fP SOAP Server - Is there demand?

[Brian K. White]

On 5/28/2013 6:03 PM, Fairlight wrote:
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 02:56:21PM -0400, Walter D Vaughan Jr thus spoke:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> Subject: fP SOAP Server - Is there demand?
>>
>>> If there is sufficient demand, I very well may develop the product.  If
>> not, it's
>>> not worth eating up my Copious Free Time and Copious Free Energy, and I'll
>>> stick a fork in the idea, and simply move on without pursuing it.
>>
>> [Walter D Vaughan Jr]
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eExPp4lMKxc#!
>
> And that had...what, exactly...to do with the question at hand?  :)
>
> They're putting wayyyyy too much stock in this 3D printing thing, btw.  Not
> just this video...everyone.  There are some novelty things you can do with
> it, there are even a few practical uses that seemed fairly sane.  But
> overall, it's overhyped, IMNSHO.
>
> m->

I would say todays 3d printers are exactly like the first PC's.

What makes 3d printing so special is not so much what they can literally 
do right this minute but the fact that they are general purpose, 
agnostic, unlimited, and deal primarily with information, which anyone 
may have a copy of, manipulate, archive, improve upon.

The first 3d printers lack the materials and accuracy to build jet 
engines and heart valves, just as the first pc's lacked the software and 
horsepower to model weather or proteins. But once affordable machines 
got into numerous hands for a while and people started writing software 
(or cad files in this case) and once the hardware iterated a generation 
or two, personal general purpose user-programmable computers changed 
everything in a distinct before vs after way about like the invention of 
writing. (not printing, writing)

The hardware improving is a foregone conclusion. Just as with pc's it's 
all just "more of the same" after the earliest inventions up until maybe 
these new biological and quantum things.

-- 
bkw