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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot coming. Hello there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: and welcome with tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette

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Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, alrighty then, yeah, so what do you wanna

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Speaker 1: talking about? Well, before we start talking, this is going

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Speaker 1: to be one of those special podcasts, you know, the

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Speaker 1: kind that always start with listener me. Dude, I was

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Speaker 1: hoping I was ice cream and cake. You got me

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Speaker 1: all excited. Yeah, No, punch and pie will be later.

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Speaker 1: So this listener mail comes from Amy, and Amy says, hey,

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Speaker 1: you guys love the show and I have learned a lot.

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Speaker 1: Here is a tech thing I have no clue about.

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Speaker 1: How does three D printing work? Thanks? Amy? Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean we thought we would tackle three D printing for you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's um, it's a complex thing. It's it's super cool though. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can you know, you can do a very rudimentary

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Speaker 1: version of this by you know, printing something out on

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Speaker 1: a piece of paper. And folding it into oregamy. But

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Speaker 1: I don't think, oh, that's printing on two D and

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Speaker 1: then you make a three D dimensions that's it. Get

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Speaker 1: josh in here. So no, no, no, So three D printing, Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, let's talk about why you would need

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Speaker 1: three D printing in the first place. And really, the

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Speaker 1: main purpose is to create prototypes for products. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: not we're not talking about printing out stuff that you

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Speaker 1: would read later. This is printing out things in relief

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Speaker 1: so that you could see how they're put together and

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Speaker 1: what they look like when they're done. The question is

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Speaker 1: how do you make that possible? Right, Because think about

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Speaker 1: it this way. If you are let's let's say that

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Speaker 1: you have come up with a product idea. You work

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Speaker 1: with this big company. You've come up with an idea

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Speaker 1: of our new product, and you want to make a

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Speaker 1: mock up of it. But because there it's it's the

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Speaker 1: first of its type, there's nothing in place for you

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Speaker 1: to be able to manufacture this easily. You can't just

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Speaker 1: go to the plant and say, hey, you know, produce

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Speaker 1: one of these for me, because no one's made one before.

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Speaker 1: So before three D printing, you pretty much had to

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Speaker 1: use other methods, like if you want to go way back,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about things like you take a block of

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Speaker 1: wood and you carve it into the shape that it's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be in, and then you're you take another

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Speaker 1: block of wood and carve that away until you get

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Speaker 1: all the different pieces together. Then you put all the

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Speaker 1: pieces together, and then you show it off to whomever

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Speaker 1: and say, this is what this is the way it's

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Speaker 1: supposed to go together. Please find a way to mass

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Speaker 1: produce this. It's rather time consuming. It's carve away all

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Speaker 1: the bits that don't look like whatever, right exactly, you

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Speaker 1: carve away all the bits that don't look like whatever

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Speaker 1: it is that you're trying to produce. Or another example

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Speaker 1: is uh, actually group of uses three D printing a

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Speaker 1: lot architects. Everybody's seen name one of those models of

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Speaker 1: your town or your school after renovation or whatever where

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Speaker 1: they have little blocks and you look at them and

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Speaker 1: you go, well, that's that's pretty neat to put all

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Speaker 1: the little trees in there, and that well, you can

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Speaker 1: use three D printing to create models like that, right,

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Speaker 1: So obviously there's a need for creating prototypes. There's need

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Speaker 1: for creating these models and there's a need for doing

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Speaker 1: it in a way that's not going to take you

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Speaker 1: so much time that by the time you're done with it,

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to create whatever was you're going to create

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Speaker 1: in its past. So that's where we get in with

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Speaker 1: this whole rapid prototype approach. And three D printing is

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Speaker 1: really just a way of creating the various bits and

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Speaker 1: pieces you need for some three D object three dimensional object.

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Speaker 1: Uh and uh you do it without having to you know,

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Speaker 1: get other materials and carve it out yourself. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: it's an additive process, which means that it's adding the

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Speaker 1: material as it goes to build the ultimate object or

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Speaker 1: series of objects. It's kind of ironic because really to

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Speaker 1: print in three D, you're printing in two D just

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Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of layers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of weird because you think of it in

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Speaker 1: I guess in my head, I was thinking sort of

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Speaker 1: a sci fi thing where you know, you had this

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Speaker 1: big open door with the flaps on it, and you

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Speaker 1: tell it to print the thing and it just sort

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Speaker 1: of comes out in the conveyor belt. Well that's not

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Speaker 1: exactly how kind of like the gob stoppers and will

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Speaker 1: want Yeah, no, I was right there with you. Either

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Speaker 1: that or either that or you think of it almost

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Speaker 1: like a mold type thing, where you know, these two

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Speaker 1: halves come together. When they come apart, there's the object

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Speaker 1: just sitting there. It's not quite like that. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it's not like that at all. Really. One it really

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Speaker 1: resembles most is in jet printers. So you know, with

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Speaker 1: the name jet printer, you've got a printer that has

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Speaker 1: a tiny little nozzle that sprays incredibly tiny drops of

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Speaker 1: ink onto the paper. Yes, an incredibly small we're talking

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Speaker 1: like usually on the nano scale, really um something that

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Speaker 1: or it can be that small and uh it just

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Speaker 1: it the nozzle scans from one side of the paper

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Speaker 1: to the other and sprays, and as it sprays, that's

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Speaker 1: that's what's forming the text, you see. Well, it's the

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Speaker 1: same sort of principle with three D printing, except instead

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Speaker 1: of inc it's using some sort of material like a

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Speaker 1: resin or some sort of uh plastic kind of material

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Speaker 1: and a binding agent. It depends actually I've seen a

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Speaker 1: couple of different techniques, one that uses powder and another

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Speaker 1: that uses a liquid. Right, Yeah, it all depends on

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Speaker 1: there there are variations. In general, the way it works

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Speaker 1: is that you first create a three D model of

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Speaker 1: whatever it is you want to build in a program

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Speaker 1: like a like a CAD program on a computer. Um.

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Speaker 1: Then what most of these three D printers do is

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Speaker 1: they divide that picture that you've created, that model you've created,

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Speaker 1: into lots and lots and lots of layers, hundreds and

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Speaker 1: hundreds of them really, because the thickness of each layer

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Speaker 1: tends to be very very thin. It's it's really just

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Speaker 1: one layer of the of the ink jets printing. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's what you could call it. So interrupted ahead,

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Speaker 1: think of it as an egg slicer, if you, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, put the egg down and you slice it up.

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Speaker 1: It only very very fine slices. It's the computer is

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Speaker 1: doing that in order to print it on this three

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Speaker 1: D printer, right the cross sections exactly. Yeah. So it

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Speaker 1: does this layer by layer and it prints and until

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Speaker 1: it's finished with the object that you're creating. And because

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Speaker 1: there's the binding agent or the material itself is binding

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Speaker 1: in nature, um, it actually clings together and eventually creates

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Speaker 1: this three dimensional object. You might think, well, how long

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Speaker 1: does that take? Turns out not very long at all. Really, um,

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Speaker 1: Even back in the early days of three D printing,

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Speaker 1: it was much faster to use this method than other

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Speaker 1: comparable methods. Uh. And I've seen figures of depending on

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Speaker 1: the complexity of the objects you're creating in the size

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Speaker 1: of it tends to be between half an hour to

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Speaker 1: two hours, depending on the again the size and complexity.

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Speaker 1: M M. Do you want to talk about the different

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Speaker 1: types the powder and the liquid thing? Yeah, go ahead, okay, UM, Well,

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Speaker 1: the one that I first saw when I was starting

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Speaker 1: to do my research for the podcast was this stereolithographic technique,

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Speaker 1: which is basically it's the liquid that they pour into

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Speaker 1: a big I think of it as a big tub,

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Speaker 1: I guess, although I guess it wouldn't have to necessarily

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Speaker 1: be large, It just has to be big enough to

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Speaker 1: contain the liquid. The laser is shown onto the resin,

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Speaker 1: and every place that the laser touches hardens, so that's

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Speaker 1: how it forms the pattern. And then it that that

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Speaker 1: becomes a layer and one of the layers that eventually

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Speaker 1: makes up the three D So it starts as a

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Speaker 1: liquid resin which is hardened by a laser into one

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Speaker 1: of the layers that eventually becomes up at the model

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Speaker 1: right right, So what you do is you you scan

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Speaker 1: the laser across and it traces whatever the shape is

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Speaker 1: of the that layer. Then usually there is a process

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Speaker 1: where I think of it like a squeegee. Uh, something

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Speaker 1: comes across and wipes off the excess resin at that

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Speaker 1: point so that the next layer can be built up.

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Speaker 1: The laser goes across again, it binds with the first layer.

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Speaker 1: You've now got a second layer. You do this hundreds

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of times until you've finished the object that

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Speaker 1: you're trying to create. Now, I should also point out

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Speaker 1: that stereo lithography is not the same thing as the

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Speaker 1: ink jet method we were talking about earlier. It's a

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Speaker 1: totally different kind of three D printing. Um. In fact,

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Speaker 1: some people would argue that it shouldn't be called three

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Speaker 1: D printing at all. It's still a form of rapid prototype.

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Speaker 1: But but yes, it is a very popular way of

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Speaker 1: creating a simple three D objects UM. And it is

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Speaker 1: pretty neat. I mean, it's just it's a laser that

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Speaker 1: once it comes into contact with the stuff, the stuff

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Speaker 1: goes from liquid to solids. That's just cool. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so yes, that's the liquid one you were talking about, right,

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Speaker 1: and then the the other uses a self adhesive powder

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Speaker 1: and you know it's um. Actually I had less on

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Speaker 1: So the powder, the powder. What happens is it gets

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Speaker 1: it gets put into the same sort of pattern and

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Speaker 1: it adheres to itself. It binds to itself. There's some

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Speaker 1: methods here where you will actually have to have a

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Speaker 1: base of some sort before you can start printing the shape.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, you can't just turn the printer

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Speaker 1: on and tell it to go. You have to have

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Speaker 1: some sort of foundation for the dust or liquid to

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Speaker 1: adhere to um. So you might have a very basic cylinder,

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Speaker 1: for example, and the object itself is as much more

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Speaker 1: complex than that, with lots of curves or edges or whatever,

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Speaker 1: but it still has to have that that foundation to

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Speaker 1: cling onto before you can get started. That's some of

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Speaker 1: the printers require that. And uh, from what I understand

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Speaker 1: that that term is selective laser centering or s l S,

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Speaker 1: which is the name for that powder method. And then

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Speaker 1: something else it's kind of interesting, at least to me,

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Speaker 1: is that the three D models, when they have a

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Speaker 1: continuous surface like this, they're called watertight. That's sort of

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Speaker 1: I guess industry slang for you know the fact that

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Speaker 1: it's seamless how the model is made, rather than being

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Speaker 1: made into pieces. So yeah, you're not gonna find you're

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Speaker 1: not going to find that little line where two different

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Speaker 1: pieces come together and are glued that way what you

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Speaker 1: might have found with with old handmade versions where you

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Speaker 1: had to put together a lot of different sections by yourself.

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Speaker 1: And we're starting to see this more and more in

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Speaker 1: applications beyond just the prototype production. Um it's not just

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Speaker 1: something that's being used by gigantic companies like you. You

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Speaker 1: would see this normally in things like let's say you're

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Speaker 1: at a car manufacturer and you've come up with a

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Speaker 1: really cool design for a car, and you might want

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Speaker 1: a model of that of your design when you're showing

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Speaker 1: that to executives. So you would use this method in

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Speaker 1: order to create a model of the car design you

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Speaker 1: had created, so they're not just looking at a you know,

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Speaker 1: a three D image on a computer that can actually

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Speaker 1: see an object and and look at it from all

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Speaker 1: angles that way. Um. Well, now these three D printers

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Speaker 1: have gone into the realm of affordability for a lot

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Speaker 1: of smaller businesses. Now, when I say affordable. This is

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Speaker 1: a relative term, right, It's not something that is affordable

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Speaker 1: to the general consumer. Uh. You know, Joe Schmo with

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Speaker 1: his MacBook is not going to go out and get

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Speaker 1: a three D printer to sit next to his computer

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Speaker 1: at home. Uh, because Joe Schmo probably can't shell out

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Speaker 1: grand for a three D printer, and that's for a

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Speaker 1: cheap one. Yeah. The the average now is about somewhere

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Speaker 1: between fifteen thousand and two d and fifty dollars for

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Speaker 1: a three D printer range. Although there are some desktop

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Speaker 1: ish printers that are starting to come down below five

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, it's still not the kind of money that

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Speaker 1: you're gonna, you know, fork over for your kids science

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Speaker 1: fair projects so that you can the three cool three

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Speaker 1: D printed thing. It's still a little You might be

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Speaker 1: a you might be a model train enthusiast, but I

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Speaker 1: doubt that you are an enthusiast at the point where

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Speaker 1: you're gonna drop grand on a printer that can print

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Speaker 1: a tree that you want. Although I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 1: you're Michael Jackson quality. He had a lot of model trains.

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Speaker 1: That's true anyway. Yeah, you know they used these in

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Speaker 1: a lot of different processes UM, some of which made

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Speaker 1: complete sense to me, like manufacturing and aerospace and motive UM.

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Speaker 1: One that I was a little surprised to see was footwear,

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Speaker 1: but I guess people like to see what the shoe

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Speaker 1: is gonna look like before the consumers get hold of it.

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Speaker 1: And uh in the arts uh. In fact, some of

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Speaker 1: them models for Cora line were built uh for him.

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Speaker 1: Nike founder Phil Knights company has uh. He had a

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Speaker 1: company called Laka and uh. Apparently that company was involved

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Speaker 1: with making some of the models for Coraline printed on

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Speaker 1: you know, three D printing technology, and the medical industry

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Speaker 1: is using them to print prosthetics, which is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: And I remember reading at some point. I didn't find

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Speaker 1: it for this podcast, but I do remember reading an

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Speaker 1: article at one point about a former UM Microsoft executive,

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Speaker 1: someone who worked on Microsoft's video game division actually who

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Speaker 1: left the company and formed his own company UM that

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Speaker 1: was the partnered with World of Warcraft so that players

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Speaker 1: of World War Warcraft could send in pictures of their

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Speaker 1: character the essentially their character model, and have a figuring

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Speaker 1: created through three D printing of their their character. So

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Speaker 1: and it was using this method. It was using three

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Speaker 1: D printing to create models that were very specific to

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Speaker 1: the look of each individual World Warcraft character. So if you,

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Speaker 1: you know, had one of those busty elf chicks, you

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Speaker 1: could get a three D figuring of your bust yelf check.

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Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, not life size. Sorry to disappoint you, fellas.

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Speaker 1: Um it was actually like maybe three inches tall. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, you can't have everything. If there were two

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Speaker 1: apples taller than they'd be smurf size Smurf size two

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Speaker 1: or three, And no, I think you're right at there's

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Speaker 1: three three apples tall. So anyway, yes, that was a

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Speaker 1: childhood well spent. So you know, uh, somebody there there

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Speaker 1: is the three D printing, the rapid prototyping technology has fans.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I was a little surprised to see

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Speaker 1: somebody who who's very popular in the world of design

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Speaker 1: right now, who isn't necessarily a fan. Yeah, Jonathan, I've

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Speaker 1: of apples saying that it's distancing designers from you know,

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Speaker 1: the idea of their physical artwork of you know, actually

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Speaker 1: doing it by hand. And so he, uh, he's apparently

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Speaker 1: not such a big fan. I can sort of see that,

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Speaker 1: I guess, I mean, I see that in the same

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Speaker 1: way that I see some animators who specialize in hand

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Speaker 1: drawn animation how they look down on computer generated animation. Uh,

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Speaker 1: not all of them do. I don't mean to say that,

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Speaker 1: And it's a very small number who who have voiced

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Speaker 1: any sort of negative opinion about the thing. But my

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Speaker 1: view is that it's really it's not so much the technique,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, how you how you put to use.

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Speaker 1: So as far as I'm concerned, it's just another tool,

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Speaker 1: and if someone is able to use that tool in

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Speaker 1: a creative way, then I see no real problem with it.

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Speaker 1: But then I'm not a designer, so I am not

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Speaker 1: an artiste. So perhaps that's uh, that's maybe it's because

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Speaker 1: I'm more of a you know, practical kind of guy

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Speaker 1: as opposed to a artistic kind of guy. I understand.

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Speaker 1: But I was also going to talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: about vic Oliver. I don't know, did you come across

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Speaker 1: vic Oliver when you were researching three D printing? I

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Speaker 1: did not. Okay, So vic Oliver he's heading this this

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Speaker 1: open source self copying three D printer project self Copying. Yes.

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Speaker 1: So the idea here is that to create a three

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Speaker 1: D printer that is capable of printing all of the

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Speaker 1: components that go into that three D printer, so that

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Speaker 1: in theory, you could create a machine that can replicate itself. Now,

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Speaker 1: granted it's going to replicate itself in various bits and pieces.

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Speaker 1: It'll still have to be assembled and wired and all that.

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Speaker 1: But in theory, with the methods that he's working on,

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Speaker 1: you would be able to create another printer, and that

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Speaker 1: would remove this barrier of price. Think about it, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, you, let's say like for the purchase price

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Speaker 1: of one printer and whatever materials you needed to feed

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Speaker 1: it through, like the plastic in the metal that you

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Speaker 1: would need to create more, you could then create another

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Speaker 1: printer and give that to your friend, and then the

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Speaker 1: two of you could each create a printer and give

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Speaker 1: that to two other friends, and they could give it

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Speaker 1: to two friends, and they two friends and so on

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Speaker 1: and so on. I'm really figured you were going to

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Speaker 1: go to that. Uh you That's the problem with that

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Speaker 1: is that there's no three D metal printing technology. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what that's what they're working on. They're working on

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Speaker 1: this methodology that would allow you to use low metals

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Speaker 1: that have a low melting point, so you would have

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Speaker 1: a metal that could melt at a temperature that is

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Speaker 1: lower than the temperature required for the plastic to stay hard.

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Speaker 1: So you could actually line the plastic with metal and

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Speaker 1: it would all work fine. It wouldn't intermix, you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have this hot metal melting the plastic you just generated.

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Speaker 1: And and granted now they're still working on it. They've

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Speaker 1: developed the nozzle metal system, but it's still a little

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Speaker 1: ways away from a full self replicable model. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that is a pretty neat thing, because you think

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Speaker 1: about then, all right, well, how far away are we

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Speaker 1: to the point where we get to the Star Trek

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Speaker 1: world where you've got the replicators. I could use a

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Speaker 1: hot earl gray this afternoon. Yeah, I could have used

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Speaker 1: a an alternator for my wife's car. So you know,

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Speaker 1: we all have our our needs. But on the day

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Speaker 1: that we recorded this, the waterman busted outside and there's

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Speaker 1: a boil water order. And I really wanted a cup

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Speaker 1: of tea, I think because I couldn't. Yeah, I had

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Speaker 1: a cup of coffee before I found out about the

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Speaker 1: boil water order. So I'm expecting to either die or

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Speaker 1: develop superpowers before the end of this podcast. Sad thing

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Speaker 1: is he won't let me vote. No, No, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: much a coin flip situation here. It's not a democracy.

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, I'm pretty much done with a three

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Speaker 1: D printing. What about you? I am too, and thanks

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Speaker 1: to me for right now, because that's that was a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun to research. It was a really cool

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Speaker 1: topic and it was something I've been wondering about for ages.

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Speaker 1: In fact, as I a call that might have been

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Speaker 1: one of the first articles I pitched at how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works when I started working here, although I never did

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Speaker 1: get the chance to actually write that one. So it

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Speaker 1: was cool to finally do the research so very much.

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Speaker 1: So y'all continue to write in about stuff that we

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Speaker 1: want to write about and read about. Right But this does, however,

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Speaker 1: bring me to something else we need to talk about.

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Speaker 1: But that would be listener me sabotage. Yeah yeah, listen

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Speaker 1: all y'all. So this listener mail comes from Jacob from Cleveland,

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Speaker 1: and it's actually a dual listener mail because it's not

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00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:33,440
Speaker 1: just us, it's to our our bigger sister podcast stuff.

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00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,840
Speaker 1: You should know it as well. So I thought it

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Speaker 1: was going to involve Aaron Burrn, No, not this time.

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Speaker 1: You Now you may recall several episodes ago, I laid

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Speaker 1: out a challenge to our listeners to create a spins

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Speaker 1: arian sonnet in our honor, and more than a few responded,

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Speaker 1: but Jacob's was the first. So here is Jacob's spins

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Speaker 1: Arian sonnet. Dear text stuff and stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: of request for sonnets. Not everyone forgets to Chris, John,

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Speaker 1: Josh or Chuck. These words should flow or anyone whom

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Speaker 1: this poem gets. I love the podcast for their humor

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Speaker 1: and wits, from bit Torrent to Einstein's brain, from listener

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00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:15,199
Speaker 1: mail and corrections someone admits to make me laugh. You

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Speaker 1: all never refrain. In fact, you keep me from going insane.

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Speaker 1: All fans of stuff podcasts, you guys should impress from

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Speaker 1: all your episodes. There is knowledge to gain. How much

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Speaker 1: one can only guess a year of tech stuff, which

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Speaker 1: I adore, and from stuff you should know just a

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00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,360
Speaker 1: little bit of time more ps tech stuff. I recommend

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Speaker 1: a Linux podcast. Well, Jacob, we've got all the next

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Speaker 1: podcast in the works for you. Uh, it's one of

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Speaker 1: those many others. Yes, there's actually quite a quite a

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Speaker 1: long list of topics that that is accumulating. You guys

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00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:49,920
Speaker 1: are sending in requests faster than we can do podcasts,

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00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: which is awesome because we don't have to think about them.

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Speaker 1: But we've had a lot of requests for Linux, so

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Speaker 1: that will be coming in the near future. So keep

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Speaker 1: your ears peeled, I suppose or open yes, because you

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Speaker 1: would keep your eyes peeled. I don't even want to

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Speaker 1: think about that. What peeling your eyes or your ears either? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So if you have any requests or corrections or any

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Speaker 1: other comments, you can send those to our email address,

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Speaker 1: which is text stuff at how stuff works dot com.

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00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 1: And remember you can read all about printers and computers

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Speaker 1: and everything in between at how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: and we will talk to you again unless Chris has

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Speaker 1: something bad new pretty soon for moralness and thousands of

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00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com and

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Speaker 1: be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog

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Speaker 1: now on the how Stuff Works homepage. Brought to you

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Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

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Speaker 1: you