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Scientists Create World's First 3D-Printed 3D Printer
MikeChino writes "Researchers at Germany's Doppelbock University just opened the door to the future of rapid prototyping technology by developing the world's first 3D-printed 3D printer. Dubbed the Ecophage, the duplicitous device is capable of using readily available materials to create copies of itself – albeit at a slightly smaller scale. Best of all, it's outfitted with a built-in material re-processor that can convert virtually any carbon-based substance into filament for 3d-printing."
How long before all our water is alcohol?
Or is this a reference to something else?
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
You sir, are an idiot!
whatever. FIRST!
-CM
Not bad, but I'm still waiting for the April 1st where MADD says "I've you've just had a couple beers, you're still probably good to go."
is this faggotry?
the duplicitous device is capable of using readily available materials to create copies of itself – albeit at a slightly smaller scale.
I propose we give these printed "offspring" citizenship. Frankly a 3-D printer has to be more intelligent than anyone on Jersey Shore. And if these progeny can also 3D print, they are contributing more to society than anyone I've seen in reality shows.
Can we just skip this April Fools shit from now on? It's just a fucking waste of time.
No really, it's gotten really old, and there's no giggle value in it anymore. I'd just like to be able to tune in like every other day, and get my usual news. This Prank-Tee-Hee-Hee thing has totally jumped the shark, and nowadays it's just a nuisance.
Something about "All these worlds are yours, except something-or-other"...
I liked this story before, when it was called "Autofac" by Philip K. Dick.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Hello, I'll blow good karma
This ROT13 crap does nothing worthwhile. It's not funny, it's not clever, God, it's not even interesting. Yes, it will go away tomorrow, but the bloody editors should just drop it. Damn it, off to Reddit.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Save yourselves!
eof
I mean, if we all got together at the end of the day and declared that Slashdot has given us the best April Fools' Day celebration ever and that they could never possibly top it in a million lifetimes, would it convince them to stop?
Rob
Is it possible to create a coherent sentance which rot13's into a different equally coherent sentance?
I tried and failed miserably...
She try or envy tang abba one reef rat
Fur gel be rail gnat noon bar errs eng
Every year, Slashdot reminds me I'm better off with other reliable sources. This isn't even funny any more, it's childish and annoying.
I get that this is April Fools joke, but it might be worthwhile to mention that there is a real project aimed at accomplishing this goal: RepRap.
Fight or flight its all the same
Live to die another day
--Ryan
I, for one, welcome our new 3d-printed overlords. I'd like to remind them that as an engineer I can be helpful in improving all aspects of their design from mechanical and electrical engineering to ASIC, FPGA and software development.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
it's a dinosaur.
Everyone knows that you'd need a 4D printer to print a 3D printer.
Guess what I really REALLY REALLY don't want to see in my freaking lightweight / CLI rss reader, not even on 1st of april!
God dammit slashdot!
Maybe IT isn't for you?
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
3D printing of 3D printers (i.e. self-replicating printers) is the goal of a number of projects, including the Reprap project. Most of the structural parts are printable. People are working on open source printable electronics. Chips and actuators can't be easily printed yet.
Even if a 3D printer were "outfitted with a built-in material re-processor that can convert virtually any carbon-based substance into filament for 3d-printing", it would need a power source too. I recall once seeing a plan for an automated wheeled vehicle that would collect and burn plants for fuel. (I searched but can't find the original source.) But it would have to roam far and wide to get enough to make a copy of itself.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
This would be funny if the first thing it created was an egg or a chicken.
Indeed - someone who can't recognise ROT-13 at a glance probably needs to expand their education a bit.
BIT, geddit? I'm such a funny fellow.....
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
It's limited by Zeno's Paradox.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
From the department of redundancy department
There's nothing new about that, I've already seen 3D-printed 3D printers.
However, the printer will only print the parts for a new 3D printer. You have to assemble them yourself and some some parts that can't be printed (such as several motors).