replicators

[miriam_e]

I've mentioned replicators before. Usually I've said that they are coming, that they aren't far away, and that they will change everything. I'm sure most people rolled their eyes and thought Miriam is dreaming again, and basically ignored what I said.

Well, I have to say I was wrong. They are not coming -- they have been here for years! I just listened to one of the most exciting, yet worrying talks I've heard.
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail782.html
Exciting because the talker detailed how he has for years been bringing replicators (he calls them "Fab Labs") to people around the world -- mostly schools and low-tech societies, but worrying because the talk was given in late 2005 and I'd have thought such technology would have taken hold by now.

This is one of the most revolutionary things ever developed. Why is it that most people still haven't heard of this? Why is it that someone like me who is enthusiastic about it didn't know these things have been around for many years now?

Why is it that I still don't have my own replicator?

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

> Why is it that I still don't have my own replicator?

You don't have your own FLYING CAR yet, either ;}P>

I linkfrenzyed this recently (http://linkfrenzy.livejournal.com/143221.html):

Solid freeform fabrication: DIY, on the cheap, and made of pure sugar
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab
...our project to construct a home-built three dimensional fabricator.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to the sugar-bases fabricator.

Although a lot of people would love to own a flying car (no matter that they are wildly impractical) and a number of people are tenaciously still trying to work out how to make them, the fact is they don't exist. Perhaps they never will.

On the other hand replicators/fabricators/3D-printers/rapid-prototypers have existed for many years now. I saw a working one at Swinburne Uni about 10 years ago. Neil Gershenfeld has for years been taking cheap, practical machines to many low tech places around the world where they have been great successes.

So what happened?

Of course I actually know why I don't have a replicator: I haven't made one myself.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Although a lot of people would love to own a flying car ... the fact is they don't exist.

Well, actually (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car)...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Okay. Planes that can be converted for road use do exist. I remember watching "The New Bob Cummings Show" when I was a kid in the 60s and thinking how neat his converted plane was when he drove it in the city, but I always felt it was kind of a cheat.

When we think of flying cars we think of what Bruce Willis drove in "The 5th Element" or is depicted in the image below by the brilliant POV-Ray artist Gilles Tran (http://www.oyonale.com/oy_en.htm):
(http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources14.htm)
See more of his remarkable pictures:
http://www.oyonale.com/ldc/english/mainstreet_east.htm
http://www.oyonale.com/ldc/english/mainstreet_east_blue.htm
http://www.oyonale.com/ldc/english/mainstreet_west.htm
http://www.oyonale.com/oy_en.htm