Please wait...
Just the opposite, actually. 3-D printing is going to be great for *small* manufacturing runs. Custom designs for a single job where you only need half a dozen pieces are now practical.
Think about the processes currently used to manufacture circuit boards. I have an engineer friend who is regularly faced with the same choice for any particular board: fab it himself, or send it to China. Even at a small quantity, the 11 year old girl in China can fab the board cheaper than he can with his own tooling. But he has to wait for it. If he needs it "now" he gets out the materials and does it in his own shop.
Advanced 3-D printing will do the same for pieces and parts of any type.
As for machine-manufactured fast food ... that's a politics problem not an engineering problem.
They have 3D food printers, but that is more artsie-fartsie food
fantasy. Of course soon all fast food will be made by machine.
Hopefully they won't be printers.
I want a REPLICATOR!
In search of a new buckling spring keyboard, I bought a Unicomp. It looks like an old IBM Model M keyboard - the greatest keyboard ever made, and if you don't agree, you're wrong - but the quality isn't really there. I'll use if, but I may wind up buying an Matias again. There's weird plastic flashing visible on some of the key caps. There are a few keys where the height isn't perfectly consistant. The blue LED's are too bright. There are some gaps where there really shouldn't be (the whole left side of the keyboard). But the classic feel is there. Too bad the sound isn't as good as the old Model M.
Anyway, if you like the keyboards of yesteryear, it's a reasonable facsimile.
And yes, the M is the best keyboard ever, but it's the best for people who TYPE. People who are hardcore gamers may be looking for different features, and frankly if all they do is pound on the keyboard like a game controller, they don't deserve an M. :)
Nothing but M for me. I've got two that are in good working order, one at home and one at work. When I have to type during a conference call I sometimes move my hands over to the laptop keyboard to make less noise.
I'm also giving some consideration to switching from a mouse to a trackball.
The "real computer users" community seems to like the Logitech M570. Dunno if anyone has had any experience with any other products.
I have tried the Slimblade one and decided its not for me. I don't like how the scrolling action works (rotating the ball rather than the dedicated scroll ring). Otherwise Kensington gets my vote.
My other trackball-loving friend swears by CST (Clearly Superior Technologies) which seems to be a favorite in some circles... here's one of theirs on Amazon: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ECHGE3O/> and their website: <http://clearlysuperiortech.com>. I am sure they are technically better than the Kensingtons (higher DPI, etc) but they don't look like they'd be as ergonomic to use so I have never tried one.
I have wanted to try the Quiet Pro as I have heard it is better in this regard and closer to the AEK in its feel, but I haven't had a chance yet.
I've revived my Cherry G80-5000 using a soarer converter:
https://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/teensy-2-0-alternatives-atmega32u4-t4253.html
If you google around a bit around that, they also do a diy keyboard.
Fun little toy for under $150 bucks total.
Well, it seems word got out and someone got me the M570 trackball as a birthday present.
So far I think it feels pretty good, although there are times when I forget I have a trackball there and my first instinct is to slide the entire device across the desk. Aside from that, it matches the size and shape of my hand pretty well. I'm not at my main computer desk right now because we have a guest sleeping in that room. The desk is higher than the table I'm currently at, so I think when I get there my wrist won't be as extended as it currently seems to be when I grasp the M570.
Now I just need to find an old copy of Marble Madness. Did they ever make a trackball-ready version of that game for any platform other than Amiga?
The backlight on my LG 50" LED TV seems to be b0rked.
When powering up, it lights for a split second, then goes dark. The image is still there but not lit.
From a bit of goooooogling it seems there are two possibilities, either the power supply board to the backlights has gone bad, or there are one or more LED emitters shorted out and the power supply is no longer willing to feed them.
I guess the first thing I'll do is open it up and hunt for vented caps. Sure is a shame that they build these things with what seems to be a 3 year or less life expectancy. I'll bet they even pre-program them to know whether you bought an extended warranty.
Many years ago at work we had a computer monitor that failed the same way. I don't remember if it was an LG, I think it was. I tried fixing it but it didn't work. Good luck to you though, anybody that can grab a soldering iron and fix electronics in this day of disposable units is good to me.
I am experiencing my first old age hard drive failure. "Disk is likely to fail soon." and " reallocation sector count errors." I have drives that are over 15 years old that I power up every now and again, they still work. I believe they are Maxtors. I have data on them but nothing that I would miss or that has not been backed up elsewhere. I have never had a drive fail because of old age until now.
I did have one drive in a raid system that failed. Two 1T drives on a USB connected raid box, used for back-ups. As I moved the enclosure one day I hit the the level that ejects the drive. The ejected drive now has an extremely low capacity and the other drive experienced data loss. Apparently the lock to prevent accidental ejection of the drive failed. I know somewhere it said it was hot swapable but that didn't work.