You don't think the smoking carcass would own all of the patents and make it impossible for a bunch of new startups to get into the industry?

Patents are assets. Assets are auctioned off in bankruptcy. The owner of a patent benefits from licensing the patent for fees, not from sitting on a patent and preventing anyone from using it.

-jcr

Certainly far more useful than chemistry

Nope. Basic understanding of chemistry can keep people from mixing ammonia and bleach to clean the tub.

-jcr

Speaking as one who had the misfortune of having to try to help kids with no interest at all in computing, back when I was in high school myself, this is a fucking idiotic idea. Coding isn't for everyone.

-jcr

Interesting, but still not clear why the failure occurred.

A very quick browse of available literature (VERY) suggests that laser sintering produces a very fine crystal structure, which suggests that the laser-sintered metal will have the same problem as other types of sintered metal. That fine crystal structure is inferior to a large grain structure. Parts will snap instead of bending when they do finally fail if sintered as compared to forged, or machined from forged billet.

Still cool for prototyping, and lots of parts. I'd rather have laser-sintered parts in my gun than traditional powder metal. I'd rather have parts made from forged billet than either.

Yes, they run clusters.

Yes, they are micros with very fancy network cards.

Your ego has run away with you, sort of like your need for antiquated affectations evinced by your need to make people read your comment in monospace. She was right, and you're wrong, and shut up.

I like to call that stuff devil worship, in order to separate it from satanism, which is not about worshipping anyone at all.

Yes, back then the italians and the brits made cars that handled while America built land yachts with live axle rear suspension that, as stated, are headed straight for the nearest ditch. Yes, literally all of the American sports cars had suspension no more advanced than a pickup truck — they had features like "stiffened sidewalls" for handling... wow! And I do mean wow.

Of course, Ford has continued this tradition. The live axles are gone, except for the Mustang. That will finally go IRS (a couple of special models aside) for 2015, the same year it gets the Ford Fusion grille that really bones the look of the car. I think it looks fine, but it doesn't really look like a Mustang from the front. Also, many of our large cars are now FWD, which is shit. It's okay for little peanut cars, but it's not reasonable to expect the same wheels to do steering and acceleration when the car is large.

American cars have been shit since forever. The only American production car which was provably better than the competition is probably the Model T, which seems a bit of a turd until you realize what a tank it is. And it was horribly complex to operate... The only thing we've done better than the others is the muscle car, and we've already discussed how they are ditch-seeking missiles.

Ah yes, off by one year due to poetic license, that's clearly stuff that matters. You get the pedanticism badge.

What's cool about truck driving? There's nothing cool about doing a job that a train could do better (if we'd supported trains instead of cars, for the benefit of The People instead of the automakers, we'd have much more rail) let alone one which a robot could do better.

But is the resolution actually that bad? Because that would be quite useless. You'd have to machine the final product in practically every case.

I guess we'll never know, because the linked article was hosted on a cracker jack box. Techienews indeed.

But does that mean that the sintered parts were good, or that the originals are shit? You haven't given us enough information (make, model, caliber, and year of firearm to start with, not to mention the actual parts) to make this determination ourselves.

I'm only skeptical because "powder metal" (large-volume sintering) is shit. A PM conn rod for a 7.3 powerstroke is twice as likely to fail and has 1/10 as desirable a failure mode as the forged part; it's ten times more likely to break rather than simply bending.

This certainly isn't it, because it's using a MIG welder. This is a traditional metal deposition process, using a 3d printer for positioning.

Here's a hint. The deer whistles don't paralyze the deer. You go to drive around them, they just run that way. The surest way to not hit a deer is to aim for it, unless you're counting on that. In any case, the deer don't give one shit about deer whistles around here. Presumably, they're used to them. The ones too dumb to get out of the road to begin with are too dumb to learn what a deer whistle means. By the time they figure it out, you've already run them down.

I actually live in deer country and have never hit one (knockonwood) and suspect the primary way I've achieved this is to pay attention. I've only ever seen one hit, though it happens all the time around here. The one I saw hit was hit by a truck right in front of me who wouldn't get the living shit out of my way on Bottle Rock Road, but he thought he was fast so he was outdriving his ability and BLAMO. The deer avoided the trash truck coming the other way, but he nailed it with his right corner, meaning that if he'd simply seen it and slowed a bit, he'd probably have missed it. I guess I won that round, whee.

Well, I don't know what it's like where you are, but the general lack of water is playing hell with deer populations here. They seem thick, but illegal poaching is rampant and they're really concentrated around civilization since that's where the water is.

What gear? What in bloody hell are you talking about? The rotor is literally the rotor! The stator is built around the edge! There's no gear.

Everyone knows the Time Lords are one of the first races of the galaxy.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=making+explosives&sm=3

See? That wasn't hard at all. I get about 79,500 results. I am sure there will be better words to search for if you are determined.