Print your own gun (updated!)

A 3D printed gun?
Wow, this opens a big can of worms, not to say a hornet's nest! Do you think this will be controversial??!!


Kelly T put in a long and interesting comment, small quote:
At the end of it, the Frenchman said something about how he agreed with Clarkson and how he couldn't understand why we Americans left stuff in the open in the back of our pickups. Then one of the corporate jet drivers said that somebody just walking up to your truck while you were in it and stealing a bunch of crap out of it was something that just wouldn't happen here, unless you were in the bad parts of Detroit, Kansas City, or New Orleans or LA. The French guy gave him a puzzled look and asked 'why not?' and the whole group, almost in unison, replied ' because you might get shot!' 

Kelly also supplied some photos, from the workshop which made that beautiful airplane and canoe I showed not long ago.

(It's funny how something with such an ugly or primitive function can be beautiful.)

Unlike the originals, which were cast with low-grade iron in the 1700s, this one is machined with a CNC milling machine from a 200 lb ingot of stainless steel. All the parts are also stainless. It shoots a one pound ball of lead. I think it is a one-half scale of the original (a five foot long ingot of stainless wouldn't fit in any of his CNC machines).

The Top 100 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2012

More.

Focus, durnit!

Article about the limitations of phone cameras.

He is talking about it sort of from a web-journalist's point of view. And I think the new chimera of good cameras with small android tablets will be just the thing for that. They will be able to take pro-quality images and videos under most conditions, and can immediately process and post/send the results.

Something like the Sony RX100 (a shirt-pocket-sized camera with big results even in low light) with a bigger screen and Android (or even iOS, dare to dream) would be exceedingly useful for many.
(Not for me though, I should add. Well it might be, but I like the shirt-pocket size of the RX100, and I prefer to more carefully edit photos on a real computer before posting them.)

back online after a year without the internet

...back online after a year without the internet, article.

We're seeing the conclusion of the Great Experiment of the Verge journalist who took a year off from the Internet. At first it seems a huge success, he really bloomed. But in the long run, things started to look very different.
A thought-provoking essay.

I couldn't have all my interactions on Twitter anymore; I had to find them in real life. My sister, who has dealt with the frustration of trying to talk to me while I'm half listening, half computing for her entire life, loves the way I talk to her now. She says I'm less detached emotionally, more concerned with her well-being — less of a jerk, basically.
[...]


As it turned out, a dozen letters a week could prove to be as overwhelming as a hundred emails a day. And that was the way it went in most aspects of my life. A good book took motivation to read, whether I had the internet as an alternative or not. Leaving the house to hang out with people took just as much courage as it ever did.

By late 2012, I'd learned how to make a new style of wrong choices off the internet. I abandoned my positive offline habits, and discovered new offline vices. Instead of taking boredom and lack of stimulation and turning them into learning and creativity, I turned toward passive consumption and social retreat.
-

4 Sisters Take Their Photo Every Year For 36 Years

[Thanks to Grant]

4 Sisters Take Their Photo Every Year For 36 Years, article/photo post.

1975:

1993:

etc.

Gawd, bureaucracy!

My bank has decided that I can no longer use the savings account for Standing Payments.
To set up a Current account, I need to thoroughly prove my identity, even though I've been a customer for 13 years!
Oh, good news: they can transfer all standing orders and such to the new account! ... No, wait, this is only if I come from *another* bank, not their own!
It's f***ing nuts.

A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie

[Thanks to Lars]

First movie made with atom manipulation.
Making-of movies.

Hong Kong's towers

These photos are allegedly only barely doctored.
They are pretty amazing. Clearly taken with a long telephoto (or telezoom) lens, which compresses apparent perspective. It must be quite a lot of work to get into all the right positions.

Lufthansa Airbus A380 landing

TTL found more airport porn. Looks great. Is a bit long though, over 12 minutes, a cat's age these days.     :-)

LANA DEL DUCK

A hamster story

I thought it's a very good satirical/allegorical story.

Barbie in the Morning