I think the main reason this is important is the ultimate goal of this project: To be able to print an entire gun using a 3D printer.

There are plenty of things that can be made manually instead of using a 3D printer, but you need *some* expertise to do so, even if it's minimal. With a 3D printer, you just need to know how to operate the printer -- and they're becoming easier to use and cheaper every day.

Also, I don't see how taking this particular one down is effective, considering you can see all their other videos here.

I know I'm nitpicking but should "kickstarted" be a verb now? Isn't the mechanism called "crowdfunding"? Shouldn't *that* ("crowdfunded") be the verb?

They're not naive enough to pass up on an additional revenue stream. If there are ads on the youtube page -- *Someone* is getting something. The question is: who?

"Uniquest" would be the superlative, so it would be a higher level of "unique" than "Uniqueier".
In other words:
Uniquest > Uniqueier > unique
I'm not 100% sure where "most unique" should be placed, but I think it would be the equivalent of "Uniquest".

Remember, there used to be only one type of "infinity" in math. Now someone just has to properly define different levels of "uniqueness".
(yeah, I'm not sure if this is a joke post either)

So why are you still here, let alone participating in the conversation?

There's some leeway there. For example, industrial robots. Many of them just repeat sequences, and have only very basic branching conditions, if any. Then there's the TALON robots, which are mostly RC as well, but are still considered "robots". Demolition robots also come to mind, which, again, are strictly RC.

It's great that they're keeping the project open-source, but they won't stay competitive if they keep going with the laser-cut wood parts. They already have these guys breathing down their necks. They need to start cutting prices, and that means mass-producing SMT electronics (which, while they can keep open-source, are much more difficult to self-assemble) and replace the "shell" with one made of plastic-injection parts. They can only keep so many people loyal for keeping the entire thing open-source -- most people will look at the price. This doesn't mean that they have to close everything down -- the electronic schematics can remain open-source and so can all of the software, but the hardware -- as it is now -- is not (/will not remain) competitive.

So weird seeing an editor. For a while I thought that only CmdrTaco was a living human, and the rest were AI's modeled after hyperactive drunks.
This guy actually accepted some of my submissions. Frickin' twilight zone...

But why risk it? Just use copper oxide, it's far safer (except for maybe the heating part). Also, they mention about a 1% efficiency, which is what you'll get with this.

Try it with peanut butter -- it's to die for! (there's CdSe in it, so I mean that literally...)

Usually What's outsourced to China is anything that requires manual labor. If you need people to do it, and said people don't need to be engineers, then there's a good chance that you'd get the most bang for your buck in China.

This is quickly changing, however. Chinese companies are establishing themselves as brands, and they themselves are using up the workforce. The pendulum is starting to shift the other way -- Chinese companies are setting up "beachheads" in Europe, and are even outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries.