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Welcome To The Printed World

Flickr Creative Commons, kakissel

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2002-15-2012.mp3

What is 3-D printing? One of our guests today, Michael Weinberg explained it better than I could:

"Essentially, a 3D printer is a machine that can turn a blueprint into a physical object. Feed it a design for a wrench, and it produces a physical, working wrench. Scan a coffee mug with a 3-D scanner, send the file to the printer, and produce thousands of identical mugs."

We know about these from science fiction. The thing is, they're already here. It may be a little bit too early to say this for sure, but there's a pretty good chance that 3-D printing -- or whatever you want to call it -- could completely change the way we obtain what we need or want, could change the way we live.

There are a lot of ifs and buts that go along with that statement, but none of them change the basic reality: people right now are shooting designs from their computers into machines that just make the designed object.

Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

Tags
Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

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