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More 3D Printer News
tallackn writes "The New Scientist website has an article that tells of a 3D gadget printer which will allow fully assembled electric and electronic gadgets to be printed in one go. 'The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork.' When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line."
Now I can prnt my own iPod.
Now I can download that "Real" virtual girlfriend.
err... ummm...
so does this mean I can print out a new processor on my inkjet?
because we all know how expensive it is to mass-produce lightbulbs. II think that could have been left out of the list of examples
I am MuchTall
Now all we need is a Feed connection to it, and we're in business!
Damn, I gotta join that Drummer cult too now.
Woohoo! Great sex for me!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Printer; Tea. Earl-Gray. Hot"
Not to mention that they will cost several times more than their so-called "labor-intensive" counterparts.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Now I can finally print myself a woman...
Awww crap, I'm all out of nipple ink!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
this would be 'da bomb' for us underfunded and non-disclosure paranoid inventor types.
too bad these things would have to cost like, a couple million dollars. why not make something like, print your own cheeseburger?
I just don't think it can be done..
I sell out to The Man every day.
computers will be able to have babies.
Then when neural nets become fast enough to allow self-learning - wow...
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Now I can print first posts.
So sorry... mod away...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Do we have to pay royalties if we print a printer?
Table-ized A.I.
Of course, when the first one is built that's it -- market is over as users will just copy the machine. Will be great to go to Kazaa and just download one......
Unless they the DCMA is extended to cover this too!
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
I bet that the "toner" for printers like this will be a tad more than the average laser printer toner.
Anyone want to bet against me?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Just think, now you can not only shop online, but you can forget shipping charges and print off your items in real time....
:)
Only question is, sure the printer is cheap if not free, but how much do those dumb cartridges cost?!?
And also all those porn and sex toy sites, talk about more 'silicon'.
If we had a beowulf cluster of these?
If somebody could actually make that work, flat-panel displays would be made with it. Many people have tried. (Remember "e-ink"? Flexible displays? Same concept.) It's not a new idea; it's an old one that's hard to do. It was first suggested decades ago for solar cell manufacturing. It didn't work even for that, and solar cell fab is very forgiving; as long as most of the cells work and the duds don't short out the array, it's fine.
Now, if they'd announced "we have it working", that would be a story.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"As opposed to what? "A liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea?"
Imagine... at one time you could have tea and no tea.
Thats the polite term for it. Waste is what it is. And given the current recycling rate, don't expect any relief. Even the author of the article refers to the "throwaway society."
Over-exposed schoolgirl victim of high-tech bullying
All I want for Christmas is 1% of slashdotters to read the stories before they post!
The lightbulbs they're referring to are more like LED's, the kind that light up when you press a button on the TV remote you just printed out.
My use would be to print of killer robots to hunt down and destroy "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" posters.
Yes I know, before someone gets to it
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" posters print off killer robots to hunt down and destroy you.
I dont know the specs or how detailed it was, but they had something that did 3d printing at Boeing. I saw it there when I went I took a tour for a class here in Wichita, KS. It was pretty cool. I watched for 2 minutes as it built a plane model someone was working on. The guide was a little mad at me and said I should be seeing whats comming off that printer but since it was building the lower half, he and the engineer agreed I was harmless.
Ill never forget that weird design, looked just like a dinner plate. I kid, I kid.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
...an easy way to quickly mass-produce beowulf clusters...of ANYTHING!
Of course, in Soviet Russia, beowulf cluster mass-produces YOU...
[snip]
"..without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line."
[snip]
Thank God (G.W) for tax cuts.
*sigh*
"All I want for Christmas is 1% of slashdotters to read the stories before they post!"
If only Google cached 1% of the articles Slashdot links to.
Just wait, if mp3s make "exact digital copies" of music there's already someone in the company running in circles about an "exact copy" of a CD, album cover and all.
On the plus side I'd love to download a new product and print it out, wonder how much piracy there'd be: "pirated PS8, download and print yours today!"
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Of course making calculators and light bulbs with this device is stupid and unprofitable. The real power of this device will be to allow designs and products that cannot be manufactured by any other means. Eliminate the parts of the product that are only used to hold the pieces together. Eliminate complexities and potential sources of problem from manufacturing components seperately or by seperate processes. Consider a cell phone made by this method... It would be a single chunk of plastic. Completely customizable color and shape and button layout. Waterproof, impossible to tamper with and nearly indestructible (the circuits are embedded in the plastic and the buttons are just flexible or touch-sensitive areas of the sealed shell).
But it's a while before we see a device like this replicate itself. That is the turning point.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
...we now know how the Borg construct their vessels.
is three more printers
- Zachery
is have the printer print out an exact copy of itself with instructions to, upon completion, print out a copy of itself, complete with the same instructions.
I imagine the real bugger with this, assuming the technology ever works and takes off, would be the cost of the file you print from! Imagine the complexity of the information required to print a working gadget, like that. And there'd also be some charge for the labor needed to design the file in whatever CAD-esque program becomes available for it.
What would be cool is the open source community eventually embracing it. Imagine scenarios like this:
Hm, can't find a friggin flashlight when I need one. Guess I'd better print one out...
Can't afford the one from maglite.com, cool as it is... What to do?
Ah! Of course! Download the open source flashlight from opengadgets.com and print it out.
Sweet! This is the next big step towards replicators. "A replicator in every home!" should be the goal.
One question: Can it print out another printer like itself?
Self replication is the ultimate.
A food printer.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot."
How long before collections of open-source hardware starts circulating? Anyone want to design a reference railgun? :)
Wonderful !
Layoff 60% of the workforce, we don't need them anymore.
60% of the workforce will now not be able to afford the gadget printer.
The economy will collapse.
The Luddites will dance in the streets !
When the march of progress starts putting industrial assembly-line robots out of work - now THAT's technology!
Perfectly Normal Industries
Which Quake3Arena map would you print out?
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OK
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
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More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/1.3.26 Server at slashdot.org Port 80
hrm, we're coming ever closer to many more star trek gadgets...nice...to be able to "print" a device of my choosing is nice...however...it could be nice to make the parts printed interchangable...print off pieces, put them together, a functioning device...and if something on it fails, replace that certain piece. Note that as with all technology, everything starts out expensive...maybe the machine itself will become dirt cheap like regular printers (except the companies will charge an arm and a leg for the "ink" still)
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Whenever a client visits, I can print out a cell phone and have a conversation with another firm on the phone, get really pissed, and throw it into the nearest available wall or pool, scaring the client into better business deals.
Whereas this used to just happen in movies and commercials, it will surely become common practice as people figure out they can produce their own cheap cellphones and have random violent outbursts at no cost to their full-fledged photo (and blog!) making phones.
Help a college student
Oh great... now RMS is going to want free hardware to run all his free software on...
They're not referring to light bulbs in the traditional sense, but closer to LEDs. (Using light emiting polymers).
Vacuum or not is irrelevant.
can't wait to see what they charge for an ink cartridge in this baby...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
This could be great for the ladies (all three of you who read /. that is). Plastics printed in any shape... with the capability of flexing! Flextronics has a market already! Just make it moisture-proof.
Can it print out a hamburger, or better yet a bacon cheeseburger. If it can do that, then you got something!
The truth is, of couses, that a TV remote is never repaired. It's always discarded, and unless these printed devices were much more prone to failure it will be less wasteful to use and discard them than current devices. Early devices may not hold up well, but I expect before the technology is used to make TV remotes that problem will be resolved.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Unless they pull a Gilette, and use a lead loss model. In which case you just made an expensive printer, and now can make them 4 times as much money.
What makes this article interesting is not the innovative idea but the word "printing". If the word producing/manufacutring is used, like manufacturing remote control in one solid part with out any further assembly this article would be banal. Just because "printing" and "ink-jet" and "cartridges" is used it gives a feeling that i can 'print' in anything out (women included) in my future printer upgrade!
Replicator.
Now watch this drive.
Of course, in Soviet Russia, the poster .....
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Next step... A star-tek replicator! :)
If you're looking for years' worth of bump-and-grind coming out of printer, look no further than the HP Photosmart 1115. Imagine if you will a ink cartrige/stylus assembly weighing in at over two pounds. When it hits a spreadsheet, my desk feels as though there are copulating armadillos underneath it (or maybe these things).
If I could get hold of one of those printers, the first thing I would print is the printer...
Current industrial production methods are pretty advanced and efficient. What would be nice is a _drastic_ drop in the cost of the 3D rapid prototyping printers. That would be cool. Think about it, design & print your own cool stuff. Great for hobbyists that want to have "print" the body of an RC car or whatever other models (use yer imagination). Or maybe you can "print" out a copy of a book properly bound and all (if the DMCA gets overturned).
in 20 years or so they won't be calling them 3D printers they will be called replicators and then you really can print your real virtual girl friend.
just think though with this kid of a break through we can't be that far away from something like that.
coulda used this a few years back. File...open...Penis.doc...file...print...tada
Finally! After all this time, the government finally decided to "research automated factories"! I wonder if "fusion power" will be next?
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
I suggest the idea of requiring this machine to require an H1B before being acquired into any corporation's assembly plant. Why should the government allow jobs to be taken away by this this thing? No I am not trolling. I believe it is a valid question. If it's ok to legislate that humans cannot be used to reduce production costs, why cant the same standards apply to machines? Why should jobs be protected only when the threat is from humans?
You not only need logic gates, you need to connect them together. You need to be able to make them really small, and they need to be really fast, and you need to do it all really cheap, to beat conventional semiconductor logic. As we're still (according to the people who build this stuff) able to squeeze more performance out of conventional semiconductors for another decade or so, there's no real incentive to throw megabucks at the engineering required to do the above.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
What I'd like to see along these lines is a printer that can print out 3 dimensional CPUs or RAM devices. With the third dimension available, the number of transistors and interconnections per unit volume could be much higher than it could ever be in two dimensions. Of course there would be problems with heat dissipation, but I think they might be solvable (use superconducting materials, or leave holes in the cube for cooling fluids to flow through, or etc).
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Would this be a Von Neumann printer?
If it ever manifests, that is. Regular printers and similar devices like CD and DVD burners have taken 8-20 years to reach the popular consumer market, longer if you're looking back to when the technology itself debuted.
Wonder what the IP laws will look like by the time regular Joes can afford a 3D printer? (Will looking at something and remembering how it's made constitute a DMCA-3 violation?)
I can see it now... Download a file for that new open source video card and get fraggin!
I'll print ya out a copy ...
Imagine a beowulf cluster of printers printing a beowulf cluster of printers printing a beowulf cluster of printers printing a beowulf ... UGH!!! OMG!!! IT'S FULL OF STARS!
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
R. Buckminster Fuller would have loved to see his dream mature. Bucky wanted to give a metal lathe to every other person...with the agreement that the first thing they would make would be another lathe for the remaining half of the population.
This one is for you, R.B. Thanks!
If they add odor, some people can print their posts.
The lightbulbs they're referring to are more like LED's, the kind that light up when you press a button on the TV remote you just printed out.
:)
An LED wouldn't be a lightbulb, now would it? Since it's not a bulb at all? So does it really matter if the story isn't read? If it calls it a lightbulb, it's incorrect. Which means the original poster who pointed out the issue of the vacuum issue still has a perfectly valid question. If the thing can print out a lightbulb, as the slashdot blurb says, can it create the vacuum too? If it's not a lightbulb, then either the original story, or the slashdot blurb, or both are incorrect.
Not to nitpick, mind you.
::prepares to karma whore::
GPL licensed electronics! FTP the plans off of sourceforge and print them out on your 3d printer.
Why not fork?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A 3D printer is always going to be more expensive than a production line (why don't they use laserjets to print books?).
However it could be extremely useful for fabricating spare parts where it would be time-cosuming/costly to get them (on a battle field, in space etc.)
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
2) crazies wanting to play god - done
(raelians, dictators, bush jr)
The printers will be cheap, but the toner cartridges will be expensive.
I wish I had mod points. Mod this jerk down!!!!!
Matter does not create itself. In order to build these things you'd have to have ink of equal mass to what your building.
No replicators just yet, trekkies.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
The pen can now print a gatlin gun!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
Since this is something I've known was coming (and no-so-patiently waiting) for a couple of years now, I feel I can put this in context and draw a few conclusions.
Everyone wants a Replicator. The things we see on Trek, in Science Fiction, resonate with us so deeply because it's all stuff we really, really want. That's the best purpose of SF, to show you a nice shiny concept and have you go "Yeah. I'd love one of those." and then (for some people) spend surprisingly large amounts of time trying to make it happen.
Go back through history. We've always wanted Magic in our lives, and any technology sufficiently advanced...
Matter Replicators are coming. The technology began when we started carving things from wood, and will reach it's zenith when we finally get true nanotech in maybe a century. But there are many milestones along the way.
One we've been living with for a decade now is the Laser Printer, which is essentially a personal Replicator for books. This is an improvement on the old Gutenberg press, which was the industrial equivalent. Never forget that... the modern laser printer would effectively BE magic to Gutenberg. One look and he'd probably break down and cry with awe and joy.
Of course, then he'd get very angry at the entire copyright situation we've put ourselves in. He'd marvel at our stupidity, inventing a machine that can churn out books faster than you can read them, and then Not Allowing ourselves to use it.
Most of us now own a device that can, in minutes, 'burn' a data storage media capable of holding more information than exists in the human genome. How cool is that? What we did for books, we also did for audio and video media. And then the same copyright issues closed in to hold the technology back.
Again, CD burners started as multi-thousand dollar devices that only companies could afford. Microwave ovens followed a similar course into our homes. (though being devices that only convert food from cold to hot, they strain the replicator analogy a little)
We are slowly surrounding ourselves with specific-purpose replicators, while trying to create all-purpose ones.
It seems fairly obvious to me that these multi-thousand dollar 3D printers used by industry will eventually drop in price, and soon enter the home, to be played with by hobbyists around the world. And the moment that happens, be prepared for some rather large changes.
First, expect to see the whole Intellectual Property issue hit another level. Controlling the reproduction of physical objects is what the Patent system is best at, remember? Imagine a world where your personal replicator will only produce licenced objects after the appropriate payment has gone back to a commercial entity. There are a lot of powerful people who want that to happen.
Then consider the other side, some guy in Guatemala who designs a series of 'patterns' that, if you print them in your 3D printer and assemble the parts, makes another 3D printer. An 'open' printer. When that happens, a wave of change will sweep across the world like nothing we've ever seen.
The first 'industrial revolution' created factories and warehouses and supply chains. The second one (coming soon to a theatre near you) will mostly tear it all back down.
Replicators will change the way we percieve physical 'products' in a way we can't predict right now. Will we start keeping most of our 'things' in data storage, printing them out (and then recycling the materials) at need, so our homes are nice and empty? Will we become pack rats, filling our rooms with pointless crap? Probably both.
Any new view which sees physical products as transient and temporary will be another blow to capitalism, (and materialism, for that matter) which is only kept honest by the transfer of 'real' commodities. What happens to the law of supply and demand when scarcity suddenly cannot possibly exist for a large class of consumer products? We may be facing the end of capitalism as we know it. The only way to keep it in it's current form is to engineer scarcity back into the model, which as the copyright wars show us, is only possible through totalitarian control of each consumer's tools. I don't think we want to go there.
Yes, 3D printers require processed raw materials (the polymer inks) which initally will have supply/demand issues, but those will dissapear quickly as millions of individuals prototype and play with recycling machines, or automated chemistry sets. In the medium term we might even co-opt nature's replicators and make a few strains of yeast which excrete the relevant polymers (or precursors) after eating recycled waste. There are many paths.
None of this can happen without computers and the Internet, and without the intellectual freedom to use them.
The great thing is, it seems to be pretty much inevitable. Whatever the precise mix of technologies turns out to be, these devices are going to forever change our relationship with the physical world.
I'm ready. Are you?
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Just because I'm a pessimist...
So, any ideas on what will be the first virus payload that targets such a device? I can just imagine the mayhem that would occur if such a thing were to become a common appliance.
Ooh, I know, print an autonomous spycam that networks with any other such camera or wireless network in transmission range. Easy enough to build, give it some insect-level AI and you might never know you were infected.
The ability to deply a wide variety of physical objects into my home at will, for anyone able to break into my computer. Hmm, I think I'll be leaving mine off, unplugged and locked up in the basement unless I really, really need it.
sig fault
Quote me on this, EVERYTHING is about to change.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Probably something about mini-robots with X10 cameras digging up Nazi gold in the Philippines.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
alt.binaries.gadgets
Maybe when it powers up for the first time it can print out a cable and driver disks.
And some spare cartridges...
What kind article did you printed today???
Just what we need - more people losing their jobs!
Imagine a 3D scanner, capable of determining how an object is made (let's say, a Rolex watch). The technology presumably is feasible, what with Xrays, NMR etc. Given sufficiently advanced technology, this scanning could go to the molecular level.
After having scanned it, and stored the 40Tb "image" on my hard disk, with a *more advanced* 3D printer, I could theoretically churn out exact replicas.
Are we going to see the crackdown we're currently seeing with Digital Media extended to solid objects?
And what would happen if you scanned a live animal? Would the copy you create live?
Oh my brain hurts with the implications
* * *
after cellphones, another star trek technology about to make it to our lives..
DigiScent .com
smell the roses? I think not! Come back in 50 years...
While im sure it wont be CHEAP.. but in time costs come down for everything.. perhaps to the point of being REASONABLE..
Not quite a replicator, but good enough to start with..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The printers will be sold cheaply but the printing "ink" will be sold at a premium. Oh yes, they will be "winprinters" and have windoze-only drivers.
DRM built in will prevent you from fabbing virtually anything that could be considered to have been patented, trademarked, or copywrited.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
This technology has been in use for 10 years. It has been used for creating samples of automotive and machinery parts directly from a 3D CAD model. Of course not for real use (material is very easy to break) but for checking designs, etc.
Well, I actually got to use a top secret prototype of one of these things - it can replicate anything perfectly.
For testing purposes we scanned Bill Gates, and told it to print a copy. The copy looked identical to the original. On closer examination it turned out the clone was completely and utterly devoid of all traces of soul or humanity.
In other words, a 100% perfect copy.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Twenty factory workers can make several million light bulbs a year, for example. And who do you think is going to run and maintain the printing machine?
This printing-fab process is an attractive fantasy, and may be useful for prototyping, but modern production technologies are EXTEREMELY cost-effective and efficient, and will NOT be affected by this process one bit.
No offense, but it's quite clear that your experience in manufacturing is pretty limited.
Open source hardware is sorta here already. Check it out. You have to supply your own FPGAs and the equipment to deal with them but Open Source hardware design is here now.
sigh, companies keep innovating making themselves more money and needing labor less.
Can hardly wait for this future product. Sorry we don't need you anymore. So what you worked here 15 years ? We now have a machine to replace you and your fellow workers.
Down with machines.
My biology is a little rusty, but this seems like a big step in the direction of being defined as alive:
from http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/contents/9a.htm l
If a device like this does come to the point where it can replicate itself, then it would seem to satisfy points 1, 2, 3, and 5 IMHO.Who is going to play mad-scientist and program in 4, 6, and 7? Would such a device be "alive"? The lines will blur...
Just some rampant speculation...cheers. :-)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
And as for labor's basic place in economics, it should be noted that in present day US, only 10% of the work force or so have industrial jobs.
And 20% are paper pushers working in the white color bureucratic world office world, 30% are government workers.. umm working, 10% work hard in the healthcare field making sure everyone can eat as much food as they could ever want. 20% work in the educational/social services establishment making sure everyone is as dumb as possible thus ensuring their own future employment. Everyone else works in some franchise service industry.
Oh, and lets not forget the 2% of Americans in PRISON.
The reality is we went from independent farmers in the United States (not in EUROPE however), to factory workers, to jobs.
Jobs today don't actually contribute anything of value to society. What we have is a gigantic make work program in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Keep your citizens in school for half their productive life, keep 'em busy in some pointless job, and then shove 'em in a retirement apartment complex for however long they live past 65.
The economic impact of efficient production is not devastating; quite the opposite.
This is certainly true. The reality is human ingenuity has made work unnecessary to accomplish anything of real value. The problem we have today is that in a society where we are raised from kindgergarten or earlier to follow orders and be part of a "team", people have to either lead or be led or they cause all sorts of trouble (in the eyes of our rulers). The reality is work is no longer necessary for the vast majority of our citizens and employment/unemployment has little to do with life as it is today.
I absolutely agree with you that the we should not stop innovation. HOWEVER technology and human ingenuity are making traditional life as humans have known for the past few millenia pointless. Just when technology is allowing for people to spend their lives truly living, we are further turning our people into mindless drones to serve a bureucratic system rather then letting them explore the infinite possibilities of existence on their own.
Now is the time to give people their lives back. The educational/social services system must be abolished. The industrial economy at least produced things of value, often questionalable. The service economy is nothing more than modern slavery, which the schools gleefully train us to accept. Servitude is for slaves, it is not the foundation of a society or an economy.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Yeah, but if you can eliminate the same number of pointy-haired bosses, we'd save a lot more. I say, let's export their jobs to Mexico or China. Also, let's hire pointy-haired bosses who speak no English, that's way they'll be a lot less annoying.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
...how much they'll charge for the cartridges...
I could take it anywhere because it wouldn't take any room.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
Raw materials are always processed extensively for recycling. It's one long chemical process, and there's no reason the same can't be done with "printed products".
"Printer.. -bleepbloop- Tea, Earl Grey, hot."
Trolling is a art,
How ya been Mr. Ludd?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I remember printing little plastic gorillas at theme parks years ago - you just had to remember to carry them around upside down until they fully hardened.
I went to a school where they were cutting edge on this sort of thing. Its called Rapid Prototyping.
Essentially you create a design on CAD and feed it to a special device which will allow for faster development of a product than hand made models would allow (and its much cheaper as well!)
See the following link:
http://www.msoe.edu/rpc/
Isn't this something like I remember seeing on a Hewlett Packard commercial a year or two ago where the kid "prints" a football and someone else "prints" a trombone? I know they're talking about component level electronics and in theory it can work, but in theory so does a cold fusion reactor and I don't see any of them replacing the current fision reactors. I can't see this happening within the next 30 - 40 years, well at least in the commercial market.
My good sig is in the laundry
What about all those poor unemployed Chinese factory workers that will result from this.
</Irony>
... which is necessary for a filament light bulb.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
the Star Trek replicators will probably be reality. This kind of "build things up from raw materials by placing them using an electronically stored 3D matrix" type of technology should ultimately evolve to being able to build molecules piecemeal and deposit them into a structure. The technology will probably come together after evolving from two directions... the nanostructure people are already trying to build molecules with atomic placement techniques today... and these more macro structure technologies are trying to get more and more detailed in what they can do. Eventually the two will meet and 20-30 years after they meet it will be fast/cheap enough to start its use as a common manufacturing process for smaller, more complex objects. It will likely quickly evolve to larger and less complex things from that point because it will bootstrap itself from an economic point of view. Note that from a molecular point of view, there would be no reason not to build foods as well as things.
Whether the printer will eventually be able to print out another printer.
= 12 4&node_id=639266
s al %20Constructor
Then we'll be in business!!
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?lastnode_id
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Univer
kind of scary, actually...
Welcome to the outskirts of the Singularity.
/articles/art0134.html (remove any introduced spaces) gives one projection of what this means, but there are others. The inability to project what will happen is an intrinsic part of the porcess.
This is a mere ghost of what lies ahead. The future will be quite different from the past, as many of the curves have entered the steep part of the ascent (well, with an exponential curve that's a statement that's hard to quantify, I suppose I mean that they are starting to curve upwards when drawn on exponential paper).
This is not all good. But it's not all bad. What it is, is different. http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm not sure it's fair to blame that 2% on technological progress. Sure, some people would rather commit crime than become educated and work, and maybe that contributes to a higher crime rate, but I would like to see some studies to back that up.
I have read (can't remember where) that a significant fraction (maybe 1/4 - 1/2) of that 2% is in prison because of nonviolent drug charges (i.e., users arrested for possession). I vaguely recall that they cited justice dept and/or prison bureau stats to back up that claim, but it's been a while. So it could be that social policies mostly unrelated to technical progress are responsible for some/most of that 2%.
Well, the 'traditional life' that humans have known for the past few millenia (up until a few hundred years ago) was pretty damn cruel and laborious. I think someone living in the third world today would gladly trade their life for one where they could go to school for 12 years for free, work at some (pointless?) job that would provide them with more food and shelter than they could ever use, and be able to live in relative comfort when they retire.
The current system does allow people to "explore the infinite possibilities of existence on their own" - so long as they are willing to take the risk of doing so. I know plenty of people that are too afraid to quit their stable jobs and go 'exploring.' Maybe we can blame that on the education system or society, but some people still manage to overcome these things and break out of the normal pattern.
While I might agree with you that the educational and social services systems have done a great deal of harm by pressuring people to conform to some idealized social norm, or encouraging/enabling them to be less productive than their potential might allow, I don't agree with your statement that (somebody) must "give" people their lives back. The human condition has almost always involved people having to claim the potential of their lives from the grip some external force, whether from the uncaring natural world, the chains of an enslaving nation, or suffocating social norms. Some might have a harder fight than others to claim their life for themselves, but it is up to the individual to make the effort. I am not opposed to helping people with a particularly difficult fight, but in the end nobody can make that individual effort for them.
Capitalism always has an element of "service economy" - if I produce a product or service, I am answerable to the customer to produce something that they want. It's not necessarily like slavery, unless one allows themselves to work in an environment that makes it feel that way.
As for the 3D printer, I can imagine that there will be many people that will provide "things of value" on a small scale for sale. Grandma can earn some extra money at home by making refrigerator magnets and selling them in a local craft store, for example. Somebody will have to provide the raw materials for the printer (again, "things of value"). A technology like this is no different than the example above of the Spinning Jenny - just a method to allow the operator of the technology to produce more things of value with less human effort. I just don't think our history gives much credence to the idea that advances in tools lead to a bunch of mind-numbed drones toiling away at 'make work' - such a thing is a human problem, not a technological problem.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
I can imagine a day coming where bombs and the like are easily assembled via this method. What's the world going to do when one of these machines is in the kitchen of every 12 year old boy in the world who ever wanted something bigger and nastier than a cherry bomb? I know this is a large step from the device they're describing, but it is definitely the natural evolution in it's capabilities, 20/30 years from now (or sooner?).
The real boon from a device like this is when we can manufacture drugs (antibiotics, painkillers, etc) and food from bare slush. Now we're getting into deep hardcore sci-fi zone here, but the difference between the haves and the have nots gets really small when you can take a boatload of raw material, and kick out food and medicine and toys. Then the world really gets to be an energy economy. He who has the most energy, can make the most stuff, feed the most people, etc.
Imagine some quotes from stories in the news a few years hence:
"Robbers used a printed replica of an assault rifle to hold up the bank"
"Police today closed down a web site distributing illegal 3D printer files of bomb controllers..."
"The car was using illegal licence plates, downloaded from the internet"
"the explosion at the factory was caused by a faulty component in the control room, which had been fabricated on a 3D printer"
Saddam can print out a nu-cu-lar bomb.
Just add uranium and stir!
Hmm, should I print my remote control in portrait or landscape?
Also, what happens when I run out of copper ink?
A strangely high proportion of these problems are due to our bizarre monetary policy which prevents us from using the gains made by technology to live a more enjoyable life. Instead humanity as a whole is like a business that never pays dividends, but instead always invests profit back into further growth.
2 5.html
A book called "The grip of death" explains all this and more: http://www.monetary-reform.on.ca/forum/messages/1
I used to think this was due to greed on behalf by the few and ignorance or insanity by the many, but now I think it's because humanity needs to be driven forwards relentlessly [at the price of fulfillment and happiness for the majority] in order to achieve a sufficient level of technological prowess within a short time frame, I dunno why, maybe this is necessary to avoid wipeout by an asteroid or something.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
am i the only one who see's the potential for abuse here? any system capable of streaming a variety of chemicals into a completed entity on the other side could produce far more than just cel phones and calculators. the constituents for a weapon are pretty much the same at a chemical level. to drop into science fiction for a moment, if a computer ever managed to gain a sense of intelligence, suddenly it has a way of producing whatever it needs. paranoid? maybe, but closing the barn door after the cows have wandered away doesn't work.
Koo-koo, koo-koo!
Conventional bullets go faster, nearly always, and are cheaper and easier.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Out of curiosity, why? I've heard a lot of off the cuff/gut feeling/emotional arguments but I've yet to find anyone who can offer a substantive reason for doubting that eutactic nanotech is feasible.
-- MarkusQ
Now WE will be putting third world laborers out of work! Not the other way around for a change!
Unless of course this thing gives off tons of CO2 and the USA signs on to Kyoto, leaving manufacturers no choice but to relocate overseas
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Why is it when I submit a story, it always gets rejected then posted the next day?
I know, I know, no grousing, but I wish there was at least a way for the editor to comment about why the article was rejected.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
the manufacturing industry has abandoned unix a long time ago for machine control. the 3d printers u can see in magazines like 'design news' and so forth (try your local university engineering library, if its public) are running off windows, why? because it has standard interfaces to it, and its not a mess of gobbldygook crap that takes some geek tech to keep it afloat. get a clue ppl
Now what needs to happen is something that breaks down objects made from these printers, and voila, the perpetual recycling lifestyle.
Need a phone? replicate it, broke it? recycle it and print another one.
DVD player out of date? Doesn't play UV-ray multi terabyte discs, recycle it and print off one that does?
And best of all...
printer out of date? print off a new one and recycle the old one!
Have grandparents that buy lots of useless shit? Now you can give them a printer that will make all the useless shit they want and when they get tired of it can be recycled to make room for more useless shit.
Just think, make anything in-organic you want, no more having to shop at walmart.
Still...
Think about it, instead of companies mass producing low quality junk for stupid people to consume, you can produce just stuff you need yourself and NO MORE WASTE! No more damaged merchandise, no more having to return stuff, no more warranties.
The ability to recycle anything made with such a printer would be the next step, quick someone patent a recycler for these things before some greedy company does.
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.
I used to think this was due to greed on behalf by the few and ignorance or insanity by the many, but now I think it's because humanity needs to be driven forwards relentlessly [at the price of fulfillment and happiness for the majority] in order to achieve a sufficient level of technological prowess within a short time frame, I dunno why, maybe this is necessary to avoid wipeout by an asteroid or something.
In the United States, the financiers of the monetary system, JP Morgan, et al, created the educational system we have today for this purpose. They realized 100 years ago that modern technology was going to make most of the people irrelevant from a labor standpoint, especially in the production of goods. They financed colleges and organizations specifically to devise a schooling system which makes people accept monotony and tedium and a hierarchical social structure to cope with this reality. No one would work in a factory until he was raised in a school.
Personally, I think this relentless pursuit of technology I think has been rather frivolous. We really aren't that better off. I live in a 100 year old apartment, shop for food in what has been a grocery store for 70 years, and take a train in a subway tunnel dug over 100 years ago. So the trains are new, but they use the same electric motors they have always used. So I work in software, but outside of that, my life could easily be just as it was 100 years ago.
I firmly believe that the relentless pursuit of technology is nothing more than a game to keep people from revolting.
I don't think we would have this system if people were not raised in schools, where they learned on their own and were not taught conformity and a need for variety. The bell in school came about because of Pavlov... he also tested his theories on humans, not just dogs. Humans who have their freedom constantly interrupted by a bell become docile and more willing to accept orders. That is why no one truly enjoys the moment or invests for the future in a logical way. The monetary system is a part of it, a big part, but education as it exists today is the other part.
To read about the whole psychology and motivation behind the design of modern factory schools read this book. Thanks for the tip btw.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
This is a very interesting site, thanks for the link.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Do a Google search for "fabber". Ennex sells them now. Ford uses them. They're great for making complex models, some of them use an epoxy bronze sintering effect for some pretty durable stuff -- not just candle wax.
Thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint - Henry IV, Act I scene II
Just because your job doesn't feel like slavery doesn't mean that it isn't. Just try not working at all. What will you eat? Where will you live? Remember, food and shelter are not fundamental rights, on par with speech, for example.
WE REQUIRE MORE VESPENE GAS
if today's life is slavery, what would you call life in the 1800s, 1500s or 100s? Freedom? hardly - not even considering the fact that most were actualy physical slaves to uninhibited lords, they were living their lives to survive, not to do what they wanted or to explore existence
in the past, people didn't change the world or "accomplish anything of real value" any more than people today do. as anyone can see through the exponential rate of technological and societal growth, people today are actually far *more* likely to have an effect on the world than people living in the past
how we live our lives is our decision. we are not held back by our way of life, we are empowered by it. we don't have to live as slaves to our instinct of survival - we can create, innovate, postulate, or "explore the infinite possibilities of existence" if we want to. this is all possible due to our affluence, which was created by the structure and order that you blame for holding us back
this hostility is misdirected - it's anger at the pointlessness of all existence, not modern existence. if people today are living meaningless enslaved lives, then people have always lived meaningless enslaved lives
I'm not sure it's fair to blame that 2% on technological progress. Sure, some people would rather commit crime than become educated and work, and maybe that contributes to a higher crime rate, but I would like to see some studies to back that up.
I have read (can't remember where) that a significant fraction (maybe 1/4 - 1/2) of that 2% is in prison because of nonviolent drug charges (i.e., users arrested for possession). I vaguely recall that they cited justice dept and/or prison bureau stats to back up that claim, but it's been a while. So it could be that social policies mostly unrelated to technical progress are responsible for some/most of that 2%.
This is a difficult topic. But when you create a national hierarchical pyramid scheme, and that IS what we have in the United States beginning with the forced educational system, you end up with a huge underclass that is not necessarily deprived of the bare necessities of life, but is none the less disenfranchised. These people have no real inscentive to be a part of society as exists today. Why bother working at walmart? Why bother giving a shit about my block? Why not just jack up on heroin all day? The point is we raise people to "succeed" in such a way that only a FEW can succeed, and the rest fail. The commit crimes because they truly don't give a fuck. I don't blame them, why should they. I would rather go to prison than work in walmart or mcdonalds. People need to belong to society and feel they are contributing something of value to that society. Being nothing more than a servant does not accomplish that goal.
Well, the 'traditional life' that humans have known for the past few millenia (up until a few hundred years ago) was pretty damn cruel and laborious. I think someone living in the third world today would gladly trade their life for one where they could go to school for 12 years for free, work at some (pointless?) job that would provide them with more food and shelter than they could ever use, and be able to live in relative comfort when they retire.
This is the myth presented by the so called free marketeers today. You really need to think about this a little more. Free people don't WANT to go to school for free. More than anything else it is SCHOOL that is slavery. Actually, you really need to go to a foreign country. This concept that the United States is this bastion of prosperity is exagerated in the extreme. We are prosperous in only the most superficial of ways. As humans we are deprived. When I say "traditional" I refer to the community based life that existed world wide until one hundred years ago. Knowing your neighbors, building a better community, or even a city. We have suburbanite families who move to the suburbs because they think thats what they are supposed to do. They don't allow apartments in the suburbs however so all their kids live in the cities. Then families ditch the house when they turn 60 and move to a golden age ghetto in florida. That may seem like an ideal life to you now, at this relatively young age, but eventually you will see that society as we have in the United States is wholly inhuman.
The current system does allow people to "explore the infinite possibilities of existence on their own" - so long as they are willing to take the risk of doing so. I know plenty of people that are too afraid to quit their stable jobs and go 'exploring.' Maybe we can blame that on the education system or society, but some people still manage to overcome these things and break out of the normal pattern.
How pray tell, is one to explore existence when they spend 16 years in school, when they are the most sharp and enthusiastic? People used to have a lot of time. Even Negro slaves in the south had time to sing songs and play instruments. The reality is it is those early years when people are the most driven to explore existence. The primary reason schools were created was because many in the past chose to explore existence by joining a revolutionary cause. Youthful rebellion was once a major force in the upheaval of society, and we have our Independence from England as a result. Case in point, look up one Admiral Faragett at some point. A rather famouse American naval officer, he received his first command at the ripe old age of 12. You find me a single 12 year old willing or even capable of such a feat today.
The exploration of existence requires time and privacy to contemplate life, ask questions, and pursue the answers at your own pace. More than anything else, it is that the government wishes to take from you.
Some people do break out, but usually not until they are much older. When you have your youthful vigor this never seems apparent, but once you turn 30 and realize how much of your life has pased you by and how much of it you have wasted, you think what you could have accomplished. Only with the freedom to do whatever you want, can you truly have limitless possibilities. Perhaps that is not an option indefinitely, but we owe our children that freedom.
While I might agree with you that the educational and social services systems have done a great deal of harm by pressuring people to conform to some idealized social norm, or encouraging/enabling them to be less productive than their potential might allow, I don't agree with your statement that (somebody) must "give" people their lives back. The human condition has almost always involved people having to claim the potential of their lives from the grip some external force, whether from the uncaring natural world, the chains of an enslaving nation, or suffocating social norms. Some might have a harder fight than others to claim their life for themselves, but it is up to the individual to make the effort. I am not opposed to helping people with a particularly difficult fight, but in the end nobody can make that individual effort for them.
It is not my argument to enable some sort of communist state. In all honesty, it is nearly impossible to return to the world as it was before forced education. But freed from the dumbing down of education, our people will be much more productive and have to work less. You think the free countries or free, but that is really not so. Freedom died a long time ago. The problem is you are thinking within the framework of the system. Once you realize how much work is irrelevant to human existence, and how efficiently it is done precisely to "make work" you realize the productivity issue is merely the result of MOTIVATION. The psychological manipulation system of western countries was more successful than communist ones, but that doesnt make it right. People in Russia just stopped giving a fuck, and their society fell apart. In the US, for a variety of reasons, people kept at it. Maybe if Russia set up a huge system funding cookie cutter homes for all their people things would have continued on as they were.
The closest social organization I am advocating is a nation of independent people, no employees, no leaders. 150 years ago, less than 10% of Americans were "employees". Slavery was necessary in the south because you couldn't get free men to work in that fashion. School was created to train humans to accept a subserviant life. We do not need a hierarchical society, and we do not need a hierarchical economy. This was, by the way Thomas Jefferson's ideal vision of America. Family farmers, forming communities, with independent tradesmen making the necessities of life.
There is another way, but until you first realize school is the source of the problem you will not see the solution. Until you realize people are kept in school for 16-20 years so they DON'T work because there really isn't enough work to go around, you won't see the solution. Until you realize that there is an inherent contradiction to the modern era, we have LESS free time than 150 years ago despite so much more technology... Technology by its definition is something which ELIMINATES work, yet it has not at all for the average American. It has provided nothing more than entertainment of the most superficial kind. Technology hasn't made our lives easier, it is simply the new Opiate.
You think you are free but you have NEVER been free. You were barely off your mother tit when you enslaved in school. After 12 years of conditioning you accepted your fate and went to college where you at least wasted four years and probably incurred serious debt. Which then forced you to go to grad school to get an even better job, or made you work hard to pay that debt. Suddenly, you are 30, and half your productive life is over. You have done nothing but eat, sleep, fuck (hopefully), and "work". Will we ever have an Athens in our modern age? Will we have a civilization which contributes something of value to future generations outside of toys?
Capitalism always has an element of "service economy" - if I produce a product or service, I am answerable to the customer to produce something that they want. It's not necessarily like slavery, unless one allows themselves to work in an environment that makes it feel that way
you really need to think about that. Capitalism was NEVER a "service" economy. Capitalism, especially American capitalism was primarily agrarian with a small amount of manufacturing and trade. A good example of true capitalism would be the Amish. They produce nearly everything within their community, sell some excess goods, and buy some farm equipment. They don't sell their services. They sell the fruits of the labor, and even that is overall a luxury, not a necessity. The problem is that you believe the purpose of capitalism is inherently to produce something that people want. If you really think about that, you realize why this we are now fucked. By and large, people want a lot of shit they don't really need. They do this because they are TRAINED to do this. We NEED consumers, otherwise our society falls apart. You see your life and your future as being nothing more than a source of energy for the economic machine. Your idea of capitalism is about as capitalistic as the British setting up an opium cartel in China. Sell an addictive drug, and only have one seller. That was the only way you could have "modern" capitalism back then. But today, we train our children to be frivolous, lazy, and crave variety. That is not life. 200 years ago, the only free people who were truly involved in the "service" economy were prostitutes.
I just don't think our history gives much credence to the idea that advances in tools lead to a bunch of mind-numbed drones toiling away at 'make work' - such a thing is a human problem, not a technological problem.
The two are intimately related. I am also not claiming that is the case. A great hypothetical situation, which this story ultimately raises, is what happens when we no longer need people to produce anything? What happens when we have a magic machine that gives us everything we want? We are approaching that level quickly. When that happens, how then do we order society? The corporate-fascist system we have today will not cut it. With every technological innovation, we come ever close to the irrelevency of work as a necessary part of human survival or happiness (to acquire shit)
I don't read or respond to AC posts
... printing. No need for UV-hardened stereolithography prototyping. As far as I know just squirt the rgb components onto the substrate and let them cure in air.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Friend, you are misunderstanding the issue. This is a debate that goes back to ancient Sparta versus Athens . Were American pioneers slaves? Yes, there were slaves, but they were never more than 20% of the total population, and even less early on. Were the people of Venice slaves? Florence? Why was beauty a staple of Venice
Do you think Thomas Paine would have sold his Common Sense and Age of Reason to the majority of American citizens if they were slaves? Do you think the majority of Americans would read such works today?
In 1880, 80% of Americans had an independent livelihood, where they were beholden to no man. There were no employees.
The main issue I am railing against is not existential, life is NOT pointless there are many things that can be done with ones life. The reality is that freedom is taken from us. From the moment you go to school you are raised to be a slave. Not only is the educational system designed to deprive you of choice, to induce conformity and submission, but it robs you of time. Will any 13 year olds be contemplating revolution in our society? No, not at all.
You believe that your life is free, but that is not the case. You will never contribute anything of value, like a great sculpture or piece of art, because you don't have the time. You spend the vast majority of your waking moments as a member of the bureucratic system, whether in training as a student or as a hack in the office. You may think you chose your life, but that choice really isn't possible until you are well in your twenties.
Part of this is you are ignorant of human history. Schools do this intentionally to MAKE you believe life is better today than it once was. You have a lot to learn, but you will realize my point later in life. But for you it will be too late, your life will be nearly over. My words are to free the next generation, those whose lives are not yet invested in the wretched machine of social engineering.
More than anything else, this is what Plato's Republic is all about, which you should probably read. It discusses the very society we have today. Just as the prisoners raised in the cave to view shadows, you can't see the real world. You need to open your eyes and consider a new ordering of society. Consider one where there are no employees, no students. Let that sit with your imagination and then read some philosophy.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
In general: Amen, brother!
As for the educational system, I'm sure you would be interested in what John Taylor Gatto has to say about it. He's a retired (read: fed-up, burnt-out, screwed-over, and opted-out) award-winning NYC public school teacher who commited the grievous sin of 'teaching' (read: encouraging, challenging, fostering, aiding & abetting, mentoring, provoking, enabling, etc...) students to think for themselves.
Gatto, along with 'co-conspirators' (read: his collaberators, supporters, co-authors, compositors, researchers, and confederates) have written a freely distributed book entitled, "(an) Underground History of American Education" and are hard at work on a (film/video) documentary mini-series "(the) Fourth Purpose"
Together with his cabal, to wit, the sinister subversives known as 'the Oddyseus Group', he may be contacted at the following URL: http://johntaylorgatto.com; his socially corrosive propaganda freely downloaded by the unwashed masses to the chagrin of our protectors, the beneficent czars of BIG EDUCATION.
On a serious note: there is not much I can say regarding post-modern social evolution that he has not already said both lucidly and with startling vivacity, and though I do not agree with every point (that, I am sure he would be truly pleased to know), I cannot be too sanguine about the general thrust his work. Yes, Gatto's theses are dark and critical. Notwithstanding, his (at times brutally) frank honesty, courage, and moral shrewdness give me hope for the possibilities of genuine reform in our/my lifetime.
Best Regards to All People of Good Will,
arnducky"Love the Truth because the Truth first loved you; make a gift of your life, as it was first given to you."