'Serenity'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
You think so? I think if people at McDonald's suddenly stopped bussing their tables en masse, McDonald's would think long and hard about taking out the tables and becoming a to-go only type of franchise.
I mean, why not, right? Less real estate to take care of; less opportunity for loitering teens; fewer barfing toddlers; and who really stays in a fast food joint anyway? (I never do.)
Forget bussing then, what about tipping?
That's one place where an incentive system is built into the service industry. Except in Paris, where the ass-hat cafe waiters treat you like shit and get an automatic gratuity.
There's no one in the world over whom I have that authority.
Well, that's dissapointing.
I don't think McDonald's is passing along the savings to me.
Except for the part where if their costs go up, so will yours.
Well, that's dissapointing.
Tell me about it. I need me a man to boss around, or perhaps a child or three.
That always works out smoothly, right?
Sure! You can borrow mine to boss around, if you'd like.
Hey, our replicators are here!
Desktop manufacturing
Advances in 3-D printing and embedded electronics will revolutionize how everything from coffee makers to cellphones gets made.
By David Pescovitz
Imagine that your coffee maker breaks just before you're about to host a brunch. You go online and click on the model you want to buy. But you don't have to wait for it to be shipped; instead, a machine on your desk kicks into operation. Inside a glass chamber, a nozzle spits out the electronics, chassis, motor and other components, layer by layer. An hour later, you snap together a few parts and the brewing begins.
That machine would be the "Star Trek" replicator realized. Well, a beta version anyway. Already, several engineering threads are converging that may pull the replicator out of the far future and put it in our homes, or at least at Kinko's, in the next few decades. MIT's Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms, dubs the vision "personal fabrication." John Canny, a professor at UC-Berkeley's College of Engineering, where I'm a writer in residence, refers to the research field as "flexonics." Whatever the buzzword, it's not unlike desktop publishing, but for products instead of paper. Call it desktop manufacturing.
It starts with the physical object itself, the plastic chassis for the remote control that you stepped on, the body of the coffee maker. Product designers have literally been printing out objects for more than a decade. A digital design is loaded into a machine that drips out thin beads of plastic and glue, building up hair-thin layers until the whole form is complete. These kinds of three-dimensional printers are perhaps the coolest tool in the realm of rapid prototyping, technology that allows designers to quickly mock up models of new products. A designer can feel how the next-generation phone she's working on will fit in a shirt pocket.
You can borrow mine to boss around, if you'd like.
Your daughter apparates.
But can it make tea?
Timelies all!
Bleh. I'm tired. Again. :glares at cat: