I've had a paid licence for it for many years but I have ended up shying away from using it because the UI is just so cumbersome. An incredibly powerful piece of software though.
I haven't tried the LLM approach recommended in the sibling comment, and I agree that the UI is quite cumbersome. Yet, once it clicks, it's still not super straightforward, but it allows for quickly implementing whatever one needs. I guess the UI complexity comes with its extremely powerful capabilities.
Get an LLM to generate a preset for what you want - it's ultimately driven by a json config. There are quite a few presets in the forum as well for various functions
What a lovely surprise to see EscapePod. One of the early early podcasts. If you search through their backlog along with the backlog of their sister podcasts, you’ll find some narrations from a much younger, less tired, me.
I miss that age of podcasting. I’m glad EscapePod is still going.
As a Proton user - the main trade-off for me is that you are forced to use their apps on mobile, and those apps are pretty barebones and (on iOS at least) have none of the bells and whistles of a modern iOS app, such as Home Screen widgets.
Since I use my own domain for email, I am considering moving over to another provider once my subscription term is up. I really miss widgets.
Although isn't there an Irish government grant to help cover the cost of the panel + installation? That would make comparing break even times across countries quite difficult.
Certainly isn’t today. In the U.K. solar panels have about a 14 month payback, no incentives other Thant hey are currently tax free (like food. Electric from the grid has a 5% tax)
On top of that there’s an inverter, and if you can’t use all the power immediately you’d need a battery too, which tends to increase the cost.
You do make a good point about VAT on electricity bills also being a factor in the break even calculation. In Ireland it's 9% and that's a temporary cost of living measure and will revert to 13.5% in 2030.
I have spent ~3 months working on various aspects of an MCP server builder at my day job and I hadn’t considered this solution to the nightmare of getting non technical end users connected. I shall be borrowing it next week!
Why would a private company deciding to release a Linux version of their product signal a government's follow-through? As far as I can tell, there is no current connection between Solidworks and the French government.
Solidworks is produced by a company that is owned by the Dassault Group.
There is always a connection between the military industrial complex of a nation and the state.
If France feels that it is an existential threat they will not let the design and maintence of their weapons be dependent on an operating system produced by a company based out of a country that has threatened them.
I'm not saying that this will happen. I'm saying that should this happen you know France is serious about eliminating dependencies on unreliable and threatening countries.
EU have access to Windows source code. Presumably if the shit really hit the fan we'd have a European build without all the spy/crapware added? Not much of a consolation given we'd have to be on the brink of WW3 for it to happen...
Great remark, I will add that Solidworks is more intended for small CAD work, industrials usually use Catia for deeper CAD work, which is also owned by the Dassault Group. Both are developed for Windows.
