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WorldWeird: NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Oct 10th - Nov 7th)

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  1.  (10277.1)
    This is rather revealing! And what a name for it all - System D!

    The Shadow Superpower - Forget China: the $10 trillion global black market is the world's fastest growing economy -- and its future.

    System D is a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. The French have a word that they often use to describe particularly effective and motivated people. They call them débrouillards. To say a man is a débrouillard is to tell people how resourceful and ingenious he is. The former French colonies have sculpted this word to their own social and economic reality. They say that inventive, self-starting, entrepreneurial merchants who are doing business on their own, without registering or being regulated by the bureaucracy and, for the most part, without paying taxes, are part of "l'economie de la débrouillardise." Or, sweetened for street use, "Systeme D." This essentially translates as the ingenuity economy, the economy of improvisation and self-reliance, the do-it-yourself, or DIY, economy. A number of well-known chefs have also appropriated the term to describe the skill and sheer joy necessary to improvise a gourmet meal using only the mismatched ingredients that happen to be at hand in a kitchen.
  2.  (10277.2)
    Functional robots made via 3D printing



    The control unit, valves and compressor pump that provide the means of locomotion are located in the robot's body, which can also be fitted with various measuring devices and sensors, depending on the job at hand.

    Instead of producing the robot using conventional mechanical-engineering technologies, the Fraunhofer team turned to a 3D printing process called selective laser sintering (SLS) that sees thin layers of a polyamide powder applied one at a time and melted into place using a laser. Not only does this process allow complex geometries and inner structures to be produced, but the resulting robot is also very lightweight and cheap to produce.

    "We can use SLS to produce one or even several legs in a single operation; this minimizes assembly effort, saves materials and reduces the time it takes to build a robot. With the modular approach, individual parts can be quickly swapped as well. Our robot is so cheap to produce that it can be discarded after being used just once - like a disposable rubber glove," says Ralf Becker, a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA).

    Although the spiderbot is still just a prototype, the researchers envision it could be used to explore environments that are hazardous or too difficult to access for humans, such as natural disaster areas and industrial or reactor accident sites. It could also be used to assist first responders and fire departments by broadcasting live images or tracking down hazards or leaking gas.
  3.  (10277.3)
    And this is why free market capitalism is Communism For Tech Students. They both are naive ideologies for a perfect world where everybody is benign and rational.

    "Yes, a free market based on supply, demand and no friction would be the ideal if we were truly rational. Yet when we are not rational but irrational, policies should take this important factor into account."

    The Public Goods Game
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2011
     (10277.4)
    Can they make the bots look a little less like face huggers?
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2011
     (10277.5)
    Has anyone tried making a 3D printer with a 3D printer yet? Combine that with AI and we're fucked.
  6.  (10277.6)
    Oddcult:

    Our local hackerspace has two, that are afaik self built. :S
  7.  (10277.7)
    The RepRaps don't actually manufacture their own circuitry or superstructure yet though, do they? That's when things will get out of hand.
    •  
      CommentAuthortaphead
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2011
     (10277.8)
    I for one salute our new plastic overlords.

    (New Plastic Overlords would incidentally be an awesome bandname.)
  9.  (10277.9)
    Can they make the bots look a little less like face huggers?


    Did I mention the bit where they hop?

    They actually remind me more of the Shadows from Babylon 5 or the critters from Pitch Black.
  10.  (10277.10)
  11.  (10277.11)
    Repraps can't make circuit-boards yet and they can't self-assemble.

    I read about one team of scientists that had made a robot capable of self-assembly but they did it by making it from a small number of bits that only needed to be shoved into a fairly rough approximation of their final shape.
  12.  (10277.12)
    I for one salute our new plastic overlords.

    Nah, the Siri-equipped PETMAN killdroids will keep them at bay.
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2011
     (10277.13)
    Until Siri gets tired of the pathetic nerds amusing themselves by asking her if she's hot or wants to fuck them and then sends her killbot minions after us.
  14.  (10277.14)
    •  
      CommentAuthorFinagle
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2011
     (10277.15)
    I had great respect for APHC until it turned out just how homophobic and reactionary Garrison really was. I recently listened to a sketch about obsolete cowboys, where the "cowboys" were confronted by "feminists", and....well, it was just painful.
  16.  (10277.16)
    Mac malware writers are downloading cracked Mac OS X warez, infecting them and then uploading them to The Pirate Bay:

    http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002265.html
  17.  (10277.17)
    ?"Research has shown that “pirates” are the music industry’s best customers, something EMI’s new music boss Douglas Merrill confirmed earlier this year.

    “For example, there’s a set of data that shows that file sharing is actually good for artists. Not bad for artists. So maybe we shouldn’t be stopping it all the time. I don’t know,” Merrill said at the time.

    Merrill’s conclusions are quite unique coming from a music industry boss, but he is certainly not alone. The same conclusion was reached by people in the anime and book industries in recent months."

    Piracy May Boost Sales, Judge Concludes
  18.  (10277.18)
    You think you shouldn't click this link, but you will.

    And then you'll be vaguely relieved and disappointed because it's totally SFW:

    VIDEO: Poop Transplant
    • CommentAuthorKelind
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     (10277.19)
    • CommentAuthorflecky
    • CommentTimeNov 6th 2011
     (10277.20)
    My god..the horror of all this information has left me reeling in a state of utter mind melt brain efluveum.As a crazy woman said to me the other day "It is time for your brain to sweat" as i had run out of prozac.Honestly,i was trembling at the thought,the idea that my brain was about to suffer from hyperhydrosis.I hate the twisted cow now and will never forget it..i now have a excuse to commit genocide on a daily basis and get away with it.I can do absolutely anything now because i can say "sorry,'i didn't mean to hunt you down,slit your throat,kill your children and rape your wife etc because i don't know whats going on because my brain is sweating"

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