Amazon Prime whiteboard markers.

Sure it is not the board. After a while the boards lose a coating or something and the markers are hard to erase

I just picked up some hickvision IP cameras to play with. I'm not a fan of the the CCCP electronics brand, but Sony dropped out of the game so there's no other options as far as I can tell if you want a product that has firmware updates, and semi-accurate specifications.

FWIW, the current chi-com 6MP IP camera has far less dynamic range than even a decade old Sony. The colors cranked way up on the hickvision as well- just like a cheap TV set. The translations to English in the embedded software is terrible, but not the worst I've come across yet.

The ethernet cable shroud/gland for the cable you connect was warped, clearly an issue at the molding grade school/prison camp. Didn't want to deal with a RMA, so I just boiled the part in water and formed the shape back to how it should be. Works fine now, and took less time than a phone call.

How much did you save on the bottom of the barrel dry erase markers?

Ditch the whiteboard and replace it with an interactive monitor (aka large multimedia TV driven from PC).

It takes some time to get used to the slight lag between drawing and seeing results on the screen. But, has the distinct advantages of:

- instant remote participation (remote participants can draw on YOUR display to annotate / revise what you've drawn)

- captures images to provide an archive of presentation

- records *drawing*, not just results, so you can see how things evolved (capture the audio alongside for a more thorough representation)

- you can delete specific marks instead of dry-erasing areas

- markers never dry out

Of what material is the whiteboard made? The best is vitrified (Porcelain, not painted) white glaze on steel. Stays smooth for years, impervious to all but glass etchants. Magnetic, so one can stick papers to it.

I have had one of these in my Kitchen, where it gets heavy use, for 20 years so far. No signs of wear.

.

Joe Gwinn

No, the expos are file. It's a neat porcelain on steel board with faint grid lines.

It's a great board, porcelain on steel with grid lines. Expo markers work fine.

I like to draw.

The interactive monitor facilitates drawing. It just uses photons for ink instead of some pigment that has to be scrubbed off of a drawing surface. As such, it can "instantly" spread that ink to multiple users around the world -- as well as letting each of those users *add* to your drawing, capture snapshots to privately annotate, etc.

That drafting table is about 40 years old. It will still work 40 years from now. Your gadgets won't.

I like to sit at my table, look out at the trees, not interact with anyone, and draw.

I'm logging the thermal time constant of my EOM oven. Does anyone know what a French Curve is?

No, it's not a lady in Paris.

And you're not going to ship that drafting table off to someone in another *city* in anything close to real time. Do you ride a horse and buggy around town? Your *car* likely won't be running

40 years hence.

I can do the same with my "toys". Then, click the mouse and send copies to folks from whom I'd like comments.

Don't you have one in your stencils kit?

Think "paisleys".

John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Pump tip... long life...

John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You bezier being giving us more credit than that.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote in news:shblcd$ia$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Golden Ratio paisleys.

I still have mine, and an IBM flowcharting template too. Nice electric eraser.

The drafting machine is missing though. Do you have any spare scales for a Mutoh laying around? Mine are missing.

I draw schematics, and occasional mechanical sketches, freehand on blue-grid D-size vellum, so I don't need a drafting machine. Just a ruler now and then if I want really straght to-scale lines on mechanical stuff.

Someone else CADs my sketches. I find schematic entry on a computer to be really slow and restrictive compared to drawing with a pencil.

It's amazing how paper endures. And some simple things like hammers and light switches and pillows.

I'd expect that the average house, 1000 years from now, would be pretty familiar. Doors, windows, chairs, beds.

Or maybe it will look like a capsule like in the movie "Matrix"

Modern paper tends not to endure as well as old paper, as museum curators will tell you.

When you look at a 1000yo house, you will find there are very significant differences, including in those items you mention.

Artists pay particular attention to using "acid free" materials.

And, paper is bulky, easily burned, hard to duplicate, represents only a single point in the life of a document, etc.

We don't use any paper, here -- other than for grocery lists (which have a lifetime of days or hours). Everything else is done on a desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. -- so we can take snapshots, over time, share with others, alter it without being reliant on "pencil", etc.

It also lets you assign meaning to marks: this is the outer enclosure, this is the circuit board, these are the fasteners... without having to physically label everything with callouts (that clutter up the drawing).

Amazing that there are so *many* different types of hammers, given that it should be such a ubiquitous item, eh? When did the rubber mallet come on the scene? Or, the hammers used for automotive body work? Why don't all engineers have engineer's hammers? When did rim tempering come to the fore?

Wasn't memory foam invented in the middle ages -- by a friar in some european monastery? The same guy who added the pneumatic cylinder to the chair's upright??

Did frontier homes have many windows -- made of glass? Or, was a "curtain" used to represent a "closed" window?

You'd think "places to store dead bodies" would be invariant... yet they are in a continuous state of flux! How long until we decide that this is a silly/expensive practice? What will cemeteries look like 1000 years hence? "You mean they SAVED THE BODY??? Ick!"

This is how the catholic monks in Palermo (Sicily) did it with 8000 people, up until 1921.

Then along came the Spanish flu, and someone with scientific training used Rosalia Lombardo's corpse to show how it ought to be done. The monks realised they couldn't compete, and gave up.