haha, very much agree agree. his initial arguments about a 'universal printer' diluting the market in time seem to hold more water in the realm of hypothetical

haha, very much agree agree. his initial arguments about a 'universal printer' diluting the market in time seem to hold more water in the realm of hypothetical machines than real ones (for some reason the mental image of self-replicating Universal Turing Machines with a printing functionality came to mind :P) in reality, there a number of principles in the realm of material physics that might constrain a machine simply 'printing itself'. In the near and medium terms, 3D printers that transform 3D CAD renderings into smaller objects will command a real market niche. In the long term, we will be talking about molecular fabrication (matter compilers a la "Diamond Age")-- but that is a whole other ball game :p