Darwin's Theories - Software Industry category

RepRap and The End of Want

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:40:00 GMT

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series, one of the most pervasive inventions was the "replicator", a device that could magically create any object, including a mug filled with "Earl Grey Tea, hot". This device ended poverty on planet Earth and on all planets that were allowed access to "Federation" technology. Need food? Just ask for what you want. The replicator has post-WiMax access to vast databases with the molecular formulae for every known food and drink, as well as every known object. It also apparently ended economics and economies, since the study of economics has as its deepest basis, its most secret heart of hearts, one person's need voluntarily to trade with another for something of value. If one can replicate anything one needs, why trade?

We are a years (if not centuries) away from being able to create such a replicator. But the first steps are being taken, and some of them with the same communal attitude that pervades ST:TNG's discussions of economics. RepRap is a project that is building simple "3D printer" replicators today. The project's web site has a subtitle of "Wealth without money..." These replicators can make small objects by a process known as fused deposition modelling (FDM for short). Commercial FDM machines cost around $30,000; the RepRap "Darwin" would cost about 1% of that, around $300-500 depending on how much you buy and how much you build.

The brainchild of Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath in the UK, the RepRap project is not only building simple replicators, but giving away all the technology to make them, and even encouraging everybody who builds one to build the key parts for two more and pass them on. All the plans are freely downloadable, so you could build one without spending a nickle with the project. Though you'll find that their buying-in-bulk policy will save you money over buying some of the components directly. All the software, similarly, is freely downloadable from SourceForge. Written in Java so that it can run on almost any computer, the main driver software is covered by the GNU Public License which allows anyone to use it freely, and prevents it, or software based on it, from being re-sold in proprietary form. A far cry from patenting the ideas and charging license fees. Although, given today's idiotic patent system, I have encouraged Bowyer to patent any key innovations and either dedidate them to the public domain or assign them to a free-patent trust. But in fact the original idea for the replicator is neither from Bowyen nor from TNG. As the RepRap web site honestly points out, the general idea seems to have been invented by famed computer science pioneer John Van Neumann, under the name "Universal Constructor". I like "replicator" better.

To be really useful, this project needs a way of creating the computer files that describe objects. There are many CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) programs around that can be used, but this is time-consuming. What if you break a cup and want to replicate one to keep a set (relatively) intact? What you want for that is a "3D Scanner." Such things exist, at around the cost of a good computer server; see this 3D Scanner advertised at US$2,500 (web site is dysfunctional without some proprietary plugin). Presumably, the cost of these will come down, or mayhap some worthy RepRapper will publish a low-cost design for one that can be built on your existing RepRap replicator.

There are, of course, many other projects going down similar paths to openness. Open Source has been around for thirty years (long before Stallman). Open Hardware is clearly similar to early Ham Radio and do-it-yourself computers (there was even a home-made PBX). Asterisk is open-source software that lets you more easily turn a PC into a PBX. The OpenMoko cell phone project which I have written about here and here) has always made its software available under the GPL, and recently released the CAD files for all the mechanical (e.g., case and mounting) components of their cell phones.

Keep in mind, though, that today's replicator is to the ST:TNG replicator as, say, Leonardo da Vinci's glider is to the Space Shuttle. While TNG's replicator works at the molecular level, today's RepRap is purely an electro-mechanical "3D printer", recognizably a direct descendant of the "numerical-controlled machine tool" works of the 1960's and the inkjet printers of the 1980's. The first version (named after me, or more likely, one of my more famous distant relatives) can only make things out of thermal plastic. And a given object is likely to be all the same color. It cannot even deposit metal, thus, it cannot make circuit boards, and cannot be called "self-replicating", one test of Von Newumann's "Universal Constructor" (another key test is self-assembly). In short, RepRap could make the tea-cup (in about a quarter hour), but not the tea. In fact, it has made shot glasses that hold whiskey, though I haven't even started building a RepRap yet, so I don't know if the particular plastic used imparts any taste to the beverage. That said, it has made many of its own parts. And never forget that the US Space Shuttle is "recognizably a direct descendant" of da Vinci's glider. Nor, that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Ian's Top Ten Today, #1

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:51:00 GMT

Here are some links that I found worth passing on recently. This is not a monthly or even a regular listing; I'll repeat this when I have another ten.

End Software Patents
Jacob C. Hornberger: Hillary Should Have Apologized for Waco in Waco
Building a Green PC at ArsTecnica
Canadian Politics: Let Elizabeth Speak (although, despite the noble-sounding URL, it only pleads for one of our minority parties)
Managing Your Inbox courtesy of RIM
Microsoft dupes consumers into buying crappy hardware just to pinch Vista out the door (Caveat: this blog contains statements admitted in evidence but not "proven" by trial, and doesn't know how to spell "dilemna")
Free book downloads in CS/Eng/Programming from www.freetechbooks.com/index.php
Senator denies $40,000 in telecom corporate donations could affect vote on telecoms immunity bill (I can just see Jay Leno delivering that line, can't you?)
MPAA lies about college downloading, agitates for legal interventions, and laughs its $10B profits all the way to the bank
Humor: PHD Comics, especially this strip (thread continues about 8 strips later).

Like I say, tha-tha-that's all (for now), folks. When I get another ten, this'll be back.

2008: A Year of Tipping Points?

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:10:00 GMT

I meant to write this for New Year's but got distracted. Perhaps it's a case of "better late than never". I predicted that 2008 will be a year of several "tipping points".

First the Good News: I had planned to say that 2008 would be the year that Blu-ray definitively toppled HD-DVD in the realm of next-generation DVD players. And it sure looks like I was right on that one. Last year, North-America-wide DVD rental chain Blockbuster Video made the jump. In January of this year, Warner Brothers made the switch. Then in ten days in February, Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart crossed over. So, despite some expensive research firms claims that the format wars will drag on into 2009, I hereby pronounce that it's all over for HD-DVD. Sorry if you bought an HD player and disks before the battle was over, but it's good news for everybody else - now that the format wars are over (even Toshiba seems almost ready to admit defeat, and has apparently decided to quit, according to unnamed sources) - consumers will be willing to buy in, and we can start getting "smart" DVDs into widespread circulation. Oh, and if you happen to be a Java developer or a content developer, check out hdcookbook, a freely-available collection of resources for making Blu-ray DVDs. As far as hardware to make your own, there is Sony's BWU-2005 (retails at $599.99 on SonyStyle; somewhat laughably, there are currently a few listed above retail on eBay).

Of course all is not brightness and cheer at the Blu-ray camp. There have been significant problems of compatibility and functionality in some early players, as well as the expected usual patent-based gold-diggers. And Netflix has something else up their sleeve. Worse, Blu-ray's official web site's press page hasn't been updated since October 2005 - seems somebody there gave up too early :-).

The Bad News: I thought that 2008 might be the year that the United Stats officially became a Police State. it looks like I was right here too. The US Senate passed a bill, wanted by their his-own-word-is-law abiding president, to grant immunity to large telecom companies that illegally gave private customer data including real-time access to all US internet traffic) to the government, simply because the government asked them to. "What? That was illegal? No problem, we'll just pass a law making it legal retroactively." Just as they have wanted for years to be able to make other actions illegal retroactively. The Rule of Law doesn't just mean having laws, it means respecting them, and being able to know objectively what is legal and what is not. Bush's minions want to eliminate your ability to know whether something you're about to do is legal or not. Welcome to the nightmare world of subjective law.

Now fortunately this bill didn't get signed into law, but only because some Democrats in the House of Representatives had enough guts... well, not to vote it down, but to vote to adjourn for the Presidents' Day week-long holiday, knowing that the bill will expire during this time. We've not seen the last of this bill. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and George Bush is addicted to it, and will stop at nothing to get it. He will probably remain president until the end of his term, unless he can engineer a state of emergency for November. And that gives him half a dozen months to ram this bill through. Overall the political scene looks rather bleak for 2008. And the US may yet tip over into police state territory. You might want to get a copy of this guide to citizen democracy while you can still download it.

In an ironic counterpoint, a Liberian pop dive has a new song out telling George Bush "thank you for the rule of law". The article notes that Africans hold Bush in much higher regard than do Americans; we all know which group gets a closer and better look at him.

The Uncertain News: Hopefully this will not also be a tipping point year for global climate change. Despite last year's heat (or maybe because of it?), this has been a record year for snowfall in eastern Canada. One of the cities in the Atlantic region, having boosted their snow-removal budget last year, had already used it all up by Valentines' Day this year. Perhaps there's still hope for the climate - but don't stop goin' green just yet!

So: watch for turmoil and tip-topping this year. Enjoy it, there'll be another year here soon enough.

Thecus Back To Life

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:47:00 GMT

The Thecus N2100 whose untimely demise I blogged recently is now, I'm happy to report, back to life, thanks to some help from the folks at Thecus in Taiwan. I'm putting some finishing touches on the OpenBSD install notes that should be ready in a few days.

Mac OS X Users want Java 6

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:29:00 GMT

This would seem surreal to a mainframe programmer of 20 years ago. Bloggers are putting the string 13949712720901ForOSX into their Blogs so that a Google Blog Search/Count can be used to show that a lot of people want Apple to release Java 6 for Mac OS X. Bring it on!!