The OP asks, "Why carry out a very expensive launch into space to resupply the ISS..." and the answer is pretty simple...

It's expensive to boost mass up into orbit. 3D printers take raw materials to print with. It's either send up the raw materials for the 3D printer to use, or send up the finished product, and pay for that launch. One could I suppose harvest space junk and asteroids and use that material, but that's not going to come cheap either.

Note, this is the truth of the ISS. Something like a base on Mars or the Moon, that's another story. Then it's worth figuring out how to utilize the local resources to feed a 3D printer.

Now I know who will be the first to industrialize Mars.

I just got a check for some odd EBay related class action. Total reward to me was something like $1.60, but my total disbursement was a whopping $0.08 after I assume "processing and legal fees". Just to be irritating and get my money's worth, I thought I should call up the contact number and ask lots of questions so I get my money's worth from the lawyers.

The last job interview I had gave me homework to do. They pointed me to a public dataset, and had me write a web-app that could read and display it. Language, tools, platform, etc. didn't matter. Even getting it all done didn't matter. But I had to explain why I chose what I did, and how I would have implemented the parts I didn't finish.

This is pretty much like the real world is - where it's an open book kind of world. Where you can Google, grab open source libs, etc. A job where you couldn't look things up would be a kind of odd one.

A comparison to make here is with Neill Blomkamp's pre District 9 work, the Tetra Vaal short.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6645931304419661379

Some people say it's over rated, but give it a try. It's also open source! Careful though because it can make you think about things.

Don't put up the posters unless you've got the guts to call them cretins to their faces. And don't be surprised at the reaction you get.

"Nevermind that blacks under Apartheid enjoy more rights than they do in other African countries." It's funny how the same racist schlock gets recycled every time, isn't it? The reality is that Israel is a Jewish state and non-Jews don't enjoy even basic civil rights. It's illegal to marry outside of your own "kind"*, and non-Jews can't own land (because it can constitutionally only be sold to Jews).

*=Only Orthodox Jewish weddings are legal in Israel, civil marriages (like we have in the US) are not allowed, but can be recognized if performed abroad. Non-Jews can be married by by an officiant of their religion, but non-religious and mixed-religion couples can never marry due to anti-miscegenation laws. Just like Apartheid South Africa!

Going back in history a bit (since there are very few analogous situations today), but imagine if during the 1980s the citizens of West Berlin had agreed to bring RMS there to speak at their own expense, and he made the decision to cross the Berlin Wall to speak to the supporters of the Soviet regime that had them surrounded by a wall. Now imagine an alternate history where West Berlin wasn't supported by the Western powers, the Berlin airlift never happened, and instead the West Berliners lived in horrible conditions and every month the East Germans bulldozed another West German city block to make room for houses to reward the most vehement and violent Socialists. Hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea of what this must feel like to the Palestinians. You have the right to be upset when you pay to bring someone to talk to you and he uses your money to give the same benefits to your oppressors.

It's disturbing to me that RMS, a person who has dedicated his life to freedom (even if its his outspoken view of it) would be willing to speak in Israel at all. Israel is the Apartheid South Africa of our modern era; a racist state erected by European colonists in order to oppress the people of the region, to allow those colonists to live a lifestyle fueled by the sweat and blood of racial minorities that are constitutionally prohibited from enjoying the fruits of their labor (or the sweat of their brow, for the Ayn Randians out there). Just like Apartheid South Africa, support for Israel is the key issue of our time that defines whether a person is willing to stand for freedom, justice, and the rule of law, or if they will bow to the status quo and support the ongoing commission of crimes against humanity.

While one could advance the argument that merely speaking at Israeli universities doesn't support the criminal actions of the Israeli government, the situation is analogous to the sports and academic boycott of Apartheid South Africa that occurred beginning in the 1960s. In order to end the system, we need to impress upon Israel their status as a pariah state, any sign of weakened resolve emboldens the terrorists in the Israeli government (which led to Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu last week believing he could tell Obama that Israel had no plans to negotiate the end of the illegal military occupation of Palestinian territories). It would be one thing if RMS was going to be speaking specifically to anti-racist or anti-occupation elements, but I see no indication that this was the case.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft have already conducted successful orbital and reentry operations and will be performing resupply missions to the ISS this year. As you mentioned, there's also the Soyuz for crew exchange missions until the Dragon is man-rated, and both the European Space Agency and Japanese Space Agency will be operating unmanned resupply operations, in addition to the Russian Prospekt missions. The reality is that we're not suffering from any gap between our space transport needs and available capabilities, attempts to convince the American public otherwise are simply transparent cash-grabs by the military industrial complex (Boeing, Lockmart, and the other contractors that make most of their money building things that go boom), supported by Republican congressmen in love with pork.

I know it's hard to find and there are often zombies and spiders near by, but he should just have mined some redstone and used it instead.

It's important to point out that this game was NOT funded by NASA nor was it designed or built by them. It was done by the same team that did America's Army. All NASA has done is give them permission to put NASA's "stamp of approval" on the game. It's up to the developer to figure out how they are going to make it into a profitable game and pay for it.

Which of course is actually WORSE than the idea of NASA funding it. The developers are showing little understanding of how to create a game that has broader appeal let alone a feasible business model or revenue model that will fund it's continued development and growth.

And it also is commentary on NASA that they've managed to allow a dog of a game concept to have their name on it.

NASA would be far more successful to get the message out that "space is cool" and "science and math is important" if they'd encouraged development of "Farmville on Mars" or "Evony on Mars minus the combat"

This game was NOT funded by NASA nor was it designed or built by them. It was done by the same team that did America's Army.

All NASA has done is give them permission to put NASA's "stamp of approval" on the game. It's up to the developer to figure out how they are going to make it into a profitable game and pay for it.

Which of course is actually WORSE than the idea of NASA funding it. The developers are showing little understanding of how to create a game that has appeal let alone a feasible business model or revenue model that will fund it's continued development and growth.

This is the best idea, I have a Linksys WRT610Nv1 running the current DD-WRT firmware and it runs great. It has dual-simultaneous-N so you can have 802.11n networks on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands, and its routing throughput is excellent as well. You can also use its USB port as a NAS in DD-WRT and I think you can share some USB printers as well, which is cool.