but to claim it's DISRUPTIVE to the auto industry is silly.
Indeed. 'Disruptive' would be Tesla coming out with a hatchback EV with a 300 mile range for under $20k (just to make it wildly disruptive).
Worst case this displaces some kit car builds, and the likely result is that the prototyping departments are already buying the printers for the major manufacturers to purchase themselves.
The big exception to safety standards is the antique car.
I'll add one more: The kit car. So long as it's assembled by the owner himself(though he can subsequently sell it intact, it's a bit like selling home-made firearms), it's not considered 'manufactured' and not subject to a lot of the rules.
If they can arrange it so the buyer is 'assembling' the car(even if that means the paperwork says he's renting the machine and buying only the feedstock/parts) as a legal fiction, they can dodge a lot of rules.
Yeah, but you can print an awful lot of things if you have that much power available...
Remember: Some 3d printers print in metal, concrete, tissue cultures, etc... Some of these require rather more power to run the 'print head'.
Well, assuming the article saying that the consumer can "design" it really means design, and not just select from a few options to make it custom.
If the manufactured number is small enough, no crash safety testing needs to be done.
Depending on the number they're anticipating on selling and the amount of modification the individuals are doing, they could come under the line because they're just not selling enough of them or even, by legal trickery like 'renting' the machine to the customer who uses it to build his car(with help) and the amount of customization/design work the buyer does, every car each customer makes could be 'unique' enough to count separately and come under the limit.
Printed plastic isn't strong enough, but I wonder if this might find business applications? Vehicles with customized shells to accommodate specialized equipment? I'm thinking of everything from a slot for a generator on vans/trucks used on construction sites to a custom shell designed for a pizza oven to be inserted into a delivery vehicle for the ultimate in freshness.
Consider that Local Motors themselves said the cars are not street legal.
'Street Legal' can mean many different things. In many cases this would effectively be a 'hobby car' - IE built by the owner, one-off, etc... In many states making one street legal is around a 10 item checklist - does it have brakes? Does it have functional brake lights? Can it turn? Functional turn signals? Windscreen, headlights?
Safety of the occupants of said vehicle is not really addressed, just that they aren't a rampant danger to the other people on the road.
Emissions can be tougher.
It ends up on the definition of 'manufactured', they may be utilizing a loophole which even auto makers exploit for things like their concept cars - one off cars are crafted, not manufactured. Ergo exempt from everything, but they have to actually be 'crafted', IE hand built in a one-off fashion.
With the 3D printer system they could be leasing the equipment and assistance to the buyer, who actually triggers the machine. Since his modifications make the vehicle one-off, built by him(technically), it's not 'manufactured' under the definitions.
Much like how you can buy a complete kit car that's also exempt. You just have to put it together.
I seem to recall our tax money going to these companies to pay for a fiber infrastructure. It's more like the landscaper you hired and paid for mowed the neighbor's lawn but not yours.
Fascinating! So you can point to legislation that levied taxes to pay Verizon to put down fiber in places where they've chosen not to? If those appropriations actually specify deliverable services that they're not providing, that should be super easy for you to point out. Maybe not as easy as making up some "insightful" but completely misleading stuff about how it was taxes that Verizon funded FiOS and that they promised service at specific addresses that they've abandoned. Looking forward to your links.
There are those who say we should not be responsible for seeing to it that the least-earners among us have health care, sick days, etc. But that whole petri dish thing... that's the result.
Joe the McDonald's window guy has flu/whatever, but he can't take a day (or 3 days) off (might not be allowed to, but can't afford to anyway so, the former is moot.) So Larry goes for lunch, and comes away with whatever Joe had as a bonus. And that goes on all day, for several days. While everyone else in the McDonald's catches it too, thereby extending the event even further, basically until every employee's immune system have handled the problem. And of course, there will be the occasional person who can't manage it -- for whatever reason... compromised immune system, preexisting disease process that complicates matters, old age, whatever. For them, matters can be much worse.
Either we admit that we need to take care of everyone, for everyone's sake, or we'll just keep running into situations where transmissible diseases have far more chance to spread than would otherwise be the case.
Odds are excellent that the only thing unique about the Disney event is that someone noticed it. Most people have probably been on the receiving end of such "petri dish events" many times. Anywhere you have a person with a transmissible disease in a condition suitable for transmission (usually not the entire course) that faces the public, the potential exists.
Anyone in that state should be in bed, properly isolated and medicated. Every time that doesn't happen, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.
If the car is really dirty, the heck with washing it. Just turn it in and have it reprinted.
Reprint if you have a fender-bender. Hailstorm. Cat climbed in an open window and sprayed your seats.
Just reprint the car. Love the idea of having it melted down and re-using the material(s.)
I suspect the feds will have something to say about safety issues, though.
but when wires are just sitting there, what exactly does it cost them to allow more data to "flow"?
Because, of course, the entire infrastructure of the carrier's network, peering connections, management, power, data centers, and all the rest is just "some wires."
Instead what happens is you create drug resistant virus that are 50-60 more likely to infect, so cutting it down by 30-40 percent is still higher than it was before you started. Net Loss.
...So much wrong with your statement.
1. Vaccines are technically not a drug.
2. The vaccine is, ideally, not present by the time you're exposed to a disease.
3. Vaccines are really 'training' for your immune system. It's like having soldiers shoot at silhouettes as part of their training, doing reaction drills, showing them example IEDs, etc... That way they'll be more effective in the field.
4. Viruses mutate quite naturally. By giving them fewer hosts you can actually slow the mutation rate.
5. Infection rate doesn't change much.
If all you have is the 'sniffles for a few days' I like to say you didn't have the flu, you had a cold.
Considering recent studies show that cancer is more likely to be caused by genetics than smoking
Do you have a link to one of these studies? Does it take into account reduced smoking rates? Is it looking at the chances of an individual getting cancer, or how many get cancer from X source in the USA?
Another thought I had was this: The types of cancer are different. Survive long enough you'll get cancer. Most types at that late of a stage are unlikely to kill you before you die of something else. You're far more likely to get lung cancer from smoking. Odd fact: ALL of my grandparents have had cancer. The only death was my grandmother, the smoker. Anecdotal, but I've heard that lung cancer tends to be particularly lethal.
Thus spake the master programmer: "Time for you to leave." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
