thetangential:

The post idea goes to the one who calls it first. This is like the shotgun rule of car travel. Say you and your blogger friend are chatting about something, and all of a sudden the conversation turns toward something exquisitely bloggable—call it! First one to say “post” gets to write about…

realcleverscience:

I hope you’re sitting down for this. If not, I can print a chair for you.

Some of you may have heard of 3D Printers while others are wondering what the heck that can even mean. Basically, a 3D Printer prints out objects. Typically it works by melting plastic into the shape of the object one layer at a time and stacked on top of one another. So, if it were printing a cup, it might spill out an ooze of plastic in the shape of a filled circle, maybe do that 2 more times on top of it, and then print out a hollowed circle, say, 50 more times on top of that. (Still confusing? Check out this video.) Voila! A cup!

Now, around a year ago was when I first started to get really interested in this - and I promised a post about it that somehow never happened, but there’ve been some great developments with the technology lately which reminded me that the post is long overdue.

In particular, I was blown away by a recent video (e.g. here) about a prototype 3D printer which, instead of using the typical heating elements and medium (e.g. plastic), was basically “desert powered”: It uses solar panels to power the electronics, solar rays and a huge magnifying glass to melt the material, and the material it uses is sand! The electronics guide the machine which then melts the sand into objects made of glass. Pretty amazing stuff. But that’s just the beginning.

There are different ways to make 3D printers and different kinds of mediums to use, ranging from wood to chocolate (yes, you can print 3D edible goodies). And there’s a lot to be said about it all. However, I want to stick to three main points.

But before continuing, I should caution that reading any further may - and likely will - result in mind-explosions and paradigm shifts. You are warned.

Read More

 Mind=Blown.

(Source: realcleverscience)

Computers I suppose, why?