Both a gas and tears at once

This rather brilliant experiment in asymmetric humanism demonstrates the Palestinian and Israeli response to a recent advert. The TV commercial showed a hopeful world otherwise in which Israelis and Palestinians played soccer by bouncing a ball to one another over the enormous wall (built by Israelis) that separates their territories. It was one of those rainbow-and-unicorn moments that we'd all like to see more of.

Regrettably it was not to be. A video recently posted on YouTube tried to reenact the game in reality, but found that the result could not be further removed from the situation on the ground: when the Palestinians kick the ball to the other side of the fence, what they get in return is a salvo of tear gas grenades.



09:15 AM

Boards of Canada - the music videos

Curiously I've never thought to look up whether Boards of Canada ever produced music videos. They have! One at least. And here it is.



09:01 AM

China on your desktop

This won't get you all the tea in China, but it could eventually replace all the cheap manufacturing that China produces.

The RepRap is the latest example of "desktop manufacturing", a new economy of distributed industrial production on the verge of going mainstream. Desktop manufacturing scales down traditional industrial production to something suitable and affordable for any home user. Connect a RepRap to your home computer like a printer, add a chunk of raw plastic, get on the net to download the design of a 3D object, and hit "print". Presto, RepRap will go to work manufacturing your product, from a coat hook to a tea cup to replacement plumbing. No shipping costs, import tariffs, production facility or Wal-Mart required.

The unique quality differentiating RepRap from other similar devices is that it can produce 60% of its own parts, effectively reproducing itself. The next version will be capable of producing its own electronic parts as well, though not microchips per se.

It doesn't take much imagination to envision how a world full of RepRap devices will be different. Distributed home production could remove a lot of the waste that goes into bringing a physical product to market (factory costs, shipping, packaging, retailing) while facilitating greater recyclability (if all objects can be produced from just a few types of plastic) and nourishing a radical new era of Do It Yourself handiwork. The new market demand for the 3D drawings to print would result in an iTunes AppStore for every product imaginable, with individuals and professional designers alike uploading whole sets of stylized objects for $1. There would be a virtually limitless market demand for new 3D plans to print just about anything.

None other than Jay Leno has recently demonstrated that 3D polymer prototyping machines can also scan physical objects for reproduction. Miss the look and feel of Mom's kitchen table setting? Just scan all the objects and automatically reproduce a new set.

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

10:35 PM