...China's biggest e-retailer, totaled more than $3.1 billion, doubling the $1.5 billion spent by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday in 2012.
How many people live in China? How many people live in the US?
. A more valid comparison would be the amount of money spent per person, that removes the bias of large-populations.
Agreed. Here are some numbers:
Currently the US hosts: 317,047,520 people
China hosts: 1,349,585,838 people
(Source: http://www.census.gov/popclock/)
Ratio US to China: 1:4.2567
Yes, but how many Stephen Colbert heads do you get per spool?
My problem with these 3d techs online is that there's no good way to know exactly how much you can DO with a given amount of raw material. At some point, i'm going to have to break down and purchase things, just to get a baseline on cost.
He claims in the video that the material is so cheap you can just give things to friends and print more, but... Somehow, I doubt it's that cheap.
Learn to calculate volume - the material is consumed based on how much volume goes into your part.
I think he wants to know how much plastic is in 1 kilo of spool. From what I could find, ABS density is roughly 1.05g/cm^3 and PVA is 1.19-1.31g/cm^3 which means that:
1000g is roughly 952.380952cm^3 of ABS plastic
OR
1000g is roughly 800cm^3 of PVA plastic (with 1.25g/cm^3 density)
Now your answer applies where depending on how big a Stephen Colbert design is, it takes more or less of the material: a 1cm^3 Colbert would give you 952 ABS heads or 800 PVA heads. Now THAT'S a lot of Colbert!
Because even when we do, there are a large number of parents who, when confronted with little Jimmy's 15 absences in a semester, will threaten lawsuits, call board of ed members and threaten to get everyone fired because their little sunshine isn't going to graduate.
...
Children and their parents don't have a right to frivolous lawsuits.
I agree with both statements but, having said that, it still doesn't prevent me from suing you and prove in a trial that my lawsuit is not frivolous. In the mean time: you're being sued, your job is at stake, your school MIGHT suspend you pending investigation and I'm sure that while you might think this a frivolous lawsuit, it will still affect you emotionally.
Frivolous lawsuits are a huge problem especially for any public institution like schools but even a private school can suffer at the hands of an idiot parent trying to sue their way through.
Unfortunately, the US (dunno about other countries specifically) has become a world of liability and everyone is trying to cover their ass from Joe Schmoe's lawsuit.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.