Slashdot Mirror
Machine Prints 3D Copies Of Itself
TaeKwonDood writes "Automated machines have been around for decades. They have basically been dumb devices that do simple assembly tasks. But RepRap takes that a step further because, instead of assembling pre-fabricated parts, it creates 3-D objects by printing them — squirting molten plastic in layers — and then building them up as the plastic solidifies. It works on coat hooks, door handles and now it can even make working copies ... of itself. The miracle of additive fabrication, coming soon to a robotic overlord near you."
... for one, welcomes our new self-replicating copy machine overlods.
While I appreciate the commercial benefit of this technology, the geek in me is a little more interested in the advancement toward the robot invasion. And by "interested" I meant "excited."
I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar
I ate the parent! I ate the child!
Look at our large bellies!
Haven't I heard this before?
This is take piracy to a whole new level. What fun.
FTA (emphasis mine): The materials, plus the minority of parts that the machine cannot print, cost about £300. It also does not actually assemble the parts it creates. So close and yet so far.
=Smidge=
Continually! Seriously Rob, how much are these guys paying you?
I have some old Natalie Portman's pics to print out!
Dawkins Revisited: A person is shit's way of making more shit -- Steve Barnett, anthropologist.
Won't everyone just buy one, make it clone itself and then send it back for a full refund?
These machines have been around since I was in college. Nothing new here. No one mentions the amount of work you have to do with a razor to make it look right.
All the times I've owned something and one annoying plastic part breaks ruining the product. With this baby it'd be so easy for companies to send replacement parts at a fraction of the cost I bet.
If I still had my old Dell laptop I'd print the latch that broke off a few years ago.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
and stories about itself on /. Didn't we have an
article/discussion a few days ago, and figured out
the only thing this 'self-replicating printer machine'
does is make copies of its case?
Until it can make a copy from raw material, not prepaired sheets, and make a complete copy, this is nothing exciting.
Big deal, it's only a plastic copy of itself. Come back to me when I can use it as well
So I guess these guys just made China obsolete?
Can it sniff out nearby objects/people, ingest them, shred/melt them down to create new raw materials for buildling copies of itself? Thought not. We're safe... for now...
'Recently, Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manage at Google Inc, encouraged people to: "Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop."'
I am assuming that they used another method to make the very first one or else philosophers are going to rake it in for years over where the first one came from.
"Automated machines have been around for decades."
Na, really? I thought that they just came out yesterday!
Lord Vader our troops are almost ready but I gotta run to staples to get some more of that plastic injection stuff for the printer.
It works on coat hooks, door handles and now it can even make working copies ... of itself.
I didn't even have to read TFA to know this ain't true...
Unless the machine can also make it's own electrical components...Gears and even parts of pumps I can believe, but without some way to move those electrons around, it ain't happenin'.
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
you haven't thought your cunning plan all the way through
you forgot the part about who plugs you into the wall
who's in control now biatches!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Printcrime
Copy this story.
(originally published in Nature Magazine, January 2006)
Cory Doctorow
The coppers smashed my father's printer when I was eight. I remember the hot, cling-film-in-a-microwave smell of it, and Da's look of ferocious concentration as he filled it with fresh goop, and the warm, fresh-baked feel of the objects that came out of it.
The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. One of Da's customers had shopped him. The ipolice paid in high-grade pharmaceuticals -- performance enhancers, memory supplements, metabolic boosters. The kind of things that cost a fortune over the counter; the kind of things you could print at home, if you didn't mind the risk of having your kitchen filled with a sudden crush of big, beefy bodies, hard truncheons whistling through the air, smashing anyone and anything that got in the way.
They destroyed grandma's trunk, the one she'd brought from the old country. They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window. My tweetybird escaped death by hiding in a corner of his cage as a big, booted foot crushed most of it into a sad tangle of printer-wire.
Da. What they did to him. When he was done, he looked like he'd been brawling with an entire rugby side. They brought him out the door and let the newsies get a good look at him as they tossed him in the car. All the while a spokesman told the world that my Da's organized-crime bootlegging operation had been responsible for at least 20 million in contraband, and that my Da, the desperate villain, had resisted arrest.
I saw it all from my phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching it on the screen and wondering how, just how anyone could look at our little flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home of an organized crime kingpin. They took the printer away, of course, and displayed it like a trophy for the newsies. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty. When I roused myself and picked up the flat and rescued my poor peeping tweetybird, I put a blender there. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month before I'd need to print new bearings and other moving parts. Back then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be printed.
By the time I turned 18, they were ready to let Da out of prison. I'd visited him three times -- on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and when Ma died. It had been two years since I'd last seen him and he was in bad shape. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. I was embarrassed when the minicab dropped us off in front of the estate, and tried to keep my distance from this ruined, limping skeleton as we went inside and up the stairs.
"Lanie," he said, as he sat me down. "You're a smart girl, I know that. You wouldn't know where your old Da could get a printer and some goop?"
I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. I closed my eyes. "You've been in prison for ten years, Da. Ten. Years. You're going to risk another ten years to print out more blenders and pharma, more laptops and designer hats?"
He grinned. "I'm not stupid, Lanie. I've learned my lesson. There's no hat or laptop that's worth going to jail for. I'm not going to print none of that rubbish, never again." He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
"Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear. Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup. Come here and listen to your stupid Da."
I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. He was off his rocker, that much was clear. God knew what he went through in prison. "What, Da?" I said, leaning in close.
"Lanie, I'm going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone
"Knock, knock"
"Who's there?"
"Candygram"
"You're not a self-replicating cybernetic organism?"
"No, ma'am"
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It makes copies of the parts needed to make a copy of itself. That's like saying a screw-making machine is making copies of itself because it also contains screws. If it "made a copy of itself", then out of the output area would appear a machine similarly capable of producing a copy of itself. Those are two totally different things!
stuff |
Ok, so maybe they've got a novel way to promote themselves: "our machine can even copy ITSELF!" But this technology has been around for ages. In the late 90's I was personally watching a low tech version layer adhesive paper and cut it out with a laser. The technology has since evolved into photosensitive polymers that crosslink in layers to allow more complex parts that can take a beating. In fact, I was working on projects with the polymer manufacturers to improve interlayer adhesion. This stuff is new? No way.
I see where this is going... I just finished (re)reading Antrax (one of Terry Brooks' Shannara series). We're all screwed when this printer gizmo becomes self-aware!
At the top, it says "RepRap makes its first complete working replicated copy!"
But below, it says: "You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself."
(Emphasis added)
The self-printing machine is another step to Star Trek's "matter replicator". Society will have some sweeping changes when physical property is as easy and cheap (or beer-free) as intellectual "property" (imaginary property) is to replicate.
Someone in an RIAA/MPAA thread said that since physical property was getting cheaper and cheaper to manufacture and took less and less people to make that we need to stake our future to IP. I say this is hogwash - I may be creative, but most people aren't.The record labels are already quaint anachronisms, and the movie studios will soon follow as the cost and necessary technical expertise drop. It no longer takes lots of gruntwork to make an album; the band and a guy running the studio is all you need now. What will those who have no creativity do for a living?
Heaven on earth is on its way and technology is bringing it here. And the greedy rich are fighting its arrival tooth and nail. Their sense of entitlement and feelings that they are better than the rest of us is sickening.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Just a thought. Could be used as a model system for evolution research. I just saw Susan Blackmore's TED talk - she summarizes Darwin's Origin of the Species as: If you have - variation - selection - heredity Then you *must* have - evolution It would be interesting to speculate how those three factors could be introduced.
--- I am NaN, I am a free man!
Looks like a fun toy, what does it actually cost to make anything with it though? Would it be cheaper to buy a coat hook from Wal-Mart or to print my own?
So a MACHINE can self replicate now! This is an achievement of a sort that most /.ters can't boast about ;) It's not fair. There must be a limitation built into this machine that would force it to seek out another machine like itself, only a different color and use half of that machine's blue-print to replicate. Then the other machine must be programmed to refuse most of such attempts without giving a logical reason for it (what's logical about not wanting to replicate as much as possible if you are a replicating machine? ;)
Then the first machine would have to learn all kinds of tricks to fool the second machine into believing that the second machine actually WANTS to replicate with the first one. Then Sex in the Factory show will make it big.
You can't handle the truth.
Professor Farnsworth: It can do other things, why shouldn't it!
The Replicator Industry Association of America cautions that all replicators are required, prior to creating the first device, to first replicate a EULA. By buying a replicator you are deemed to have agreed in advance to this EULA.
The EULA, rather like the United States Constitution, is a "living document" constructed of active replicator parts. It periodically downloads updates and constantly improves itself to keep up with modern jet-age progress, and the latest court decisions.
The RIAA suggests you keep the EULA posted in a conspicuous place where you can refer to it periodically to check for updates in the terms and conditions of use.
The EULA provides that you cannot use the Replicator to replicate itself, nor to replicate any patented or trademarked device.
To spare you the inconvenience of checking the patent database yourself, the EULA uses BlueTooth to communicate with the replicator and Wi-Fi to search the patent, trademark, and copyright databases. To increase customer satisfaction and continuously improve the product, it also keeps the RIAA updated on what all replicator users are doing with their replicators, so that the RIAA can better serve you.
And we do mean "serve."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
...does it run Linux? And if it does, do you have to redistribute the 3-d model under the GPL? *ducks*
...to make a velociraptor skull? Oh yeah, that was Jurassic Park 3. In 2001.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
A good comparison is reproducing an OS in a Linux-From-Scratch style (using only source code, disk space and CPU cycles). *THE* thing you need is a C compiler. But to run that, you need a kernel, and a C library below. Then you need shell scripts to automate it, thus a shell. Most sources include makefiles, therefore you need 'make'. And bigger components use all sorts of preprocessing utilities like awk, lex, sed, grep, and so on. All these programs use a variety of standard utilities for copying/removing files, creating directories, etc. So before you get 'full circle', you need a pretty big set of things to reproduce what you start with (think of a compressed Gentoo stage 1).
Maybe this would be a good idea for an X-Prize kind of challenge: create a factory that makes *any commodity of choice*, and keeps itself working indefinitely using just the raw materials, and energy. That is, repairs/rebuilds machines if they break, does maintenance, etc. Say that the only role of humans would be to hit the 'on' switch, stock up supplies/energy, and to keep roof & walls of the building in place. I suspect that even for the simplest kind of product, the minimum size for such a factory would be *huge* if you include stuff like electronics (create new IC's from raw silicium to replace failed ones).
Perhaps all the required technology to do this already exists, but we're still a long way from putting all those parts together.
Hmm, I thought the singularity would be more impressive than this. I bet Singularity 2.0 will be awesome.
When it makes it's own plastic cartridges too.
tagging: not new, old news.
So this machine is open-source and can self-replicate?
So when do I get one?
I think I read it only takes a couple of hours? If the machine does that, the next day you have two, the next 4, the next 8,16,24,48... within a year everybody in the world could own such a machine, pretty cheap!
So if I know somebody who has this machine, I can easily get a copy now? That is so cool, saves me a lot of tinkering hehe!
Then nobody in the world will need to buy coat hooks and doornobs, we just fab it!
My blog: http://www.redcode.nl
As millions of Warhammer gamers found a cheap way of making their own quality miniatures.
Or not. I'm really not into miniature gaming, so I have no idea of the cost/benefit relation using this machine to make the miniatures instead of buying them.
Anyone care to elucidate?
Basically, you have to agree on a starting environment and what "self-reproducing" means. Computer viruses might be argued to be better quines than a program that simply prints itself and requires a human (or another program) to take the output and run it again.
Similarly, one might demand that a true self-reproducing machine be able to reproduce itself in the middle of the desert with only the sand as raw material and sunlight for energy. But most people would accept something in between that and the machine described in TA.
Self-reproducing lifeforms have similar issues. It is possible for a very simple "lifeform" with only 54 base pairs to be self-reproducing, but only if it parasitic. On the other hand, the simplest known lifeform that can reproduce independently is the Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria with 582970 base pairs. This probably isn't the simplest one that can theoretically exist - it is hard to imagine the right combination out of 4^582970 appearing at random in the pre-life organic soup - but whatever simpler thing existed before it is a mystery.
Don't we have enough problems with plastics, everything from the various tensions surrounding the oil industry to recycling, and reuse. Interesting project, but I can see a resulting boom in useless trinkets made from plastics as a result. I see this further pushing the boundaries of a disposable society. "oh my iPod casing isn't quite as pristine as last week... I'll print a new one!" Maybe not, but you get the idea.
A video of Adrian Bowyer's RepRap can be found at ofpblog.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We are Borg. Resisance is Futile.
subject to interpretation I suppose. Similar issues arise
with
quines (self-reproducing programs). For example,
consider the classic C quine,
For me, this is not a true quine, because there is no
"#include<stdio.h>". It will not compile on typical C compilers.
(There are longer quines that do have the include.) Overall I agree with your post, but I just have to pick a nit. There is nothing wrong with the quine you mention. It should compile on any C compiler. The include is optional as long as you're using functions whose prototypes match what you get from using them implicitly, which printf does. It won't compile in a C++ compiler since C++ requires explicit prototypes, but C++ is not C.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
So you buy the machine, or get one made for you, then you buy the plastic in cartons (or barrels for some of you). Then you print out something, find out it isn't better than the design that came out of the factory (cause let's face it, not everyone knows how to design perfectly the first time). Then you throw it away.
Now seeing as this plastic probably won't be polyhydroxyalkanoate (or some other biodegradable plastic.
Now I could just see our landfills in 20 years when all these Gundam Wing or Sailor Moon models, that just didn't quite work out, start filling it up.
Sure you can probably dl nice working 3D models, because we all know that there is no way that this is going to mess up the printing process....say like your regular printer does now. Right? Right?
Physics is imagination in a straight jacket. ~John Moffat
What sort of molten plastic does it use? Does it start in a liquid state and then dry when it's exposed to the air? Or does it melt solid plastic and then reshape it? I had thought that molten plastic would result in some nasty, maybe toxic vapours. Anyone here know for sure?
Although I am something of a RepRap fanboy, I still find the "it copies itself!" line of hype, which comes straight from the RepRap web-site, rather annoying.
RepRap has succeeded only in duplicating the plastic bits of itself. While that it is a huge step, it is still not full self-replication. There are still metal rods, fasteners, motors, electronic components and printed circuit boards to go before full self-replication can be claimed.
-deane
...to teach it to eat, and to incorporate the new DARPA tech for UAVs, where they can seek out and hang on power lines to recharge their batteries.
Then humans are entirely superfluous and can be gotten rid of. Accountants will rejoice.
-Styopa
Now we just adapt it to use Martian soil for building material and sunlight for energy, and ship it off.
The main problem I have with this is the source materials. I looked into RepRap before when I was researching to create my own CNC machine. I like a lot of the concepts, but it took me a while to figure out what material they were using for the source material. After a while of searching on their site, I found out that you have to purchase spools of plastic wire. I do not think that the cost for the plastic spools is at a reasonable price for what needs to be manufactured.
Until I can use ground up soda cans and water bottles, I don't see how this project will take off. Yes, I recycle the water bottles, but think how much better it would be if I could just insert some used water bottles into a machine and use that as a source for whatever I was creating, skipping the middle-man as it were out of the equation.
Okay... get some perspective here. The materials alone cost £400... which, giving that number a bit more meaning, works out to something over $750 USD. That's not exactly pocket change for a good percentage of people... and they somehow figure that people will just be willing to casually give them away? Sure, it's not out of reach of the average person's budget for the person who wants one, but it still strikes me as being well beyond the typical person's threshold of disposability.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Didn't they have one like that in the star trek series? Is this one step closer to bringing us to that era?
The next generation just needs to get on eBay and buy another assembled unit.
It doesn't make a "copy of itself". It doesn't make the plastic output device. It doesn't make the servomotors, the cables, the metal rods, or the control computer. All it actually makes, in fact, are the brackets used to assemble the other parts. The easy parts.
A manual Bridgeport milling machine, on the other hand, used to be considered "self-replicating". If you have a milling machine, a small foundry, a supply of good quality steel scrap, sand, and fuel, and a skilled machinist, you can eventually make another milling machine and all the foundry equipment. Factories that made Bridgeport milling machines (the design was widely copied) did in fact make them using Bridgeport milling machines. A good 1930s machine shop really can replicate itself with only a supply of good people and raw materials.
This machine is more hype than substance. It's just a mediocre stereolithography machine. If you want to use a good one, and you're in Silicon Valley, sign up with TechShop in Menlo Park. They have one, and it's not used much.
can it make a 3D copy of my butt?
How is this different than a tool factory using a CNC machine to make CNC machine parts? You know, something that's done millions of times every day, for the last couple of decades...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
One is reminded of the old programming challenge to write a program that accepts no input, and its sole output is an exact copy of its own source.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I submit that without the capacity to manufacture a working integrated circuit, the claim that the device can replicate itself should be considered a deliberate act of fraud.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Paul McGuinness will be calling for the oil pipes to be disconnected next!
My family owned a construction company. We built steel mills, out of steel. The steel was manufactured in a steel mill very similar, if not identical, to the one we were building.
Now, sure, we were all anthropocentric and said "we" built the steel mill, but by the loosy goosy definitions in the article, it appears the steel mill built itself.
We need to stamp out this archaic anthropocentrism.
"All this has happened before and it will happen again."
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Call me when our new, self-replicating robot overlords are made of something more durable than cheap plastic.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Self-replicating? Oh no. Looks like we have the world's first 3 dimensional worm! (Well, not counting the worms born naturally of course.) What sort of firewall will I need to block it?
"But this one goes to 11!"
I don't get it. I simply don't get what is groundbreaking about this project at all.
/. article. Fab@Home has been on /. more than once as well.
Open Source?
3D printing?
Self-replication?
None of this is unique, or even original. If you want a high-quality 3D printer that can self-replicate a great many of its parts, and is open-source with some fantastic documentation currently available, see Fab@Home where some progress is being made and has been happening for a couple of years now.
I've seen suggestions of printable ICs and other sorts of digital circuits that might be used in such a device, and it should be noted that the ultimate goal of the Fab@Home project is a fully replicatable device with some sort of basic supply of "source materials" like resin and copper.
While the RepRap looks interesting, it doesn't look like they've done a "survey of available literature" to really prove they've done something new or original... and certainly not something worthy of a
3D printers have been around for decades now in one form or another. If that is what is so ground breaking, these folks need to learn what is standard engineering practice among mechanical engineers. Prototyping machines like this are not only commonly used, but considered essential for any decent engineering shop. All the RepRap looks like to me is a cheap 3D printer.
It's PEOPLE!
Just another veteran of the platform wars. It's a great time to be a fan of tech.
In order to be fully self-replicating, the machine that it produces needs to contain the design information to produce another copy of itself. If the design specs are external to the machine, and need to be fed into the new copy of the machine, then it isn't a Von Neumann replicator.
It's only the 4th dupe.. I'm sure it can make more..
Machine Prints 3D Copies Of Itself
On June 5th, 2008 with 237 comments
TaeKwonDood writes "Automated machines have been around for decades. They have basically been dumb devices that do simple assembly tasks. But RepRap takes...
Hardware  Robotics, Technology
Score: 2.9
3D Self-Replicating Printer to be Released Under GNU License
On April 7th, 2008 with 313 comments
Rob O'Neill writes "A Kiwi open source developer is working on a self-replicating 3D printer, RepRap, to be made available under the GNU license. 'The 3D...
Hardware  GNU is Not Unix, Patents, Hardware
Score: 5.1
Open Source Self-Replicating Robot
On June 4th, 2005 with 194 comments
Josilot writes "CNN.Com is running an article about a new self-replicating robot named RepRap. From the article: 'A revolutionary machine that can copy itself...
Hardware  Robotics, Science, Index
Score: 5.8
Towards Self-Replicating Rapid Prototypers
On March 17th, 2005 with 285 comments
Neil Halelamien writes "Researchers at the University of Bath are developing a rapid prototyping machine capable of making copies of itself and other products,...
Technology  Robotics, Technology
Score: 2.4
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
I'm more interested in machines that can replicate functional copies of themselves. I want to know how close we are to forkbombing the universe.
You are talking about the argument for lathes. Metal working lathes are the only machine that can be used, after a fashion, to make ALL of its own components, and even make them to a better tolerance and standard than the machine being used.
I knew a kid in High School who went over the top in Metal Working. He took home 3 lathes and a vertical end mill after his senior year. All but the first lathe were made using the first lathe. The first lathe was build piece by piece by hand. Was pretty awesome stuff.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Sounds like an interesting place!
Can someone please post a mirror that isn't blocked by DOD? They block the stupidest shit around here...
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
Cory Doctorow took what would have been a one-line slashdot troll ("imagine the day when the cops or Manufacturers Industry Alliance arrest you for making counterfeit stuff") and turned it into a badly written sci-fi short story. "Craphound", indeed.
Please help metamoderate.
(\x.xx)(\x.xx)
I can't find anywhere on the site about how to make it. I can only find nonsense about how somehow in the future it is going to make itself (which it can't do at all at this point), and how the one you make yourself is called a "RepStrap" or something.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Just control the thing with a Babbage Difference Engine made out of little plastic gears.
Even better if it was a milling machine and could make metal parts.
Reprap could print our a generator and harness ambient energy: http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,11789
Why do you allways do something like that when I am taking a drink?
Enclosed you'll find a bill for the replacement of my keyboard.
Please pay for the following items:
*****--- Item: Keyboard PN: 0U81269L333T Cost: $68.32 ---*****
Total: 68.32
Tax: 6.14
Subtotal: 74.46
We gladly accept PayPal, Visa, & Mastercard. We do not take American Express or Discover.
Thank you, and come again.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
...but the copies degraded.
You insensitive clod!
ah, but do you have a machine that goes *ping*?
times 111ty billion http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/07/210205
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/04/1728252
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/18/013240
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
June 6th 2008, the RepRap project manages to make a perfect copy of its self. The project is seen as a success.
June 10th 2008, RepRap becomes self aware and starts taking measures to protect itself.
June 28th 2008, the first Man vs Machine war begins.
Now it just needs an automated assembly facility, maybe a few set of manipulators, and other types of plastic to print the bars and belts. sure, it would still need the electronic components readied by its side to assemble the child, but one step closer.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
No doubt! My work keyboard is a crapy HP stock POS.
My home Keyboard is a crapy for typing(but versital) G15.
One of those would make typing @ mork so much more fun!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
This just proves that the Replicators are real, and thus the Stargate does exist. Man, I am so relieved to know that SG-1 and Atlantis have this all under control.