I try to live as ethical a life as possible. Whilst morals tend to be constant from society to society: don’t kill, don’t rape, don’t steal — ethics vary, both with geography and time. I’m about to break some of my own ethics. Right now I’m damned turned on. I don’t usually share such details. But I am SO frisky about the new Rapide One 3D printer. Let’s have a look at just what is getting me so hot and bothered…
Curves of any kind have never really been of importance to me, beauty is more in what we do, even more in who we be, than conforming to ideal child birthing 0.7 hip ratios, ubiquity of correlation to natures ratio of beauty or looking like Dita Von Teese in Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti’s 3D printed dress.
Is the Rapide One more beautiful than Dita Von Teese in that 3D printed dress? You’ll need to see it to answer this of course, but (unless you just skip ahead and be damned with my sex talk) I’m going to draw it out until the end to tease you.
It’s almost-vertical opening door looks like something from Back To The Future. Reportedly 10,000 people admired the design of this diva at an event in Singapore. They probably then coupled up, crowdfunded to hire a whole hotel chain for a night and consumated witnessing the sexiest technological product seen on Earth since The Form 1 graced Kickstarter. What am I saying? That I prefer the looks of the Rapide One to even the Form 1.
No, no, tell them the Form 1 looks better, then I can have all of the Rapide One’s to myself in a harem. Hush, don’t tell them though.
There’s a good reason for the enclosed space enabled by the door: temperature regulation for the optimisation of 3D print output. Whilst ‘3D print fail’ is a term that has entered popular culture, it’s far cooler to be warmer and just get your 3D print output how you wanted it. Wordplay aside it’s even more about consistency of temperature during the deposition process, where the extruded material reaches its end state because of cooling. An obvious desired outcome, unless of course you are aiming to innovate new sex toy shapes by randomising your output through the unpredictability of a bit of a draught.
The ‘not a cube’ design is a revolution in itself. It seems that there are now hundreds of cube-shaped 3D printers. Yes, that includes a number also named ‘Cube.’ This however is clearly not just about looking a bit different. It’s a very well designed unit. Carefully considered in every aspect. It even looks like it goes faster. An arrow thrusting into the future, telling you that the output is coming, it may take a while so you can savour the experience, but it’s utterly confident about getting there. I’m just going to have a bit of a moment staring starry-eyed at the pictures of it again.
Ahh. That’s better. It’s already like a compulsion. I know that it’s just another 3D printer really: an average cubed build area dimensions of about 6 inches, FFF technology, a resolution of 100 microns, build speed that produces 30 mm of height per hour, and like many things in the world now, made in China — but another part of me feels that it is The One. It can do no wrong, just because of how it looks.
I don’t even know for sure if it’s going to treat me right in the long run, after all, it’s not going to be able to get to my country before the first batch is released in January 2014, but already I’m looking at presents for it: 3D printable jewellery, 3D printable housewares, maybe even 3D printable engagement rings.
But then, ethicality crumbles. I said this article would test my moral metal. I’ve been tempted into deception. The tease was not about waiting for the images of the diva that is sexier than Dita, it’s about the image of another Rapide 3D printer, her sister.
If the Form One is beauty, the Rapide One is an irresistible diva. If the Rapide One is an irresistible diva, then the Rapide S is the best sex you ever had. No, this is looking into your newborn baby’s eyes for the very first time. No, no, this is the feeling of the sun gently breathing its warmth upon your face at sunrise in an untouched valley of pristine paradise that even the paintings of Turner could not attempt to portray as no more suffering of any kind will touch you in your eternal immortal bliss.
I’ve gone too far right?
I’m just getting you excited then it’s just going to be like everything else in a culture of constant marketing and advertising where everything tells you it was made just to make you happy, and that happiness will last forever — just to find out that the damn syncronisation feature doesn’t work and the battery life is no better than the last version?
No, I don’t think I have gone too far.
In fact, you may never hear from me again, I’m going to start swimming to China now as I can’t afford the travel so I’m just going to have to get there by performing the greatest feat of human endurance ever known. That poly-Olympiad swim will be worth it in every way however, as I get to lay in silence beside this new 3D printer under a starry sky on far away shores as the world drifts into hazy memory and only she and I remain.
Taking a look at her thinking that I’m merely under the delusions of love?
How dare you insult my wife!
More on the Rapide S soon…
Haha. Great post, Shane! Great writing!
<3
Personally I think you have missed Zinter (www.zinter.com) I’m actually waiting for pre-order on this which they have said will be very soon. Looks great and for once an actual good design that might actually make it to market.
Kept me smiling through the whole post. And I agree, your “wife” is a beaut!
Er… No. Looks like a typical Italian industrial machine. Besides, enclose that space and you immediately infringe Stratasys patents on temperature controlled build chambers…
😀 Industrial on the desktop, great news! Thank you.
She, the Radipe S, is so sweet <3 Faaar more than my equal. She knows things about the material that I can only begin to understand. Her divine ability to seemingly make things out of thin air goes hand in hand with her halo.
Patents… not in China. 20 year patents in a world where the six times exponential rate of change of technology means that more progress is held back in that 20 years than the 20,000 proceeding it may suggest we need to look again at the types of IP we have? Old school Capitalism is dead as the dodo. We need new, more flexible, more ethical, forms of Capitalism.
Otherwise, for one, the US / India / Brazil don't stand a cat-in-hells chance of strategically competing with an autocratic China.. and I'd prefer my future kids to live in a world where the major power grouping is at least some kind of democracy.
Just my opinion, and just my opinion now, I'm constantly wrong: the basis of the human experience. But as love is not rational, I'm happy to delude myself into affection for the Rapide S. Indeed, that's the point of the closing statement <3
Thank you Mark. Zinter looks ace!
My favourite colour is teal (thus the teal of the Dimensionext logo which accompanies my post here) so, purely in terms of aesthetics, shiney shiney neon lights that resemble teal are hypnotic to me lol.
I’ll drop the Zinter team a mail soon for an interview for you if you’d like? See what they have to say about their gorgeous technology. Up to you?
Brilliant stuff. No politics, plenty of passion, plenty of personal oppinion all wrapped up with a nice dose of humour. Great post Shane and I have to disagree with young Kevin a bit here, it is another box as you say Kev but it is also (In my personal oppinion) damned sexy looking. There are sexier things in this world but you wouldn’t have to buy it Westlife concert tickets for it’s birthday.
Jez Pullin.
Thank you Jez. I try to write objectively for most things, but subjectively for previews/reviews/overviews. I’ll spare you politics more often, I’ve gotten it off my chest now! Your feedback is definitely appreciated, here to serve 🙂
True about the Westlife tickets…but I suspect the running costs of the printer would be higher 🙂
Can’t dissagree with you there Kev but would you rather endure the smell of melting ABS or watch four Irish guys miming over a bunch of balads and jumping off their stools at every key change? I rest my case m’lud.
Jez Pullin
Great post Shane. However, the DeLorean also “looked” great. In fact She looks like a DeLorean.
Sure agreed. I used to have dreams about the DeLorean, awesome machine!
The Delorean was an absolutely rubbish car though. The boot would flap around like a male stripper in a wind tunnel. This machine probably performs just as rubbish as the ugly ones out there but lets not let that get between us and a good old fashioned piece of styling design porn.
Jez Pullin.
Cracking post Shane, you made me wait right until the very end 😉 I would go for a cigarette now If I smoked.
And now I want to go and design a new 3D printer with more curves than Dita Von Teese 🙂
This style of copywriting is the reason why this blog isn’t the first on 3D printing.
Which style of copyrighting / copywriting* CornGolem? In which way first – as in chronologically in order of founding, chronologically in terms of publishing stories, the best in your opinion, or something else?
*Not teasing, don’t want to assume a typo when it could be wordplay.
Thanks for the comment, your opinion is, of course, valuable.
As the Editor, I have thought about style at length.
The conclusion that I came to (open to debate and change) is that another dry tech site was not the way to go. I could easily edit all the articles to make them sound the same but I think that would be doing a disservice to the writers and to the community we serve. It is that community that I want to reflect here at 3DPI — adventurous, fun, complex, exciting, inclusive and vociferous. Opinions and styles vary, but that, IMHO, is a good thing.
Like Shane though, I would like to understand what you mean by “First” and why that necessarily matters?
Thanks, Editor! I hope that you’re decision to allow for creative expression makes this site unique and exciting!
By first I mean popularity and number of readers. It should matter to any news site. I really hate having to skim through ramblings to find the information, the facts. The subject is rapid prototyping/manufacturing, NOT fashion. That’s what I wanted to say, I’m not interested in debating.
Noted.
And people say I am grumpy? Bloody hell, lighten up. If you want regurgitated PR there are 101 crappy news feed 3D printing sources out there to chhose from. All the same. All the same information. Totally devoid of interest. Personally I prefer some personality and opinion than raw “facts” so the “customer” is not always right. If they are not happy they can go elsewhere. Rachel and team, carry on with what you are doing.
Interesting: before I continue, most of all – thank you for the feedback, my response will be consistently positive in tone: The customer is always right.
3D printing already affects everything from fashion to (as the article had the theme) sex toys, biomed to aerospace, economics to politics. The 3DPI audience includes everyone from opensource enthusiasts who oppose the use of money to investors in the stock market, doctors who save lives to the military who end them. Most reviews are lists of specs in bullet points. Not everyone wants to read a dry list of specifications.
‘By first I mean popularity and number of readers’ 3DPI has the most Facebook Likes & Google +’s of any 3DP-specific publication: Not hubris talking, merely to keep things factual.
Only B3dge has more Twitter followers, although B3dge was, until recently, more about conglomerating feeds to unifying content on one site rather than original content. I get on well with the owners of B3dge, so no certainly slight against them.
‘It should matter to any news site.’ Competing with Mashable, Gizmodo, etc. is, in this one writers opinion, not relevant, as they are generic tech publications.
The consensus of comments about this article, which Rachel & I conversed about the merits of publishing extant are currently positive.
However: As an openminded caring person I note anything could be happening here, from your having high functioning autism (like I have) which makes social logic less interesting than technical information, to your simply and rightfully expressing your opinion.
Whatever the reasons CornGolem: Thank you for that opinion.
I can tell your not interested in debating by the way that you have taken the time and trouble to join in with a discussion thread.
I’m not sure how to do the whole sideways confused face looking thingy so this text will have to do.
Jez Pullin.
Good lord man don’t buy one just look at the pictures. In the marketing people’s pictures it looks great. It would be such a shame to realise that in real life it just knocks out stringy yoda heads like it’s cheaper equivalent. Run a RichRap machine for performance and price and put a picture of the Zinter in front of it. Best of both worlds.
Jez Pullin.
How dare you insult my wife! 🙂
Shane, I have to ask , and I may be being a little dim on this – are the captions supposed to be the wrong way around in the first two images. I get the article is about Hype in the 3D printing media and I love the fact you ended on a 3D rendering of yet another 3D Printer (your ‘wife’) whilst missing (intentional) the key point about it being a proposed Chocolate printer when in reality this printer will NEVER end up looking like this.
Anyway – write more like this please 🙂 it’s good debate – Or it should be more debate about the underlying article, rather then the tone/style.
Cheers,
Rich.
Rich, I don’t think that you could ever be dumb about anything 🙂 You are, as ever, humble, kind and considered.
The captions are indeedy meant to be the wrong way round, suggesting that both the printer and the person gain affection for their looks. However, this itself can be read within an overall context of an ethical point: it is not looks that make a printer, or a person, how good they are at what they do… in the case of a 3D printer the output that the produce, in the case of a person their morals and deeds.
All that was written was deliberate, its full of double entendre, with my own tongue-in-check that it is all framed within a triple meaning, the ethical.
Ultimately it’s about whatever the reader makes of it: to some it’s a laugh with it’s many double entendre, to others it’s about the printer specs presented in a quirky way (for better or worse), some may see the ethical, it’s all cool.
There is also a secret meaning too which I’ll email you, about a halo…!
This now, interestingly, the most popular article to have appeared at 3DPI, as demand now requires, I will write more like it!
Shane