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How They 3D Print Your WoW Character
WoW Insider had the chance to sit down with Ed Fries, the founder of the new and highly unique business FigurePrints. Fries is best known for his work at Microsoft on the original Xbox, but he hasn't been idle since he left the company in 2004. His newly launched service allows World of Warcraft players to 'print' their characters out as 3D sculptures. He and blogger Mike Schramm discuss the origins of the company, and the process used to make the figs: "At heart, it's basically an inkjet printer, which is pretty cool. It actually uses HP-11 inkjet printheads. But instead of printing on paper, it prints on a thin layer of plaster powder. So you have to imagine that there's a bay with a platform, and a spreader bar comes in and spreads a very thin layer of plaster powder, which has the consistency of flour. So it gets spread onto the platform, like a sheet of paper. And then the printheads come out, and they print right into that plaster. It sets the ink on top of it, and like paper it soaks into it-that plaster hardens."
Definitely stuff that matters, too. Or rather, materializes.
As opposed to someone whose life is so meaningfully spent trolling a message board? Oh yes, that's _got_ to be some achievement and valuable skills for life. How I envy you, sir ;)
;)
Newsflash: yes, the _whole_ purpose of it is to waste some time in a fun way. We already know that. And I'm writing that as someone who doesn't even play WoW any more.
Thing is, humans weren't built to sit and stare at the walls. Even spreading some fresh paint on them and watching it dry, isn't actually all that exciting
So we find things to fill our time with, that's more fun, and preferrably something different than what we do at work. You know, so those parts of the brain get some rest and some time to index and pre-process the information into permanent storage.
So some people sit at the couch and watch football. It's technically time wasted, but if they have fun there, that's what matters.
Some spend their life playing prom-queen, yakking the most recent gossip, and playing a complicated game of who's-popular-with-whom. It's rarely as useful as its proponents make it sound. Most of those people will give even less of a damn about you in a pinch, than your guildmates in WoW. Not saying that the latter is some gold standard of human empathy and helpfulness. More like that a clique of wannabe prom-queens is even more likely to just worry about their own "score" in that fucked-up game than about your problems.
In effect, that's mostly just another way to waste some time in a more entertaining way than watching paint dry.
Some people go sit on a lake's edge with a fishing rod, and pretend that it's some valuable survival skill (it isn't), or could feed a family (it doesn't), or that it builds character (it doesn't.) See, that thing doesn't really scale. We're too high a population, to feed ourselves with a fishing rod, and a too fucked up economy to buy anything with money earned selling that fish. The only way to make any money with fish is with either a fish farm, or a big fucking ship with nets and huge fridges. Unless you can afford either, you will _not_ keep your family fed with fishing, even in the most fantastic scenario imaginable.
Nope, that's just another way to waste some time in a way that the fisher finds more fun than watching paint dry.
Some people spend half of their free time fiddling with their car, and pretending that it makes them Real Men. Oh, and usually it comes with some pretense that it saves them such a huge heap of money. Newsflash: if it were about money, then get a second job in that time, and take your car to a mechanic when it breaks. Saving maybe 20 bucks on repairs even 1-2 times a year, at the expense of spending hundreds of hours in the garage per year, doesn't actually work out as great money/hour even in the poorest countries.
So, nope, that's another way to waste some time in a more entertaining way than watching paint dry.
Some go out in some god-forsaken woods or on some god-forsaken mountain and pretend that they're learning such great skills in the process. Well, yes, they do, except the catch is: the only times they'll ever use those skills is when they next do that highly unnatural exercise. There is _no_ time in a city when you'll have to find your way by seeing which side of the trees the moss grows on. And if you're into finding your way by the sun or stars, good luck with having line of sight or visibility for either. And here's another fun thought: you want _practical_ orientation skills? Get a GPS navigation sytem and learn to use it. _That_ is where orientation is at nowadays. So, anyway, it's skills that are in practice just as useful as my WoW skills: useful only when you go there again.
Yup, you've guessed my verdict: it's just another way people spend their time to h
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