digital fabrication anecdote

[walkitout]

This kind of thing makes me a little crazy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/09/15/part-8-will-you-soon-be-able-to-make-amazons-kindle-at-home/

Well, _that's_ a provocative headline. And that's about all it is. Here's a bit of wisdom from this source:

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11307?pg=all

"At a research meeting in late 2010, a primatologist studying monkey genetics took a tour of a university’s digital fabrication shop. She mentioned that her field research had stalled because a specialized plastic comb, used in DNA analysis of organic samples, had broken. The primatologist had exhausted her research budget and couldn’t afford a new one, but she happened to be carrying the old comb with her. One of the students in the shop, an architect by training, asked to borrow it. He captured its outline with a desktop scanner, and took a piece of scrap acrylic from a shelf. Booting up a laptop attached to a laser cutter, he casually asked, “How many do you want?”"

That is an _insane_ amount of machinery to deploy to save a primatologist the $50 it would cost to replace the freaking comb.

At least, that's what I think it costs for one of those. Perhaps one of my readers knows otherwise.

I don't precisely disagree with the general point being made (mass customization leads to craft-manufacture-of-the-21st-century), just the specifics of how that's going to happen and whether that has anything at all to do with consumer goods like an e-ink reader or a tablet.

(Price on the comb depends on how many wells it was wide.)

ETA:

Here's a head-desk moment:

"In the same way that personal computers have turned us all into amateur computer technicians and software administrators, so digital manufacture has the possibility of turning us all into amateur engineers who rediscover the joy of making things."

There are _so very many questions_ that one feels almost compelled to ask. Almost. But I've had those conversations and they are _never_ rewarding. I am not that spectrum-y.

Comments

[jkonrath.livejournal.com]

Depending on the brand and vintage, a DNA comb is most likely patented, which opens up an entirely different argument.

I would never have thought of that

[walkitout]

I really _should_ think of things like that, however, so should the authors. Geez. Thanks!

[flinx.livejournal.com]

As jkonrath said, yes, the design could be patented, and if the biologist is at a sufficiently small institution that doesn't have the negotiating power to bring the vendor down closer to cost, the comb could cost as much as $150. (I'm assuming it's a comb for agarose- or polyacrylamide-gel DNA electrophoresis, I can't read the article behind the login-screen.)

Also, consider that the money on the milling equipment a sunk cost--it was all validated for other projects, presumably quite some time ago, and if it's just sitting around, then the machinery isn't providing a return on the investment.

no version of the primatologist story includes further info about the comb

[walkitout]

That paragraph gets quoted all over the place.

Well, in an academic context, it's not clear the equipment needs to make money for anyone at any time -- it just needs to justify itself in terms of accomplishing some goal. But if the story told is being used to argue in favor of using that equipment in a commercial context to make all kinds of goods, the ROI should make _some_ kind of sense, and making those combs doesn't sound like it would, unless you were prepared to massively violate someone's patent.

Which is sort of an interesting idea. How's pirating-of-physical-objects (other than patented prescription drugs) going these days?

Re: no version of the primatologist story includes further info about the comb

[rolandgo.livejournal.com]

10% of my spam is currently trying to get me to buy expensive watch knock offs. Rolex and Cartier have big problems. Watches that I might be interested in -- if I still wore watches -- not so much.

Never mind all the fake Louis Vuitton and Gucci.