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What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

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Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#11

Post by hosh »

berntb wrote: post #8
hosh wrote: post #4

The author missed the true significance of the Maker Revolution. It is not about people being able to design their own products or having a market full of craptastic products. The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage…

>>provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. Hmm... reminds me of a discussion (@Stross' blog) about how many people were needed in a society, to support a technological civilization. Stross argued we would need many millions of people. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insuffic... (Of course, lots of specialised services can be replaced with less efficient generic ones, but…

Basic material needs:

Food. Water. Shelter. Air.

Existential needs:

Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.

Technology can address the basic needs and can never address existential needs.

Everything else are wants. Wants are endless since they attempt to address existential needs but never actually satisfy them. In that sense, Stross is correct. There will always be more wants than can be supported by any given population size of society; but needs can be supported.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#12

Post by jdreaver »

I don't understand why we keep us in the word "democratize" when it comes to increasing individual freedom with technology. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority; we aren't voting to see who gets to produce or consume what. It's a pet peeve of mine because it's simply used as a buzzword and makes no sense in a technological context.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#13

Post by nickpinkston »

hosh wrote: post #4

The author missed the true significance of the Maker Revolution. It is not about people being able to design their own products or having a market full of craptastic products. The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage…

With all respect, I think your's is the "maker idealist" position on this movement. There are many reasons why economies of scale (which are due to physics / engineering problems) will continue to exist in manufacturing - even if many methods are democratized and available locally (a la TechShop today).

I've written on this recently: http://www.nickpinkston.com/2013/01/some-thoughts-on-digital...

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#14

Post by mattmiller »

hosh wrote: post #4

The author missed the true significance of the Maker Revolution. It is not about people being able to design their own products or having a market full of craptastic products. The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage…

This is an interesting possible future. If all things are built from the same raw substance the supplier of that substance will be incredible wealthy and powerful. A new Carnegie in a global economy.

The next lower level of wealth will be the digital rights owners of commodity items. The rights owner of 'Shovel' will start a dynasty that will last for hundreds of years. They could potentially be powerful enough to extend copyright laws forever so that they continue to collect rent on the shovel.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#15

Post by emilepetrone »

If you really want to know what the maker revolution will look like, visit https://tindie.com, the site I started. Tindie is the marketplace for the 'makers' the author references. We have robots, custom chips, amps, synths - all at the highest quality made by single makers.

The author is missing is actual knowledge of how the manufacturing process works for maker products. Because of that, he or she is left making an assumption that the majority of products will be poor quality - when Tindie actually proves the opposite. The majority of our products are at the highest quality, and that is because of the accessibility of modern manufacturing.

That is why the maker revolution is powerful. One maker can make a product, design it, manufacture it, and sell it all from their garage.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#16

Post by JohnBooty »

You know what's sad? I got genuinely excited because I thought this thread title said "Marker Revolution."

To be fair, look... I'm left-handed. I'd be pretty excited about a new kind of smear-proof marker that didn't leave my hand and the drawing surface looking like unintentional abstract art if I wasn't careful.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#17

Post by ChuckMcM »

JohnBooty wrote: post #16

You know what's sad? I got genuinely excited because I thought this thread title said "Marker Revolution." To be fair, look... I'm left-handed. I'd be pretty excited about a new kind of smear-proof marker that didn't leave my hand and the drawing surface looking like unintentional abstract art if I wasn't careful.

Write right to left :-) I too am left handed and if you don't mind annoying people it does solve the problem (well at least as much as it does for right handed people). The weird thing is that when you first write stuff that way its all weird and uncomfortable and then if you force it your brain will flip the switch and you'll write as fast as you ever have. Once you get there its especially fun signing things, that freaks people out.

Of course middle eastern folks have done this forever so its not a 'new' thing in any sense of the word.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#18

Post by clauretano »

JohnBooty wrote: post #16

You know what's sad? I got genuinely excited because I thought this thread title said "Marker Revolution." To be fair, look... I'm left-handed. I'd be pretty excited about a new kind of smear-proof marker that didn't leave my hand and the drawing surface looking like unintentional abstract art if I wasn't careful.

Ah, we shared the same reading comprehension issue. Aside from the whiteboard or other fixed-surface situation, you can always just angle the paper. Writing with the paper angled about 60 degrees anticlockwise seems to do the trick.

Fountain pens are another problem area. You have to learn to write without "pushing" the pen. More info here: http://www.nibs.com/Left-hand%20writers.htm --combine that with fast-drying ink and things aren't so bad.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#19

Post by zwieback »

The Maker Revolution improves our capability to make small-run and custom products, that's what's so great about it.

However, it's far from any kind of industrial revolution. It's also important to point out that rapid prototyping has been a standard tool in most manufacturing disciplines for at least the 20 years I've been an engineer.

Another encouraging side-effect of the Maker discussion is that the new consensus about the advantages of local manufacturing. We've been complaining to our bosses about the loss of manufacturing capability not only because our jobs are going overseas but also because the local knowledge about design-for-manufacturability and the other DFx's are eroding.

When I started my current job we had assembly lines, machine shops, reliability and regulatory labs and a large force of highly skilled technicians. Now it's almost all engineers and the most we can hope for is to build the first 10 prototypes of anything we design.

The "Maker" induced renewed interest in rapid prototyping has caused a subtle shift in the minds of mid and upper management about how far to take local manufacturing before going to CMs in China.

Re: What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

#20

Post by yk »

berntb wrote: post #8
hosh wrote: post #4

The author missed the true significance of the Maker Revolution. It is not about people being able to design their own products or having a market full of craptastic products. The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage…

>>provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. Hmm... reminds me of a discussion (@Stross' blog) about how many people were needed in a society, to support a technological civilization. Stross argued we would need many millions of people. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insuffic... (Of course, lots of specialised services can be replaced with less efficient generic ones, but…

The discussion focussed on the entire technological stack; and I do not think that anybody claims that we will be designing and printing comercial airliners from scratch at home. By contrast the maker revolution is (in its first stages) about the long tail of manufactoring. So in the forseeable future it is about beeing able to sell small runs of specialized goods at prices compareable to more generic and mass produced competition. While we still need several million people to produce the arduinos that power them.
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