>Verizon Wireless KPC680

>The Verizon Wireless KPC680 turns out to be a great mobile broadband card. Fast network speeds. OS X and Windows capable. For OS X users – the connection software isn’t necessary. The drivers are built into OS X and time to connect is faster through the Control Panel.

Unfortunately, if you have epilepsy or may be seizure prone, you’ll have to make some modifications. See the white area just above the red Verizon band? There are red and blue lights behind the translucent, white cover. When connected, the bright blue light flashes on and off. About twice a second.

Constantly.

So if you’re trying to concentrate while connected: SOL. It’s like someone has placed an emergency signal at the edge of your peripheral vision. In a well lit space, it’s annoying. In half-light conditions, it will give you a headache after 20 minutes or so.

I called Verizon Support for advice since couldn’t find the control panel / setting to turn off the blinking. There isn’t one. Their suggestion: Tape over the white area. However, doing this may overheat the card and void the warranty.

So I got a roll of electrical tape and taped over the translucent cover. This actually looks okay and works pretty good – completely blocking out the blinking light. And the plastic casing doesn’t seem to feel warmer than before.

So if you’re looking into wireless broadband – this may be your card. Just be sure to ask Verizon to throw in a roll of electrical tape. 😉

Verizon Wireless KPC680

The Verizon Wireless KPC680 turns out to be a great mobile broadband card. Fast network speeds. OS X and Windows capable. For OS X users – the connection software isn’t necessary. The drivers are built into OS X and time to connect is faster through the Control Panel.

Unfortunately, if you have epilepsy or may be seizure prone, you’ll have to make some modifications. See the white area just above the red Verizon band? There are red and blue lights behind the translucent, white cover. When connected, the bright blue light flashes on and off. About twice a second.

Constantly.

So if you’re trying to concentrate while connected: SOL. It’s like someone has placed an emergency signal at the edge of your peripheral vision. In a well lit space, it’s annoying. In half-light conditions, it will give you a headache after 20 minutes or so.

I called Verizon Support for advice since couldn’t find the control panel / setting to turn off the blinking. There isn’t one. Their suggestion: Tape over the white area. However, doing this may overheat the card and void the warranty.

So I got a roll of electrical tape and taped over the translucent cover. This actually looks okay and works pretty good – completely blocking out the blinking light. And the plastic casing doesn’t seem to feel warmer than before.

So if you’re looking into wireless broadband – this may be your card. Just be sure to ask Verizon to throw in a roll of electrical tape. 😉

>Happy Father’s Day

>Good News: Kids made cards, pictures and breakfast.

Bad News: There is some obvious resemblance to the alien head from the previous post. 😉

Other News, Patrick Davis, Todd Williams and I are heading to Boston next week for the ADN conference. External applications certainly provide a competitive advantage (sometimes more perceived than real). I’m interested to know if there is a resolved boundary in the mind cloud of Autodesk with regard to what should be considered core functionality and what is better left resolved by others.

In particular: Massing. Massing was updated with the last release. But this is a far cry from being able to create emotive, intuitive or intentional forms without some significant end runs around existing functionality. So users must rely on other applications.

Inventor? Don’t contort a tool meant to resolve manufacturing at a micro level into a tool meant to resolve architectural design intent at the macro level. And if you think that implementing Revit to a room full of designers is tough, try getting their heads around Inventor. They’ll keep using Rhino. So the call to using Inventor is at best a suggestion. But not a solution.

And even Rhino isn’t sufficent. While it may provide great, leveragible ACIS solids, Rhino alone doesn’t contain the necessary functional ecosystem for post-rationalizing and resolving architectural form making within Revit.

Max? Great at 36,000 feet. So is SketchUp. Don’t expect either to create Massings which can be leveraged in a meaningful way.

Maya? Again – great for pretty pictures. But twisting a building out of a Maya model isn’t practicable. See Rhino.

Why doesn’t Revit contain the necessary geometric tools to resolve these forms? I’ve heard many arguments that tend to fall into a couple of categories. I’ll talk about the one category of argument in this post.

Argument: “These types of forms are “edge conditions” which are infrequently used, or useful to designers.”

I suppose the implication is that to take time and effort to overcome this type of form making isn’t a good business investment for a software company from a market perception. And market perception may not necessarily be aligned with the customer perception. So who is the customer? The person buying stock or the person buying the solution that essentially gives the stock it’s value?

I’ll give you a hint: Take care if the stock in a company becomes more sought after than what that company produces.

Anyway – back on topic. On one hand, I’d agree that very few buildings require this type of macro approach to form making. On the other hand, is seems that every building contains edge conditions: fixtures, fittings, furnishings, lighting, equipment (to name just a few). It is frequently difficult to create adequately literal representations of these forms within Revit.

What we can create in the Family Editor is typically fine for 2D views and resolving documentation. But if part of the elegance of BIM is maintaining centralized information, then trying to leverage these elements to represent real-world elements in live, perspective, or rendered views becomes very difficult. But more importantly, I’d like to address this predisposition of what is an “edge condition” and what is not:

First – one user’s edge condition may be very mundane form making to another.

Second – maintaining this “edge/non-edge condition” mentality becomes increasingly circular and self-fulfilling. You see, we refer to them as edge conditions because they’re difficult to design and resolve with existing tools. But if we had the necessary tools to design and resolve them – they wouldn’t remain edge conditions. 😉

Would there be a rush to create Hadid/Calatrava/Gehry-esque types of forms if these tools existed within the ecosystem of Revit? Not immediately. But designers often select a tool not only for what it does at present, but because of a tool’s potential to evolve and surpass present expectations. Likewise, we become architects not only because of what we expect to do, but also because of what we aspire to do.

It’s been nearly 9 years since the release of Revit. We know what it can and can’t do elegantly. Many would like to see it develop beyond our expectations. And limitations.

Happy Father’s Day

Good News: Kids made cards, pictures and breakfast.

Bad News: There is some obvious resemblance to the alien head from the previous post. 😉

Other News, Patrick Davis, Todd Williams and I are heading to Boston next week for the ADN conference. External applications certainly provide a competitive advantage (sometimes more perceived than real). I’m interested to know if there is a resolved boundary in the mind cloud of Autodesk with regard to what should be considered core functionality and what is better left resolved by others.

In particular: Massing. Massing was updated with the last release. But this is a far cry from being able to create emotive, intuitive or intentional forms without some significant end runs around existing functionality. So users must rely on other applications.

Inventor? Don’t contort a tool meant to resolve manufacturing at a micro level into a tool meant to resolve architectural design intent at the macro level. And if you think that implementing Revit to a room full of designers is tough, try getting their heads around Inventor. They’ll keep using Rhino. So the call to using Inventor is at best a suggestion. But not a solution.

And even Rhino isn’t sufficent. While it may provide great, leveragible ACIS solids, Rhino alone doesn’t contain the necessary functional ecosystem for post-rationalizing and resolving architectural form making within Revit.

Max? Great at 36,000 feet. So is SketchUp. Don’t expect either to create Massings which can be leveraged in a meaningful way.

Maya? Again – great for pretty pictures. But twisting a building out of a Maya model isn’t practicable. See Rhino.

Why doesn’t Revit contain the necessary geometric tools to resolve these forms? I’ve heard many arguments that tend to fall into a couple of categories. I’ll talk about the one category of argument in this post.

Argument: “These types of forms are “edge conditions” which are infrequently used, or useful to designers.”

I suppose the implication is that to take time and effort to overcome this type of form making isn’t a good business investment for a software company from a market perception. And market perception may not necessarily be aligned with the customer perception. So who is the customer? The person buying stock or the person buying the solution that essentially gives the stock it’s value?

I’ll give you a hint: Take care if the stock in a company becomes more sought after than what that company produces.

Anyway – back on topic. On one hand, I’d agree that very few buildings require this type of macro approach to form making. On the other hand, is seems that every building contains edge conditions: fixtures, fittings, furnishings, lighting, equipment (to name just a few). It is frequently difficult to create adequately literal representations of these forms within Revit.

What we can create in the Family Editor is typically fine for 2D views and resolving documentation. But if part of the elegance of BIM is maintaining centralized information, then trying to leverage these elements to represent real-world elements in live, perspective, or rendered views becomes very difficult. But more importantly, I’d like to address this predisposition of what is an “edge condition” and what is not:

First – one user’s edge condition may be very mundane form making to another.

Second – maintaining this “edge/non-edge condition” mentality becomes increasingly circular and self-fulfilling. You see, we refer to them as edge conditions because they’re difficult to design and resolve with existing tools. But if we had the necessary tools to design and resolve them – they wouldn’t remain edge conditions. 😉

Would there be a rush to create Hadid/Calatrava/Gehry-esque types of forms if these tools existed within the ecosystem of Revit? Not immediately. But designers often select a tool not only for what it does at present, but because of a tool’s potential to evolve and surpass present expectations. Likewise, we become architects not only because of what we expect to do, but also because of what we aspire to do.

It’s been nearly 9 years since the release of Revit. We know what it can and can’t do elegantly. Many would like to see it develop beyond our expectations. And limitations.

>Totally Rad Shows

>As much time as I spend in the air and on the road, I’ve little time for TV. And hotel TV is the worst of all possible TV. Apparently it’s the same TV networks and shows and blather wherever you live. But for some unknown reason, nothing interesting ever seems to be televised when I’m on the road. After trying to find something decent to watch, it’s far too tempting to end up flipping channels with about as much energy as a diabetic retiree next to a Vegas slot machine. And with little more chance of winning.

Why don’t hotels just have a special channel that automatically changes the channel for you? Flip blather. Flip blather. Flip blather. At least you could get some work done to the background noise since you wouldn’t have to keep pointing and clicking with the remote thingy.

Anyway – by the time I decide to turn off the TV – I’ll usually preform one last dry run through the channels. You know, one last cast of the day. And more often than to be mere coincidence, the Discovery Channel is showing a UFO/Alien/Paranormal “documentary”. So now it’s 2am. I’m alone. And people on TV are being abducted by aliens.

All evening, nothing interesting has been on TV. And now they decide to show something that scares the bejezus out of me? I think it all started with the credits at the end of Star Trek. I love your work Gene (wherever you are) but showing the above image during the end credits of Star Trek wasn’t the last thing a 5 year old needed to see before being told to go to bed. Upstairs. At night. In New Jersey.

Fortunately, there’s some hope. Interesting, pithy, quick witted and honestly entertaining content is being developed by interesting, pithy, quick witted and honestly entertaining people. Perhaps they’re too impatient to wait for an ecosystem of lawyers, advertisers, censors, striking writers, etc. to bless their efforts.

I’m talking about the Totally Rad Show, a weekly video podcast from four guys (one insists or remaining behind the camera). Just a few years ago, they’d have been assigned to the bargin bin of cable access. Fortunately, technology found a better way. It’s streamed online, or can be downloaded in many formats and resolutions. How easy is that? You can even subscribe via iTunes. All four presently live in Los Angeles, California.

As CAD is to BIM – these guys represent the best and brightest of this generation’s ability to use new technology to create and distribute new ideas.

If you’re new to the Totally Rad Show podcast – I’d recommend Episode 29. The Austin Powers sendup is laugh out loud funny. And by the end of the show you’ll learn that Dan has trouble drinking tea from a delicate china cup. Sober. Nor does Dan fare well with sake and sushi…but that’s a whole nuther story. 😉

Two are actors. One is a director. One is the editor. How these four guys have enough time for day jobs AND this time consuming passionate hobby is difficult to imagine. But they don’t simply manage, week after week to review TV, Movies, Video Games, Comic Trades and Viewer Mail. They positively excel.

Discussions are equally filled portions of passion, fact, experience, opinion, off-topic distraction and periodic dash of bawdy innuendo.

In two words: 1) Effing 2) Brilliant.

Did I mention that they just took home a 2008 Webby Award for Online Film and Video?

Do these guys have sponsors? Yes. Do they make you sit through 20 minutes of advertisements to get to 40 minutes of real (or as is the case with a lot of what’s on network TV – imagined) content. Absolutely not. Will they sue you if you take their content and rip it to watch on something other than a 40lb. paperweight? Nope.

Network TV may be able to compete for advertising dollars (for now). But I’m not sure how they’ll compete for viewers. And certainly not when networks have to compete with four extremely talented guys doing weekly end runs around outdated, inane, enclosed distribution models.

So while airport TV drones the latest 24 hours flapping anchor head – look around. You’ll notice that more and more people aren’t watching the TV. They’re wearing headphones and watching their Laptop/iPod/iPhone/ Blackberry/Zune/ DVD Player/Playstation Portable/etc. And if you look over someone’s shoulder to glance at what they’re watching, don’t be surprised if they’re watching these four guys: Doing. What. They. Love.

Four guys passionately talking about TV, movies, video games while using in-house pre-production, post-production and editing. And their target audience? Creative, technology savvy individuals that will fully embrace applications and tools that design, develop and deliver new ideas with new processes. What sort of sponsor could possibly show the most genuine interest in supporting an ecosystem that absolutely has a direct influence on the stuff that these guys love?

TV?
Movies?
Video Games?
Film Editing?
Design?
Technology?

Someone at Autodesk should give these guys a call.

Totally Rad Shows

As much time as I spend in the air and on the road, I’ve little time for TV. And hotel TV is the worst of all possible TV. Apparently it’s the same TV networks and shows and blather wherever you live. But for some unknown reason, nothing interesting ever seems to be televised when I’m on the road. After trying to find something decent to watch, it’s far too tempting to end up flipping channels with about as much energy as a diabetic retiree next to a Vegas slot machine. And with little more chance of winning.

Why don’t hotels just have a special channel that automatically changes the channel for you? Flip blather. Flip blather. Flip blather. At least you could get some work done to the background noise since you wouldn’t have to keep pointing and clicking with the remote thingy.

Anyway – by the time I decide to turn off the TV – I’ll usually preform one last dry run through the channels. You know, one last cast of the day. And more often than to be mere coincidence, the Discovery Channel is showing a UFO/Alien/Paranormal “documentary”. So now it’s 2am. I’m alone. And people on TV are being abducted by aliens.

All evening, nothing interesting has been on TV. And now they decide to show something that scares the bejezus out of me? I think it all started with the credits at the end of Star Trek. I love your work Gene (wherever you are) but showing the above image during the end credits of Star Trek wasn’t the last thing a 5 year old needed to see before being told to go to bed. Upstairs. At night. In New Jersey.

Fortunately, there’s some hope. Interesting, pithy, quick witted and honestly entertaining content is being developed by interesting, pithy, quick witted and honestly entertaining people. Perhaps they’re too impatient to wait for an ecosystem of lawyers, advertisers, censors, striking writers, etc. to bless their efforts.

I’m talking about the Totally Rad Show, a weekly video podcast from four guys (one insists or remaining behind the camera). Just a few years ago, they’d have been assigned to the bargin bin of cable access. Fortunately, technology found a better way. It’s streamed online, or can be downloaded in many formats and resolutions. How easy is that? You can even subscribe via iTunes. All four presently live in Los Angeles, California.

As CAD is to BIM – these guys represent the best and brightest of this generation’s ability to use new technology to create and distribute new ideas.

If you’re new to the Totally Rad Show podcast – I’d recommend Episode 29. The Austin Powers sendup is laugh out loud funny. And by the end of the show you’ll learn that Dan has trouble drinking tea from a delicate china cup. Sober. Nor does Dan fare well with sake and sushi…but that’s a whole nuther story. 😉

Two are actors. One is a director. One is the editor. How these four guys have enough time for day jobs AND this time consuming passionate hobby is difficult to imagine. But they don’t simply manage, week after week to review TV, Movies, Video Games, Comic Trades and Viewer Mail. They positively excel.

Discussions are equally filled portions of passion, fact, experience, opinion, off-topic distraction and periodic dash of bawdy innuendo.

In two words: 1) Effing 2) Brilliant.

Did I mention that they just took home a 2008 Webby Award for Online Film and Video?

Do these guys have sponsors? Yes. Do they make you sit through 20 minutes of advertisements to get to 40 minutes of real (or as is the case with a lot of what’s on network TV – imagined) content. Absolutely not. Will they sue you if you take their content and rip it to watch on something other than a 40lb. paperweight? Nope.

Network TV may be able to compete for advertising dollars (for now). But I’m not sure how they’ll compete for viewers. And certainly not when networks have to compete with four extremely talented guys doing weekly end runs around outdated, inane, enclosed distribution models.

So while airport TV drones the latest 24 hours flapping anchor head – look around. You’ll notice that more and more people aren’t watching the TV. They’re wearing headphones and watching their Laptop/iPod/iPhone/ Blackberry/Zune/ DVD Player/Playstation Portable/etc. And if you look over someone’s shoulder to glance at what they’re watching, don’t be surprised if they’re watching these four guys: Doing. What. They. Love.

Four guys passionately talking about TV, movies, video games while using in-house pre-production, post-production and editing. And their target audience? Creative, technology savvy individuals that will fully embrace applications and tools that design, develop and deliver new ideas with new processes. What sort of sponsor could possibly show the most genuine interest in supporting an ecosystem that absolutely has a direct influence on the stuff that these guys love?

TV?
Movies?
Video Games?
Film Editing?
Design?
Technology?

Someone at Autodesk should give these guys a call.

>Dear Anthony,

>The cultural challenge with Warnings in Revit is the present lack of accountability. Users are smart enough to know there’s something amiss in the file. But they have no idea where to point (or give) the finger. Or fingers.

Warnings also provide some indication as to the learning and experience level of members on a team. Warnings indicate when users have decided to work in a way that is expedient rather than deliberate. Reviewing Warnings allow people to learn from their own mistakes. Or better yet – they allow people to learn from another team member’s mistake. 😉

Unfortunately, many users and teams tend to put off reviewing / resolving Warnings as there’s no sense of ownership. This makes project management really difficult. By the time you need to review warnings – it’s often too late. And who should fix what?

So I’d propose the following stuff with regard to Warnings:

1. Warnings should be maintained in a regular Revit Schedule. Stop hiding them in a dialog at the bottom of a Tools Menu.

2. Project Managers would like to know the Workset Username responsible for generating the Warning. This would allow Warnings to be scheduled per user name – which would impose a sense of accountability in the Revit database.

3. Original date / time stamp helps the team track the frequency of Warnings against project development.

4. Like any other Schedule in Revit , the ability to jump from line item / to context of project location.

5. Some indication of severity (for ranking purposes). All warnings are not created equal.

6. Counts / Totals / Types of Warnings. Now the project manager knows who (typically) on a team is responsible for the bulk of Warnings so they can remedy the situation, and prevent its recurrence.

Overall, this added functionality compels team members to preemptively fix what they have broken. Project Managers can quickly get a sense project dynamics. And the rest of the team isn’t penalized with one or two team member’s lack of discipline.

Thoughts / Comments welcome.

Dear Anthony,

The cultural challenge with Warnings in Revit is the present lack of accountability. Users are smart enough to know there’s something amiss in the file. But they have no idea where to point (or give) the finger. Or fingers.

Warnings also provide some indication as to the learning and experience level of members on a team. Warnings indicate when users have decided to work in a way that is expedient rather than deliberate. Reviewing Warnings allow people to learn from their own mistakes. Or better yet – they allow people to learn from another team member’s mistake. 😉

Unfortunately, many users and teams tend to put off reviewing / resolving Warnings as there’s no sense of ownership. This makes project management really difficult. By the time you need to review warnings – it’s often too late. And who should fix what?

So I’d propose the following stuff with regard to Warnings:

1. Warnings should be maintained in a regular Revit Schedule. Stop hiding them in a dialog at the bottom of a Tools Menu.

2. Project Managers would like to know the Workset Username responsible for generating the Warning. This would allow Warnings to be scheduled per user name – which would impose a sense of accountability in the Revit database.

3. Original date / time stamp helps the team track the frequency of Warnings against project development.

4. Like any other Schedule in Revit , the ability to jump from line item / to context of project location.

5. Some indication of severity (for ranking purposes). All warnings are not created equal.

6. Counts / Totals / Types of Warnings. Now the project manager knows who (typically) on a team is responsible for the bulk of Warnings so they can remedy the situation, and prevent its recurrence.

Overall, this added functionality compels team members to preemptively fix what they have broken. Project Managers can quickly get a sense project dynamics. And the rest of the team isn’t penalized with one or two team member’s lack of discipline.

Thoughts / Comments welcome.

>The Day After

> 

Excellent presentation by Patrick Davis of HNTB Architecture and Jan Reinhardt of Turner Construction on the realities and evolving resolution of successful Integrated Practice. 

Thorough discussion session followed. There are such things as stupid questions. Fortunately, none were asked. 

To those organizations not engaging in this business process: your competition continues to thank you.

Critical to the process is knowing the difference between Intent and Content during design iteration. Surprisingly, Content is not as important during the design phase as you might initially think. What’s most important is the communication of design Intent; sometimes as geometry (even if generic) – but frequently via metadata associated to geometry or spaces.

One point of frustration: Walls in Revit don’t schedule according to Level. Seems crazy – but not being able to schedule walls according Level is important to the contractor and QS teams. Being able to schedule Walls by Level remains an important area of improvement for the Revit team. Until then? The alternative is a lot of manual (and error prone) processes.

The Day After

 

Excellent presentation by Patrick Davis of HNTB Architecture and Jan Reinhardt of Turner Construction on the realities and evolving resolution of successful Integrated Practice. 

Thorough discussion session followed. There are such things as stupid questions. Fortunately, none were asked. 

To those organizations not engaging in this business process: your competition continues to thank you.

Critical to the process is knowing the difference between Intent and Content during design iteration. Surprisingly, Content is not as important during the design phase as you might initially think. What’s most important is the communication of design Intent; sometimes as geometry (even if generic) – but frequently via metadata associated to geometry or spaces.

One point of frustration: Walls in Revit don’t schedule according to Level. Seems crazy – but not being able to schedule walls according Level is important to the contractor and QS teams. Being able to schedule Walls by Level remains an important area of improvement for the Revit team. Until then? The alternative is a lot of manual (and error prone) processes.