Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuffworks dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and this is kind of unusual with me. Is Ben Boldin? Say Hi everybody, Ben, Hey, everybody, Um, Ben you are here because well we have some pretty big news. Um well, because we can't really say exactly why, but um, Chuck was called away and it's not going to be with us any longer. Unfortunately. It's a very very sad day for all of us here. Um. You know, Chuck was part of this almost from the beginning. Bend. Yeah, Chuck started in July two. Yes, nice homework, Yeah he did. And um, you know I always said like that's when the fireworks happened, like everything, just like that first Chuck episode of at Least the Amazing. So um, not to set you up for anything, obviously, but you know, there's some big shoes to fill and Chuckle be missed. And I know you love him and everybody out there loves him, but we've got to keep going on. You know. Yeah, Chuck is doing what he has to do, and uh, it falls if alls us. I um, I want to be respectful. Well, yeah, a long time fan first Time co host. Well that hopefully that that you know, that will translate to this that you know that you have an enthusiasm for not just the topics, but for stuff you should know in general. You know, like that'll I'm sure people will appreciate that. I know this is a little odd. This is it was quick, it was sudden. He is out of the blue. But hats off to you man for stepping in like you you're a braver soul than I am. Ah. Yeah, I'll be honest with you. I'm a little scared. You're doing good. What Aaron Cooper is gonna think everybody else is is gonna do. But I think Aaron Cooper is the least of your worries probably the show. So well with that, let's go on with the show. We're talking today about three D printers. Are you pretty familiar with three D printers? So I I am as well kind of you know, mostly just from keeping up with like the big news stories, um, but the ins and out the details of a three D printer, um, the machine itself, how it operates. I didn't really know a lot about until I read this article, Like, were you familiar with the intricacies of it? Yes, yeah, Um, didn't you guys have one in the video department. I don't know if everybody knows this or not, but you originally started out you're a video guy, and then you made the leap over to editorial and now here you are, um and stuff you should know too. Um, but wasn't there a three D printer in the video department for what? Ye? And you guys made some pretty good use of that, right, Uh. Yeah. The three D printer that we had is one of the early models, so it has some advantages. It can prints really cool stuff, but as pretty small, uh pretty small production capacity, it takes a while to get to it. It's cool. We only have one kind of plastic, so everything is really bright green. Yes, I remember seeing that. That's the kind of gives you a headache. Yes, yeah, and that is that is probably um the bulk of the cons when it gets to that. But I think that three D printing is a fantastic and exciting thing. And a lot of people don't know this, but not all three D printing is created equally. There are a couple of different types. So what we were hoping to talk about in today's episode, right, is that h three D printing isn't just for you know, cute little chess pieces or car parts, right, you could do um, you could do all sorts of things. As a matter of fact, mentioning news stories we we recently were talking off air. In my head, I was imagining that we were talking off air rather about printing human tissue with a with a three D printers. Some guys at harbor, which is a gosh, what wake up? Wake up dude? What do you do? Oh? Man, he got eyeboggers? Yeah, sorry about it. That's so weird. Like I came in here, Jerry's all set up in your asleep in your chair. I think she put something in my coffee, you knockout pills or something. Well, you looked like, I don't know, you were restless. Yeah, it was weird. It has had the worst dream, like you'd gone somewhere, some vague place no one knew where. We weren't saying and Ben from stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, Ben was like in your place and he was doing like a really good job. You mean Ben, I left work and Ben took my job. Yeah, I mean he was he was giving your job. He was stepping up. Try to fill your shoes kind of thing. He was doing good. So was it like it didn't look like a nightmare? I gotta say, I mean it was. It was nightmarish and that um I didn't like what I was wearing. But Ben was doing great. So it was a dream. It was a dream. It was a pretty pedestrian, mundane dream. But I guess it was like April Fool's dream of some sort. Uh you know, is that what this is? I guess because there was a dream today, today's April Fool's day, it all makes sense, which would make it an April Fool's dream. Wow. Man, All right, well you got a little drool on your lips still, But otherwise I'm ready to go with I have to say it was nightmarish. I'll just fess up. The idea of doing stuff you should know without you is you could have lead with that, you know, and keep you in suspense. All right, Well, I'm just gonna go have been killed very quickly, and then we probablyshod because I mean, ask anybody who was hearing my dream like it was. He was good. I seed his warm. Yeah, he did do that a few times. All right. So well here's the weird thing in my dream we were about to talk about three D printing. What topic are we about to cover? Now? Three D printing? What? This is the craziest dream I've ever had in my life? All right, my dreaming? Now, now this is for real, like in fact, I have somewhere to be, so I'd like to get on with it. Okay, well let's do that. Then let's put you back to that afterward, and you can dream about me being dead all you want, because I still I'm kind of grog. All right, uh so chuck, Yeah, you're ready to wrap about three D printing. Yeah, it bugs me already that they call it printing why because it's not printing. It's uh okay, I see where they get the name, but it's it's to me, it's a little bit of a confusing thing. So you're an additive manufacturing guy, Is that what you're into? Yeah, because that's the other term for I mean, there's a couple of other terms summer kind of old timey, like stereo lithography. It sounds a time um, but additive manufacturing is the umbrella term for what three D printing is or three D layering. I like that, Yeah, which is a little more accurate than printing. Um. Although the reason that they call it printing, as we will see, is because it dovetails well with traditional two dimensional ancient printers. It uses a lot of the same form and function. Yeah, I get what they said. Yeah, but you mentioned additive manufacturing though. That's the key is that it's it's not a computer numerical controlled machining, which is when you start with a block of something in the carpet down. This is actually starting from nothing and adding to it, which is really neat. It's the reverse of that. Yeah. Yeah, And with with three D printing, I'm just gonna call it that, I'm sorry, that's what we're gonna okay, or three D p I call it three D p o um. And he'd say it with like a smile and his teeth weak thing. He's got great breath. Um he does. It's pretty pleasant. Uh we we let's just get past the spent thing. I'm sorry about my print okay, okay, um. So anyway, with with three D printing, the whole basis of it is is you you print a three dimensional object or you manufacture a three dimensional object layer by layer by layer by layer, layers can be a micron up to a millimeter or so thick, and um as each layer is deposited on top of the next, you have a three D object that's built. That's I mean, that's there's some total of it, like everything from I think Ben even mentioned chess pieces to like you know whatever, I mean, whatever you can think of. You can three D print virtually, including guns in potentially one day, bodily organs and things like that. Ye I can see like an artificial heart being three D printed. They're working on it. Yeah, yep, there's I mean, like you say, anything you can come up with somebody who's trying to three D print or already has. It's the latest and greatest. It is, and in fact, Chuck, a lot of people think it's going to be the next industrial revolution, honestly, and there's a lot of reason to put some money behind that because if it, if it does take off, and it's becoming increasingly possible that it does, is costs come down for materials and the actual printers themselves, um, the the the more and more barriers are coming down. And if if it becomes widespread, man, so long manufacturing and transportation sectors as we know them. Yeah, and say hello too custom everything. Yeah, broke your spatula in your kitchen and it's like one in the morning and you're one of those weirdos eats dinner at one in the morning. You get a broken spatula and you can't go to bed, bath and beyond or else you'd have to break in and know. All you do is go to your your office computer at home say hey, Amazon, I need a new spatulate. It sends the designs to your three D printer, print, you out a new spatula, wait till cools down, and then you go finished cooking spaghetti. Yeah. I think the trick is, uh is cost, Like with any kind of early technology like this, like costs and size, that's got to come down, and it already is. And you can buy these things for like eight hundred bucks. Now you can get them for I think there's you can get unassembled ones for like two hundred. Really you can get assembled for like three or four or five. Yeah. So alright, so should totally have one in the office we do? Was that was that real? What was what real? Were you controlling my dream? I knew it? I knew you were controlling my dream. Really, that's why I was wearing that. Yeah, dressing up. It's a little bope. Yeah, I didn't like it. Uh yeah, there is one somewhere and it really works like we have used it. Yeah, I remember the did you you have you not seen the little green like chest pieces that he was talking about, And no, unless I saw them and didn't realize that they're awful, some awful neon green. But yeah, there there's a as far as I know, it's still here. Cool. But well, you're saying like this is kind of early on in in the UM. It's nascent. It's a nascent technology but going fast. Yes, and it's nascent really as far as entering people's homes are concerned. As far as industry is concerned, it's been around for decades now. As a matter of fact, the mid eighties was when UM additive manufacturing, the the prototypical three D manufacturing UM or three D printing was really introduced to the industry sector and saying, hey, guys, you know you're prototyping process, Well, prepare to cut it by like seven eights. Yeah, and speed wise, speed wise, materials wise, c O two output wise. In every way it's called rapid prototyping, and that, like you said, in the eighties and early nineties is when they said, you you have some ideas for maybe a car part or something, how would you like to And you know what prototyping is is when you build something to test out. Basically, yes, as a manufacturer your prototype, but um, they said, how would you like to work with that prototype tomorrow instead of you know, a month from now, manufactured and then like coming up with the design sending him overseas, having the the prototype built, shipped back to you, finding out that it didn't quite fit, recalculating, singing it back like this was the prototyping process until like the rapid rapid prototyping was introduced. Yeah, and I think, like in many cases with technology, we have m I T to Bank, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were definitely one of them, but it seems like there was a several different people or companies or institutions that were coming up with this at about the same time. I think car companies had a lot of the early They definitely bought a lot of the early ones for sure. So like in in the in the mid eighties, a guy named Charles Hole came up with this technique that's still in use today, where you use a laser two turn some sort of um plastic e dust a polymer dust into something solid. It's called alchemy, but pretty much photo polymerization. And it was one of the earliest types of three D printing. And like I said, it's still in use today. Um and Hole went on to create a company called three D Systems that's still around today, one of the leaders in three D printing. So he's loaded. Yeah, he's still the CTO of the company. Uh. Well, I guess we should talk about the two main processes on direct and binder printing. Uh. Direct printing is uh, that's the one that looks and behaves most like your regular like ink jet printer when you see it moving along. It's the little metal bars. It looks, you know, a lot like that. It's got a little nozzle and it's gonna instead of dispensing inc though, it dispenses either a plastic polymer or a waxy substance, something that's heated up and melted sprayed, Yeah, in a pattern that it's supposed to be onto the surface, and then it cools and harden. Yeah, And that's the key is it has to come out really hot, and it has the cool really fast. And if you've seen these nozzles, it's like you can think of it kind of like a hot glue gun. Um. That's sort of what the tip looks like, except much finer obviously, And it'll even leave like if you're printing like uh, like a Yoda head which people love to print, and you have to come from the head to the ear that sticks out, there's a gap there. There will be even like little hot glue strings left behind the stuff you gotta go and like clean up later, right, which is part of the process. Um. So that's uh, that's direct three D printing. There's another type that's similar called um binder three D printing, and it's called binder because you use a like your base substance is a powder, yeah, polymer something it's but it's in powdered form and that's sprayed or laid down in the arrangement that it's supposed to be for that layer, and then a binder of like glue or some sort of um liquid that holds it in place and steals it together um is sprayed over it. Yeah, So it's two passes, powder pass and then the liquid paths right, and even though it's there's two passes, it's actually faster because you don't have all these different nozzles having to add all this different stuff. It's just like there's your powder, there's your binder. Yeah, and you can use that's where you can like use metals in ceramics and things like that. It really opens up your world material wise. And then there's multi jet modeling, which is pretty cool. That's when you have, well you have many of those jets and if you've seen these things at work, it's like really cool, just all operating at the same time, building something right in front of your eyes, moving like little robots, spraying plastic all over the place pretty much, um, but in very precise places. Yeah, like you said, microns at times. And then there's another one we wanted to give a shout out to called fueled fuse deposition. I think yes, fuel fuse. Wow, I'm really having trouble with this one. Fused deposition modeling, which is basically you're using like even smaller nozzles that are actually they're not spraying their injecting things, which gives you an incredibly intricate amount of detail. Or amount of intricate detail, so you get direct and binder and those are kind of common, right, they are, yes, very common, and then there's kind of subsets of those. There's basically, if we did this episode five years from now, we'd be like, here's how three D printing works. Going to be one of these. That's what I had a feeling that as time goes on, then some of these will fall away, Like definitely, they're all right now, they're competing to be basically the three D printing technology that becomes the standard for all like inkjet. Inkjet printers were invented in the sixties, but there was dot matrix, all these others, and then it just became clear that inkjet printing was the way to go. I think that's what's going on with three D printing right now. Whichever one is most viable for the consumer is the one that will usually went out exactly because that's the one that companies will put all their money into, and then that's that's where all the breakthroughs will come from. And maybe on on the manufacturing side, they might still have their own, like super expensive ways of doing things, but if you want one at your house, they're going to have to like scale it down, you know exactly. So one of the you've got binder printing, you've got direct three D printing, and then you have different ways that these can be used. So um, for example, remember I mentioned Charles Hole in his photo polymerization. Um, that's you can use that for binding, right. So that's the laser one. Yeah, so you would use some sort of powder, right, and then you would use a UV laser too that expose that powder and turned it into a solid, right. Just I think it makes that sound. That's why people love that three D printer. Um. So you were using like a technically a three D bind or printing method, but you're using photo polymerization as the technique to actually buying this stuff together. Right. And then depending on your material, you might want to use a different kind of technique like um, selective laser centering is really good for metals. Yeah, and that that's a laser as well, and it melts actually melts this plastic powder and then solidifies it after that, or it can melt metal powder. So if you're creating like something that normally would have to be like die cast or machined or something like that, you're creating a structure that's just a sturdy But here's the big This is one of the reasons why three D printing could lead to a revolution and manufacturing. Um. When you are creating something using a three D printer, you are able to you're creating a cross section of it layer by layer. But it's just a dirty is something solid? Yeah, like the insides of these, it's neither hollow nor solid. It's got like a lattice support systems if that's what it calls for. Right, So you can do honeycomb, you could do lattice. You can you can subtract a lot of what has to be in something that's die cast, just because the human hander, the machines we have aren't capable of making something so intricate. So you have a lot of waste in manufacturing. There's a lot of um extra metal in a widget that doesn't have to be there. With three D printing, you use just the amount of material you need, and you can make the thing as lightweight as it's structural soundness can call for. So like if you want to make a die cast Civil War soldier, right that's six inches tall, it can be hollow and use less material. Right, If you want detail in his laces, you use a three D printer for that. If you want this clumpy Homer Simpsons shoes, you can make it die cast. But but but to to use an even more to the point real world example, if you're making airplane parts and you are making a hinge and the hinge made using die cast techniques is blocky and clunky, and the one with three D printing is like lattice. Like you said, the lattice one is going to be more lightweight. If you have a thousand hinges on a plane, all that extra weight adds up in the die cast one. It's not there with the three D printed one, which means the plane weighs less, which means it uses less fuel, which means it puts out less c O two or could carry more even right exactly, and it's possibly even more sound structurally because this thing has been so intricately created, why it's really almost endless. The applications for this in the future. Oh yeah, you spatula is to airplane hinges, Simpson civil war figures. Well, I guess we should talk a little bit about the process because this is where it and you should look at a video if you haven't yet of a three D printer in action. It's pretty neat it is, but also it's very tough to describe UM, and it's just so much easier to just see it. Yeah, there's a good TED talk from I think two eleven UM. I can't remember the woman's name, but she does a good job of just step by step, here is the basis of of UM three D printing. And here's some you know, video footage that you're just like, Okay, I totally get it now. So here's us clumsily. It's something to explain it well. They all use a similar approach. UM. Step one is uh C, a D computer aid to design. This is what you have to start with. It's a software that you know. It's the same as when you do like a three D graphics for a motion picture. What you're doing is just creating a three dimensional structure on your computer screen. That's basically your blueprint. Yeah, it's what you're gonna end making. It's CAD software. It's like the same stuff that architects or engineers use because not only can you design it in three dimensions, you can also test its soundness. You can model it. Yeah, like a big warning light goes on the breachieve model that isn't gonna hold cars. Uh number two. And this is some you know, kind of technical, geeky stuff, but it's all part of the process. You have to convert that to something called the st L format Standard Tesselation Language, and that's basically just a file format developed in the eighties. UM that allows the two the machine to read the CAD software. Right, it translates it from the CAD yeah language to the printers language. Is just a very geeky step in the process. And that STL format that was a Charles Whole invention to see. I wonder if if eliminating some of these steps at some point is going to be the deal to where you can like draw something on your computer and plug it into your three D printer. Yeah, I think that's kind of already there, but you just have to have CAD and then you can probably in CAD, I would imagine just export to um STL format, like changing a word documentaryf or something like that. I think it's that simple, so it's not the big of a deal. Uh. And then you're gonna you're gonna transfer all that to your machine, and there is a computer that is attached to your three D printer obviously, and so now it has the the the blueprint, it is converted to the proper language, and it's ready to go. Yeah, and you press the green button and you sit back and put yourself a scotch and you watch the magic happen. Yeah, or you go to bed and you wake up the next day and you're like, wow, that didn't turn out how I was supposed to. Yeah. It does take a while, it can, at least. So there's a there's a tumbler called Epic three D Printing Fail. Of course there is. You should check it out. It's um like these things go wrong, like when they go wrong, they really go wrong. Yeah, And it's fun to go to YouTube and see some of the people that are doing this at home, and it's it's a process, you know, to learn how to do it right. You know, you're probably not going to get a great result right right out of the gate. Yeah, and if you if you could, it's just pure luck. Like you're gonna waste a lot of a lot of consumables and start easy and work your way up, as would be my advice. But you do have to set up your machine, which means, just like you would with your printer, you're gonna make sure it's full of whatever polymer binder you're gonna use. Uh, there's generally generally the the ink jets, aren't They move left and right, and you're gonna have a base underneath it moves it up and down. Right. They they exist, the ink jet, the printer jets or whatever. They move left and right, like you say, up forward and backwards, and then yeah, the platform goes up and down to add that third dimension. Right. So apparently with the platforms they nickel and dime you because they're not reusable, or if they are reusable there I think because they're heated, they're supposed to stay heated, so I think it they Yeah, if you look at like a package for a three D printer you buy like replacement trade, how much are they They're not that much, but still it's like a it's like another expense, uh, just to print your special. Yeah, you end up paying like hundred dollars for your stupid special. Um. So, like I said, you're gonna let the machine do its thing and then afterward you're gonna take it out. You might want to check on occasionally to make sure your goda is an all cock eye. Didn't you think that was hilarious? Those step six removal, remove your three D printed object from the machine, try to put the potto spaghetti on your machine and use the spechuler like that, actually take the special out of the machine. That does like an unnecessary step And that's even apparently from a book. What additive manufacturing technology is colin rapid prototyping to direct digital manufacturing Steps six removal. Well, I think maybe they include a removal because they do indicate that just to be careful and you might need to wear gloves and stuff like that. Yeah, because apparently don't forget what you're doing is you're spraying or your machine is spraying hot melted plastic in an enclosed location, in an enclosed room. Probably so yeah, there's a lot of toxic chemicals involved. You may want to wear gloves. You may want to wear like um, a respirator, uh whatever, a Yoda mask made with your ear. And then afterwards, like I said, you may need to clean it up. There may be little hairs, there may need to the things, you need to brush off some powder and uh then dude, you're ready. Well, some of them use supports that are water soluble too, So like these things like that keep Yoda's ears up. Um, they you can just drop the whole thing in water after it cures, and then those supports go away and because they dissolve in water, like they never happened. All right, So we need to talk about some of the applications now and in the future right after this message. Alright, so the future, the future, the present, and the future of three D printing. It's applications are really really piling up, like daily. It seems like, yeah, Yoda figuring, that's right. One reason is, um, the article points out, is because uh, well there's there's a couple of fronts going on. You have industrial manufacturing, and you have like artists. I guess there's three, and then you have just your regular dope at home that just has like eight bucks laying around. Uh, and industrial manufacturing is obviously gonna speed things up like plain wings and artificial limbs. And I saw really cool. Did you see the three D printed cast? It was like, you know, it wasn't solid, It was like a like a honeycomb. So bye bye to the days of like ants, yeah, and not be able to itch your it's your arm or whatever. I can't sign sign those though. That's a good point. You can't really sign the fiberglass ones anyway though. Well, the back in the old days and it was just plaster like those were the that was the heyday of cats signing. And then when they went to not fiberglass, what is it they used the I don't even know. I haven't broken a limb. Now. It's not titanium. It's more like the fabric bandage that ends up hardenings. You can't write on it. I can't do anything with it. No one asked me to sign their cast anyway, so I don't. I don't keep up with the cast. Does anyone even do that anymore? Or is that a totally antiquated thing. I'm sure they do. Um No, I didn't see the cast to answer your question. Okay, but that's that's industrial manufacturing. They're tackling like the big things like organs and car parts and playing parts. And that's actually the second sea change that additive manufacturing has created for the industrial sector. Because first of all, they revolutionized prototyping, and then these three D printers got so good that they're like, well, we can actually produce the actual thing, like not just the prototype of the model anymore. We can produce the actual end result. So that's the second revolution, and it's it's very much here now, Like, hey, you're a surgeon and Josh was in a horrible accident and his face was disfigured and you want to put them back together. We can print out your old lovely face and show that surgeon shove it under the skin. Yeah, we can't do that obviously, but it just serves as the model for the surgeon out instead of looking at it on a computer screen. Right. Um, and there's a there's apparently m R I S or f m R I s are going to be pretty much delivering the CAD file to a three D printer pretty soon to create oh yeah, yeah, to create stuff that you need. All you do is just get an m R I skin and then bam, here's your implant. Apparently it's all the rage and dental implants. Yeah, you know, I got my fake tooth, which took a long time to manufacture because they weren't using three D printers now, but they could whip out a tooth for me tomorrow. Ten seconds. Um. Artists are way into it. UM. If you've been to a an art show in the past couple of years, you've probably seen some sort of three D printed um object UM. Which I feel like at this point, a lot of the art that's being three D printed, it's more like it's made by three D printers. It's the big thing. Yeah, yeah, it's not. Wow, it's really amazing and it was made by three D It's more like this is made by a three D printer. Yeah, But for me, I'd still I guess it's impressive, but I'd still rather see a sculpture by hand that's something that was three D printed, you know, I mean that seems to be a lot more difficult the old school. Um. There's also like a lot of that's kind of doves dovetails and with art is um. You know, you can buy a piece of art now that's someone sculpted using CAD and print it out at your house and then you have a piece by that artist. It's kind of changing art as well. UM. There's also a that's also kind of being revolutionized in commerce as well. So like um, I guess going back to the medical thing, there's a company called the spoke prosthetics where they can kind of measure your stuff and create a model for it and then print out your prosthetic that's super tailored. Or you know, going back to that spatial example, you know, you can ultimately have some design sent to your three D printer and then you print out your special So you're paying for the design and that only has to be designed once and then it's on it's on the person who is buying it. It's up to you to manufacture it. So that kind of takes a lot of the costs away too. It's really just you don't even have to build that first one. You just come up with a good design and you can sell the design over and over again without ever actually manufacturing anything. Right, Or if you just think of some cool little thing you want built, um, maybe your own prototype of something you can you don't even have to buy all the stuff. There are companies now that will make your little prototype for you. Yeah, which is I think far more prevalent these days. Like if you do order something off the internet, they'll, um, they'll they send the file to a company that actually prints it out for you. And there's a professional job. Unless you want it yourself, for like the home inventoring, you know, and they want to try out their new widget that they just made. Speaking of home inventors, we would be very remiss. Its not in this article. But there is another, yet another revolution. If you haven't gotten the idea that three D printing is revolutionary, just rewind this and start over. UM. The there's a three D printer called a rep wrap, which is a but it's a d I Y from scratch three D printer that you build. You build, you can get the parts that just just about anywhere UM for a couple of hundred bucks, and you put it together and you download the open source software. All this is free, all open source UM. And the first thing the printer does is it prints out the remaining parts that it needs. Shut up, swear to god. It's in its second incarnation now, second generation rep wrap is called the mendel Ter gregor mendel UM. And once you have this thing up and running, there's like a whole world of open source UM three D printing projects that you can download and print. You can upload your own stuff. And the great part about it, since it's open source, if somebody's like this would be so much better if we just replaced this lattice structure with a honeycomb structure here, and then all of a sudden, now it's indestructible and then bam, that thing just got improved for everybody to come. Yeah, this sounds like something that's like early Internet stuff that at some point some government being will squatch. Well yeah, well, I mean all this free trading of great ideas and things. Exactly. One of the things is the people who are open source fanatics are like, dude, you want to solve poverty. You want to solve like, um, poor healthcare in these areas like give the give a town a three D printer two, or teach them how to how to set up a mental and then they can print out their lab parts, they can print out replacement parts, they can print out whatever, and all of a sudden they can take care of themselves and give deliver good health care. And there's not they're not relying on you know, aid or donors or whatever. They're they're handling it themselves because now they're not off of the supply line. They're totally tapped in just because they have an Internet connection and a three D printer. Well, and you sent me an article about a gentleman who is working on three D printing food, and um, I don't think of it as like I'm gonna go print a hamburger. You have to kind of change your conception of what food is. But it's essentially gonna be a mix of you know, water and proteins and oils and whatever makes up the components of a food. And then he printed out as a little cube or a little four leaf clover and eat it. Yeah. I don't know about I mean, it's way early in the stages, but he's talking about solving world hunger with three D printing. Yeah, and he totally could because if you have the macro nutrients right, like you have a protein cartridge, a carbohydrate cartridge, and fast cartridge, and you're using binder printing, so you're just putting them together and adding water or something like that. Um, instant food, right. So his his first proof of concept I think was chocolate, but the one he's working on now is pizza, which is perfect because it's in the layers anyway. So, UM, remember the the the platform that goes up and down as he did often. The guy who created that, he he used, Um that characteristic to bake the dough as it's the pizzas being built like at the carb layer and then the tomato layer, and then a protein layer, and the proteins come from like insects or whatever, which if you're eating it, if it tastes right, you don't care where it comes from, of course, unless you pay attention to that kind of thing. But yeah, he could very easily like that could totally revolutionized food. And as we get closer to things like being able to three D print living tissue, which apparently we're at right there, but the the problem that everybody keeps running up against his blood vessels, generating blood vessels just just beyond our technology right now. Once we start being able to do that, then you will be able to print a nice, juicy hamburger in your home, Manu. Some of the some of the downsides of three D printing is as of now, and and I think a lot of this stuff, like with anything and technology is going to get better. They're gonna refine it and make it more environmentally friendly. But right now, uh, they burn a lot of energy, about fifty to a hundred times more electrical energy than injection molding for something that's you know, similar in size, so that's no good. A hundred times more electricity is traditional casting or machining. So right now they're recommending it. It's it's not up to like large scale manufacturing or anything like that, right like assembly line stuff, just because it's just burning too much, is wasting too much. The emissions aren't very healthy. Um. Obviously, if you have one of these in your home, like you said, you're an enclosed space, you're burning plastic um, there's gonna be some emissions giving off given off from that in your house. So if you know, I don't know what kind of they probably have venting systems already, don't they. I don't know. If you in an industrial and I'm sure like they say, you should probably put this in a vented room. But no, if you're just a dude with a maker bought on your desktop, it's in your it's in your room. Yeah, your rooms as vented as it normally, as I would guess. Uh, plastics is something we're trying to get away from UM as a planet, and plastic filament is kind of the main game right now. Yeah, for for now, I mean, like as as metals and ceramics, are more and more introduced. I think, you know, plastics will kind of fall away or they could, but yeah, for sure, like all three D printers use plastics right now. You know this one I would never consider. I thought it was pretty interesting, is that the piracy uh licensing deals of Like if you want to go make your own hobbit figuring instead of paying what's the dude's name, Pete Peter Jacks, Peter Jackson his cut, or George Lucas his cut, you can make your own Little Star Wars figures or or printed but to him and go sell him in the subway. Kids who don't know any different who ride the subway. Yeah, we're set up on your own, you know, your own online shopper or whatever. You know. Yeah, And I mean, like you can make the argument like, yeah, that's I mean, that's a problem, and but that's something that would have to be dealt with, just like everyone lived with the piracy from music and movies and all that. Like those industries haven't collapsed. It's true. People are still making music, people are still making movies, people will still make figurines. Yeah, that's a good point. And then the whole gun thing is definitely a touchy issue. Yeah. This guy, Cody Wilson, twenty six years old, a couple of years ago, Yeah, was it last year? Was like within the last two years I think, made it his own three D printed gun that shot a bullet, and um, they have now even another company has manufactured a metal gun that shoots bullets. And that means if you can sell that software, then book could just skirt gun laws and print a gun at home. Yes, apparently they already are. Um. I guess Cody Wilson put it up in the Justice Department took it down, but not before it was already downloaded a hundred thousand times at least. And that's the that's a magic number. That means it's out there forever. Yeah, and apparently the Congress has already got laws regarding this. Um as far as having guns that are not made of metal or like i e. One that you could sneak onto a plane. But there's a small loophole in that some of these gun plans have like the tiniest little piece of metal that maybe not picked up by a metal detector, but it is untill technically metal, right, and it's deliberator does have that. It does have that piece a metal piece. But apparently if if you have the plans, you can very easily go in and ex that part out and you have an all plastic gun. Right. Apparently this Arai Israeli television group printed out their own version of it, and um I wanted to see how far they could get with one, and basically we're standing right next to Benjamin and Yahoo with this plastic gun on them. They were able to smuggle it all the way into Parliament um on on the news. So I mean, yeah, it's it's it's a plastic gun that you could take through a metal detector, which is a great thing to unleash on the world. And this guy's a what about the bullets? I don't know, Yeah, I don't. I don't understand why it wouldn't be picked up or whatever. But or maybe they could make plastic bullets. Yeah, but you're just shooting somebody with plastic bullets. It's like, yeah, jerk, Yeah, they already make those and they sell them it TWI us. Yeah. I read this Guardian article and it was like, you know, this kid is a he's very much like um russ Olbrick. He was like a libertarian slash anarchists kinda, and um, he was like, well, it's not my responsibile that I just you know, I unleashed this on the world. Who cares, right, you can't. You can't govern this kind of thing. The Internet is supposed to be free, and it's like, and that is a that is a can of worms that I don't think exists in black and white. Yeah, Or who's responsible legally for some of this stuff one day, like the manufacturer of the software or you know, but even beyond legally, who's responsible morally? Yeah? You know you are my friend, not me, not you, but the individual. You're not gonna print a gun, No, you'll just print out a little figures have been Man, that's dream. You got anything else? Right now? I got nothing else. I think it's a good overview. Yeah it is. We'll revisit in five years and talk about which one one out. This article is hilariously out of date. The lowest, the lowest price it quotes is it something? It doesn't even mention the rep rap, the rep rap, it's the big deal. Okay. Uh So if you want to learn more about three D printing, you should go read this hilariously out of date article. On house top works, which by the way, is being updated to put in an update requests, so it should be nice and fancy soon. Um. And since I said search bar, I think I did, It's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this wild parrots. Remember when we talked about the wild parrots confirmed, Um, hey, guys really enjoyed hanging out with you during the Tattoo podcast. By the way, it is called a tattoo machine, not a tattoo gun. Apparently they don't like that. They don't like that, and we heard about it tattoo people. Are they tattoo people? Um? Burning man people and who who else? Seems like there's been one more subset of people that you wouldn't think just be so like angry. Yeah. I can't think of anybody any other group that's responded on mat so angrily. Yeah, burning man and tattoos. Uh. So, when Josh heard um that parrots like to hang together when free, I wanted to burst into the podcast room and tell you about the wild parrots of San Francisco, my hometown. I'm not gonna get into it except to say that over the course of my life, the parents were sort of a living legend that one would occasionally get the privilege of spotting now and then. However, about three years ago I moved in with my aunt in the little San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, and apparently the famous flock of parrots were also making their home there, since it was warmer and less windy than most of San Francisco. Uh. They were often hanging out right outside my bedroom window, which is pretty amusing but also someone annoying, especially since my first son was just a little guy and they are loud. I can vouch for that they're super loud. Also, guys, I'm sending you the link to watch the documentary from two thousand three, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. So she's recommended that we watched that. Anyway, did we get that documentary? No? I think it's Um. Yeah, it was just a link. It's online, so keep it up. Seriously, if you stopped making podcasts, I'd be one that majorly bummed. Mama Child Bellow Amy, Thanks Amy and San Francisco via Italy. Yeah that was weird. Um that it was good. I didn't doubt you. I want to say, Oh no, I didn't think so, okay, I that would just be such a bizarre thing to make up. Um, but yeah, thanks Amy for supporting Chuck. Chuck loves to be supported and proven, right, don't we. All. Yeah, if you want to hang out with us, we've got a bunch of ways you can. Uh, you can hang out with us, um Pinterest, look for s Y s K podcast on Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Yeah, We've got a couple of new social platforms Instagram and Pinterest, and it's pretty cool. I'm excited. These are just everything is different, man, Like you very rarely see one thing is that's on everything. It's like all, if you keep up with us on like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, you're gonna get a bunch of different awesome information. Yeah, it's pretty nat cool stuff. So thanks for that. Yeah, and then like I said, Facebook, Facebook, dot Com, slash stuff you should Know, um, and you can always send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and uh hang out with us at her home on the web. Stuff you should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works dot Com