I post this in every FreeCAD thread: If you're going to start designing something with it, use the spreadsheet tool to make everything parametric. You'll save yourself a ton of time as your designs get more complicated.
Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
The downside of spreadsheets is they can really slow your model down. Every cell change triggers a full recompute of the 3D model. VarSets offer much faster performance while sacrificing a couple spreadsheet features. So always choose VarSets over spreadsheets if you can.
On the one hand it's clearly suboptimal for any change, even ones that nothing depends on, to trigger a recompute. But also it feels like there's something a bit broken with spreadsheet dependency resolution in the first place. I've never been able to nail down a test case, but models seem to go over a performance cliff at a certain point. Ordinarily I'd put it down to something being unavoidably quadratic, but I've had cases where I'm certain that the same model is radically slower after being reloaded off disk.
It's very common (Fusion calls it User Parameters, etc.) and indeed nice practice. FreeCAD has a few ways to do it, Spreadsheets but also free-form properties on objects. It's very flexible in this regard.
The only issue I have with the Spreadsheet is that I need to add an alias for every value I want to use in the Sketch or Part Design workbench. In practice, this usually looks like
A B
width 2mm
length 3mm
and for every cell in B I add an alias with the same value as in column A. Is there a way around that?
The Fusion implementation is awful - you can adjust one variable, one time, then you have to reopen the dialog to do another. At least for me it's always become non-responsive after a single edit, for years now. I've always assumed I'm just holding it wrong, but I don't know. I've moved on.
The worst part about fusions implementation is that you CANNOT edit the User Parameters while you are viewing the part easily. I like to edit the params and drag it around, but it SUCKS in fusion
This is an outdated advice. Spreadsheet is hard to use in comparison to VarSets [0]. Recent changes in 1.1 make them even easier and more intuitive to use.
In Canada, the CF is working on rebuilding their expertise in HF radio, as they realized that in case of large scale conflict, satellite systems aren't going to be dependable.
Any serious journalist/aid work efforts should be doing the same. It's too easy for countries to disable terrestrial internet to suppress reporting. And it's too easy for AI to generate believable but false video evidence. But if you can afford to put a man on the ground, he can get information into the next hemisphere with just a sandwich sized radio and a spool of wire -- a fantastic backup against inevitable systemic disruptions.
Canada has a lot of obscure technology that would normally fall under export restriction in the US.
The problem I have with the Canadian business culture was there is zero protection on a global scale for your company, privacy, and or personal safety. =3
Ever notice just how many countries seem to be pretty convinced war is coming? And don't tell me it's all Trump, at the very least they believe that whoever follows Trump isn't going to be very different. Plus it's mostly EU that's rearming, and surely they aren't afraid they'll be attacked ...
EU had a reliable military and technological partner in the US until circa 2016, and maintaining that belief became untenable in 2024. The reason EU countries are all of the sudden investing in onshoring critical military capabilities is that until Trump it’s been the policy position of the US to prevent them from doing so by doing it for them, a policy we inaugurated after WW2 and expanded during the Cold War for various reasons that we seem very sure don’t apply anymore.
I've worked in defense tech. This is true, but it should be described much more as "Europe believed US would save their ass - for free, and did nothing" (with exceptions, like France, and some token efforts within NATO)
The US was not holding back much within NATO.
It's more that most European countries had little reason to spend money on defense. Until recently, Finland and Sweden were small countries close to Russia but outside NATO, and their defense spending was similar to West European NATO members. In other words, nobody saw any real military threats to Western / Northern Europe, and the NATO security guarantees had more political than military value. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the threat environment changed.
I'm less familiar with the situation in Eastern Europe. Many countries joined NATO as quickly as possible, because they understood the Russian doctrine and saw a real threat there. Russia tries to surround itself with puppets / friends / allies, by force if necessary, to avoid having to fight in its own territory. Many East European countries didn't want to be part of that so soon after the fall of communism. But it looks like the idea of being in friendly terms with Russia instead of fully committing to the West never went away.
You know, we're saying the same thing. The TLDR is that Europe systematically refused to spend even token amounts on defense, despite agreeing to spend more in international treaties (and then cheating on what little spending they do, e.g. "raising a bridge" for a tank to pass under it, as defense spending. Coincidentally doing this saved the maintenance spending that the government had unlawfully delayed. And most countries raised more bridges "for tanks" than they had tanks in the first place, and widened them to boot. This then was the promised defense spending ...)
They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion".
The idea of all these is slightly different, but boils down to that because first the cold war ended and then communism "died" with the Soviet union, democracy would just win everywhere without any effort from anyone (or at least, no effort from anyone but the US). Because of this wars and militaries and ... would just end. Because why would you have these between trade-based democracy? Let's just leave some military rescue units in place and get rid of the rest!
In reality it was progress that ended. Or, at least, a lot of technological progress ended with the end of defense spending. For example, the EU (technically France), was the first nation with a starlink-like satellite network. Of course it was version 0.01beta of starlink, not remotely close to the capabilities of the current version, but it did do packet transmission over very long distances). I have helped write software to make it's use more tolerable. They let it wither and die, just like everyone since.
> They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion".
Who is this "they"?
* "The end of history" - coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist.
* "The unipolar moment" - coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American political columnist.
* "The peace dividend" - older term, popularized by George HW Bush, an American president.
* "Military-to-civilian conversion" - older term, popularized by Seymour Melman, an American professor of industrial engineering.
Europe wouldn't spend the agreed 2% of GDP on the military. Many presidents for many years tried to make them comply with the agreement, but they just ignored it. It was thought better to spend on the healthcare of the public and mock Americans for not having universal government healthcare.
Many people in countries in Europe, like Spain and Ireland, that effectively don't have militaries, are still laughing and mocking.
Again, this was a considered policy choice on the part of the United States. Unipolar military supremacy bought us a quiet Europe, a stable and high dollar, and the ability to set the terms on nearly every other negotiation we made with European countries. This was an intentional trade: we will spend on the military so you don’t have to. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, some US policymakers deluded themselves into thinking geopolitics didn’t exist anymore, and so we’ve come to start bitching more about our side of paying that bill, but we bought the American century with military spending.
And, to be clear, the US not having health care is a policy decision on the part of the US, not some lack of funding, as becomes clear when one looks at the expenditure per capita on healthcare in the US compared to other developed countries.
American supremacy was due to the previous superpowers smashing themselves against each other, and then being relatively poor for decades after while rebuilding the continent.
Sure, but we also spent time, money, and effort building a unipolar system and getting buy-in for that from Europe as a considered strategic choice. To turn around and then say “they’re freeloading” when the policy of the United States was to encourage them to freeload so we had unfettered control over large sections of the world’s geopolitical policy - yes, they took the deal we offered.
Which agreement are you referring to? The commonly cited 2% agreement that I'm aware of was for 2025 - which all members reached. When was Europe ever non-compliant?
It's part of the conditions for NATO membership. Oh and to have 4% as a target.
Of course they have renegotiated, and so now the target is 2% by 2027, with all historical arrears forgiven, and several countries have already publicly announced they agreed to it, won't do it (Ireland and Spain I'm aware of, I doubt they're the only ones)
You could also see this as most countries joining, promising to do this starting in 1949. Not even in the first years did most countries do this (except France). So most countries are let's generously say 1% of GDP in arrears, for 75 years now ...
> It's part of the conditions for NATO membership. Oh and to have 4% as a target.
Could you please share where the 2% were defined in the requirements since 1949, and where the 4% are currently defined?
As I already stated, the 2% requirement I'm aware of was negotiated in 2014, to be reached by the end of 2024. If this is indeed where the 2% come from, it's obviously completely ridiculous to act like the member countries didn't meet the requirements - it wasn't a requirement of the treaty they signed!
So yes, you're talking about the target of 2% by 2025. Why are you saying that the countries didn't comply with the target, when they did?
If the US wanted the 2% target to be met before then, you should have negotiated an earlier deadline. Don't agree to one deadline and then cry because an arbitrary earlier one hasn't been met.
Militaries have to always behave like there is a war coming soon. They might not believe that one is coming soon, but they have to behave like it is. If they don't, they won't be prepared when one does happen.
This is politicians rearming militaries, not militaries rearming themselves. You're right that militaries want to arm, but they've been trying for a very long time, and just been denied, and denied and denied some more.
Interesting. In Canada, for federal elections at least, you're assigned to a specific location and station. You can't vote anywhere else. There's a separate process for mail in ballots to confirm you didn't vote in advanced voting or on election day as well.
You can try voting again at other stations, especially since they don't require ID. You just need the name of somebody assigned to that station, who hasn't already voted. There is a signature check if there is a suspicion, but that's rarely done.
But that's practically never done. The risks are too high, and to have a significant impact would require enough votes to make it certain you'd get caught.
The signature check is actually not uncommon, particularly if the vote is contested or a recount done.
We had a vote thrown out of an election several years ago, the woman died right after the election, the signature on the card looked nothing like hers and was probably done by her daughter.
That said all indications are voter fraud is not any kind of wide spread problem in the United States.
A few things that I've needed to deal with in my off grid setup:
I like the MidNite solar controllers.
LiFePO4 batteries are great, with a few caveats:
- you must use batteries from the same batch, ie you can't upgrade capacity piecemeal, to avoid degrading the new ones
- cable lengths are important because even small differences in resistive losses between batteries can mean that one battery is doing more charging / discharging
- you can't charge below 0\*C, which I'm assuming could be a problem in New England
Not being able to charge below freezing shouldn't be a problem if you keep the batteries indoors. Is there a reason why you wouldn't? Fire concerns? Or is it just a space issue?
Yes, sorry, I was in a rush and didn't explain enough. For our usage, the cabin isn't occupied during the winter, and can drop below 0*C occasionally. The solar system is turned off though, so we don't worry about it.
If you're permanently there, it shouldn't be a concern. Sounds like modern BMS can disable charging at low temperatures so maybe not a worry for you at all if you're buying new batteries.
I have no formal CAD experience, I just wanted to build some stuff with my 3D printer.
If you are going to experiment with FreeCAD, I highly, highly recommend starting by learning about parametric modelling. Define everything in the spreadsheet, and relate all of the sizes to each other.
If you don't, it will be a very frustrating experience when you realize halfway into your design that some earlier piece needs to be tweaked, and your whole model falls apart.
Shorter answers don't necessitate terrible grammar. Maybe it's because my mom was a teacher and I had good grammar drilled into me, but I feel like it shows respect for the people you're communicating with.
Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
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