It's basically a random message with a URL attached... many of them
If you're using them strictly as a business tool, I wouldn't worry too much about photos -- I do think it's helpful to have a photo of yourself, especially in a one-to-one business like freelance photography. You can set your Facebook account so other people can't tag you in their photos.
Agreed... people are more likely to choose your business when they can connect the business with a face.
I also wondered, is there any way to know if a design will print out correctly? For example if I designed a pencil balancing on its tip with no supports, does the software, or somebody at shapeways, alert me that I'm being stupid?
Yep... they check your models before they print it and will notify you of problems like that. From their FAQ:
When a product is ordered for the first time a manual check will be done to make sure the object is printable. Now, factors like wall thickness and detail thickness are tested, which sometimes leads to the rejection of the design. Sometimes products for sale (whether it is your own or not) can be uploaded but turn out not to be printable.
Unfortunately, we do not have an automated way of checking every single design rule, which is why we optimize and only do a thorough (manual) check for designs that are ordered, not just designs that are uploaded.
"Period" - such a strong statement, but you're wrong. It's digital, and you can low pass filter (average) adjacent frames to get the effects of longer exposures at higher rates. "never, ever" - ugh.
Averaging adjacent frames is not the same as getting longer exposure rates than the frame rate.
You could, in theory, do the same thing staying completely in film with an optical printer. Take frames ABCDE and project them onto new frames 12345 on an optical printer. Project ABC onto frame 1, project BCD onto frame 2, etc., etc. Still doesn't make the exposure rate longer than the frame rate... and this is the same process only in a digital post realm that you're talking about.
Yes.. there's a lot of tricks that we can perform to make it *seem* like the exposure rate is longer than the frame rate, but the original source image is still going down at an exposure rate no longer than the frame rate.
Very true. I wish people would stop believing that a court's decision is always correct. People escape conviction all the time.
And vice versa unfortunately.
The poor are more likely to get convicted and serve jail time as they can't afford the expensive 'good' lawyers and must rely on the overworked, under-budgeted public defenders.
Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit.