I've thought that obvious places for this would be:
- local car dealer --- in the shop where they could print up small trim parts rather than having to maintain inventory / having them shipped
- local hardware store (w/ integrated 3D scanner) --- scan the thing-a-ma-bob which they customer brings in, be directed to a particular aisle / shelf if in stock, if not, print up a quote to have a replacement printed / milled.
The problem is the run time on these devices is rather lengthy, making it hard to run one profitably --- look at the charges at www.ponoko.com --- they're all way higher than the intrinsic value of the bits to most people. The original laserprinters / inkjets were competing w/ offset printing and mimeographs which were a lot less convenient and significantly more expensive on a cost-per-page basis for short runs. The VCR was competing against Cable TV or the classic movie projector, both of which were far more expensive.
I've been contemplating a milling machine (for woodworking) and would love to have a lasercutter / engraver though.
Thingiverse has received DMCA takedown notices for a couple of models, some legitimate (Games Workshop probably has a pretty clear-cut case for copyright infringement), others resolved (over a Penrose Triangle based on a design from the 1930s) and at least one other which I recall, but can't find a link for where a parent printed up a replacement part for a broken toy but took it down at the request of the toy manufacturer (if memory serves).
Knuth's source for TeX and METAFONT does this (he created the technique to enable him to write the system).
I've found (re)writing a program as a literate program results in a much cleaner representation of the code and algorithms and a clearer, more understandable manual.
DEK has since written an entire book on the concept (_Literate Programming_ a CLSI series book) a decade ago, but one seldom sees source so provided.
There are some really cool example programs which're quite interesting (and educational) to read, for example:
The digital version is too spindly since it preserves the original digitization's having been a stroke font rather than outline and is drawn w/ too narrow a pen.
It's also too clean and lacks the charm of the original (when it was typewritten using an IBM typewriter).
I actually rather like Computer/Latin Modern Mono:
Leather is constrained in size by how large a cow will grow, in thickness by the thickest point available for a given area (if you want to work really large, you can't get hides as thick as if you're willing to work smaller) and in quality by how pampered the creature was in its life (Rolls Royce uses cows raised in special pastures w/ wooden fencing (no barbed wire) and the hides which they reject would be top quality elsewhere).
Also, presumably this material won't require the tanning process, so one will get material equivalent to vegetable tanned w/o the nasty chemicals of chrome tanned.
Moreover, even though leather can be considered a by-product of the meat industry, it's not cheap --- a full hide is well over $100.
For my part, I don't understand why car manufacturers don't work up a retro-fit kit for garages (or a modular garage) of solar panels which can be bundled w/ the car when its sold.
The problem is, it'll probably be taxed by mandating a GPS unit in all electric vehicles --- but there are no privacy implication for that, right?
A better solution would be to place the tax on tires (which are already the subject of especial taxes and disposal fees), say based on the mass squared of the tire --- this would penalize the heavier vehicles which actually damage roads and encourage people to take better care of their tires and keep their vehicles in alignment.
How much of Apple's App Store success is brought about by the development tools and niceness of Object-oriented programming / interface design?
I'm biased, since for a long while a NeXT Cube was my primary machine (and for a while, I had access to machines running Windows, Mac OS and NeXTstep all w/ similar processor and memory specs), but some of the nicest applications I've ever used began on NeXTstep, and pretty much all the apps I have a real fondness for were heavily influenced by OO-environments (FutureWave Smartsketch which became Flash, but started on Go Corp.'s PenPoint):
- Altsys Virtusoso (which became FreeHand v4)
- TeXview.app (TeXshop.app was inspired by it)
- Lotus Improv
- Mail.app
- TouchType.app
- a bunch of other apps / utilities which no longer exist / are remembered
- Doom (okay, I'm reaching, but it was initially developed on NeXTstep)
Would there be as many IOS apps if XCode didn't benefit from decades of NeXT/OPENSTEP development and user-interface design work?
Already started if one tracks prices and supply closely.
I really like quinoa, but have stopped purchasing it since it has to be imported from so far away and the exportation from the countries which raise it has led to dramatic price increases there.
Wii Sports Resort, Red Steel 2, and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword are the most amazing electronic home entertainment experiences I've had thus far --- I just wish the latter two were longer or extensible via DLC.
Wish Pandora's Tower would come to NA and hope that someone will make a motion controlled RPG.
Interesting. This also ties in nicely to the problem of waste heat from human technology being a bounding limit --- see ``Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist'':
Interestingly, Rodenberry's contract w/ Paramount actually specified that if any device described on the show were to actually be invented there would be an allowance to use the trademarked name and no lawsuit.
Because they were bought out by AST/Tandy (who wanted the government contracts, then didn't understand why they couldn't keep them when they didn't continue making computers to the same specifications).
I had one (paid an embarrasingly high price for it in my foolish youth --- should've invested the money instead) and it was definitely one of the nicest things I ever owned (echoing Penn Jillette's sentiments on this back when he used to write the back page editorial for _PC Computing_ magazine).
Nice touches:
- Bubble memory for hard-drive like data storage in an era before portable hard drives
- the battery was removable and the power supply was shaped exactly like the battery --- if one wished to use it on a desktop one could pull the battery, insert the power supply and have less clutter on one's desk
- excellent keyboard
- the GRiD OS and bundled / integrated apps were amazing for the time
- accessories stacked up and plugged together very neatly making for a nice desktop dock-like experience
The company was also an early pen computing innovator.
Other cameos:
- One flew in a Space Shuttle mission (first laptop in space)
- The Richmond, VA phone book's cover one year was of a soldier during the Gulf War I believe sihouetted against the sun w/ a GRiD laptop balanced on one knee
- one used to be in the ``football'' attache case which the President's nuclear weapon launch code system was kept in.
When I was stationed in (middle-of-nowhere) Texas in 1987--8, the drivers were courteous to a fault, and pulling over onto the (fully paved) shoulder to allow a faster car overtaking one was the norm.
Slashdot Mirror
I've thought that obvious places for this would be:
- local car dealer --- in the shop where they could print up small trim parts rather than having to maintain inventory / having them shipped
- local hardware store (w/ integrated 3D scanner) --- scan the thing-a-ma-bob which they customer brings in, be directed to a particular aisle / shelf if in stock, if not, print up a quote to have a replacement printed / milled.
The problem is the run time on these devices is rather lengthy, making it hard to run one profitably --- look at the charges at www.ponoko.com --- they're all way higher than the intrinsic value of the bits to most people. The original laserprinters / inkjets were competing w/ offset printing and mimeographs which were a lot less convenient and significantly more expensive on a cost-per-page basis for short runs. The VCR was competing against Cable TV or the classic movie projector, both of which were far more expensive.
I've been contemplating a milling machine (for woodworking) and would love to have a lasercutter / engraver though.
Perhaps if your citizens were better armed, stories like this would turn out better:
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/11/mexican-marines-reconstruct-death-of.html
``Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.''
--- John Stuart Mills
If your government doesn't trust your honest citizens w/ military grade weaponry, then you've only yourselves to blame.
Firearms designs need not have rifled steel barrels (though not having rifling does complicate the legality --- a smoothbore has to be a long-arm).
Look up P.A. Luty's _Expedient Homemade Firearms: The 9mm Submachine Gun_ which uses BSP and other components readily available at any hardware store.
Already started.
Thingiverse has received DMCA takedown notices for a couple of models, some legitimate (Games Workshop probably has a pretty clear-cut case for copyright infringement), others resolved (over a Penrose Triangle based on a design from the 1930s) and at least one other which I recall, but can't find a link for where a parent printed up a replacement part for a broken toy but took it down at the request of the toy manufacturer (if memory serves).
C.J. Cherryh did even better in her Merchanter novels --- _Downbelow Station_ won a well-deserved Hugo.
Knuth's source for TeX and METAFONT does this (he created the technique to enable him to write the system).
I've found (re)writing a program as a literate program results in a much cleaner representation of the code and algorithms and a clearer, more understandable manual.
DEK has since written an entire book on the concept (_Literate Programming_ a CLSI series book) a decade ago, but one seldom sees source so provided.
There are some really cool example programs which're quite interesting (and educational) to read, for example:
Will Crowther's game Adventure - available here: http://sunburn.stanford.edu/~knuth/programs/advent .w.gz (with an offer of a $2.56 reward check if one can find a bug), or as a document to just read here: http://www.literateprogramming.com/adventure.pdf
Or a CWEB version of the RPN calculator for K&R's C Book: http://www.literateprogramming.com/krcwsamp.pdf
Hinting is like embalming a corpse --- it looks better, but is still a sad state compared to the original.
c.f. Tom Rickner and Steve Matteson's presentations at RIT's Reading Digital conference:
http://www.rit.edu/cias/readingdigital/speakers.php
There's a reason why Monotype discontinued their Enhanced Screen Quality (ESQ) line of fonts.
The digital version is too spindly since it preserves the original digitization's having been a stroke font rather than outline and is drawn w/ too narrow a pen.
It's also too clean and lacks the charm of the original (when it was typewritten using an IBM typewriter).
I actually rather like Computer/Latin Modern Mono:
http://mirrors.ctan.org/fonts/lm/fonts/opentype/public/lm/lmmonoltcond10-regular.otf
William
Surely at least one copy of _The TeXbook_ and the other volumes of _Computers & Typesetting_ will survive:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/abcde.html
which is why I've never understood why Project Gutenberg handicapped itself in its beginning w/ no tagging at all.
Leather is constrained in size by how large a cow will grow, in thickness by the thickest point available for a given area (if you want to work really large, you can't get hides as thick as if you're willing to work smaller) and in quality by how pampered the creature was in its life (Rolls Royce uses cows raised in special pastures w/ wooden fencing (no barbed wire) and the hides which they reject would be top quality elsewhere).
Also, presumably this material won't require the tanning process, so one will get material equivalent to vegetable tanned w/o the nasty chemicals of chrome tanned.
Moreover, even though leather can be considered a by-product of the meat industry, it's not cheap --- a full hide is well over $100.
William
For my part, I don't understand why car manufacturers don't work up a retro-fit kit for garages (or a modular garage) of solar panels which can be bundled w/ the car when its sold.
The problem is, it'll probably be taxed by mandating a GPS unit in all electric vehicles --- but there are no privacy implication for that, right?
A better solution would be to place the tax on tires (which are already the subject of especial taxes and disposal fees), say based on the mass squared of the tire --- this would penalize the heavier vehicles which actually damage roads and encourage people to take better care of their tires and keep their vehicles in alignment.
Since the restrictions from non-participants investing in commodities markets went away, that's what one will get.
Until such restrictions are restored, Goldman-Sachs will continue to make money on the poor's daily bread.
http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/your-daily-bread-is-goldman-sachs-hottest-commodity.05-05.html
William
How much of Apple's App Store success is brought about by the development tools and niceness of Object-oriented programming / interface design?
I'm biased, since for a long while a NeXT Cube was my primary machine (and for a while, I had access to machines running Windows, Mac OS and NeXTstep all w/ similar processor and memory specs), but some of the nicest applications I've ever used began on NeXTstep, and pretty much all the apps I have a real fondness for were heavily influenced by OO-environments (FutureWave Smartsketch which became Flash, but started on Go Corp.'s PenPoint):
- Altsys Virtusoso (which became FreeHand v4)
- TeXview.app (TeXshop.app was inspired by it)
- Lotus Improv
- Mail.app
- TouchType.app
- a bunch of other apps / utilities which no longer exist / are remembered
- Doom (okay, I'm reaching, but it was initially developed on NeXTstep)
Would there be as many IOS apps if XCode didn't benefit from decades of NeXT/OPENSTEP development and user-interface design work?
William
Already started if one tracks prices and supply closely.
I really like quinoa, but have stopped purchasing it since it has to be imported from so far away and the exportation from the countries which raise it has led to dramatic price increases there.
Agreed.
Wii Sports Resort, Red Steel 2, and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword are the most amazing electronic home entertainment experiences I've had thus far --- I just wish the latter two were longer or extensible via DLC.
Wish Pandora's Tower would come to NA and hope that someone will make a motion controlled RPG.
William
Interesting. This also ties in nicely to the problem of waste heat from human technology being a bounding limit --- see ``Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist'':
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/
Interestingly, Rodenberry's contract w/ Paramount actually specified that if any device described on the show were to actually be invented there would be an allowance to use the trademarked name and no lawsuit.
Apple never would've been able to convince the Mac faithful to purchase OPENSTEP 5.0, &c.
Current industrial farming practices use 10 calories of energy (mostly from petrochemicals) to produce 1 calorie of food.
Contemporary farming techniques are heavily dependent on petrochemicals to produce fertilizer.
Contemporary farming techniques deplete topsoil faster than it will naturally replenish.
That said, there're a lot of dandelions and wild garlic in most yards (and more acreage in lawns in the U.S. than any single crop).
Because they were bought out by AST/Tandy (who wanted the government contracts, then didn't understand why they couldn't keep them when they didn't continue making computers to the same specifications).
I had one (paid an embarrasingly high price for it in my foolish youth --- should've invested the money instead) and it was definitely one of the nicest things I ever owned (echoing Penn Jillette's sentiments on this back when he used to write the back page editorial for _PC Computing_ magazine).
Nice touches:
- Bubble memory for hard-drive like data storage in an era before portable hard drives
- the battery was removable and the power supply was shaped exactly like the battery --- if one wished to use it on a desktop one could pull the battery, insert the power supply and have less clutter on one's desk
- excellent keyboard
- the GRiD OS and bundled / integrated apps were amazing for the time
- accessories stacked up and plugged together very neatly making for a nice desktop dock-like experience
The company was also an early pen computing innovator.
Other cameos:
- One flew in a Space Shuttle mission (first laptop in space)
- The Richmond, VA phone book's cover one year was of a soldier during the Gulf War I believe sihouetted against the sun w/ a GRiD laptop balanced on one knee
- one used to be in the ``football'' attache case which the President's nuclear weapon launch code system was kept in.
William
I can still recall when it was described as being the graphical environment for GNU software.... lost a lot of interest when that went away.
William
When I was stationed in (middle-of-nowhere) Texas in 1987--8, the drivers were courteous to a fault, and pulling over onto the (fully paved) shoulder to allow a faster car overtaking one was the norm.
What's the cost of maintaining (and inspecting) a rail system in an area prone to hurricanes?
The Crawler travels a (mostly) gravel road.
::applause::
Some useful links for those who aren't familiar w/ it:
http://www.literateprogramming.com/
http://en.literateprograms.org/LiteratePrograms:Welcome
and best of all, Crowther's Colossal Cave Adventure as a literate programming novel translated by Donald Ervin Knuth:
http://www.literateprogramming.com/adventure.pdf
I've found literate programming to be invaluable for coding up infrequently touched systems which need updates from time-to-time.
William