Dear America, You Have Bad Credit!

Does America have a bad credit rating? You bet it does! Due to increased borrowing to fund our ongoing wars, America - as a country - is increasingly falling into debt. This wouldn't be quite so bad if we were at least paying back what we owe in installments, however the only thing we seem to be paying off is the interest rate on our nation's loan and nothing else.

Every year we borrow more and more money to finance our wars, money we are not able to repay. Our government has even been dipping into our Social Security Trust to deal with the interest on our national loans. Budgets for education, health and retirement plans are suffering percentage-wise compared to the budgets set aside for our military efforts. The question remains: How long until we can't even afford to pay off our interest rates and what happens to our economy then?

Historically speaking our government has had shutdowns caused by financing before, "the longest of which was from December 16, 1995, to January 6, 1996", according to our Government and Finance Division. Unfortunately what may happen now would be much worse.

Already "foreign banks are dumping dollar reserves, while we gorge on cheap toys and bad pet food", according to Goldman Sachs' Paul B. Farrell. This fact alone is weakening the dollar and increased inflation is expected to follow. If this rise in inflation continues, our economy is sure to stumble and gone will be our status of being one of the world's leading nations. We will be middle-level at best and will be faced with a great downfall in our economy. The average citizen will barely have the money to pay the bills and rent, and keep food on the table. Greater Depression, here we come!

Click And Print Your Order - In 3D?

Do you remember watching "Star Trek", seeing a replicator and thinking "I wish I had one"? Well despair no longer, current technology is starting to turn that dream into reality, only instead of the term "replicator", it's really "fabber".

Hook a fabber up to a computer with CAD software on it, feed it the necessary materials and you can produce almost anything (or parts for products that would be too big to assemble inside of the fabber). The best part is that these machines do in fact exist.

The definition of the term fabber encompasses a series of different types of machines that all follow the concept of 3D printing, a branch of Rapid Prototyping (RP). Various companies have been using RP technology for years to reduce cost of production. RP machines tend to be big and bulky and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and upkeep, however when you are mass-producing, that cost is relatively low compared to your profits. 3D printing machines which are basically smaller counterparts of the RP machines have also become available commercially at approx $15,000 - $25,000 dollars (initial purchasing price, of course), and are intended for the "office environment". That chunk of money is still a bit pricey for personal use though, and that is why a couple of scholarly and Do It Yourself communities have come up with various DIY solutions for students and the home enthusiasts.

One such community is the Fab Lab program, a subdivision of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA). They host an MIT class involving fabbers and RP machines called "How To Make (almost) Anything" for their students, however they also are involved in a number of outreach programs to get more people involved in science and technology.

Another, differently structured community is Fab@Home. Unlike MIT's Fab Lab program where people go to a central lab to work on projects, Fab@Home brings the concept of the laboratory to one's home. It is an Open Source community where people post blueprints and models for home-made fabbers and projects they can be used for.

At this point in time a home-made fabber will still cost approximately a couple of thousand dollars in parts, however it does come a lot cheaper than its commercial counterparts and ultimately you will have the benefit of knowing a lot more of how the technology works. DYI fabbers is can be fed a wider range of materials. The BSD Open Source licensing that the Fab@Home community uses takes a lot of proprietary constraints out of the equation, and so people can experiment more freely with the technology. Hmmm... I wonder how long it will take for gourmet meal fabber recipes to come out...

Welcome to Mind Slice!

Welcome, welcome! Come in, have a seat and take a look around at some of the various shards that make up my mind. Through my upcoming posts I aim to entertain, and even dare hope that I can provide some food for thought that you can take with you, and which will leave you hungering for more.
I encourage discussions and different points of view, so please, feel free to comment at any time.