33652019
submission
erich666 writes:
Ben Rothman has created a five-foot-wide scale model of most of Northwestern University, where he was a sophomore this past year. This campus model is unique: it is the first modeled in Minecraft and then printed on a 3D printer. It is also the largest Minecraft 3D print to date, and will be on display in the main lobby of the largest building on campus in a few weeks. Ben began in November and spent about 600 hours recreating the campus. He notes that "this felt like playing a game more than a modeling task." The cost of the print material was about $2000 to $2500, well less than the cost of the display case being built for it (admittedly, labor costs are included for the case). The free Mineways program was used for export. It can help upload an exported Minecraft model to Shapeways, i.materialise, or other 3D print service. Models cost as little as $5.
11099894
submission
erich666 writes:
In recent months a flood of so-called books have been appearing in Amazon's catalog. VDM Publishing's imprints Alphascript and Betascript Publishing have listed over a total of 57,000 titles, adding at least 10,000 in the previous month alone. These books are simply collections of linked Wikipedia articles put into paperbacks, at a cost of roughly 40 cents a page or more. These books seem to be computer-generated for the most part, which explains the peculiar titles noted such as "Vreni Schneider: Annemarie Moser-Pröll, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Slalom Skiing, Giant Slalom Skiing, Half Man Half Biscuit." Such titles do have the marketing effect of turning up in many different searches. There is debate on Wikipedia about whether their "VDM Publishing" page should contain the words "fraud" or "scam". VDM Publishing's practice of reselling Wikipedia articles appears to be legal, but ethically questionable.
Amazon customers have begun to post 1-star reviews and complain. Amazon's response to date has been, "As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking." The words "and pay us" were left out. Amazon carries, as a Googled guess, 2 million different book titles, so VDM Publishing is currently 1/35th of their catalog, and rapidly growing.
