Posted on 05/09/2013 6:00:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Right up until the time we have nano machines that you can dump a handful of out into field dirt, and they bring back a few pounds of gold & platinum.
Gold and platinum are really not that rare, just distributed so well as to make economic recovery extremely unlikely.
But rest assured, that will change. Or not rest :)
Architects are starting to 3D print housesbut without a house-sized printer
http://qz.com/68780/architects-are-starting-to-3d-print-houses-but-without-a-house-sized-printer/
At which point the government will suddenly reverse course and decry recycling.
It would be curious to see how it affects petro prices.
Not a good looking one. But you will be able to print dies for any coin and counterfeit collectable coins using the dies and a press.
Tastes like chicken.
Isn’t that a job requirement of technical writers? I mean they are writing for government school graduates and HS dropouts, but I repeat myself.
Will a shortage of 3D printers begin in a matter hours????
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Yep, as soon as DHS buys up a boatload.
Right up until the time we have nano machines that you can dump a handful of out into field dirt, and they bring back a few pounds of gold & platinum.
I think it will happen, eventually. It seems to be slower than I thought it might be. Even nano-machines have limitations. They use energy and have to work with the atoms and molecules available.
The rate of technological progress continues to accelerate. 25 years ago, I thought we might have full blown nanotech by now.
I can see that. I suppose the similarities are there, but a machine that extrudes material isn’t printing.
Watching a 3d printer in action actually reminded me of how I used to build sandcastles by dripping wet sand to make towers.
Your InkJet(tm) printer extrudes ink onto a substrate of paper. Sounds like a machine extruding material to me.
/johnny
no, extruding is a particular process of squeezing a solid through an opening into a form before it solidifies. It’s used in food production and other manufacturing. Printing basically means a mechanical form of putting ink to paper or other substrate. printing can be inkjet, thermal, ribbon, etc. Printing is understood to be a mechanical form of reproduction of type or drawing, and to be strictly 2 dimensional (even on a curved surface, the print is still 2d).
3d printing creates an object by extruding plastic or other material into a shape, more like mechanical sculpture.
I’m not saying that “3d printing” doesn’t have any ties to 2d printing (a similarity in machine drivers barely counts since it simply tells a machine how to read a file- it wouldn’t surprise me if the embroidery machines I used to create files for also had similar drivers, but sewing isn’t printing) but I also think is expands “printing” to make it meaningless by being too broad.
I actually think that replicator or builder is a more accurate term for a machine that makes an object from a 3d file.
Inkjets spray ink through nozzles, it’s a very specific technology.
3D printing is going to cause a HUGE paradigm shift.
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