recalled. (End of rant) [ 10-07-2003, 03:06 AM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

Steve, I followed your instructions, but when I right click on a file, I don't get an option for Quick View. Is there anything else that I need to do?

MayDay, is that the new Hummer? I can't wait to see all the soccer moms, drug dealers, and movie stars driving those around. The simple solution to traffic is, of course, leave near your work, and work near where you live. Like Mr. Lindsey, I'm fortunate enough to be able to work from home, so my commute is all of 30 steps. Building freeways isn't a solution because they foment the problem of growth and sprawl, making the distance from one end of an urban area to the other longer and longer. In the standard urban area, more than 60% of the land area is already given over to roads. That means that there are already more roads than there are places to drive to!

I would love to see MasterCam offer a straight viewer. A stripped-down package so that someone can just view, rotate, zoom in and out, turn layers on and off, and make notations. That would be a valuable communication tool. The problem with either Draft or the Demo is that they offer too much. I know that sounds odd, but with my clients, I don't want to give them a program that is overly complex, nor do I want to give them one where they can start messing with my files. I have one client in particular who would think that, by having either of these packages, he could cut me out of the equation. I just know that he would think this software enables him to reduce his need for my services, when the reality is that he would waste a s**t-load of my time asking me questions about the software, how to use it, what the different functions do, etc... And this guy would never, ever, spend the money to actually buy MasterCam himself. Yes, a plain, stripped-down, no-frills viewer would be nice.

I won't be visiting this thread again. It ceased to be respectful a long time ago. [ 09-09-2003, 01:49 AM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

Any time I see the replay of the towers falling, I still can't quite comprehend that it really happened. As with everyone else, I stayed glued to the TV and radio for weeks afterwards, but no amount of coverage could truly convey the scale of the tragedy. I see the film, and it's like reliving a bad dream that I still can't quite believe really happened. The one thing I'll say here is this: Shame on anyone who has used this tragedy as an opportunity for political, economic, or celebrity gain. Liberal or conservative, politician or businessman, small business or government contractor, independent film maker or media giant, pundit or songwriter,.. It sickens me to think of people seeking to profit from such a horrifying event.

why do I see the blue line...??? I have heard that Viagra has an odd side effect in that it makes everything look blue. Seriously. Not that I would know, or anything,.. [ 09-04-2003, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

Rek'd, it actually only took me about 5 keystrokes to figure it out (highlight/copy/paste into Word/tools/word count), not including writing the post. However, I have since figured out that if you saved your file every 10 minutes, those 10,497 keystrokes would get used up in 1,749 hours, or a little over 10 months of 8 hour days, 5 days a week. So, assuming a 10 year career using MasterCam, the time/key stroke investment is less than 10%, making it probably worth while in the overall scheme of things. Man, I gotta get a hobby. [ 09-03-2003, 11:36 PM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

So far, this discussion has used up 10,497 key strokes in an attempt to save just 1 key stroke. Not a very good return on investment, if you ask me.

CAM, I would also suggest that you look into a lollipop cutter, though I can't help you with a source. The T-slot cutter is designed to cut only on the side, and so it may not cut correctly as it rolls onto the faces. I realize that this isn't exactly the problem you are experiencing, but it may add to it. I would try setting your tolerance down to .0005". I've found that the tolerance can allow the cutter to travel to both sides of a surface, which may cause particular problems with an undercut. I also notice that your T-slot cutter diameter is 1.5", but the opening at the top of your 'trough' is 1.44". That's a problem. Even though you can enter through the wider part of the trough, the cutter still doesn't fit the geometry in the narrower parts.

Or if you steal millions of dollars while sitting in the Board room wearing a suit and tie, well, that's no big deal. Just a little 'error'.

What the hell does 'coons' mean, anyway?

+1, Charles. I'm all for legalizing small-scale growing and posession of marijuana, and doubling/tripling/quadrupling the penalties for sale or distribution. If you wanna smoke it, go ahead. If you wanna push it, bye-bye! Don't clog up the courts and prisons with small fish. Remember: If bongs are outlawed, only criminals will have bongs!

Keep in mind that the number of patches is not the same as the number of contours. It takes 3 'across' contours and 4 'along' contours to make 2 patches.

Tony, We definitely have a double standard regarding violence in movies or TV. It amazes me that you can find an incredibly violent movie on TV, showing people getting their bodies ripped apart by bullets, but that they will censor the word '**** ' from it. Or they will cut a brief shot of nudity, while leaving in all the gore. Oh, and then they'll cut to a Victoria's Secret commercial which has more implicit sex than the shot they cut out. Go figure. I remember seeing 'A Few Good Men' on TV, and in the big courtroom scene at the end, when Jack Nicholson gets up and yells "I'm gonna rip your f***ing head off!" they censored it to say "I'm gonna rip your freaking head off!" I guess the censors see nothing wrong with threatening to rip someone's head off, just so long as you don't say the dreaded F-word. (edit) Wow! I just discovered that the Forum also censors the word '**** '! [ 08-27-2003, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

Jim, thanks for the link. I hadn't been aware that any cities had banned sale or possession of handguns altogether. However, I do have to point out that none of the cities listed had actually "banned guns", as A-ron had stated. Banning the sale of unregistered handguns, as in DC, is substantially different. NYC isn't on the list. It surprises me that the court determined that the second ammendment only applied to Congress, and not to local government. I would like to find the source data for that guy's webpage, since many of his numbers conflict with each other. I also have to remain a little skeptical about someone's use of data when they apparently don't understand the term 'per-capita'.

I agree. However, this won't solve the problem of hijacked threads. On a related subject, perhaps the instructor forum could be folded into the regular forum, since it gets relatively so little traffic.

A-ron, I believe in personal responsibility just as strongly as you do, but that still doesn't address the question of why there are so many more gun deaths in the US than any other first-world country. Are Canadians, Brits, Japanese, Russians, Germans, French, Australians, and others just more responsible than Americans? If so, then why? And more importantly, what can we do to change that? I haven't seen anyone here say that the answer is to take away people's guns, and I don't recall there being any such suggestion in Bowling for Columbine, either. I believe that personal responsibility needs to be countered by corporate responsibility. It is disengeniuous for Hollywood to glorify violence, and then deny any responsibility for an out-of-control murder rate. Similarly, it is equally ludicrous for gun makers who make guns whose sole purpose is to kill humans to share no responsibility when those weapons are used for their intended purpose. Are these companies solely responsible? Of course not. But we will never get anywhere on this issue until all of the responsible parties recognize their own complicity. Personal responsibility shouldn't stop when you put on a suit. BTW; I haven't heard of any cities in the US banning guns. [ 08-25-2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Mark Lovelace ]

Rek'd, thanks for lookin' out for me. KJS, actually, I have fired guns before, and was told I was pretty good for a complete novice. I have no problem with people owning and using guns for sport. I just wonder what size/type/quantity of guns crosses the line? Jack, you left off a digit for the USA. The number was eleven-thousand something. We're number one! We're number one!

Congrats to all of you who have stayed sober. Myself, I cut way back (a beer on the weekend every coupla weeks)when my daughter drew a picture of me wearing a Deschutes Brewing Company t-shirt, and with a beer on the table in front of me. The scary part was that she got the logo right on both the shirt and the bottle. I decided that wasn't the image I wanted her to have of me. Then again, that Guinness sounds real nice...