There are many reasons why I print my own pictures, cost being one factor, but artistic control of the process (especially in the use of "special" paper which a commercial printer could not use cost effectively) is more important. I use a Brother DCP 6690 CW printer fitted with a continuous ink supply system (think long range tanks) and I buy ink by the litre. The main cost for me is paper, and hand made 200gsm A3 paper is very expensive. For most work I use water colour paper and that runs to about £5 for 12 sheets of 10" by 14" depending on finish.
Now translating this to 3D printing, I can see the use for "craftsman standard" devices in the production of intaglio or relief decoration and items such as masks, plaques etc., especially if I can apply true colour (24 bit) to the surface. I don't believe that current devices are capable of producing such items to the required standard of finish, but hope that they soon will.
I think that we need to stop thinking about duplicating existing objects and see the technology as a means of producing novel products or novel forms designed to take advantage of the characteristics of the device, and especially to the production of "one off" or very limited "editions". How about a specially designed dinner service for that crucial business lunch?

I know I'm not supposed to actually read the original, but this time I'm going to quote it!

The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region.

I don't understand the use of "massing" in this way, and given the claim that the "armada" includes three Nimitz class carrier groups, it would seem that good ol USA is "massing".
Come on editors, at least put an accurate headline on stories, even if you don't check the content.

No amount of comments can replace full and proper design and implementation documentation. In fact the best comments are links to these documents. And don't go on about waste of time producing such documents, in over fourty years in the business I've seen plenty of evidence to support my view. Modern IDEs make it easy to update design and implementation notes and keep linked versions of these and the code in step, and multiple screens make it easy to have all relevant information in view at the same time.
Now get off my lawn and take your badly designed, badly written, and probably irrelevantly commented code away from my system.

I remember when the Harrier was in flight test, there was a 19" rack mount mini-computer in a Nissen hut (corrugated iron) which needed a drastic environmental control soliution. A copper pipe was threaded through the cabinet with a funnel at the top and a thermos flask at the bottom. When it was hot, we poured liquid nitrogen through the pipe, but when it was cold we used hot water. Great skill was needed to keep within the safe working temperature range. Of course this was before health and safety made such solutions illegal.

I need that heat to keep the house warm. In winter I power up the spare systems and run disk tests. In a "heat wave" I turn off a few monitors. :)

Yes, I do RTFA. My point was that I represent a category with sane reasons to volunteer. The category will still exist in ten years, although sadly none of the people that now belong to it.

In spite of all of the posts implying that any volunteers must be "insane", I would be quite willing to go, for the reasons below. The important thing is that they are reasons, i.e. I am sane and have thought about them logically.
I am unlikely to live more than 5 to 10 years more even if I stay on earth, in fact reduced gravity might give me longer.
I have a good knowledge of science and engineering and a practical turn of mind that could let me make a real contribution to the project. I, like most humans, would like to have a chance to "make a mark" and leave a lasting memory, so what better than "third man on Mars"?
I have had a good life, and worked on some interesting projects, but other than /. all I can do now is "play". I help a few local organisations with IT related tech, but I would love to do "meaningful" work again. Don't tell me about Open Source projects, unless of course you are a planning an SST :), I am just not interested enough in the content of projects I've seen. A Mars colony, now that has to be a good gig.
Now for the bad news. I probably would not be acceptable as a candidate because of my health problems. I have limited mobility and have already received a "life time doze" in radiation therapy, I do not rely on drugs, but I have a restricted diet which might cause problems in supply and/or production.
I am probably too old, and although I see this as "having good experience with limited technology", some might see me as "past it".
And finally the game stopper. I don't think I would make interesting TV. I am not "handsome" (downright ugly is closer), I am straight, but the fires burn very low (it's true, I'm old :( ), so no romantic lead for me. I get along with most people (guess we wouldn't be likely to have a young earther along), so probably no exciting arguments, I am British and white , so no points for ethnic origin. And I have no dependents, so no back story, no family problems to pull the heart strings.
All in all then I guess I'm not going to get the trip, and the real sad thing is that I have a feeling that many if not most of those who would go and would have sane reasons for doing so, fall into the same category. Catch 23?

From From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The cellulosic ethanol industry developed some new commercial-scale plants in 2008. In the United States, plants totaling 12 million liters (3.17 million gal) per year were operational, and an additional 80 million liters (21.1 million gal.) per year of capacity - in 26 new plants - was under construction. In Canada, capacity of 6 million liters per year was operational

Somebody tell me how this means "has yet to be commercially produced".

No worship, just admiration. The point about Turing machines is that Babbage didn't know he'd designed one. Although it's possible that Ada had an inkling about the "universality" thing which is what the great man was first to understand.
As for the software problems we face today, and the "parallelism crisis", there is nothing in Turing's work which can be blamed for these, or are you blaming him for not working on these?
Computation is not the same as IT, and failure to understand that may well be the root cause of the poor standards of program design we see today. In fact I am saddened by the thought that even some of the people praising Turing fail to grasp his real gift to us, the fundamental theorem on the unsolvability of the halting problem.

No block at 18:36 BST.

(Retired IT worker & savings) = FALSE
No more to say

I faced this very question right at the start of my IT career, in 1968. I had been absolutely against arms manufacture, but was given a chance to move from chemistry/thermodynamics (working in the development of domestic gas burners) to a programming job in aerospace. I have loved aeroplanes since I was 5, an avid SF reader, and going from a "budget" of 30 minutes of mainframe time per week (that was FORTRAN so included compile, test, run) to being 100% programming in technical problems was like being invited to the best party ever. I was going to have to accept a small pay cut, but that didn't matter a bit. Then I realized that every line of code would be used for military aircraft as much or more than for civil projects. It was a long night of the soul, but I decided to take the job. I am so glad I did, not least because I found that most of the military people (real aircrew) were the real anti-war guys. They were the ones most concerned about reducing "collateral damage", and pushing for more accurate delivery of - well - death.
I think we did a good job. Today's wars are still terrible, but compared with conflicts such as WW2 they are actually more controlled, especially when hi-tech systems are used. I am older and wiser now, and doubt that we will ever see an end to war, but I do believe that armed conflict is getting "cleaner", at least when developed countries are involved. If we get more precise systems then we should be able to bring conflicts to a quicker end, with less damage to civilian areas and the environment.
So my advice is to reflect on the outcome of improving technology by better simulation and then decide on each job offer as it comes. This is true whatever area you look at, the arms industry is investing in "non-lethal" systems, the drug companies in simulation and "in vitro" testing, so both of these provide chances for really good jobs in which you can make a positive difference to the world.
I suspect that this might lose me some karma, but I think that gaming is probably the least ethical area (killing things should never be fun, even in a virtual world), and I personally would never work in the financial sector, but then that's the ethical dilemma we all face.

To quote from Wikipedia
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a predictor of job success has not been supported in studies,[15][16] and its use for this purpose is expressly discouraged in the Manual.[17]

Another case of HR pretending to have a scientific basis for predicting job fit to a profile, and totally missing the point of the original question. Presumably these guys know how to get the sales people they need, but realize that they need to speak the language of their customers.

I would suggest that the best way to train sales staff for any technical product is to take the best communicator from your technical staff and get him (or her) to run a regular seminar on the product, explaining the kind of problem the product is designed to solve and how the customers are likely to use it. Over a shortish time, the seminars will get better and you might even find that involving more techies actually improves the sales and the product.