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Technology

Video 3-D Printing with Molten Steel (Video) 104

Steve Delaire is making a 3-D printer that uses steel instead of plastic. Specifically, he's using TIG welding to build up layers of steel, just as most 3-D printers build up layers of plastic. He says he's "still working it out," but eventually hopes to use 3-D welding to make larger than life art pieces that are strong enough to be placed safely in public areas such as parks, where children are likely to climb on them. Steve's blog is called Molten3D, and it's a diary of his work, including the problems he encounters and how he overcomes them. He's not the only one doing metal 3-D printing; a Texas company has even made a printed metal gun. So there's plenty of people working in the field of what we really should call "additive manufacturing" instead of "3-D printing." But whatever you call it, every year we see this kind of process being used to make stronger and more complicated shapes, using an ever-increased variety of materials in ways that have been developed since this seminal paper, Liquid Metal Jetting for Printing Metal Parts, was written in 1997. (Alternate Video Link)

Comment Re: Not exactly needed (Score 2) 62

A bowling alley or instructor might be a valid customer for this camera. Too pricey for you or a dozen like you, but spread it out over hundreds of users, it might make sense. Or possibly set up a "sports motion analysis" business that can be at a bowling alley tonight, a golf course tomorrow, a baseball practice facility next week, and so on.

Technology

Video A Seriously High Speed Video Camera (Video) 62

Mike Matter was showing off his edgertronic (named after Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton) high speed video camera at O'Reilly's inaugural Solid conference, when Tim Lord happened by his little show booth and started interviewing Mike with his normal speed camcorder. While Tim's camcorder shoots 720p at 30 or 60 frames per second, the edgertronic video camera shoots 720P at 700 frames per second, and can shoot lesser resolutions at up to 18,000 frames per second. But the big breakthrough here isn't performance. It's price. Most high-speed video cameras cost $20,000 to $50,000 (or even more), while Mike's edgertronic starts at a mere $5,495.00. This is still a little steep for hobby photographers, but is not bad for a tool used by professionals. And Kickstarter? You bet! Last year Mike raised $170,175, which was much more than his $97,900 goal. Now he's busy making and shipping cameras, working so many hours that he doesn't have time for his own photography. But sometimes that's the way life goes, and Mike seems to be handling it well. (Alternate Video Link)
Transportation

Video Shawn Raymond's Tandem Bike is Shorter Than Yours (Video) 85

This isn't a "both peddlers are equal" bike. The person sitting in the rear seat is in the "control" position. Because of the wide handlebars, he or she can reach around the person in the front seat to steer. The person in the front seat can't really do much except enjoy the ride, or maybe lean back and whisper a sweet nothing or two if the person in the back seat is someone the front-seater loves. The bike is called the UnaTandem (turn music off in the lower left corner of the page), and Shawn Raymond tried to get Kickstarter funding for it back in 2012 but only raised $1651, which was quite a ways short of his $70,000 goal. So, with Kickstarter in the rear view mirror, Shawn is trying to do his own crowdfunding. Will this work? Can he get enough people to buy into his idea of a tandem bike that gives you the old "riding on the handlebars" feeling to get his company off the ground? Can he use his own money (assuming he has enough) to build and sell his tandem bikes without bringing in outside investors at all? And then there's the price problem. Shawn says he's looking at a retail price in the $850 range. That may not seem like a lot to some, but you can buy 10 Walmart bikes for that much. Or four or five bikes from specialty bicycle or sporting goods stores. Despite the high price, some will undoubtedly buy these short tandem bikes and like them. But will enough people buy enough of them to make this a viable business? Shawn obviously thinks so. (Alternate Video Link)

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 224

It actually is a bit different for the Republicans, in that they are caught in an internal party schism of a scale we've not seen on either side since desegregation, if even then. It's difficult for the less right to look good to the more right, undirected pushing against the Democrats is one of the few ways they have to do it.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 224

Do not forget that ObamaCare was rammed through without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

It's the unfortunate case that Republicans don't generally support Democratic bills. Witness the recent student loan bill. There is not much question that a better educated populance means a better economy and a stronger nation. It's a truism that we could just pay for college education in a number of fields and reap economic benefits of many times the spending. Indeed, we used to do more of that and the country was stronger when we did.

Comment Re:I really dig the Obamacare comments Bruce made (Score 1) 224

You meant "you wouldn't approve" rather than "you wouldn't understand".

Positioned correctly, it isn't all that socially reprehensible to state the sentiment that you don't believe you should pay for people who drive their motorcycle without helmets, people who self-administer addictive and destructive drugs, people who engage in unprotected sex with prostitutes or unprotected casual sex with strangers, and people who go climbing without using all of the safety equipment they could.

You don't really even need to get into whether you hold human life sacred, etc., to get that argument across. It's mostly just an economic argument, you believe yourself to be sensible and don't want to pay for people who aren't.

The ironic thing about this is that it translates to "I don't want to pay for the self-inflicted downfall of the people who exercise the libertarian rights I deeply believe they should have."

OK, not a bad position as far as it goes. Now, tell me how we should judge each case, once these people present themselves for medical care, and what we should do if they don't meet the standard.

Comment Re:citation needed (Score 1) 224

Citation needed.

I just looked for a minute and found This NIMH study. If you look at the percentages per year they are astonishingly high. 9% of people in any particular year just for mood disorders, and that's just the first on the list. Then they go down the list of other disorders. The implication is that everyone suffers some incident of mental illness in their lives. And given the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, and lay practitioners in practice, it seems like much of the population try to get help at times, if only from their priest or school guidance counselor.

You are not a rock. Can you honestly tell me that you haven't ever suffeed a moment of irrationality?

Comment Re:I really dig the Obamacare comments Bruce made (Score 2) 224

Yes, seeing a doctor really is a human right.

Does that mean we should bear the burden of your bad lifestyle choices? Well, we do today. Either those folks are in our emergency rooms, or they are lying on our streets. Either way, we all pay a cost.

It's not clear to me what you propose to do with them. Perhaps you should explain that a bit more clearly.

Comment AC, please stop trumpeting fake studies (Score 1) 224

Hi AC

One would hope that a real scientific study would shed light on the situation. Unfortunately, this isn't it. It's a paper published by a Harvard student club and written by a gun industry lobbyist and a gun enthusiast. No balanced perspective that could lead to a real scientific paper here. The first refutation I found of the paper is certainly not peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal either, but makes a pretty good case that the statistics are cooked. It's here.

Please find a real scientific paper from a researcher without bias and then we can discuss it. This one doesn't quite meet the standard.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 224

Actually, we would have had a much less expensive plan, but we couldn't get it by the conservatives. It's called single-payer, and I've used it in Canada. It has also been available to me in a dozen other countries that I've worked in, but fortunately I never needed it there. It works pretty well. So well indeed that most civilized countries have it.

I'm sorry that you didn't understand my presentation. Or that you understood it and can't accept it. I've thought about it for a very long time and I'm pretty sure of it.

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