Stop being logical.

Next you'll be telling me there's a .US tld.

Mmmm it'll probably be the (apparent) fact that you have to enter a code manually into the box after purchasing a game in order to have it 'verified online and linked to your Xbox Live account', coupled with the fact that your friend who wants to borrow the game will have the opition to do so... but only if they pay the full retail value of said game.

Oh, there's also the brand new, feature packed online trading system for second hand games... which will be extremely popular with retailers (who are already totally enthused about the auth code system), as well as gamers who will be able to see that they're still paying significantly more for '2nd hand' digital content than they can get back by rescinding their rights to it.

...but not much about the shape of the bones, OP.

If you use old school tech for its own sake and it's really a cultural affectation then there's no real reason not to switch.

However, if you use them because you're interested in the raw stuff that makes the modern world work and you're not content to just accept that every new toy is a magical box controlled by Apple or Microsoft or Samsung... you should probably both stick to the old stuff and branch out into finding out how the new technologies do what they do.

Designers will probably do the obvious thing: Continue to freely use fully paid up legacy versions of the software and ignore the cloud.

You mean like this: http://thingiverse.com/ ?

Yes, i know it's not exhaustive. Contribute.

You have some pretty big hurdles ahead of you if you can't differentiate between 3d modelling and programming... Luckily 3d modelling in the 21st century is a bit easier than programming IF you just want to sculpt.

As deathguppie suggested, look at blender (or zbrush). You will need to learn some skills, but probably not as much as you'd think.

Unfortunately... the OP article is completely off the mark: The software is the easiest thing to fix. The printers themselves generally require A LOT of supervision and maintenance.

You mean like the reprap: http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page ?

you might be late to the party.

1000-2000 hours?

Seriously?

What if i told you that the high school around the corner from my work has a 3d printing group that gets kids started on Google Sketchup and has them making their own 3d models within an hour? Sure Sketchup is much much simpler than Autocad or Solidworks, but the principles are the same and the techniques are additive; once the user knows the techniques, they can be transplanted from application to application, with the widely varied interfaces between different applications being the biggest hurdle. Some of these kids have produced functional multipart models in blender after as few as 10 hours of supervised play.

I agree that this is totally different from functional design, but engineering and 3d modelling are actually fundamentally different skills...

Also, blender (and 3dsmax, and maya and zbrush... but blender is free & open source) has supported native .stl export for a while now.

Well said sir. Pity too few will understand.

This.

I sense a car analogy coming on.

This.

Those conservatives are so nobly sacrificing themselves for the greater efficiency. Ayn Rand would not approve of their altruism.

Oh. My bad. Guess i'd better tell my pilot friend who told me about it that he's mistaken ;)

I vaguely know a guy who is a flight enthusiaist, but not an actual pilot... He's clocked thousands of hours in flight sims and sometimes does trial simulations of real passenger craft routes and the like.

I think he's crazy, but apparently actual pilots often call him for advice on landing at one specific airport in south east asia...

By the way... you are aware that negating the premise of an opposing argument is not the same thing as providing a proof for your own, right?

Please don't quote Plato at me. His stature does not prevent him from making logical errors that were not fomalized until over two thousand years after his death.