A young (born in 1988) University of Texas law student named Cody Wilson is the founder of DEFCAD (an open-source search engine for 3D printing) and the Wiki Weapon Project (Defense Distributed):
http://defensedistributed.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/DXLiberty/
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First, some background information on ‘3-D Printing’ technology –
The following is a reference to the article that is shown at the 2:27 minute mark in the posted video:
3-D Printing: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution
Spiegel Online
Marcel Rosenbach and Thomas Schulz
1/4/2013
Excerpt:
3-D printing technology, used industrially for the last few decades, is poised to break into the mass market. Its endless and swiftly developing possibilities — from entrepreneurial manufacturing to the potential sculpting of human organs — could become the next industrial revolution.
When the TV series Star Trek first brought the starship Enterprise into German living rooms, the concept of a replicator was pure science fiction, a fantastical utopian vision we might experience one day centuries in the future. Replicators, something of a mixture between computer and miniature factory, were capable of creating food and replacement parts from next to nothing. They were highly practical devices, since Captain Kirk couldn’t exactly take along a lot of supplies for his journeys through outer space. That futuristic vision, though, has receded far into the past — overtaken by the present.
The real-world replicator-like technology poised to revolutionize the world is known as 3-D printing, though that term is misleading, since the process has little to do with printing. Three-dimensional printers can be as small as a suitcase or as large as a telephone booth, depending on the object they are meant to faithfully replicate from a 3-D computer blueprint. Inside the machine, the product is assembled by stacking extremely thin layers of material on top of one another, sort of like reassembling an apple that has been cut into super-fine slices.
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View the complete article at:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/3d-printing-technology-poised-for-new-industrial-revolution-a-874833.html
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Free Republic ran a short thread titled, ‘3-D Printing: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution’, which was started 1/4/2013 by ‘Olog-hai’
The thread referenced the 1/4/2013 Der Spiegel article written by Marcel Rosenbach and Christian Schüle
View the complete Free Republic thread at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2975263/posts
Image Credit: REUTERS/ Vienna University of Technology
The below referenced article is shown at the 0:18 minute mark in the posted video:
3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith
Wired
Robert Beckhusen
10/1/2012
Excerpt:
Cody Wilson planned in the coming weeks to make and test a 3-D printed pistol. Now those plans have been put on hold as desktop-manufacturing company Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer rented out for Wiki Weapon, the internet project lead by Wilson and dedicated to sharing open-source blueprints for 3-D printed guns. Stratasys even sent a team to seize the printer from Wilson’s home.
“They came for it straight up,” Cody Wilson, director of Defense Distributed, the online collective that oversees the Wiki project, tells Danger Room. “I didn’t even have it out of the box.” Wilson, who is a second-year law student at the University of Texas at Austin, had leased the printer earlier in September after his group raised $20,000 online. As well as using the funds to build a pistol, the Wiki Weapon project aimed to eventually provide a platform for anyone to share 3-D weapons schematics online. Eventually, the group hoped, anyone could download the open source blueprints and build weapons at home.
Until Stratasys pulled the lease, the Wiki Weapon project intended to make a fully 3-D printed pistol for the first time, though it would likely be capable of only firing a single shot until the barrel melted. Still, that would go further than the partly plastic AR-15 rifle produced by blogger and gunsmith Michael Guslick. Also known as “Have Blue,” Guslick became an online sensation after he made a working rifle by printing a lower receiver and combining it with off-the-shelf metal parts.
But last Wednesday, less than a week after receiving the printer, Wilson received an e-mail from Stratasys: The company wanted its printer returned. Wilson wrote back, and said he believed using the printer to manufacture a firearm would not break federal laws regarding at-home weapons manufacturing. For one, the gun wouldn’t be for sale. Wilson added that he didn’t have a firearms manufacturers license.
Stratasys’s legal counsel wrote back: “It is the policy of Stratasys not to knowingly allow its printers to be used for illegal purposes. Therefore, please be advised that your lease of the Stratasys uPrint SE is cancelled at this time and Stratasys is making arrangements to pick up the printer,” stated the letter, which Wilson posted to Defense Distributed’s website. The next day, contractors hired by the company arrived at Wilson’s apartment in an Enterprise rental van and took the printer.
Stratasys uPrint SE printer inside the home of Wiki Weapon director Cody Wilson, which was to be used to develop a gun. Photo: Cody Wilson
Asked for comment by Danger Room, Stratasys provided a statement on Monday which read: “Stratasys reserves the right to reject an order. Members of Defense Distributed, like any U.S. citizens, are able to follow the well-established federal and state regulations to manufacture, distribute or procure a firearm in this country.”
After the letter, Wilson thought, “Damn, they’re going to take it no matter what,” he says. He added that “nothing we do violates the law.” He may be right. It’s legal in the United States to manufacture a gun at home without a license — provided it’s not for sale or trade. But this doesn’t include all weapons. Machine guns and sawed-off shotguns are illegal to manufacture without a license. There’s also a law requiring “any other weapon, other than a pistol or a revolver … capable of being concealed on the person” to be subject to review by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms an Explosives (ATF).
Wilson’s plans may have fallen under this review, which could have provoked Stratasys to pull the lease. There’s also another law, the Undetectable Firearms Act, which could mean a fully plastic pistol would be illegal regardless of how it was made. Guslick’s partly plastic AR-15 seemed to have circumvented this law by only building one component of a mostly metal rifle with 3-D printed parts.
“Of course I’m scrambling now. I’m trying to figure out, well, how can I rent an object from another party or a capital group?” Wilson says. “In the meantime, I’m doing everything else. It’s just added stress.”
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View the complete article at:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/3d-gun-blocked/
The below referenced article is shown at the 0:31 minute mark in the posted video:
3D-Printing Firm Makerbot Cracks Down On Printable Gun Designs
Forbes
Andy Greenberg
12/19/2012
Excerpt:
You have the right to bear arms. But you don’t necessarily have the right to upload them.
In the wake of one of worst shooting incidents in American history, the 3D-printing firm Makerbot has deleted a collection of blueprints for gun components from Thingiverse, its popular user-generated content website that hosts 3D-printable files. Though Thingiverse has long banned designs for weapons and their components in its terms of service, it rarely enforced the rule until the last few days, when the company’s lawyer sent notices to users that their software models for gun parts were being purged from the site.
One letter forwarded to me by Thingiverse user Michael Guslick, for instance, explained that a design for an AR-15 trigger guard he uploaded to the site violated its rule that users not “collect, upload, transmit, display or distribute any User Content… that…promotes illegal activities or contributes to the creation of weapons,” as the letter reads. “In exercising our policy enforcement discretion, we have decided to remove the…content as of today.”
When I checked Thingiverse earlier this month for gun components, it was easy enough to find firearm parts such as the “lower receivers” for several models of semiautomatic rifles and handguns. Those designs had sparked controversy by potentially circumventing gun laws: The lower receiver is the the “body” of a gun, and its most regulated component. So 3D-printing that piece at home and attaching other parts ordered by mail might allow a lethal weapon to be obtained without any legal barriers or identification.
Guslick, a Wisconsin IT administrator whose experiments with a 3D-printed AR-15 lower receiver drew attention to the issue of 3D-printable weapons earlier this year, speculated that the removal of the files was linked with the Newtown, Connecticut gun massacre that killed 20 children and seven adults in an elementary school last week. “Correlation is not causation, but it seems pretty clear that the tragic shooting in [Connecticut] last week is the impetus for removal of some designs on Thingiverse,” he wrote to me in an email. But Guslick pointed out that several gun-related items remained on the site, including a Glock magazine and Ruger pistol grip. “I’m not sure if those are targeted for takedown as well, or if only AR-15 compatible designs are being removed (given that the popular rifle has been utterly demonized in the media over the past few days, I suppose that may be plausible).”
Makerbot, for its part, included no mention of the Newtown shootings in a statement sent to me about the gun takedowns. “MakerBot’s focus is to empower the creative process and make things for good,” writes Makerbot spokesperson Jenifer Howard. “Thingiverse has been going through an evolution recently and has had numerous changes and updates. Reviewing some of the content that violates Thingiverse’s Terms of Service is part of this process.”
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View the complete article at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/12/19/3d-printing-startup-makerbot-cracks-down-on-printable-gun-designs/
‘Wiki Weapon Project’ Aims To Create A Gun Anyone Can 3D-Print At Home
Forbes
Andy Greenberg
8/23/2012
Excerpt:
Cody Wilson has a simple dream: To design the world’s first firearm that can be downloaded from the Internet and built from scratch using only a 3D printer–and then to share it with the world.
Earlier this month, Wilson and a small group of friends who call themselves “Defense Distributed” launched an initiative they’ve dubbed the “ Wiki Weapon Project.” They’re seeking to raise $20,000 to design and release blueprints for a plastic gun anyone can create with an open-source 3D printer known as the RepRap that can be bought for less than $1,000. If all goes according to plan, the thousands of owners of those cheap 3D printers, which extrude thin threads of melted plastic into layers that add up to precisely-shaped three-dimensional objects, will be able to turn the project’s CAD designs into an operational gun capable of firing a standard .22 caliber bullet, all in the privacy of their own garage.
“We want to show this principle: That a handgun is printable,” says Wilson, a 24-year-old second-year law student at the University of Texas. “You don’t need to be able to put 200 rounds through it…It only has to fire once. But even if the design is a little unworkable, it doesn’t matter, as long as it has that guarantee of lethality.”
Wilson and his handful of collaborators at Defense Distributed plan to use the money they raise to buy or rent a $10,000 Stratasys 3D printer and also to hold a 3D-printable gun design contest with a $1,000 or $2,000 prize for the winning entry–Wilson says they’ve already received gun design ideas from fans in Arkansas and North Carolina. Once the group has successfully built a reliable 3D-printed gun with the Stratasys printer, it plans to adapt the design for the cheaper and more widely distributed RepRap model.
As of Tuesday, the project had raised $2,000 of its $20,000 goal through a page on the fundraising website Indiegogo, when the company suddenly removed their page Tuesday night and froze their donations for what it described as a “unusual account activity.” The project is still accepting donations through its own website via Paypal and via the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Wilson says that before Indiegogo’s rejection, the Wiki Weapon Project was just a few hundred dollars short of the cost of renting the 3D printer for three months, and he plans to appeal the decision.
(embedded in the article is) … the fundraising video the group had posted to Indiegogo:
Controversial as their project sounds–particularly in the wake of the recent gun violence in Aurora, Colorado and Milwaukee, Wisconsin–Wilson insists the Wiki Weapon Project is legal; Users can 3D-print any gun they would be allowed to lawfully own anyway, as long as they don’t manufacture them for sale, Wilson says. But he doesn’t deny that the project’s goal is to subvert gun control regulations in America and around the world. “It’s one of the ideas of the American revolution that the citizenry should be the owners of the weapons,” says Wilson. “Every citizen has the right to bear arms. This is the way to really lower the barrier to access to arms. That’s what this represents.”
And does lowering that barrier really require giving everyone access to be a lethal weapon? “If a gun’s any good, it’s lethal. It’s not really a gun if it can’t threaten to kill someone,” Wilson responds. “You can print a lethal device. It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming to show.”
View the complete article at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/08/23/wiki-weapon-project-aims-to-create-a-gun-anyone-can-3d-print-at-home/
Excerpt from the Defense Distributed ‘Manifesto’:
http://defensedistributed.com/manifesto/
MANIFESTO
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;…”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Whoever considers the unprincipled enemy we have to to cope with, will not hesitate to declare that nothing but arms or miracles can reduce them to reason and moderation.”
– Thomas Paine
“The great object is that every man be armed … Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
– Patrick Henry
“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.”
– H.L. Mencken
‘Bitcoin’ – Description
The term ‘Bitcoin’ is mentioned at the 2:20 minute mark in the posted video
Wikipedia
Excerpt:
Bitcoin (sign: BTC) is a decentralized digital currency[9][10] based on an open-source,[11] peer-to-peer internet protocol. It was introduced by a pseudonymous developer named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.[12]
Bitcoins can be exchanged through a computer or smartphone locally or internationally without an intermediate financial institution.[13] In trade, one bitcoin is subdivided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis, defined by eight decimal points.[4]
Bitcoin is not managed like typical currencies: it has no central bank or central organization. Instead, it relies on an internet-based peer-to-peer network. The money supply is automated and given to servers or “bitcoin miners” that confirm bitcoin transactions as they add them to a decentralized and archived transaction log approximately every 10 minutes.
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View the complete article at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Lucas D. Smith $25.00 donation (April 5, 2013) to DEFCAD:
— Some brief, general, initial comments:
I think this is a very complex topic, which is loaded with immense potential legal challenges and liability issues.
However, I agree IN THEORY with the general principle of allowing individuals to make their own weapons for self-defense, in their own homes, for their own personal use.
I have serious ethical problems with much of the discussion in the posted video starting at about the 1:35 minute mark. I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights, copyrights, patents, etc. The enforced legal protection of these rights has done much to encourage and advance technology in the fields of medicine, science, engineering and manufacturing. Conversely, if others are allowed to simply STEAL ones hard work and accomplishment, without consequence, there is little incentive to do the hard, expensive research and development necessary to make significant advancements.
I don’t sanction unscrupulous copying behavior against American patented technology by China, for example, and I would not sanction it by DEFCAD.
I do not trust ‘digital currencies’ such as ‘Bitcoin’. (I lost a LOT of money a few years back in a digital currency company called ‘eBullion’ and have no desire to repeat the mistake!)
Bruce wrote:
I agree with you.
However, and again I am not an expert on firearms, but I was under the impression that rifles like the AR-15 are all just copies/clones anyway.
I believe that ‘AR’ (in AR-15) stands for ArmaLite (and not ‘assault rifle’, lol!) and that Armalite designed the rifle circa the year 1957.
ArmaLite sold the design to Colt. ArmaLite also sold the selective fire version of the AR-15 to the US Military (which is called the the M-16).
Unless you (not you in particular, I mean anyone) own a AR-15 manufactured by Colt or if you are in the US Military and have a M-16 (or if you’ve come across an M-16 that was given away, abroad, by the US Military in other countries, or if you find one one here in the USA on the ‘black market’) then you probably have a cloned, replica or copy of the AR-15/M-16.
Here are few examples of companies which I believe manufacture/sell cloned AR-15s:
1. Bushmaster
2. Daniel Defense
3. LMT (Lockheed Martin).
4. BCM (Bravo Company).
PS- I too was also hesitant and apprehensive to us ‘Bitcoin’ and did not use that method of payment/donation. I will look into ‘Bitcoin’ to learn more about them but after reading what you stated above, “I do not trust ‘digital currencies’ such as ‘Bitcoin’. (I lost a LOT of money a few years back in a digital currency company called ‘eBullion’ and have no desire to repeat the mistake”, I’m afraid that I probably will not like what I learn!
Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
I believe you are correct on this, and I have no ETHICAL problem with responsible, law abiding adults copying parts of the AR-15 in their own homes for their own personal use of the weapon in self-defense.
This assumes that the AR-15 is a ‘legal’ weapon to own in their state at the time of manufacture, and that the parts produced are ‘safe’ to use, as produced on the user’s low cost, low tech 3-D printer equipment and using the construction materials and plans described in the download! This is where the ‘potential’ legal and liability problems with the concept start to surface.
My ethical problem with DEFCAD was related to their below reproduced published statement, which is supported by the verbal statements made and images shown toward the end of the posted video:
Copying ‘every part in existence’, to me, implies they have no respect for ‘intellectual property rights’ or specifically ‘any dangerous weapons laws (eg. fully automatic firearms)’ and, if so, I must object to this portion of their business plan.
Bruce wrote:
I agree that, as you have stated (and very well stated I might add!) in one of your posts above, “…this is a very complex topic, which is loaded with immense potential legal challenges and liability issues…..I have serious ethical problems with much of the discussion in the posted video starting at about the 1:35 minute mark. I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights, copyrights, patents, etc. The enforced legal protection of these rights has done much to encourage and advance technology in the fields of medicine, science, engineering and manufacturing. Conversely, if others are allowed to simply STEAL ones hard work and accomplishment, without consequence, there is little incentive to do the hard, expensive research and development necessary to make significant advancements…”
I hope that with time and a lot of critical and analytical thinking that responsible and conscientious minded individuals can figure all of this out.
I imagine (maybe, I don’t know for certain) that similar types concerns regarding the “Internet” were (and still are) voiced and addressed when the “Internet” was a new thing.
PS- The first time that I remembering ever using the internet was I think in the year 1998 (after i was already out of high school) and I didn’t use it very much at all. It wasn’t until a couple days after Christmas 2002 that I really began to use it on a very regular basis. What a lame-brain simpleton I use to be!
The reason I posted this report is because I believe that Cody Wilson’s DEFCAD could help Americans arm themselves when, and if, the day comes when the US Government take away our right to own guns and attempts to confiscate all remaining guns in the USA.
Everything, and everyone, has their time and their place in the world. Some things become obsolete and new things are invented which wouldn’t have been needed in a past time and past place (did anyone need Yale educated Risk Assessment Adviser in their mortgage-securities investment firm 300 years ago?).
Perhaps some day tangible paperback books will become obsolete (I hope not) and no longer manufactured. Printers will go out business (and they are, I worked at the Fisher Group and they are one of the lucky ones that has managed to stay alive and continue to grow even today) and jobs will be lost.
Moreover, people can self-publish books that they have written themselves and like they never have been before (i.e., its much easier to self-publish now) with companies like Lulu.com and CreateSpace.com and LightningSource.com
Authors who might have once made millions for their manuscripts might now only be able to make a small percentage of what they once did.
Things change. I believe that, typically, companies and corporations exist, primarily, to make money or a profit. They ARE NOT charities who keep employees on the payroll long after the employee is no longer needed nor do they continue to produce goods and service that are no longer needed just to keep John Doe employed and paying his mortgage.
People don’t work for free and likewise people don’t typically buy what they can get for free or in a better format.
Here’s a weirdo example:
I believe that 1-900 sex-talk hotlines once were very popular (I never called them!). But now you can get all of the free porn you want online and its also “better” because you can see it too rather than just listening to a voice over a telephone line. So why would anyone still call a 1-900 sex-talk hotline? I don’t think anyone does anymore.
Here’s a cooler example which more similar to DEFCAD:
We can now make our own pop (Soda) with the SodaStream. I own one myself and I don’t even really like pop nor do I advocate the drinking of it!. However, you can make ‘copy’ flavors or you can make your own from whatever you want such as juice (I use orange juice). There is no longer a need to buy pop (soda) if you can make it yourself. There is however a need to buy the ingredients which, for me, is oranges and also the ‘carbonation’ which is sold in COs tanks and can also be refilled in for a price.
My point is that even though I, or you, don’t have to buy pop (its bad for you and I never drank it much anyway!) anymore we still have to buy the ingredients and and also the machine (SodaStream) that makes the pop!
The buying and selling of goods and services continue!
PS- I know that my discussion above is at about 5th grade level and my examples given were corny but I believe that it is still somewhat of an accurate, yet simplified, view of how things work in the real world.
Can a regular guy (or a lady) afford to buy a 3D-Printer? I located a number of listings on eBay for a Airwolf 3D Printer AW3D V.5.
Twelve (12) of the Airwolf 3D-Printers (new) have been sold on eBay in 2013.
Selling prices were as follows: $1,695.00, $1,295.00, $1,295.00, $1,295.00, $1,695.00, $1,295.00, $1,695.00, $1,295.00, $1,295.00, $1,695.00 and there was also one (maybe it was used or a different model?) which sold for $810.00.
I have no idea what quality of 3D-Printer that Airwolf is selling or if their 3D-Printers would be able to handle printing gun parts.
Here is a link for their website: http://airwolf3d.com/
Here are eBay listing pictures of an assembled unit and also a picture of before assembled:
Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
Digital currency Bitcoin surges through $200 mark
The Globe and Mail
Michael Babad
4/9/2013
Excerpt:
Bitcoin surges
Bitcoin, the digital currency that has become a global phenomenon, reached an all-time high today, topping $200 (U.S.).
It went as high as more than $227 at one point.
As The Globe and Mail’s Omar El Akkad writes, Bitcoin has become an Internet sensation, suddenly surging in value four years after its birth.
Just to illustrate how far it has come, one Bitcoin was worth about just $9 two years ago, and is now being talked about by those in the currency trade, among others.
Of late, this currency has been gaining as the euro crisis rears its ugly head again. Now, of course, there are questions over whether it’s in bubble territory.
What to make of this?
“You can think of Bitcoins like the suburbia of Toronto, with the crucial difference that the land isn’t real and the government steps in to limit the supply the more investors apply,” said Sébastien Galy of Société Générale.
“The difference is that instead of taking years for that boom-and-bust process to happen it is happening at an incredibly rapid pace,” Mr. Galy added.
“Another way to look at it, is Germany post World War I where the absence of manufacturing supply and imported goods meant that lots of moneys helpfully supplied by the central bank was chasing a very limited supply.”
As to its frothy nature, Mr. Galy said something’s a bubble only when it pops but “it has characteristics of one, it would be safe to assume.”
As an asset, said Justin Fox, editorial director of the Harvard Business Review Group, Bitcoin “is clearly in a bubble,” and has been so always. Though looking at asset pricing may be the wrong approach in this case, he wrote today on the group’s blog.
“A dollar bill lays claim to no stream of future earnings, yet nobody says there’s a ‘dollar bubble’ because somebody’s willing to give you a candy bar for one,” he said.
“This even though a dollar is almost certain to buy you less in a few years than it does now. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 2013 dollar has one-tenth the purchasing power of the 1950 version.”
Bitcoins, in turn, have surged.
“This sounds like a good thing, but for a currency it’s really not,” Mr. Fox said.
“An economy where bitcoins were the means of exchange would have experienced 98-per-cent deflation over the past year. No one would be able to repay any loans, or really do business at all. What we want out of a currency is not price appreciation but stability.”
As Mr. Fox put it, it “kind of makes your head hurt” to think about it.
Bitcoins have no “intrinsic value” as an asset, though they’ve climbed too sharply to be used as money.
View the complete article at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/digital-currency-bitcoin-surges-through-200-mark/article10932113/
Bruce wrote:
Thanks you Bruce for posting this helpful information.
I ran across another article regarding digital currencies.
I found the presentation annoying but it does summarize some good information.
The story of ‘e-bullion’, the company that caused me a large capital loss a few years ago is described on page 9.
Of Bitcoins and e-bullion: The sad history of virtual currency
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2033505/of-bitcoins-and-e-bullion-the-sad-history-of-virtual-currency.html
@ Lucas Daniel Smith:
I HAVE A SODA CLUB ( NOW SODA STREAM ) SYSTEM I BOUGHT 11 YEARS AGO AND USE IT EVERY WEEK . THE SODA HAS 1/3 THE AMOUNT OF SUGAR AS STORE BOUGHT DRINKS . MY FAVORITES ARE CRANBERRY , ROOT BEER AND CREME SODA . MY UNIT HAS THE LARGER CO2 BOTTLES , AND THERE ARE 7 DRINK BOTTLES . I MAKE REAL LIMEAID BY JUICING 1/2 CUP LIME JUICE , 1/2 CUP SUGAR OR STEVIA , AND THE CARBONATED WATER . THEN YOU CAN MAKE A FANTASTIC MARGARITA BY ADDING TEQUILA .
THE SODA CLUB / SODA STREAM UNITS AND SYRUPS ARE MADE IN ISRAEL .
—————————- GOOD STUFF ——————————-
I’m going to buy a 3D printer, print more 3D printers, sell them and become the richest man ever in the history of 3D printing.Not that I would need the money, as I would be fine in my printed house, with my printed wife and family, eating printed food.And just to be a greedy douche,I’ll also copyright the idea so no one else can do it.
Liberator – Dawn of the Wiki Weapons
WATCH: First 3D-Printed Plastic Gun Fired In Texas
Mediaite
Matt Wilstein
5/6/2013
Excerpt:
Who needs a background check when you can just print your own gun in the comfort of your own home? That’s just one of the many questions to arise from the latest product created by Defense Distributed, a non-profit based in Texas. The organization has reportedly invented the world’s first 3D-printed gun, and released a video of the product in action over the weekend.
Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old behind the project, told Forbes, “I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people. That’s what it is: It’s a gun. But I don’t think that’s a reason to not put it out there. I think that liberty in the end is a better interest.”
Wilson plans to post printable blueprints on the group’s website so that anyone with a 3D printer can create the gun on their own at home without going through any of the regulatory hurdles that do exist for purchasing firearms.
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View the complete article at:
State Department orders firm to remove 3D-printed guns web blueprints
Defense Distributed tweeted on Thursday that ‘Liberator’ project had ‘gone dark’ at the request of government officials
The Guardian
Amanda Holpuch, Ewen MacAskill in New York and Charles Arthur in London
5/10/2013
Excerpt:
The US government has blocked a Texas-based company from distributing details online of how to make a plastic gun using a 3-D printer.
The ban, by the State Department citing international arms control law, comes just days after the world’s first such gun was successfully fired.
Defense Distributed, the company that made the prototype, stated on Twitter that its project had “gone dark” at the instigation of the government.
The company is run by Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old University of Texas law student who has said the idea for freely distributing details about how to produce the guns online was inspired by 19th century anarchist writing. Wilson argues everyone should have access to guns.
A State Department spokesman said: “Although we do not comment on whether we have individual ongoing compliance matters, we can confirm that the department has been in communication with the company.”
The action came too late to prevent widespread distribution of the files: Defense Distributed told Forbes that the files have already been downloaded more than 100,000 times in the two days since they were uploaded. The largest number of downloads initially were to addresses in Spain, followed by the US, Brazil, Germany and the UK.
Fifteen of the gun’s 16 pieces are constructed on the $8,000 Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, Forbes said. The final piece is a common nail, used as a firing pin, that can be found in a hardware store.
Betabeat posted a copy of the letter reportedly sent by the Department of State to Wilson. The department said the blueprints had to be taken offline because they may contain data regulated by the State Department. The departement said it would review the files.
“I immediately complied and I’ve taken down the files,” Wilson told Betabeat. “But this is a much bigger deal than guns. It has implications for the freedom of the web.”
Defense Distributed does not host the files in the US; instead it has uploaded them to the Mega website run by the internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, based in New Zealand, and where user information – including who has logged into the site and downloaded files – is encrypted.
The files have also been uploaded to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site, where they have proved a popular download.
The gun blueprints take the form of computer-aided design files, which have to be read by specialist software which can then be used by industrial 3D printers to build up the hair-thin layers, one by one, to create the finished parts.
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View the complete article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/09/3d-printed-guns-plans-state-department
Bruce wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Bruce. I saw the video earlier this week but I was tied up and could not post it.
I’m really proud of Cody Wilson and his team. It appears that they have created the first totally and categorically plastic gun (aside from the common metal nail which is inserted as the firing pin).
Furthermore, it appears to be an original design. No copyright or patent infringements/violations. (Even though nearly all AR riffles are copies and clones, aside from ‘Colt’, and have been for decades.)
I remembering reading the ‘experts’ who indicated that a plastic gun would be impossible to make and to use.
Bruce wrote:
The overreaction to this thing is really over the top!
As a teenager, in the mid-and-late 1990s (before the internet was popularly accessible) I was a subscriber to Loompanics Unlimited mail catalog and Paladin Press mail catalog and Eden Press mail catalog.
Back then they published hard to find and controversial books. Paladin Press was even sued regarding a book called “Hit Man” by Rex Feral which the plaintiffs indicated and argued was used an an instruction book by the killer of one of their family members.
At any rate, I still have some of their old catalogs from the 1990s. I don’t have them with me right now (the catalogs are in a different country right now) but I remember seeing abundant titles on how to make your own handguns, rifles and machine-guns. These books listed the dimensions for machining and step by step instructions in which any layman could machine the parts in their backyard garage on in their basement.
You can still buy the books and I found a few on Amazon.
“The Do-it-Yourself Submachine Gun: It’s Homemade, 9mm, Lightweight, Durable-And It’ll Never Be On Any Import Ban Lists!” [Paperback] also available in ebook format. (first published in 1985)
“The .22 Machine Pistol (Home Workshop Guns for Defense & Resistance)” [Paperback] also available in ebook format. (first published in 1995)
“The 9mm Machine Pistol (Home Workshop Guns for Defense & Resistance” [Paperback] also available in ebook format. (first published in 1996)
Those are just a few examples. There are a lot more.
Here’s a picture of the first book:
Cody Wilson in Bratislava, Slovakia. Swedish documentary: