Agreed. This whole thing is really more political statement than it is practical development. If you look over defense distributed's site, the political aspects are pretty well filled out(including a "manifesto"), but technical document appear to be wildly lacking. Their wiki had three pages. A main page, a blank page with a title, and something popped in by a spambot when I checked it out about a week ago. It's almost as if they saw the media bits about printing guns, and decided to tag along with this for political gain, but have no idea what is actually involved.
That sounds ridiculously limiting. Hollow components are a pretty common 3d printer thing. In addition to the utility aspect of this, it's really common to make hollow innards simply to reduce plastic use.
I'm not sure that it actually will be misused. Printing a gun requires notable access to a 3d printer, a certain degree of cost, patience, and a certain degree of skill with the system. Anyone with that sort of patience certainly isn't committing an impulse crime, and if he's got that skillset, he's probably not likely to be a career violent criminal. I suspect this whole thing is more of media fodder than anything else.
It's not that poor of a chance. The top quintile of earners in the US mostly(61%) originate from the lower quintiles. Only four of the top ten wealthiest individuals in the united states had parents describable as wealthy.
By this logic, Adam(or his equivalent, I'm not fussed about the details) deserves credit for everything, everywhere. Reductionism rapidly becomes ridiculous. And hey, that wasn't the purpose behind developing the internet. That was more of a happy side effect.
"basic Keynesian economics"? You realize that Keynesian economics have been discredited for decades, yes? Stagflation is something that doesn't exist under classic Keynesian economics, and yet has been a demonstrable outcome of policies that, under Keynesian economics, should produce growth. Therefore, using this economic system as a justification for anything is highly suspect.
This seems unnecessarily panicky. The US doesn't do this, and we don't have mass starvation. Realistically, both the US and Canada have plenty of food. A board or not isn't going to matter at all for starvation.
Firstly, plate tetonics makes a great corollary. It's a past scientific dispute which had somewhat similar patterns of denialism, and of course, that we all accept as true today.
Secondly, evolution can be and is measured and observed in labs today. Get some fruit flies and run your own tests, if you're skeptical. There are plenty that you can replicate for yourself.
Thirdly, we obviously do need good scientists and engineers. I was raised as a creationist, and when I got to college, needed a solid dose of education to catch up on scientific topics in general. Granted, not everyone in every field needs to even understand biology...but many do, and most of us will at least need some scientific understanding to complete our degrees. No point hindering kids by teaching them BS.
Look, I've never smoked pot in my life, and have absolutely no urge too. But even a cursory investigation of the government's history on weed indicates they've gleefully made shit up to make it sound bad. A certain degree of skepticism in light of that is only rational.
I know one woman who's done the classic "go to the ER and don't pay" strategy. She's...something of a hypochondriac. Does not work, obviously, so there's no money for them to take. Her credit score is abysmal, of course, but as she never really has been one for planning ahead, she doesn't much care. There's no real inducement for her to not keep doing the exact same thing she is right now. If all folks were like you, and paid their bills, the uninsured would not be a concern at all. But people like her are a problem now, and will also be a problem under obamacare.
Medicare has higher per-patient overhead fees than private insurance. It's true that they're a bit lower, percentage-wise, but that's only because overall costs are vastly higher. In absolute numbers, Medicare is more expensive than private insurance in every way.
I don't really care why there's a reason for "we're going to have to let you die". I'm going to hate it just as much regardless. That said, this isn't a thing currently. You can get lifesaving care at any ER, insurance be damned, in the US.
The biggest problem in assuming health care costs from America will match those in ANY other country is not realizing how fat we are. Any system we put in isn't going to magically make the diet of fat and sugar cheap to care for.
*shrug* I've built things by myself. Seriously, it's not that hard. I know we're all geeky sorts here, but building yourself a tool shop ain't hard. And from there, you can build basically anything else. More germane, though, is that Obama's reasoning is self-perpetuating logic. Justifying additional government-dependancy by current government-dependancy is a cycle that can continue forever.
Most printers use straight PLA or ABS. In theory, you could alter this, using carbon fiber doped plastic or something similar, but the more exotic the material, the more it defeats the original purpose, so that path has limited value. In theory, a sufficiently thick ABS barrel should work...but the break point of plastics alters under heating, so lots of overbuilding and testing is almost certain to be necessary.
It is. Oddly enough, I've been working on a similar project myself....
I think he's going in the wrong direction with.22. The pressure the chamber/barrel gets is too damned high. Sure, it's a low powered round, but also one with a fairly small surface area. Therefore, the pressure is up there. Instead of the roughly 24k psi pressures experienced during a.22, I'm utilizing a.38 cal at around 16.5k psi. This dramatically improves the engineering problem, but it's still non-trivial, and I've got some significant trials ahead before I'll be confident of anything.
The link actually does have some excellent points. Most people genuinely don't want violence, and certainly there IS a lot of doublespeak to soften the reality of topics such as war. Why else do we describe people as "fallen soldiers"? Surely no one actually believes that the cause of death was tripping and falling. Highlighting the skewing of political speech is perfectly reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is basically a nothing organization...so its a fair question.
Agreed. This whole thing is really more political statement than it is practical development. If you look over defense distributed's site, the political aspects are pretty well filled out(including a "manifesto"), but technical document appear to be wildly lacking. Their wiki had three pages. A main page, a blank page with a title, and something popped in by a spambot when I checked it out about a week ago. It's almost as if they saw the media bits about printing guns, and decided to tag along with this for political gain, but have no idea what is actually involved.
That sounds ridiculously limiting. Hollow components are a pretty common 3d printer thing. In addition to the utility aspect of this, it's really common to make hollow innards simply to reduce plastic use.
I'm not sure that it actually will be misused. Printing a gun requires notable access to a 3d printer, a certain degree of cost, patience, and a certain degree of skill with the system. Anyone with that sort of patience certainly isn't committing an impulse crime, and if he's got that skillset, he's probably not likely to be a career violent criminal. I suspect this whole thing is more of media fodder than anything else.
It's not an exceptionally large part, really. China's the "very large part" you really want to blame.
Of note is that while this is fundamentally accurate, Romney is by far the wordier of the two. Interesting, at any rate.
It's not that poor of a chance. The top quintile of earners in the US mostly(61%) originate from the lower quintiles. Only four of the top ten wealthiest individuals in the united states had parents describable as wealthy.
I live in North America. If not paying taxes means having to deal with the lions all by myself, well, shucks. I guess I'll have to manage.
By this logic, Adam(or his equivalent, I'm not fussed about the details) deserves credit for everything, everywhere. Reductionism rapidly becomes ridiculous. And hey, that wasn't the purpose behind developing the internet. That was more of a happy side effect.
"basic Keynesian economics"? You realize that Keynesian economics have been discredited for decades, yes? Stagflation is something that doesn't exist under classic Keynesian economics, and yet has been a demonstrable outcome of policies that, under Keynesian economics, should produce growth. Therefore, using this economic system as a justification for anything is highly suspect.
Natural is not a synonym for Good.
"punished because they had children"? What, is there a right to have as many children as you want without consequence?
This seems unnecessarily panicky. The US doesn't do this, and we don't have mass starvation. Realistically, both the US and Canada have plenty of food. A board or not isn't going to matter at all for starvation.
If slamming on your brakes causes an accident, the person behind you is not, in fact, a good driver.
Firstly, plate tetonics makes a great corollary. It's a past scientific dispute which had somewhat similar patterns of denialism, and of course, that we all accept as true today. Secondly, evolution can be and is measured and observed in labs today. Get some fruit flies and run your own tests, if you're skeptical. There are plenty that you can replicate for yourself. Thirdly, we obviously do need good scientists and engineers. I was raised as a creationist, and when I got to college, needed a solid dose of education to catch up on scientific topics in general. Granted, not everyone in every field needs to even understand biology...but many do, and most of us will at least need some scientific understanding to complete our degrees. No point hindering kids by teaching them BS.
Look, I've never smoked pot in my life, and have absolutely no urge too. But even a cursory investigation of the government's history on weed indicates they've gleefully made shit up to make it sound bad. A certain degree of skepticism in light of that is only rational.
I know one woman who's done the classic "go to the ER and don't pay" strategy. She's...something of a hypochondriac. Does not work, obviously, so there's no money for them to take. Her credit score is abysmal, of course, but as she never really has been one for planning ahead, she doesn't much care. There's no real inducement for her to not keep doing the exact same thing she is right now. If all folks were like you, and paid their bills, the uninsured would not be a concern at all. But people like her are a problem now, and will also be a problem under obamacare.
Medicare has higher per-patient overhead fees than private insurance. It's true that they're a bit lower, percentage-wise, but that's only because overall costs are vastly higher. In absolute numbers, Medicare is more expensive than private insurance in every way.
I don't really care why there's a reason for "we're going to have to let you die". I'm going to hate it just as much regardless. That said, this isn't a thing currently. You can get lifesaving care at any ER, insurance be damned, in the US.
The biggest problem in assuming health care costs from America will match those in ANY other country is not realizing how fat we are. Any system we put in isn't going to magically make the diet of fat and sugar cheap to care for.
*shrug* I've built things by myself. Seriously, it's not that hard. I know we're all geeky sorts here, but building yourself a tool shop ain't hard. And from there, you can build basically anything else. More germane, though, is that Obama's reasoning is self-perpetuating logic. Justifying additional government-dependancy by current government-dependancy is a cycle that can continue forever.
Printable springs are already a thing, though...
Most printers use straight PLA or ABS. In theory, you could alter this, using carbon fiber doped plastic or something similar, but the more exotic the material, the more it defeats the original purpose, so that path has limited value. In theory, a sufficiently thick ABS barrel should work...but the break point of plastics alters under heating, so lots of overbuilding and testing is almost certain to be necessary.
It is. Oddly enough, I've been working on a similar project myself.... I think he's going in the wrong direction with .22. The pressure the chamber/barrel gets is too damned high. Sure, it's a low powered round, but also one with a fairly small surface area. Therefore, the pressure is up there. Instead of the roughly 24k psi pressures experienced during a .22, I'm utilizing a .38 cal at around 16.5k psi. This dramatically improves the engineering problem, but it's still non-trivial, and I've got some significant trials ahead before I'll be confident of anything.
The link actually does have some excellent points. Most people genuinely don't want violence, and certainly there IS a lot of doublespeak to soften the reality of topics such as war. Why else do we describe people as "fallen soldiers"? Surely no one actually believes that the cause of death was tripping and falling. Highlighting the skewing of political speech is perfectly reasonable.