There are many millionaires running businesses such as used car dealerships and vehicle salvage yards who started as mechanics.

There are many structural and pipeline welders who moved into owning their own contracting businesses or into inspection or who are making a very nice living in the nuke power station world.

There are many machinists who moved into owning their own successful machine shops.

Building a Sten would be EASIER than buying or building a 3D printer then fucking about with it to produce an inferior weapon.

The "mother of all machine tools" is the lathe, which can be used to produce the rest or the parts you need to get some of their tasks done on the lathe itself.

Here's a link to a complete set of Sten plans. There are many more. All the pantshitting over 3D printed weapons does is showcase the technical ignorance of the public and politicians who rule them.

http://www.milsurps.com/content.php?r=422-Blueprints-for-The-STEN-MKII-(complete-machine-plans)

No, the assembled "cartridge" is the explosive device, nor is there much barrier to making those.

By the time you exclude the nominal sizes of common bullets, not to mention case neck and body dimensions, your printer would be useless for doing "holes" in general.

", it is too expensive and is unnecessary for the average foot soldier, and too large and cumbersome to be used on anything other than a rifle that is stationary and supported, ie on a target range. "

At the moment. Let us not forget how large and unwieldy IR rifle scopes used to be....

Unlike the (beautiful troll as was intended) 3D printed weapon, here and elsewhere you can find plans for the real deal.

http://www.cncguns.com/downloads.html

Note that paper prints are more than sufficient to machine modern firearms. About 2000 bucks gets you a used manual milling machine. About the same gets you a lathe. You can use those to build a machine to cut a rifled bore if you wish. It's very old technology.

Remember the DeCESS T-shirt? Weapon prints can be protected speech too. They can also be incorporated into fiction as an illustration.

"I doubt that anyone would be able to 3D-print a bullet and its charge for many years to come."

Bullets are simple to machine and casts. Primer cups and anvils are simple to form and punch. The chemicals are basic chemistry. Good luck banning nitrates.

If you get paid, do whatever it takes to maintain the cash flow.

I don't care if my bosses drool constantly and shit themselves at random times during the workday so long as I get paid. If they want me to humor them, fine.

If they prefer to be affirmed in their stupidity and will punish dissent, fine, I have zero moral obligation to human obstacles.

I don't care if they crater their company, torch the buildings, then dance around them naked so long as I get paid. (I'd like to capture it on video then monetize it though.)

Businesses are expendable constructs to make money. Pay me and I don't give a shit what happens to their construct.

They make MILITARY news sites for this sort of thing.

Hey, much love on my part for modern weapons tech, but on Slashdot this is clutter.

Any techies who are interested know how to keep track of such events.

Anyone interested also knows any missile systems sold to Syria can be countered by standoff weapons launched from outside Syrian airspace in most cases. Extended range JDAMs and Spice kits mean expensive anti-aircraft missiles would have to be used against small, relatively inexpensive, "smart bombs".

Those can also be used to destroy Syrian aircraft in their shelters as well as SAM sites.

http://defense-update.com/20130505_israeli-standoff-attack-capability-against-terrorists.html

Not to me. I find my X200, to which I added 8GB RAM and an SSD, ideal.

It fits in a tool bag with my textbooks, making it ideal for school use.

1600s? BP and Royal Dutch Shell supporting a regime which didn't exist even before THEY existed?

Now THAT'S planning for the future!

Do tell how the Assad family is descended from the Ottoman Empire.

This will be interesting.

They need to bring the old SAC ways back. After TAC ate SAC and became ACC, things became famously slack.

Enforce discipline, fairly, but harshly. If people refuse to perform shitcan them. Air Force life is mostly cake, the bennies and retirement package are outstanding, and of course everyone there is a volunteer.

Perform or get the fuck out.

Netbooks didn't "die" on their own.

They were designed with crippling "birth defects" (weak CPU, limited RAM) so as not to eat notebook market share. It worked and after the initial surge, sales dropped off.

Many people still like them, but when I can get a used Thinkpad X2whatever for cheap it makes no sense for me to buy one.

"However, modular designs using industry standards is an anathema to dealerships who want and need proprietary components that only they can fix, and charge $150 hour for, while paying their workers $20/hr."

More like modular designs are anathema to MANUFACTURERS who prefer to sell new cars when the old one goes beyond economical repair.

For example, big rig transmissions have SAE standard bellhousings and have had them for many decades because those trucks are designed for long life AND it is expected their components will go BACK into the reuse food chain as cores for rebuilders.

Auto makers have "whatever silly shit they feel like".

Dealerships will make plenty on labor and could still charge out the ass for "modular" parts.

That's rather fun, and one reason I'm taking mechatronics after I finish my CNC training. Not everyone has the aptitude for learning and integrating the variety of skills required in industrial maintenance and repair.