No Wonder This Revit Shit Fucking Eats Itself

Yo Fuckheads,

I was going to waste my time talking about this bullshit election - but that's depressing, plus I'm working on my third massive High School project in the last few months, and this thing was Revited to the goddamned gills before being sent to me as a CAD file.  A lot of the exterior windows/storefront have so much fucking detail (cross-sections of extrusions, fasteners, brackets, glass, etc.) that just to change everything to my background layer (without losing linetype information) required grabbing dozens and dozens of little bites.

I'm sure whoever modeled it was busy sucking their own dick over how awesome it was that they could grab views of all of the various connections to use as details and just note them up, and probably set their larger views to lower detail, but when I get the thing it's just black blobs as far as the eye can see, (and literal fucktons of extra linework - ONE GODDAMNED corner joint has 2456 lines).

Hell - one 52' wall (that has an exploded hexagonal grid hatching in it for some reason - possibly some kind of insulated glass?) contained nearly 80,000 lines.  Obviously Revit handles objects differently than what I'm seeing in the exported file, but as many people have pointed out, EVERY SINGLE PERSON using a Revit model has to be aware of how much shit their families are bringing to the table (even if you are just linking a file) to keep it from turning into a bloated clusterfuck that crashes every time you look at it wrong.

I'm sure if the person who exported this file gave a shit (instead of most likely opining why anyone wouldn't just do everything in Revit) they could have set up a background specifically for export that didn't have 4 trillion extra lines that add zero value to the plan to anyone who isn't an Architect (and questionable value for those who are).  Even then, there are always fucked up view problems, overlapping shit due to multiple disciplines.  Overlapping (or more amusingly - slightly offset) architectural + mechanical families for toilets/sinks/etc. is a common one - I deleted a couple from this plan as well.

A stylized plan with a little extra detail is cool - and I will leave one alone (other than a little tidying up) if it isn't horribly bloated.  I can remember a time when I could select an entire floor plan (sometimes even multiple floors of a building) and change layer all at once from properties.  I'm not sure what the upward limit is - but it's in excess of what is necessary to depict a floor plan, that's for damn sure.  I've talked (at great length) about how I get a little OCD when I start cleaning one up - but there is nothing quite like having a super-clean background to work on.

Keeping the file size reasonable also guarantees that the file will open/save quickly - change views quickly (not sure why, but the last one would take forever to switch paper space views - and I'm making damn sure this one doesn't go the same route).  Someone else set that one up (and had started this one) and while I did some cleanup on the other one, I'm going to beat every last bit of unnecessary shit out of this one.  There were a few other systems that the other guy was going to leave in just in case we pick them up later, but I'm ditching them (we can always bring them back in from the original drawings we received).


What's great is that even though I like to complain about the garbage files I receive - I can slap on my headphones, crank up some death metal, and fix any stupid fucked up piece of shit that some moron sent me with ACAD.  Nobody is going to build anything off of my drawings, so as long as I'm accurately representing what the people installing my systems need to see, then I've got a lot of leeway.  Even if it takes the majority of a day to get it ready to go forward - I used to spend the majority of a day trying to get one stupid fucking thing to work in Revit (on an annoyingly regular basis) and that didn't guarantee I wouldn't actually be further into a fucking hole than when I started.


I was highly amused by a recent response to a post I did back in December of 2013 while I was still under the Revit bootheel.  Some idiotic fucking glitch (that came out of nowhere) was making it to where I suddenly couldn't add light fixtures to a circuit.  Apparently, despite multiple new releases of Revit since then, they were running into exactly the same issue.  It seems like it was limited to one file (could have been one of the thousands and thousands of unnecessary settings - but both I and others went through it repeatedly with no success, leaving me having to fake it in).

But hey - at least they've got 'sketchy lines' now (oh, and the ability to make stuff in the foreground stand out better).

Fucking Fuckwits.

Fuck Autodesk, Fuck Revit, Fuck anyone forcing good, hardworking individuals into using Revit, and if you don't like it - GET FUCKED.

Sincerely,
S.F.

Next Time - I go after Motherfucking Microsoft Word (it will make more sense when you read it).

On Your Mark, Get Set, Achieve 'Real Speed-to-Market Success?'

Guten Tag Skullfriends!

I can't remember what I was doing the other day - but I ran across this 'design-build' company's website:

http://www.connectwithbutler.com/built-for-speed/?utm_source=acuity&utm_medium=native&utm_content=on_your_mark,_get_set,_achieve&utm_campaign=strongconnections_stm&db=acuity--native--on_your_mark,_get_set,_achieve--strongconnections--stm

Their incessant use of buzzwords/phrases ('employing collaborative upfront design', 'integrated 'project delivery', etc.) immediately made me think of the B.S. generator a reader had brought to my attention: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

Despite this, they actually make a few good points when it comes to how projects go from poorly thought out concept to horribly implemented design.

They start off with some 'Preliminary Questions to Consider':

1) Do you have the right decision makers at the table?

The answer to this question is almost always 'not only no - but fuck no'.  The people you ARE guaranteed to have are 'The Dreamer' (who has grandiose ideas - but doesn't have any concept of things like budget, schedule, etc.), 'The Unrealist' (who really should know better - but still thinks that everything is going to be much cheaper than it demonstrably will be), 'The Dabbler' (who shouldn't fucking be there, but has inserted himself into the process, and if not carefully monitored, will throw the whole thing off course - also known as 'The Interloper'), and if you are really really lucky - you might get 'The Guy With The Purse Strings' (really the only guy you should ever actually pay attention to).

2) Are they a collaborative team that can work together seamlessly and simultaneously or are the linearly dependent following a step-by-step, on track path?

I'm assuming they meant 'are *they* linearly dependent' but were too busy cramming in buzzwords to worry about spelling/grammar. At any rate - it's almost a given in every case that people are going to be working simultaneously at both the design and construction level - the only 'step-by-step' you run into is when the aforementioned interlopers and other fuckups won't stop changing shit, causing the 'seamless' approach to turn into a long,  drug out clusterfuck.  Note - this happens regardless of how much work you do on the front end to prevent it.


3) Do your construction suppliers have the 'optimal value chain' to deliver a 'lean project cycle time' (whew)?

With any experienced firm, there is considerable attention paid to long lead-time items and coordinating their arrival on-site to where they won't hold up work (or be in the way/require storage). Again, this goes to shit due to the lack of understanding on the part of people who just will not stop fucking with the design WAY after the point where they needed to fuck right off.

I've been in so many meetings where people keep coming up with 'brilliant' ideas about how to 'improve' a design (typically with the aim of saving money) that get shot down once we force them to wrap their heads around 1) The fact that you can't just go pick up some of this shit at a Home Depot, and 2) The correct shit is already on-site (if not installed or in the process of being installed.

The assumption that you can swap out 'apples for apples' with different systems is another classic mistake. We regularly run into situations where there might only be one source for a device that will do what we need it to do. There might be other solutions, but they quickly become untenable due to the need for extra pieces/parts/etc. to interface a competitors devices with any given system.

The simplest solution is (almost) always best - but people want to layer on unnecessary bullshit to make themselves feel 'part of the project'. A firm can talk all day about how adept they are at coordinating a project - but I have yet to run across even a single one where one or more (if not all) of the people I described above to come crashing through at the most inopportune moment and drag a project off schedule.

I completed a massive warehouse/production facility a while back, and then we got the contract to do security equipment.  No big deal - I knocked it out in short order, but we didn't receive a cad site plan - which was fortunate, because it turned out to have changed (and despite having requested it two weeks ago - the owner won't stop making changes for long enough for me to get it.

Hilariously, they keep operating under the delusion that the delivery date is still firm, even though they are the ones holding up our ability to complete it. That's pretty standard though - as is everyone's lack of willingness to confront yet another out of control client.

As always - if you stand in the way of my ability to do my goddamned job, you can take a long fucking hike to 'Gofuckyourselfville'.

Sinsquarely,  SF

Next time: No Fucking Wonder This Shit Eats Itself

WTF Windows 10?

Hola  Skullfuckarinos!



Well, Autodesk didn't fucking do it - but Microsoft finally fucking did it (if they didn't do it goddamned conjunction).


They managed to break something in my perfectly functional ACAD 2014.  It still works, but after they installed Windows 10 on my machine, it started making it to where I couldn't use the 'look in' pull down to change the target folder when using my .pdf printer.  I had already had to remove .dwg to .pdf to keep from having it lock up, and hadn't been having any problems - until now, when the fucking thing decides to intermittently be blank and lock up when I use the 'look in' pulldown to try to change the folder I am in to open a file.

At first I thought it was just ACAD - but in Explorer (or any other program) the pull down is just blank (at least it doesn't fucking lock up the other programs).  One suggested 'workaround' was to change the User Account Control Setting to 'Never Notify' and reboot (doesn't fucking work).  I almost ended up losing work this morning (thank god for autosaves) when I had to crash out of it in Task Manager.  Another suggestion was to reinstall, but supposedly the problem comes back eventually.

The fucked up thing is that I can still browse from the icons on the side - or just open files from explorer, but goddammit if I'm busy and need to open another file, forget, and use the pull down - I actually did lose some work the other day, and it's going to end up resulting in holes in walls if I can't figure out a way to make it fuck off.

Of course, I'm busy as fuck right now, and our IT guy is just going to give me some stock IT guy non-answer, so I'm going to have to just be extremely careful when I am working.  I was going to leave it locked up when I went to lunch to see if it ever comes back, but of course - it magically decides to work perfectly (almost like it knows when it can fuck me).

Oh well - at least it's not Revit (it wouldn't surprise me if it locked up too - which takes five times as long to open a file back up).  If anybody has any ideas I would love to hear them (I've already googled every variation on the problem I could think of).  I'll post more if I figure it out (or if it gets worse).

Ciao!

-S.F.

Next Time: An Amusing Look At 'Achieving Real Speed-to-Market Success' with Butler Manufacturing.

SuBMiSSioN DoMiNaTioN

Sup?

So that last post got me thinking - other than a few emergency situations (always as a result of other people's poor planning) after a certain point there was never any necessity for anyone to manually sign/seal drawings other than one hold out (New Jersey - if I recall correctly that still required a raised seal), andsome jurisdictions that required a wet stamp/signature (to make sure that the drawings had actually been in front of an Architect/Engineer at least once).

Florida was the other raised seal hold-out, but even they got a regular stamp seal a few years back.  Since the Electrical Engineer I used to work for thought that iPads (which many of the Architects and other Engineers used to sign - and in some cases - review and markup their drawings) were fucking retarded, the process was to put the necessary stamp on a piece of paper, have him sign/date, scan it in and then slap it on the drawings (ACAD/Revit, or directly on the. pdf).

It was a little bit tedious, especially if people kept changing the date (typically due to Revit related delays, or pure incompetence), but it beat plotting out the drawings and stamping each one for him to sign.  Regardless, the final result still usually ended up being a hardcopy submittal - and the main reason for this is that whoever was reviewing it didn't have to worry about having the correct software, file format, file size, etc. in order to view it.

The thing is, electronic files can be manipulated, older versions can accidentally end up getting used (or overwriting newer versions), and you can't always rely on someone to grab the correct ones from their e-mail, dropbox, website, server, etc.  I've seen pdfs get submitted that were total shit - even if you opened and looked at them, you wouldn't notice missing information or other glaring mistakes - but holy shit when you print them out and look at them full-size (or even half-size).

Now I get it, the dream is to design, review, submit, receive approval, then fabricate/construct/install - all from an electronic file (a model specifically), but even aside from dragging the necessary people/jurisdictions/departments kicking and screaming into 'the future', that hardcopy represents something that no electronic file ever will. 

In the last week I've submitted two separate projects - one that required an Engineer (from another company that we share a building with) to sign/seal, and one that did not.  Both required hardcopies - the first had to be shipped to the State Board of Health, the second I hand delivered to the County Fire Marshall in the City/County building downtown.  

Another project was completed and uploaded to the City for their review - but damned if their website wasn't fucked up and wouldn't allow me to create a folder to upload the files. When I called to ask if they were having a problem, they said they had received other submittals (meaning the problem was most likely on our end - possibly related to the website requiring an older version of IE for it to work properly). 

My wife (a college English teacher) had run into the same problem with some State school websites that (like the City's website) appear to have been written by a five year old and are hopelessly tied to some functionality that has long been defunct and removed from newer browsers. Fortunately the guy who I was sending the files to was able to generate the necessary folder and I was able to upload the project (but, of course, this meant that two other projects has taken precedence).

The point is that a physical copy of a project is a snapshot in time - it requires that all dicking around cease in order to put together something that someone can hold in their hands.  It can be unrolled, anywhere, without the need for software, any kind of electronic device (or even electricity).  Once signed/sealed it becomes an official document.

In the future, it won't matter if the software to read the file exists (think government agencies that have to keep ancient systems limping along in order to continue to read files in hopelessly outdated formats), or the data gets corrupted (unbeknownst to most people - data degrades over time, regardless of how it is saved).  Fuck, a Revit file could barely keep from getting corrupted several times while the project was being worked on.

Listening to Revitards opine that they can't just model something and hand it off (most likely incomplete, inaccurate, and nigh impossible to actually see anything) is hilarious.  They seem to view the process of getting usable documentation out of their model as some kind of massive inconvenience ('Just look at the model!').  I'm sure they have beaten (or will beat) a few 'forward thinking' jurisdictions/AHJ's into starting to accept the model as part (if not the whole) submittal, but they are going to face massive push back by people that can very easily hold up construction.

It has less to do with forcing people to do things a new way, and more to do with the 'new way' being a fucking smokescreen - and people who haven't plugged themselves into the Revit hive-mind can see it plain as day.  One thing that you see come up time and again (and that several commenters have mentioned) is the matter of who takes on liability when a project goes 'less than swimmingly'.

Just like having solid, well-written contracts prevents a firm from getting it in the nuts when things go FUBAR, a well-engineered (or architected) set of drawings that you can whip out and see directly in front of you can prevent you from having those nuts sliced directly off and stuffed in your mouth.  This is also right about the same time most people go into panic mode, and it's really easy for someone to be tempted to tweak a digital file to try to cover their ass (seen it happen - more than once).

Obviously if the fuckup is right there in black-and-white, it can be just as damaging - but that's kind of the point.  If nobody ever actually looked at the drawings, and just gave some .pdfs the same glassy-eyed stare that monitors/tablets/phones tend to invoke in people, then it's nobodies fault but their own.

Fuck 'em.

Sincesquarely,
S.F.

Next Time: What the Fuck Windows 10?

'When Will BIM be Accepted as a Building Permit and Construction Document?' or 'Craig Rice is a Whiny Revit Faggot Who Needs To Go Fuck Himself'

Greetings Skullfuckheads!

It's always amusing to read about the exploits of dickless Revitards and their never-ending quest to hate-fuck any system that doesn't involve their precious BIM into pieces.

This little gem comes compliments of SF reader 'Hysteresis':

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-bim-accepted-building-permit-construction-document-craig-rice

It regales us all with the thrilling tale of a Reviteering BIMtard Architect and his quest to get a few pieces of paper signed on a hot day in San Francisco (hey, same initials as Skull Fuck' - coincidence?). 

He (and a handful of his commenters) are looking forward to the day they can just pawn off their shitty BIM model to get permits instead of being forced to put their garbage design into a reviewable format.

While seeing hundreds and hundreds of projects through from vague concept to completed building (and beyond) - I have watched people attempt to take every possible shortcut, skip every seemingly 'unnecessary' step, and try to slip poorly designed and incomplete sets of drawings past AHJs.

What these people have convinced themselves, is that as 'Professionals' (using that term in the loosest possible context), they should be the ones to dictate how this process is implemented.  You will notice this is the same mentality that causes most problems.

While an individual may (or may not) be qualified to do their job, it is always necessary to get an unbiased (or better yet - biased somewhat against) them to give their project a thorough review without pulling any punches - forcing that individual to have to defend their design or concede and make necessary changes.

Step #1 towards having this work effectively is is not expecting to be able to set the standards and parameters that your work will be judged by.  Switching formats from drawings to a BIM model is absolutely an example of attempting to control the narrative.

Also - what other people have found out (as I've mentioned in the past) is that once you convince a bureaucracy to change to your favorite way of doing things - there's an unexpected twist.  They are typically going to go further than you expected - which will end up resulting in considerably more work for you (for dubious gain).

They will develop their own standard for what is required for a BIM submittal, and while I'm sure Mr Rice here would love to be involved with helping them develop those standards, his competitors are going to be trying to figure out a way to do so as well (in order to give themselves an edge).

But yeah - he wouldn't have to go sign drawings in the hoods of cars anymore. 'Yay!'

Fuck this self-absorbed piece of shit Revitard BIMfucker, fuck Revit, fuck Autodesk, and if you don't like it FUCK YOU!!!

-SKuLLFuCK

Next Time: Submission Domination

Autocad 2017 - The Ribboning

Donde Esta El Skullfuck?

It's been busy busy here, we've got projects coming in the door like crazy - and I've got the tools to do the job.  The only problem I've been running into is the occasional client who doesn't know what the fuck they want (typical), or the ones that know exactly what they want (but don't know how to communicate it).

I banged out a massive 700,000 s.f. warehouse/production facility, then spent twice as long designing (what should have been) a fairly simple access control system.  The guy who sold the job was operating under the delusion that I knew what his client wanted (via telepathy apparently).

Meanwhile, the client couldn't keep anything straight, but instead of figuring it out first then going forward, they had me over-design everything to the nth degree before then going back through the resulting clusterfuck and tweak it to their liking (we are making a pile of money though).

Then it was on to a 180,000 s.f. media production facility upgrade - which I was completely done with when the client started poking around in it and making vague requests (with very specific expectations).

I thought I had him squared away, but then he came back claiming we hadn't sent him updated drawings (we had), and then when we re-sent them, he claimed we hadn't addressed his comments.  Fortunately the client was nearby our office, so we had a quick meeting with him this morning.

It turned out that we had indeed done pretty much everything he wanted - and just had to make a few corrections to the floor plan layout (the one they sent us to go by mind you).  We actually removed two devices that were excess to need, and then talked him out of moving some conduits.

I got those drawings submitted, then it was on to finishing up a 64,000 s.f. office building (inside of a government facility - so, of course, it's not going to be as simple as it should be), and we've got 3-4 more projects ready to go after that (with more to come).

I'm all for it because the day goes by faster (and thanks to some overtime - it makes my paycheck grow substantially).  It will also be nice to have a stack of large-scale projects under my belt when I come up for review (I had to take a little pay cut to come here, and I'm hoping to make it up).

Most important though is having the right tools - and even better than not being force-fed the newest version of Revit every year at my new job has been the fact that (while we have access to newer CAD) we are still ticking along perfectly happy in ACAD 2014.

I might eventually skip up to 2016 like I had at my previous job (fuck 2015 - piece of shit), but since I'm pretty sure these are stand-alone copies (rather than the subscription based license bullshit) I doubt I will worry about it for a while.

A quick review of 2017 seemed to show that they are doubling down on this ribbon bullshit - to the point of eliminating the 'classic view' altogether - although it can easily be 'recreated'.  This begs the question of why the fuck they wouldn't just leave it alone (unless they are just trying to drag the last few people kicking and screaming into ribbonland).

Fortunately, as long as they leave the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) the fuck alone, I'm golden.  The only other feature (there didn't seem to be a whole lot - but it's hard to improve on perfection) that I saw was built-in .pdf import, which would come in handy from time to time (assuming I get .pdfs that aren't scans of old drawings, etc. that import as nigh unusable bullshit (which is most of them).


I'm sure they probably broke some important shit (it wouldn't be an 'update' otherwise), but for now the only changes I have had to put up with here was when they put Windows 10 on our machines - fortunately the only problem I had with it (so far) was one of my printer drivers (other people haven't been so lucky).

Fuck Revit, Fuck Reviteers, Yadda Yadda.  Fuck you if you don't like it, etc. etc.

-Skullfuck.

Next Time: BIM idiot opines not being able to use his shitty model as a deliverable (hat tip to SF Reader 'Hysteresis').

When A Plan Comes Together.

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence"

-Charles Bukowski

Still not a Revit cloud in my blue sky - and no BIM turds in my coffee.  I even managed to work the kinks out of my VESDA system design after a short phone conversation with an 'Aspire 2' guru (see: Another Software Package Sucks Dick).  Unbeknownst to me, you could actually override the sample point hole sizes to be any size you wanted.  The default had me going between 1/8" (too big) and 5/32" (too small), but 7/32" was just right.

He was impressed that (without any training) I had been able to wing it and design a complete system.  He recommended changing one other setting first, and then after updating the hole sizes (changing it once changed it globally - including adding holes to end caps where I didn't need them, but that only took a few seconds to fix) the system calculations came up perfectly (without any need for modifying the reports it spit out - which may have eventually run me into problems).

We discussed a few features that I thought were lacking in the software (which were apparently addressed in a later release), including not having an 'undo' button, and the inability to zoom in on a 3D Parametric (as the system gets larger, the view gets smaller - ironically still easier to see what is going on than in Revit).  We had a short conversation about Revit afterwards - which he considered, in his experience, to be 'in it's infancy', especially where it related to his industry.

Since I am waiting for CAD files on two separate projects (both of which I'm sure are going to become 'emergencies' despite nobody being bothered to give a fuck about getting me what I need to do them), I finished going through the last box of 'as-built' drawings that had been piling up prior to my starting at the firm, and with perfect timing, drawings of a truck maintenance facility popped up in my inbox.

It took me a few minutes to get it set up (and I'm still making some tweaks).  I'm not sure what software the background originated in - but apparently the engineering drawings were done in 'Bluebeam' (which I remember a SkullFuck commenter mentioning one time).  I haven't had any experience with this software, so I can't really comment on it, but the CAD file I received was more than a little fucked up.

I'm willing to give Bluebeam the benefit of the doubt - since you can't really control how people use your software (unless you are Autodesk, and you put your boot on the neck of designers and force them to do it 'The Revit Way (tm)").  The first thing I noticed was that everything was piled onto one plan in model space and then different layers turned on/off in various paperspace views).

It was also assembled from several blocks (possibly xrefs that got bound) for background, equipment, etc. - and after spending some time cleaning it up, and noticed that they even had stuff from different levels piled up on top of each other (i.e. devices that were on a mezzanine could be mistaken for being on the first floor unless you went and looked at the paperspace views).

Then I started to notice a number of items (devices at first, but then I started to notice furniture) that were rotated ever so slightly - and in many (if not most) cases they appeared to have just been slapped on the drawings wherever, but I had already decided to replace all of the device blocks with my standard ones (and use my template system that I developed to guarantee full coverage).


I was even seeing some walls with little jogs indicating that they were rotated a fraction of a degree - I was starting to worry that the whole stupid building was rotated a fraction of a degree (sometimes an indication that someone has imported a file incorrectly - or attempted to convert a .pdf to CAD), but they seemed to be a fairly limited and easy to fix.

Little stuff like those jogs always catch my eye - and make it hard for me to concentrate.  I almost envy people who can just ignore things like that, but the fact is, my attention to detail is a big part of what makes me a good designer.  More than once I have found issues while working a floor plan over, brought them to someone's attention, and damned if they didn't end up making a difference in the design.

When I was at my old firm and everyone was working in ACAD, it was always fairly simple to point out something that was inconsistent, have them acknowledge it, and fix it.  Most of the time they would even thank me for catching it (it was a team effort after all, anything that made their drawings better made them look better, the firm look better, and resulted in less revisions down the road).

Enter Revit, and motherfucker if I wouldn't do exactly the same thing (the fact that I was exporting their plans out to CAD and scrubbing the shit out of them meant I would see things they wouldn't), and their initial reaction was always to deny that anything was wrong.  Of course, I would always go back into Revit and double-check it before I brought it to their attention.

I'm sure some of this was due to them having battled the Revit monster, and not wanting to have to go back in and figure out what they (or it) had fucked up, and I obviously can't blame them for that, but I also wasn't the one touting it as 'the best shiznit in the history of shiznit'.  After I moved them past denial, their next defense mechanism was to claim that it was one of the quarter of a million settings that was making it 'appear' to be wrong.

After four hours of clicking on every button on the ribbon, every button on every context-sensitive ribbon, every button on every menu, changing every view range setting in every field in every menu, and involving six other Reviteers/Gurus/etc. - damn, look at that, the problem is that you've got a column running right through the middle of the door into the sprinkler room, there isn't enough room in the wall on either side of it to make it fit, and it's the only wall that it can go in.

Just like I told you.

Now, keep in mind, I wasn't (usually) being a dick about this, and would always preface my findings with verbage that indicated that I wasn't there to tell them how to do their job, or pretend like I knew more than they did - but after watching them do the Revit two-step buttfuck shuffle to try to prove me wrong (or get out of trying to fix something), I never hesitated to throw it in their face.

What's amusing is that none of what I do when it comes to tweaking these plans actually takes a noticeable amount of time.  As I dig into a new project, going through and cleaning up the plans doubles as a chance to get familiar with the project, often finding out that there are discrepancies in the scope (like if there is an elevator, but nobody took the necessary equipment for our systems to interface with it into account when they bid the job), sprinkler systems, fire pumps, etc.

My mind immediately starts to go to work calculating, figuring out how I am going to group equipment and run circuits (and keep those runs as short as possible), identify where additional equipment may be necessary to support those circuits (or where devices are missing - like in the case of the apartment complex I did a while back that was missing literally hundreds of devices due to a careless electrical designer/engineer not taking the time to review their typical plans).


When my software works with/for me instead of against me - then I can accomplish anything.  On it's best day, Revit had so much distracting bullshit pulling me out of my zone that I would literally just end up staring at it (not unlike many others that I would see just orbiting their model instead of working) or fucking off and doing something else.

It wasn't until I would say 'fuck this' and  kick it out into ACAD, and the process of cleaning it up would blend seamlessly into laying it out, solving all of the problems, and completing the project.

That, my friends, is the sweet spot.  One that most Revit users don't know exists, because if they did, they would tell Autodesk to go fuck itself.

Which, by the way, Autodesk can absolutely go fuck itself.  Revit can absolutely go fuck itself.  And anyone willfully using, selling, promoting, 'developing' or otherwise involved with Revit - can absolutely go fuck themselves.

And stay SkullFucked.

-S.F.

Next Time: I pick a random topic and go off.