AutoCAD coming to the Mac for the first time in 18 years, should finally give them the software to design a working antenna

Image via WikipediaWanna know how you know you're old? My high school drafting classes were all done with mechanic pencil, on proper paper and drafting tables. Worse, we were the last class in my university to train in paper drafting for our engineering drawing courses, we were the pilot class for ACAD, the next class was 50/50, and the "kids" that arrived two years later did all their coursework in ACAD.

My favorite part was watching people do some sloppy shiat thinking nobody could tell just by looking at the screen. You can easily grade paper drawings by looking at the smoothness of the pencil lines, but on screen all you see is a straight line. The trick is to have the student send the drawing to a pen plotter, if the student did something stupid, it will show up when the pen plotter draws it. For example, curve transitions that are not snapped properly, chamfers, compound curves, or even lines that don't connect properly.

On sleep deprivation and Incan Monkey Gods

From: Dilbert comic strip for 08/03/1992 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive. I was trying to show this strip to a coworker who is dangerously toying with the harsh mistress that is Insomnia. What shocked me is how quickly I was able to look up the strip, which was published when he was just 11 years old, and two weeks before my just-out-of-college ass shipped out to US Army Basic Training.

The Black Hole

If this was a minigolf hole, you can't reach B from A. Ever. If this was a room lined with mirrors, and you lit a candle at point A, you can't see it from B, not even reflected. Update: I guess I didn't explain this all the way through. You can't reach B from A with just one stroke, there's no direct line between them, and there is no way to bounce the ball (assuming perfect conditions). Thanks to Ben for pointing this obvious error.

The Insomniac Coder

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