Sustainability is everywhere these days. Just browse through the ads in Architectural Record and you’ll be amazed how every single building materials producer finds something green in their product - no matter how energy intensive it was to produce. There is also an onslaught of “sustainability” events around us. Earth Day had just passed when I received a conference announcement flyer that mentioned three “sustainable” conferences on one page:

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A comment on one of my SketchUp posts prompted me to provide clarification in the form of a new post rather than just a quick reply. The issue was that exported images from CAD files (SU in this case) can be quite grainy.

To export an image of the current view in SketchUp, go to File > Export > 2D Graphic… and select a file format for the export. In the save dialog that opens, there is an option button that allows for customizing. That’s where you want to make the following adjustments:

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Guess who outgrew the planters before the other seeds…

While Google serves me well, I always enjoy new forms of search - especially the mind-map format. One of those just crossed my paths. Give it a try:

As the German news site Spiegel-Online just announced, a committee of public representatives ranging from a popular comedian to the editor of the most prominent dictionary have determined their favourite words with a foreign root in the German language. The following winners rose to the top among approximately 3500 submissions:

• Tollpatsch (Hungarian) - A less than capable person.
• Currywurst (Tamil, Portuguese and English) - A hot dog with curry and ketchup, essentially. The other German street food after a Döner.
• Engel - An angle… that was easy to translate…
• Milchschake (English) - Anglophones, marvel at the spelling!
• Chaos - A great word in any language.

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