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A world without these people

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Sometimes, when a famous person dies you think about what that person meant to you and what they did for you and the world in their lifetime. When a famous person dies too soon you think about what they would have done for the world in the remainder of their lifetime had it gone on for another 20 – 40 years or so. In the last few weeks we have seen Prince and yesterday Muhammad Ali die, both of which meant something to the world. Ali, was 74 and meant a lot for the sport, but also did a lot next to and after his boxing career, but in all honesty was not going to do more great things. Prince did a lot for music, not only with his own music, but also the music he wrote. If he would have been around for another 20 years or so, we would have seen a lot more great music, no doubt.

influencial_people

A little more back in history we have more great people that meant something to the world. Nelson Mandela, well you hardly have to say anything about that man, from battling regimes in South Africa and fighting against apartheid his entire life, to connecting people until his death and in general being a very likable guy. Though it is sad to loose a man like that, he was old and his greatest achievements were behind him.

A very different kind of man was Ayrton Senna the 3 time Formula 1 world champion that died way to soon at Imola in 1994 at the age of 34. It is always interesting to think of what would have happened to Formula 1 had he not died that day. Would Michael Schumacher have been world champion that year (his first time) and the next year and if not, would he have ever been the world champion?

Steve Jobs. Not an Apple guy myself, but it is clear that Steve changed the way we connect to people today, but what would have happend if he was still around. Would we have the larger iPad pro’s that he thought were to large, would we have iPhone’s that are way more innovative than the ones we had the past year, with nothing really new and exciting.

And in my own country a guy like Pim Fortuyn, a politician on his way to become prime minister of Holland that was shot and killed before he could get to that post. No matter if you agree with his views or not, it was an interesting guy and probably was going to be the first openly gay prime minister of Holland with a few pretty extreme (for that time) views. I know that even after his death politics changed because of him, would have liked to see what he could have done when alive.

So, after a few  already dead people lets see which people would be a big loss to the world when they died today (Don’t get me wrong, each death is a big loss, but most are not a big thing on a global scale)

One could argue for presidents and people like that, but to be honest if one dies, another that is kinda the same will take his/her place, so that not really a big loss (again, if you look at it in the global scheme of things).

One that comes to mind is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl that was shot in the head by the Taliban, survived and is nog traveling the world to talk about female education and even has a Nobel Prize already. Pretty sure she is going to do a lot of good things in the rest of her life (she is just 18 years old). She would be a big loss to the world for sure.

Someone else that comes to mind is Elon Musk (the guy from the rockets, electric cars and mission to Mars), what would happen if he died today. Will the Model 3 electric car ever see the light of day, will we still have cheap rockets to space and will we ever get to Mars? Watching an interview with him today there is a lot of other stuff in that guys mind that will come out into the real world at some point. The Hyperloop for example and neural lace to connect us to technology. I for one would like to see him try all that stuff.

But people do not just have a positive influence on the world, what would happen if for example Kim Jong Un would die today? Is there anyone to replace him? Would the regime crumble and fall apart? Would the North Koreans finally see what really is going on? Or would a look-a-like just fill in his place or some random guy claiming to be ‘The great leaders’ reincarnation?

There are a lot more people that do great things, but I can not think of many more that would really make a big impact on the world would they die today in either a positive of negative way. Feel free to comment and mention anyone you think should be on the list.

 

 

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Iedereen verstand van Formule 1?

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Jan Lammers plaatste dit bericht op Facebook over een uitzending van Voetbal Inside en het zogenaamde verstand van Formule 1:

LINK

Het gaat in het kort over dat de mannen van VI zonder enige kennis van Formule 1 het alleen maar afzeiken en doen alsof ze er verstand van hebben.

Hoewel ik wel het een en ander weet over Formule 1 (maar genoeg om aan de foto te zien dat het op Zandvoort is), ik kijk pas 20 jaar ofzo dus dan steek je wat op, ben ik zeker geen expert, maar ik wilde toch even reageren op de mannen van VI. Hier onder dus.

Goeie foto trouwens bij het stuk van Jan Lammers

 

 

De afgelopen 20 jaar die gasten nooit iets horen zeggen over Formule 1 (OK heb de afgelopen 20 jaar ook niet gekeken, maar daar ga ik voor het gemak maar even vanuit) en als Max nu een race wint (en binnenkort ook wereldkampioen is) hebben ineens allemaal mensen er verstand van. Ik ben bang dat we dit naast die gasten van VI nog veel meer gaan zien in de toekomst.

Het interessante aan F1 is juist dat je de achtergrond weet. Het is alleen maar rondjes rijden, dat klopt, maar als je weet dat Max bijvoorbeeld heel laat kan remmen zonder alles te blokkeren (want dat heeft hij tot nu toe veel laten zien) dan kijk je heel anders naar de eerste bocht na het rechte eind.

Als je weet dat Hamilton en Rosberg al jaren niet de beste maatjes zijn, ondanks dat ze in hetzelfde team rijden dan weet je dat het een keer fout moet gaan, de spanning zit er dan dus in wanneer dat is (afgelopen weekend dus). Daarna zit er dus weer spanning in het feit dat het al mis is gegaan en de vraag wat er dan de volgende race gebeurd. Zal Rosberg hetzelfde doen, of laat Hamilton het wel uit zijn hoofd om in zo’n zelfde gat te duiken (wat mij niet het geval lijkt, want hij is een echte racer en will kosten wat kost winnen).

Als je weet dat Massa Max veel te jong vond en zelfs gevaarlijk, dan is het leuk dat je nu ziet dat hij helemaal zoek gereden wordt door Max die nog bijna niks heeft fout gedaan in zijn Formule 1 loopbaan (ook Monaco vorig jaar was niet Max zijn schuld als je het mij vraagt)

Als je weet dat Max voor het ongeluk in Monaco strafpunten heeft gekregen op zijn licentie, kan je je opwinden over het feit dat Alonso dit jaar voor een vergelijkbare actie geen strafpunten krijgt.

Als je weet dat diverse coureurs op diverse banen om het leven zijn gekomen tijdens de race of naar aanleiding van een ongeluk tijdens een race, dan geeft dat elk jaar toch weer een andere kijk op diezelfde race (Imola – Senna en Ratzenberger, Suzuka – Bianchi)

Als je weet dat er op verschillende banen grote ongelukken tijdens de start hebben plaatsgevonden dan zit je toch net even meer in spanning in de jaren erna.

Dit alles betekend dus dat je al jaren moet kijken om al die zaken te weten te komen en dat dit een schijnbaar saaie race toch erg interessante kan maken (hoewel er zeker ook saaie races zijn als je wel al die feiten weet).

Kort om, ik ben dus bang dat er veel mensen op TV zullen komen die vanaf volgende week pas de F1 zijn gaan kijken, omdat Max het afgelopen week zo goed heeft gedaan en dan direct ‘kenner’ zijn omdat ze op TV zijn. Ik hoop dus dat de ‘kenners’ ook daadwerkelijk iets meer weten dan “Hij is 18 jaar, kan goed racen, rijd voor Red Bull en zijn vader heet Jos”

We zullen zien.

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Dive into the Dark Web

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When browsing the web and watching the news these days you hear a lot about the so called Dark Web and the Tor network. This is a part of the internet (the largest part people say) that is hidden from the general public unless you have a special browser and know your way around. You are supposed to be able to find anything on there, from website that also have site on the normal web to sites where you can buy drugs and guns and site where you can hire hackers or even hitmen. You should be able to also find childporn and nasty stuff like that on there, but for obvious reasons I did not look for that and I will not go into that.

Other then the things mentioned above the Dark Web is also used for good, for example people in countries with a hostile regime are able to get news in and out of the country without the government knowing who they are. So, the Dark Web is used by anyone that wants to keep their identity hidden, for whatever reason they have.

Before I go any further let me start by saying I have no interest in using any of the illegal services I have found on the Dark Web, but it is interesting to me what is going on on that part of the web and it is fun to figure out how one would actually buy stuff from the Dark Web and most importantly keep your identity hidden while doing that.

So, how to get on the Dark Web, well you can not get on there with any of the regular browsers, like Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer, you need a special browser and the one to use is the Tor browser. Not sure if there are more, but this at least is the most well known. The Tor browser is basically a modified version of Firefox that routes traffic trough various servers and keeps you anonymity safe.

tor-browser-logo
Getting the Tor browser is easy (and legal) just click the Tor icon above and it will take you to the website of the Tor Project (all on the ‘normal’ web). Just click the link on there and it will download the browser like any other piece of software and after that you can install it. After that you open the browser and you are on the Dark Web…well not really. You can not go into google and type “buy drug” or “buy guns” and expect to get on some website where you can buy that. Google on Tor is exactly the same google as on the normal web other then that you might end up on a google page from another country (I ended up at google.no because my traffic was routed trough Norway). In face every site you go trough by typing the URL you are used to do in your normal browser, gets you on the same page you are used too.

To find any of the hidden pages on the Dark Web you need to find a page with an .onion extension. So like .com or .nl the .onion extension is especially for the Dark Web and can only be accessed by the Tor browser. The problem is that you can’t just go to www.buyanillegalgun.onion as most url’s are just a random set of characters. For example lets look at the DuckDuckGo search engine (The search engine that doesn’t track you). On the normal web you can find it here:  https://duckduckgo.com/ but on the Dark Web you will have to go here: https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/ which is not a reals easy URL to remember. There are websites on both the normal web as the Dark Web that contain a list of .onion websites, one if which is The Hidden Wiki, which has a rather large list of interesting sites. There are of course a lot more sites on the Dark Web, with all sorts of stuff you might not want to know about, but I’m guessing that even the Dark Web has a Darker Web with even more nasty and scary sites, but they will not be listed on a easy to find list on the web and will most likely be on invitation only.

So, what can you buy on the web if  you know where to look? Without looking too hard I found pages to buy drugs and guns and a page I could hire a hacker to hack anyone or anything. Drugs and guns send to any address you want and I assume you give that hacker a name and that’s it you would just have to get them the money they want for their goods of service. You have been taking steps te be untraceable until now, so it is best for both you and the seller to not use a credit card to pay them, because that is not ver anonymous. The way to pay on the Dark Web is by using Bitcoins.

Bitcoins are a so called crypto currency, which is money that is not linked to any bank or country and can be transferred without cost and most importantly, for the products I talk about above, anonymous. To use bitcoins you have to create a virtual wallet where you can store them. Assuming you are indeed buying a gun or drugs, I guess you are creating that wallet with information not leading to you. Next you have to add money to that wallet, which can be done by credit card or iDEAL for example, but again you might want to keep yourself hidden and find other ways. There are services that give you bitcoins for cash money or money transfers, so keeping yourself hidden might take some work.

Next would be making the deal which, strangely, will be done by email, which is not the most secure way to communicate. All of the sites I found with shady business used encrypted email and all of them did this with a program called GPA is the GNU Privacy Assistant (GPA). This piece of software translated normal text to gibberish (encrypted text) which you can send over email to the seller. The seller has published a his own public encryption key on his site which you will need to use to encrypt your message. To that public key is linked his own personal key which he (and only he) can use to decrypt your message to normal text.

As an example I encrypted a piece of text: “this is a piece of text”

Which will end up looking like:

—–BEGIN PGP MESSAGE—–
Version: GnuPG v2

hQEMAxmn+eJAZz0bAQf+Mj8z9+/d5k8tZC5cITkhTpe2srjwN5w5Rbj1HZglPVwX
DUoCu++CNkm/5UUDv4+riQK+8qpjSk1dutenuf+ghiVj+u68r5X0vkU0UNrAv8l3
WlJCL9tHqipC/q84ZcI9AvUN55PVcjA2pIS0TmfrF2Ru35uv+J8hbZ0fyK5qS7vM
FzWxnbP+431fzQIQ17abNAIfxqPB+LB6Lz4fjPkLci7kMZcelROik+fOgynRGVDl
e0RU5umF9hNHoWLExv5dyABgiyPXK69LyyRmlZX3vTLSsRFbMIifNnghBgysuVf3
gFQZblz1BUq1dYHdcVnwtPpwDI3fcem/cEiy/dTaO9JQAfuZVy78tfXeFFrmOZ2n
OA5Aqo3+HcUSsVW1cwEkJqDvQzeREDTJqM+txzDidVJOwpu2NNBPz2XwzlcdpdYI
CyZ6JGjn4xK2W1IhKzGCfrM=
=rMYJ

—–END PGP MESSAGE—–

 

and only the one with the private key that goes with the public key I used can decrypt it

So that’s another step in the process of buying stuff you are not supposed to buy from the web, next is the shipping. This can of course go to your house, but again, not very safe I’d say. It seems this might be the most tricky part of your ‘operation’. It might be pretty safe to send stuff to your house, but what if you do not what the seller to know your address, just in case? A P.O. Box is an option, but you need some kind of identification to get one, so you could pay someone to get one for you and give you the key, or get a fake ID, which would give you the same problem of getting it send to you without it being traced to you. You can send it to the postoffice for yourself to pick it up, but I assume you need to show some sort of ID when picking up a package and if you do not have one for John Doe you will not get your package.

It looks like staying totally anonymous will take some time ans work, but possible I’d say, it all depends on how much you want or need the item you are buying I suppose.

 

If for some reason you want to send me an encrypted email, use my public key below.

—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Version: GnuPG v2
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=FhKu

—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

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Formula 1 Qualifying 2016

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The 2016 season of Formula 1 is in it’s second race weekend and there is some discussion about the way the qualifying is going. With the first race in Australia the Q1 and Q2 were OK to watch as there were a lot of cars on track to begin with, but Q3 was done with 7 minutes still on the clock. It seemed to me that the teams did not get the new system as a lot of drivers went out of the pit with no chance of setting a time, it looked to me that they thought they were able to finish the lap they were on when their time ran out, which was not the case, some teams learned quickly and did it right in Q2 already, but some still got it wrong. Social media blew up with people saying the new system sucked and it needed to go back to the old system, which worked and was exciting to watch.

formula-1-qualifying-2016

The powers that be decided during the next 2 weeks that they would give it another go in the next race in Bahrain, which was yesterday afternoon. Well, the teams did seem to get the system now, as drivers were going on the track at the right time and drove themselves out of elimination and pushed others in, but with 4 minutes to go in Q1 and Q2 all drivers were in the pit and nothing happened anymore. This is because the top teams got out in the very beginning of those sessions, set a fast time in 1 lap and went back in to wait it out. Q3 seemed to go the same as the first time, but because Hammilton set a bad time his first time around he had to go out another time, which caused other to try again too, but with 4 minutes to go everyone was in the pit again and it was done, this would have been 5 minutes if the red light at the end of the pit would have gone to green when the timer for Q3 started.

So, what needs to change? Going back to the old system does not seem to be an option for some reason, so whats my idea for a new qualifying system?

The elimination system is something that I think can be fun, but you need to give people time to react to times set by other drivers, so I would get rid of the 3 session system en just use 1 long session, lets say 1 hour (but that might need some tweaking). We start out with 10 minutes ‘free’ driving, so everyone can set a time, after that a timer starts, 90 seconds is OK (depending on the time it takes to do a lap, so that might need to change for different tracks), but people are allowed to finish the lap they are in when the time runs out, so when you are in the pit when your timer starts, you have time for the out lap and a fast lap. This would however mean that the top teams will set 1 fast lap in the beginning and would be done, but the times would reset after a set amount of drivers are out of qualifying, lets say each 5 drivers (22, 17, 12, 7, 2) which means that in the end the top 2 drivers need to do a shootout for pole.

With the teams understanding that the remaining of the 90 seconds will go to the next driver (as they seemed to do in Bahrain) I think we would see more people on track.

Formule 1 2016 – preview

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Het is elk jaar weer een gat waar je in valt zo rond november en de vraag is, wat ga je dan doen met je vrije zondag, maar gelukkig weet je dat het in maart weer begint.

Formula 1 logo

Uiteraard heb ik het over de Formule 1 en hoewel er zeker minder jaren tussen zaten volg ik het toch al dik een jaar of 20. Zeker afgelopen jaar (2015) was natuurlijk weer erg leuk en dan niet zo zeer vanwege de vraag wie de race ging winnen of wie kampioen ging worden, maar omdat we eindelijk weer een Nederlander mee hebben rijden en één die in tegenstelling tot de heren die hier voor in de Formule 1 zaten, bij een team zit die een deuk in een pakje boter kan rijden en dan ook nog eens het talent lijkt te hebben (of is het de ballen of de onbevangenheid) om dat dan ook te doen, we zullen het in 2016 zien. Hoe dan ook heeft ‘onze’ Max er toch wel een spektakel van gemaakt en dat vinden niet alleen wij Nederlanders maar zeker ook de Britten (BBC en SKY-sport) en eigenlijk ook de rest van de wereld als je de social media mag geloven. Maar goed dat was 2015, onze Max moet nu gaan bewijzen dat hij het echt kan en het niet gewoon mazzel was.

Dus, wat kunnen we verwachten in 2016, of eigenlijk, wat zijn de zaken die ik verwacht en naar uit kijk.

Bij de teams lijkt er niet al te veel veranderd te zijn, er zijn wat namen anders Lotus => Renault en Marussia => Manor dat is het hoewel de verandering van Lotus naar Renault op de achtergrond natuurlijk een grote verandering is, maar op de voorgrond lijkt dat alleen een verandering van naam en we hebben natuurlijk ook het nieuwe Haas, een Amerikaans team met een Fransman en een Mexicaan als coureurs. Haas heeft natuurlijk al de nodige ervaring met racen en ondanks dat het nieuw is in de Formule 1 verwacht ik toch wel wat van ze, wellicht al wel een puntje hier en daar.

Bij de coureurs zien we ook voornamelijk dezelfde namen of namen die we al kennen in de Formule 1, bij Manor en Renault zien we echter 3 nieuwe namen of liever gezegd nieuw in de Formule 1. Pascal Wehrlein, Rio Haryanto en Jolyon Palmer allen niet echt nieuwe in een raceauto, maar nog geen Formule 1 races gereden.

Dan de banden, we hebben een nieuwe compound en deze heeft een mooie paarse zijkant gekregen. Het is de Ultra Soft, die dus nog zachter is dan de Super Soft die we al hadden. Word waarschijnlijk alleen op een aantal stratencircuits gebruikt, zoals Monaco. Verder kunnen de teams dit jaar uit 3 compounds per race kiezen, waar dat in 2015 nog 2 compounds waren die door Pirelli werden gekozen. Dit gaat voor ons kijkers wat verwarrend worden, omdat er in 2015 werd gesproken over primary en option tyres wat dus voor iedereen hetzelfde was. Nu kunnen de primary en option banden dus per team verschillen, ben benieuwd hoe dit zal gaan.

Het geluid, daar is sinds de V6 met turbo nogal wat over gezegd en het was inderdaad nogal zacht. Hier hebben ze dit jaar wat op gevonden. Er zijn namelijk extra uitlaten toegevoegd die uitlaatgassen afvoert die niet door de turbo gaan en dus voor meer geluid zorgen. Voelt voor mij allemaal wat kunstmatig, maar er wordt wel meer herrie gemaakt.

Nieuw dit jaar is matte verf op de een aantal auto’s. Red Bull heeft dit in ieder geval en ook Renault schijn dit ook te gaan doen, maar dat zien we morgen (16 maart) voor het eerst. Men zegt dat deze matte verft ongeveer een halve kilo aan gewicht scheelt ten opzichte van glimmende verf.

Dat zijn zo ‘from the top of my head’ wat zaken die ik wel interessant vond, maar er zijn natuurlijk nog honderden kleine en grotere zaken die veranderd zijn, zowel technische als in de regels.

Maar goed, wat verwacht ik van de Formule 1 in 2016?

Mercedes

Zal wel weer bovenaan staan

Ferrari

Zal ze het een stuk moeilijker kan maken dan in 2015 en waarschijnlijk wel wat overwinningen meer kan pakken. Vraag me af wat Kiki Räikkönen nog kan, had niet een best jaar.

Williams

Ging afgelopen jaar eigenlijk best goed en hoewel Massa een beetje een zuurpruim wordt is het toch een leuk ‘oud’ team dat thuishoort in de Formule 1.

Red Bull

Heeft in de basis dezelfde motor als in 2015 en die was niet zo best, maar ik mag aannemen (of hopen) dat deze over de winder heen wel wat is verbeterd.

Force India

Deden het ook prima en voor een team dat een aantal jaar geleden toch zeker niet zo goed gingen toen het nog Spyker of Midland was. Het lijkt weer op het niveau te zijn als toen het nog Jordan was in de jaren 90.

Torro Rosso

Een kleine 100 pk meer dan in 2015, maar een motor die niet meer wordt doorontwikkeld, dus die moeten aan het begin van het seizoen grote stappen maken en punten scoren, zal aan het einde van het seizoen lastiger worden als de 2016 motoren nog wel worden aangepast.

Sauber

Om eerlijk te zijn valt er niet zo veel te vertellen over Sauber. Hadden niet zo’n best jaar in 2015, kijken hoe 2016 verloopt.

McLaren

Ja McLaren, denk dat 2015 op zijn minst een klote jaar voor ze was. Ik had in ieder geval veel meer verwacht van Honda, laten we hopen dat ze het lek boven hebben en dat ze in ieder geval mee kunnen doen voor de punten.

Renault

Op het laatste moment hebben ze Lotus gekocht dat in de financiële problemen zat. Natuurlijk een grote naam in de Formule 1 vanwege de motoren door de jaren heen (maar zeker niet in 2015) en hun eigen F1 team. Lotus heeft het in 2015 nog niet eens zo heel slecht gedaan, maar dat zal voor een deel aan de Mercedes motor gelegen hebben, nu met hun eigen motor, die in 2015 niet best ging, ben benieuwd.

Manor

In 2015 standaard achteraan, ik verwacht voor 2016 hetzelfde.

Haas

Zoals hierboven al gezegd, veel ervaring in racen, nog niets in F1. Ik denk dat ze het weleens goed zouden kunnen gaan doen. Heeft de 2016 ‘drive train’ van Ferrari, dus daar zal het niet aan liggen.

Goed, ik zit er aanstaande zondag klaar voor met een glaasje jus, wat croissants en een kop koffie (het is namelijk nogal vroeg) en heb er zin in. Dus zoals David Croft (Crofty) op de BBC altijd zei “Lights out and away we go !”

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Phases in Revit a short explanation

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There was a question on www.revitforum.org about phases in revit and if I could make a small explanation with some images, so here it is.

Making the phases

On the Manage Panel you will find the Phases button, once clicked you get a screen where you can make the phases you need. In the case from the question that will be 2 phases, one Existing and one New.

revit phases

 

Setting up Filters

This is basically where you tell revit what to do with which phase. You have 3 options, By Category, where it will show the object as it is setup in the family, so the standard way you made the family. Overridden, this is what you use when you want things in that phase to look different then the same item in another phase. Not Displayed, well that kinda explains itself. I named my Filter Example in this case.

revit phases filters

 

Setup the Overrides

This is where you tell an object on a specific phase what it should look like and you get about the same options as you get in the Visibility/Graphics settings. In my example I set the New items to be a wide green line and the demolished items to be a thin red dashed line.

revit phases overrides

 

Setting items on the right Phase

In an ideal world you would activate a phase before you start modeling you building and families you place will be placed in that phase right away. You can also do that after you placed the families, but that will be a bit more work. Seeing that the one asking the question has everything placed already I’ll explain how to change phases for families. If you select a family you will see 2 options in the Properties panel called Phase Created and Phase Demolished, which pretty much is what they do. Select a family (or multiple ones) and set them to the existing phase. Select the families that are new and set them to the New phase. If you have families that are placed in the existing phase, but will be removed in the New phase you can set that too, or use the Demolish tool (looks like a sledge hammer) in the Modify panel.

revit phases existing new

Setting the right phase and filter

Once that is all done you choose the right phase and filter in the properties panel and voila you get this (the text I added to make thins clear, that will not be added)

 revit-phasing-result

New York City – Downtown

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Not long ago me and all of my colleagues went on a trip to New York City. We were asked to pick a part of the city and find out nice locations to visit. When traveling by myself I usually dont make a big day to day plan, but I do try and find things I want to see before I go and see if I can see those when I’m there.  As I have been in New York City 2 times already I have been to all the touristy things so I went for the stuff that is a bit ‘off the beaten path’ so to speak.

First of all, what is Downtown New York actually. It is everything on Manhattan below 14th street and has some of the up and coming areas in New York like SoHo (South of Houston), NoHo (North of Houston), Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street).

Brooklyn Battery Tunnel Air Shaft

The first one is one we have all seen, but probably don’t realize that. It is the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel Air Shaft, which is a not so nice looking hollow building that provides the tunnel below it from fresh air. This is of course not why we know it. We know it because it is not just an air shaft, it is also the Head Quarters of the Men in Black.

New York City Hall Subway Station

One I will go too next time I’m in New York by myself, or with people willing to visit it, because this time there was just no time to do so. The subway station below city hall has been there for over 100 years (construction finished in 1904) but closed down in 1945. They started doing guided tours to it in 1995, but stopped that in 1998 because it was considered a security risk being underneath city hall. But you can still go there with the subway, you just have to stay inside the 6 train after its last stop and the train will drive trough the city hall station to make the turn to go back. It is probably not as nice looking as the images in the presentation, but at least I’ll see it.

W Hotel & Residences

From the outside not that special, just another high-rise building in New York City, but once you enter the bar there is that pretty cool ceiling. This also is one that is on my list for the next time I am in New York, no idea if you can just walk in and have a look around though.

Fulton Center

Just a subway hub Designed by Grimshaw Architects in collaboration with Arup and world renowned designer James Carpenter with shops around it, so it does not sound that interesting, but the glass Sky Reflector , as it is called is pretty cool.

Hook and Ladder 8

A fire station in down town New York, like many others, but this one is special. It is the headquarters of the Ghostbusters, so expect some ectoplasm and other creepy stuff when you are there. Well no, it actually is just a fire station, they just filmed there for the movie.

Charging Bull

Probably the only well known item on my list here, but it is a nice one. Right in the middle of the area in New York that caused the economic crisis and lost the world a lot of money. You can probably not get a nice picture of it when you are in New York because there are bus loads of tourists around it all the time.

8 Spruce Street

A tower bt architect Frank Gehry which looks much better on pictures then it does in real life, at least when I was there. The wrinkly building just looks weird and for some reason not extreme enough, but at least it is a bit different that the usual buildings.

Cooper Square

Cooper square has 2 strange buildings on it. The Cooper Union, which is a school for science and art and The Standard which is a 21 story luxury hotel. The Standard is a building I kinda like, especially the way they build it next to the old building that houses the Asian Pub. Not sure about The Cooper Union, looks to me it is just weird for the sake of being weird. The interior is better then the exterior if you ask me, even though I just saw that on pictures as we were not allowed to go inside.

So, there are a few things I will try to see next time I am in New York, and I’m sure there will be more visits as I love that place.

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When are skills actually skills?

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I realize that this is a weird question but let me explain. The skills I’m talking about are the skills people say they have on LinkedIn. I have a couple of skills listed on there and got endorsed by some people for those skills. Stuff like English (judging by this article that is a skill I really have) and AutoCAD, which I have been using for the past 15 years or so and Revit which I have been using the past 4 years. I also have PhotoShop and Illustrator on there, which I hesitated to do as I do know the basics, but in no way am I an expert in either of those programs, but I know enough to do the stuff I need to do with them. Because LinkedIn does not let you put a ‘grade’ on your skills I figured it was good enough to list it.

skills cloud

Then there are skills I have a little bit of, for example SketchUp. Sure I know how to run it and I can make a simple model with it, but as I have never done any more work with it then maybe 30 minutes I do not consider that a skill.

That brings me to the one that bugs me to see as skill listed on some people, which is BIM (Building Information Modeling). This is a bit of a fashion word the last couple of years and you see it pop-up as skill on a lot of peoples profile, some of which I am pretty sure of have never done any BIM project. They might have done a project in Revit of ArchiCAD, but that does not qualify you to say you know BIM if you ask me. This is the reason I do not have BIM listed as a skill I have. I did projects in Revit over the years and I did a project that was BIM-ish, but it was nowhere near a full blown BIM project and when I was put on a BIM project right now there is a pretty big change I would make a fool out of myself if there was nobody around to help me out.

So that brings me back to the question I started with, When are skills actually skills?  When do you list a skill you have (of think you have) as a skill on LinkedIn?

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Justin Wilson dies of head injury

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Racing has become a lot safer over the years and while accidents do happen, the drivers usually walk away with minor injuries or are taken to the hospital and end up with injuries that are none life threatening. There are however times when it seems that racing is not as safe as it actually is and 2015 seems to be such time. Not long ago Jules Bianchi died after his crash in Formula 1 and during a Superbike race at Laguna Seca both Bernat Martinez and Daniel Rivas Fernandez died after a crash with multiple drivers.

Today Justin Wilson died after a freak accident during the Indycar race at Pocono Raceway where he got hit by debris (nose cone) coming of another car that crashed into the wall. Because he had nothing to do with the crash and he had no blame what so ever, this might be more difficult to accept then when a driver crashes after a mistake he made.

08-24-Justin-Wilson-Std

Justin Wilson drove for Minardi and Jaguar Racing in the Formula 1 and after a few years he moved to the Champ Car / IndyCar in the USA where he raced many years. Justin Wilson had a wife and 2 daughters age 7 and 5.

 

This accident will no doubt spark another discussion on racing safety and the need for a closed race car. I think this is not the way to go, mainly because the danger that comes with racing is part of why people watch it and why drivers race. Sure we all feel bad when something like this happens, but all drivers know the risks and are willing to take them.

Jules Bianchi

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Een jonge, bij de niet Formule 1 kijkers, onbekende Franse coureur van een klein team die vanwege een bizar ongeluk met een takelwagen na 9 maanden helaas toch is overleden. Tijdens de race in Japan verloor hij de macht over zijn auto en botste tegen de takelwagen aan die op dat moment een andere auto uit de grindbak aan het slepen was. Dit ongeluk heeft er voor gezorgd dat de regels in de Formule 1 zijn aangepast en bijvoorbeeld de virtuele safetycar is ingevoerd. Voor de Formule 1 heeft Jules in diverse andere klassen geraced, onder andere de Formule Renault, Formule 3 en GP2.Ondanks dat er helaas vaker coureurs van andere klassen om het leven komen is het voor alle coureurs die nu in de F1 rijden de eerste collega die tijdens het uitoefenen van zijn werk om het leven komt en sinds zijn ongeluk zie je ook alle F1 coureurs steun betuigen aan Jules en zijn familie door middel van de hashtag #ForzaJules. Ik verwacht een indrukwekkende herdenking tijdens de race in Hongarije volgend weekend.

Jules Bianchi bw3 August 1989 – 17 July 2015

 

Het is voor het eerst in 21 jaar dat er een coureur aan de gevolgen van een crash tijdens een race is overleden. Toen zijn in 1 weekend zowel Ayrton Senna en Roland Ratzenberger om het leven gekomen. Sinds dien is de Formule 1 een stuk veiliger geworden, zelfs zo veilig dat sommige coureurs zich afvragen of het niet TE veilig is.