Lovely
Endless from Dirk Vander Kooij on Vimeo.
Plastic chairs made from ground up fridges
What I find interesting about this – is that it’s using a proper robot arm instead of a cartesian table – and I really think that this is the way forward… basically because it means that the robot can build things bigger than itself. It can build a wall around itself so no one can tell it what to do, and it can sit inside, happily humming to self, making LOL cats.
This is a second hand Chinese machine. At last, the Chinese are exporting their crap to the west. Because this is what their top imports from the US are:
Speaking of which (kindof), the other thing is that it’s using chipped plastic rather than extruded plastic that comes on a massive cotton-reel thing. Chipped plastic cuts out a whole stage in raw-material preparation.
Now I’m a guy who sits on the sidelines heckling – not actually doing anything myself… so far be it from me to advise… but advise I do. There it is.
This is my back yard.
In other news,
An acre of virus-infected tobacco can yield a ton of material that makes 10x better batteries than current technologies… as part of the long-time-coming, never-actually-getting-here biotech revolution that we hear so much about.
Cartestian Robot Roundup.
Magnobots
Pseudo Machine Art
Physical Pixels
Lego-Based Copy-Monopoly Liberation 
Reprap Roundup.
RoboSimian
Generative 3D printed Art
New Reprap Variant
DragonflyCopter
On Addiction
And The Void Mooned Back...
The Spirit Of The World
A Machine to Steal Souls
More Anti Digital
Thync
Robotic Sensory Loops and Whatnot
Post-Scarcity Link-Dump
Servo Bender
Noticed the reprap and been unloosed. Yes.
Holy frejolies, your back yard is in the Amazonian jungle?! crites. Gorgeous.
And re the virus infected crops… what could go wrong?!
Theoretically the virus already infects crops – just not the variety that bonds to metal. Personally I find the concept of virii growing on metal slightly less scary than the recent gen-eng bacteria that head for the deepest part of a crack in concrete – then when there are loads of them, they secrete calcium carbonate and become concrete themselves.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40201539/ns/technology_and_science-green_innovation/
What.
It does what?
WHAT?! They’ve managed to get bacteria to become concrete in order to repair damage?
That is both exciting on its surface and deeply worrying as you say. It can’t be good to mess with life this way.
I’ve heard Monsanto engineers seed to terminate after a season to keep their profits going. Greed like that has always been with us but the ability to alter nature at such a fundamental level hasn’t that I know if.
I have very little faith in suicide genes – life has a way of finding a way – although if it doesn’t, it’s a dangerous development in itself because if farmers become dependent on a certain set of seeds, and these go away… because the company goes away, then they’ll be scrambling for alternatives – and genes do have a way of leaping from species to species.
The real danger with Monsanto though – is Monsanto. It’s a company having a stranglehold on our life-support system. Companies should provide services, not necessities. Necessities should be provided by organisations that are democratically accountable – and any profits (and we should be moving towards scenarios where there ARE no profits) should go back into infrastructure, rather than private yachts etc.
Oh, Man, well said. Well said. I couldn’t agree more.