ProE doesn't have very much market share these days. One of the best all in one packages is actually UGS NX which features integrated CAD/CAE/CAM. It's hella expensive, but it commands a significant share of the CAM market. Powermill from Delcam and Mastercam from CNC Software are also really good.

Haha, you've never worked with a real CNC machine before I take it? Trust me, you don't want to be futzing around with it on a daily basis. You want it to produce parts, and do it as quickly and precisely as possible. The machines tend to be rather unwieldy to work on as well. Changing the spindle in a CNC machine takes a full day, and then the machine has to be checked and indicated so that it cuts accurately. When your machine is accurate down to the .0002", you don't really want to fuck around with that.

I realize you're referring to a hobby machine, but you can't put the cart before the horse. First there needs to be a significant hobby CNC market before a "plug and play" market is developed.

Assuming he is referring to the injection nozzles, I doubt it you can make a quality part on a reprap. You can probably make ones that work, but they wouldn't be any good IMO.

As someone who works with CNC machinery on a daily basis as a manufacturing/mechanical engineer, having a cheap low cost DIY desktop CNC would be incredibly useful for home usage. However, this will be limited in it's capabilities. Cutting metals like aluminum usually requires coolant or else the material will melt and jam up inside of the flutes of the tooling. Steels can be air cut with the right carbide tooling, but I don't think this machine will have the structural rigidity required to cut steel. Generally the rule of thumb in machine design is to make your machine as heavy and rigid as possible. There is a good reason why these machines aren't cheap.

Something like this will probably be useful for cutting plastics, wood, and maybe aluminum if your willing to mount a cooling and reclamation system. Also this system will be SLOW most undoubtedly. However it will have it's uses. Cutting HDPE to make molds for silicon casting would be one, great for modelers. Precisely making printed circuit boards would also be another useful feature. Drilling wouldn't be too bad as long as the machine has enough torque. I think something like this would work well with one of the homemade 3D printers such as the MakerBot or Reprap.

I'm very curious on my end, might end up building one if I can get my boss to let me utitlize company machinery to make one.

You're right, it's all speculation for now. I'm sure we'll find out eventually who did though, maybe in 5-20 years, these guys are going to want their names in the history books.

Don't worry, we'll be returning to a multi-polar world soon enough once again. The new cold war is just getting started.

And what exactly has it done to those systems? Nothing? Right.

Hah, Hah, Hah, right. Creating a huge power vacuum is going to create peace, hah.

Sure, it's as simple as downloading the source code and modifying it.

I'm sure the designers of stuxnet never thought of that.

I think they're talking about forum registrations and such actually. The article is sketchy on details.

It hasn't hit the USA or Europe so far and it's been out for quite a while. As for why, this clearly is the work of Western national cyber warfare agencies, I don't think they would want to cause havoc amongst their own citizens.

You think the Arab nations will be so glee at the thought of a powerful Iran? In case you haven't been paying attention, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." The wikileaks cables show quite clearly that Iran doesn't have much support from their Arab neighbors.

What makes you so sure about that? A computer virus could discriminate just as much as a real biological virus yah know.

You're assuming the virus works in the USA/Europe?

That is true, it was possible to take months off at a time if the other waiters liked you enough.