I get the impression that the 3D printing and robotics aspect is tertiary to machine vision, which seems to be what they're actually researching. The video is kind of confusing that way. Cool as it all is, nothing they actually showed or discussed seemed technologically impressive (in a relative sense).

I agree with Columbus. The world has definitely gone pear shaped.

Mega City One.

Eh, I'm not sure about that. Actual airflow is the same as whatever the small fan can move. The Venturi effect would just make the higher velocity airflow through the small fan channel into a lower velocity flow through the larger (main part) channel (it's basically a complicated diffusor). The actual rate of flow is the same. You probably actually lose a fair amount of efficiency because of all the ducting and diversion. I would also guess that small, high-speed fans aren't as efficient as larger low speed fans for the same airflow.

That isn't to say it isn't a cool design, though. But yeah, for just getting the job done, a box fan is probably more efficient and effective.

What about parallel runways?

My understanding is that even though nobody will admit to their actual capabilities, it's fairly widely believed that stealth doesn't work anymore.

While the radar cross-section might be the size of a large bird, which is always a major bullet point in their marketing material, no large bird is flying in a straight line at 5k+ feet and 400 kts and it's easily within the the capabilities of modern processing to sort out all the large bird sized objects and find the one that's behaving in a very un-birdlike way.

Of course, I suppose it's always better in a war to be seen as little as possible, but newer projects like the F-22 and more specifically the F-35 are probably handicapped by being held to meeting the "stealthy" design requirement.

I find sentences that have two 'that's in them annoying. It's annoying that that works that way.

My proposition is to create a new single word, thithat, which has the same meaning as two that's next to eachother. I pronounce it that way when I'm speaking. Two that's in a row doesn't seem odd when spoken, only when written down. Therefore: thithtat. It won't be annoying anymore thithat works that way.

ed: And yes I know, you can just use one 'that' but that's not often done when speaking.

ed2: Dammit. The first usage in history of the word thitthat, and I spelled it wrong.

I miss glass soda bottles. On the other hand, I also remember the 80's when there was pretty much always broken glass on the ground everywhere all the time. I don't miss that.

I wonder what soda from a paper carton would taste like.

I don't often drink soda, but when I do, it's always Mexican Cocacola.

The trick is to also make sure you smoke extra cigarettes to suppress your appetite. Then it all evens out and everything is cool.

A lot of folks wouldn't consider that proper BBQ. I mean, it's got sauce on it for god's sake.

An engineering school really is a special case. Though I do think more humanities classes would be better, it isn't really possible to fit them into a typical engineering curriculum. As I recall from my school days, you needed 15 humanities credits over the four years to graduate. The typical overall class load was between 16 and 19 credits per trimester. And even with all that engineering education, you're usually still not ready to just immediately start performing at some job. You'll need a year or two of work experience before you're a fully productive engineer.

You just couldn't get a well rounded liberal arts education and a solid engineering education in four years. In fact, on average, it takes someone five years to get a bachelors in engineering.

I'm not really sure what the solution is. Even though I can accept the utility of it, I'm not sure I like the idea of the earlier educational specialization of some European models.

My advice to someone graduating from high school in the US is take two or three years off first, get any random crap job, and get some experience of life before you commit to a serious education.

Sure, that sucks more than usual, but again padlocks aren't for locking up valuable things. They prevent opportunistic casual theft. They're one step above luggage locks--only better than a nylon zip-tie because they can be reused.

If you use this with the intention of keeping out the class of people who might know this trick or bring tools along for their burgling, (like say a $20 bolt cutter that will do for most any padlock) you're doing it wrong.

Nerf toys were always the coolest when I was a kid. I haven't played with one in over 20 years, but we had endless fun with the old Nerf Blast-A-Balls when I was smaller. They made a great noise. That might have been the first Nerf "blaster" they made. Simple, cheap, fun. Perfect.