4 ms·

This claim seem about as believeable as the claim that computers would create the paperless society.

by yxhuvud 16y ago

steveklabnik 16y ago
The biggest thing that people forget when dreaming about 3D printers is that it doesn't making something from nothing: the materials have to come from somewhere. Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard) and we make them small and reliable enough that it's acceptable for normal people (hard) you _still_ have to have a big vat of plastic or whatever lying around, and feed it into the machine. We've got a long way to go before 'a printer in every home' is reality, if it ever does. My thoughts: it's like water. A big pipe of raw materials. Just imagine how long that'd take...
- Retric 16y ago
  Reminds me of The Diamond Age aproximate quote "The windows where made of diamond, because as a simple carbon structure it was cheaper than glass".
- rbranson 16y ago
  I think we are moving away from ownership and towards a more utility/service-oriented society, so I don't think a 3D printer in every home will ever become a reality.
  - marshray 16y ago
    That's what IBM once thought about computers too.
    - rbranson 16y ago
      I don't think this is comparable. There is a large difference in dynamics between the utilization of a computer and that of a 3D printer. I would argue that IBM was largely right -- the vast majority of consumers do not use their computer in the way in which IBM intentioned to speak, as a calculator or database. Most of this work is performed as a utility and consumed over the Internet. The modern home computer provides something in functionality more resembling the telephone than a calculator. The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods. Will there ever be a point at which an average consumer will need such a steady stream of durable goods that a dedicated 3D printer will become a necessity? I don't need even need a home printer or copier really. The few times a year I actually need one, I can walk around the corner to a Kinko's or use the one at work. This also doesn't compare because a printed document is essentially a custom product designed by myself. And despite the prevalence of home printers, it's still vastly cheaper to print documents using mass production techniques. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see this changing, as durable goods are designed by domain experts and the mechanics behind economies of scale would apply even in the 3D printing realm. Continued product convergence and ultimately nano-tech will further obsolete the necessity to have the large number of specialized, one-off durable goods required for the average household.
      - Someone 16y ago
        The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods. Who says durable? The perfect printer is far away, but once you have one, you can get rid of a dishwasher and washing machine; you would just feed your printer the dirty stuff, and print whatever you need at the moment. Even better, you could feed your furniture to your printer to make a different set of furniture for a party, or turn your car into a convertible for a week. We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though.
        eftpotrm 16y ago
        We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though. First catch your hare indeed.... The energy implications of shredding and remanufacturing essentially the same items rather than cleaning them just makes me shudder. That really can't be efficient by any definition.
        marshray 16y ago
        I'm don't think we really know yet what the energy requirements for these processes are. Ever had something plastic melted (and burned) by the dishwasher? Why not just melt all of it and avoid dumping all the energy in that steaming water down the drain?
        eftpotrm 16y ago
        Well, you're dumping waste heat either way, and at too low a difference to ambient to be efficient to extract, but while I'm not an expert in the energy usage of 3D printers, I find it very hard to believe that reducing an item to granules and then recreating it from the same granules can be particularly energy efficient from the perspective of information theory. The other side which I should have considered before is that if the purpose of this is cleaning (as was originally suggested), reducing the item to parts to reassemble without first cleaning it will result in contaminated build components and a lower quality physical product, but with the contamination spread liberally through the item rather than being on the surface where it can be more easily cleaned away.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
    Why do you say this? I haven't seen anything that leads to believe that it's the case.
  - KiwiNige 16y ago
    These guys are working on it: http://reprap.org http://reprap.org An open source 3d printer design with the goal being to use it to print all the parts for then next printer.
    - marshray 16y ago
      It may be the problem is that we end up with too many of these things self-replicating all over the place like rabbits!
- rmc 16y ago
  Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard) People won't be designing things themselves, they'll be downloading files and then pressing 'print' on their computer. It's like how people share funny pictures, links get sent around and viewed.
  - Kliment 16y ago
    Some of us are already doing that. Check thingiverse.com for example.
rbranson 16y ago
Perhaps not a paperless society, but computers & the Internet HAVE dramatically decreased the amount of paper we use these days. Just off the top of my head for consumers: Phone books & directories, maps, banking & billing, written correspondence, fax machines, shared scheduling & calendars, media distribution (books, music, movies).
eftpotrm 16y ago
Within the terms that were then understood, they're very well on the way to that though. The first office I ever worked in, as a summer job as a student, was computerised but used them as glorified typewriters in the main. All the master documents were on paper, punched and organised into lever arch files. Backups? What's a backup? Think back to an old office; row upon row upon row of filing cabinets, carefully indexed. I don't think I've seen that in at least 6-7 years, maybe 10. I can't remember the last time I found a document where the master copy was on paper. Regularly referred to paper copies are almost exclusively annotated working versions which get destroyed at the end of the process. We circulate documents on paper in some contexts but are equally likely to email them to each other, and that's rising - more often than not, paper is a reference copy for a meeting rather than our master copy. My employer stopped doing printed payslips and went fully electronic over a year ago. I have paperless billing from two utility companies and could set it up with a third, I just haven't got round to it. I rarely print photos any more. I read eBooks probably slightly more than paper books and definitely read online news rather than newspapers, while magazines are tentatively stepping towards full electronic distribution through both websites and tablet apps. I basically don't send or receive letters any more. Paper won't go completely any more than cars resulted in the extinction of the domesticated horse, but it seems to me it's heading for much the same specialist/luxury niche in the market.

This claim seem about as believeable as the claim that computers would create the paperless society.

by yxhuvud 16y ago

This claim seem about as believeable as the claim that computers would create the paperless society.

The biggest thing that people forget when dreaming about 3D printers is that it doesn't making something from nothing: the materials have to come from somewhere. Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard) and we make them small and reliable enough that it's acceptable for normal people (hard) you _still_ have to have a big vat of plastic or whatever lying around, and feed it into the machine. We've got a long way to go before 'a printer in every home' is reality, if it ever does. My thoughts: it's like water. A big pipe of raw materials. Just imagine how long that'd take...

Retric 16y ago
Reminds me of The Diamond Age aproximate quote "The windows where made of diamond, because as a simple carbon structure it was cheaper than glass".
rbranson 16y ago
I think we are moving away from ownership and towards a more utility/service-oriented society, so I don't think a 3D printer in every home will ever become a reality.
- marshray 16y ago
  That's what IBM once thought about computers too.
  - rbranson 16y ago
    I don't think this is comparable. There is a large difference in dynamics between the utilization of a computer and that of a 3D printer. I would argue that IBM was largely right -- the vast majority of consumers do not use their computer in the way in which IBM intentioned to speak, as a calculator or database. Most of this work is performed as a utility and consumed over the Internet. The modern home computer provides something in functionality more resembling the telephone than a calculator. The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods. Will there ever be a point at which an average consumer will need such a steady stream of durable goods that a dedicated 3D printer will become a necessity? I don't need even need a home printer or copier really. The few times a year I actually need one, I can walk around the corner to a Kinko's or use the one at work. This also doesn't compare because a printed document is essentially a custom product designed by myself. And despite the prevalence of home printers, it's still vastly cheaper to print documents using mass production techniques. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see this changing, as durable goods are designed by domain experts and the mechanics behind economies of scale would apply even in the 3D printing realm. Continued product convergence and ultimately nano-tech will further obsolete the necessity to have the large number of specialized, one-off durable goods required for the average household.
    - Someone 16y ago
      The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods. Who says durable? The perfect printer is far away, but once you have one, you can get rid of a dishwasher and washing machine; you would just feed your printer the dirty stuff, and print whatever you need at the moment. Even better, you could feed your furniture to your printer to make a different set of furniture for a party, or turn your car into a convertible for a week. We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though.
      - eftpotrm 16y ago
        We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though. First catch your hare indeed.... The energy implications of shredding and remanufacturing essentially the same items rather than cleaning them just makes me shudder. That really can't be efficient by any definition.
        marshray 16y ago
        I'm don't think we really know yet what the energy requirements for these processes are. Ever had something plastic melted (and burned) by the dishwasher? Why not just melt all of it and avoid dumping all the energy in that steaming water down the drain?
        eftpotrm 16y ago
        Well, you're dumping waste heat either way, and at too low a difference to ambient to be efficient to extract, but while I'm not an expert in the energy usage of 3D printers, I find it very hard to believe that reducing an item to granules and then recreating it from the same granules can be particularly energy efficient from the perspective of information theory. The other side which I should have considered before is that if the purpose of this is cleaning (as was originally suggested), reducing the item to parts to reassemble without first cleaning it will result in contaminated build components and a lower quality physical product, but with the contamination spread liberally through the item rather than being on the surface where it can be more easily cleaned away.
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  Why do you say this? I haven't seen anything that leads to believe that it's the case.
- KiwiNige 16y ago
  These guys are working on it: http://reprap.org http://reprap.org An open source 3d printer design with the goal being to use it to print all the parts for then next printer.
  - marshray 16y ago
    It may be the problem is that we end up with too many of these things self-replicating all over the place like rabbits!
rmc 16y ago
Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard) People won't be designing things themselves, they'll be downloading files and then pressing 'print' on their computer. It's like how people share funny pictures, links get sent around and viewed.
- Kliment 16y ago
  Some of us are already doing that. Check thingiverse.com for example.

rbranson 16y ago

Perhaps not a paperless society, but computers & the Internet HAVE dramatically decreased the amount of paper we use these days. Just off the top of my head for consumers: Phone books & directories, maps, banking & billing, written correspondence, fax machines, shared scheduling & calendars, media distribution (books, music, movies).

eftpotrm 16y ago

Within the terms that were then understood, they're very well on the way to that though. The first office I ever worked in, as a summer job as a student, was computerised but used them as glorified typewriters in the main. All the master documents were on paper, punched and organised into lever arch files. Backups? What's a backup? Think back to an old office; row upon row upon row of filing cabinets, carefully indexed. I don't think I've seen that in at least 6-7 years, maybe 10. I can't remember the last time I found a document where the master copy was on paper. Regularly referred to paper copies are almost exclusively annotated working versions which get destroyed at the end of the process. We circulate documents on paper in some contexts but are equally likely to email them to each other, and that's rising - more often than not, paper is a reference copy for a meeting rather than our master copy. My employer stopped doing printed payslips and went fully electronic over a year ago. I have paperless billing from two utility companies and could set it up with a third, I just haven't got round to it. I rarely print photos any more. I read eBooks probably slightly more than paper books and definitely read online news rather than newspapers, while magazines are tentatively stepping towards full electronic distribution through both websites and tablet apps. I basically don't send or receive letters any more. Paper won't go completely any more than cars resulted in the extinction of the domesticated horse, but it seems to me it's heading for much the same specialist/luxury niche in the market.