A "free" Renderman was a bit limited without a decent "free" front-end. Been waiting on trying Renderman for Blender integration!

Back in my day - Apple computers (in particular MacOS) was widely known to be the easiest, most intuitive, user-friendly machine/OS out there. So when my 80+ year old father was looking for a new computer, I steered him to a Mac. BIG MISTAKE

I think it was a combination of older people getting stuck in their ways and not easily learning new thing - along with the massive complexity in newer OSX - along with a little nine-headedness - like no right mouse button, but a billion was of needing that functionality and other less-than-obvious ways of accessing it (like pressing on the right SIDE of the Magic Mouse, etc)

Objective-C really sucks. It is old (pre-dating C++), has not aged-well as the languages has been stretched over the years to accommodate new things, has always done a half-added way of encompassing C and (more specifically) C++ support (I.e. "Objective C++", but yet has survived (and grown), as it's the "only" way to do native iOS programming.

Swift aimed to clean up some of the cruft from Objective-C and has somewhat fallen into all the same traps. It had inherently avoided all the C and C++ compatibility issues - yet is still one of the 2 ways of doing a native iOS app.

So it's maybe, arguably, marginally *easier* than Objective-C, yet is one of two technologies to allow you to code inside Apple's walled garden - so, people are using it - but it's like praising a Siberian prison for serving thicker soup on Tuesdays.

Like Python 3?

I've been in the industry about 25 years. I've interviewed countless candidates. The truth is, in 25 years, I have personally encountered zero Latino candidates and only one black job applicants - in comparison two hundreds of white, Asian and Indian a applicants. So let's talk about education or whatever - but the issue has nothing to do with companies or hiring practices - in my own experience.

(BTW - we did make the black candidate and offer - he accepted, then shot us down after getting a counteroffer from his employer to stay. )

I'd have a real hard time buying into, or putting any investment into a currency that could run into these types of problems - or even potentially vaporize overnight - due to some intricate techical problem that I didn't understand - and maybe STILL wouldn't even long after it was explained to me ...

I think it's good - but on the rare occasion I can actually get Java to install and work, it's slow as a pig.

MakerBot's software can use .STL files as their standard input. Pretty much any additive process can use STL. MakerBot's software is more to run the machine - your asking about capabilities of the software to design the part in the first place.

Also, I know people that use actual objects created on MakerBot specifically to use mold-making for metal casting - so that would be an option for you too.

AND (I forgot to mention)

I bought a Dell laser printer a few years back. I think it's made by Brother, or Lexmark, or some other second-rate manufacturer. BIG MISTAKE. It sucks, and the drivers suck. Will never do that agin. Buy a printer from a real printer company, not "a PC" company that decides to go into the printer game.

Not looking forward to their future 3D offerings.

I can understand their desire to get I to this business - but as it stands now, this is sort of a "specialized" market and customer. It's not just like an IT department is going to throw one in on an order because "their vendor" (Dell) sells them.

Much more likely to be purchased by an artistic, engineering, manufacturing-type of group - under greater control and scrutiny than "I need a [standard] PC" like a lot of boilerplate Dell IT purchases.

Maybe these consumers would go with Makerbot, maybe not - but their gonna need the machine with the right specs - not just whoever is on the approved vendor list.

So - don't know if this will be good for MakerBot and Dell. But then again, maybe I'm just short sighted - and a few years 3D printers will be as ubiquitous as 2d ones - and that's the game they want to be in.

HP learned back in the 70's with all their touchscreens that people cant't/won't/don't want to work (for any length of time) with their arms/hands up in the air.

Why he (or anyone else) couldn't have come to the same conclusion WRT Leap Motion dumbfoundes me.

Cool Korea, or Crazy Korea?

I think I just answered my own question. It would be much cooler on Cool Korea, but probably funny as hell in Krazy Korea!!!

So what's a CLA. Why is there a "controversy" around it. Why does everyone hate Cononical.

As a techy and Linux geek - I think if I have to do research to understand a Slashdot article, it's either bad, or I've been reading Slashdot for too long.

I thought I heard this EXACT story *years* ago?! Verbatim. Or is my browser doing some weird caching ;-)

How about more like Bejing or Herzelia. I'm really sorry (and a bit ashamed) to say/admit it - but they Valley was all-it back in the 90's - but we're livin' in different and scary times...