Could you burn me a copy of your Oakley's, please?

No, seriously. I'd like a copy of your sunglasses. I don't want to trek over to the mall and waste my hard-earned, desperately needed cash just so I can shield my eyes in style. No, "Oakley's" is not the newest album by that one band you like; I am referring to the spectacles with which you adorn your face. Sounds ridiculous, no? Well, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. 17 years ago, when CD's were still in their infancy, one might have scoffed at the idea of loaning out a CD so that a friend could make a copy. The technology, though it undoubtedly existed, was far outside the average consumer's budget. However, in a matter of a few years, 'CD burning' became rampant because of the ever decreasing cost of CD burners. The same thing is happening with 3D printers. Because early models were prohibitively expensive, engineers were driven to invent clever shortcuts using sub-par techniques producing less-than-desirable results. Given just a few years more, the once exorbitant prices of yesteryear were finally able to fall within the realm of possibility for regular people, not just multi-million dollar corporations. What are the repercussions of giving this ability to ordinary people? Is our cherished porcelain doll market being put at risk by this dishonest, dirty technology? Not likely. In fact, the most intriguing result of putting this technology into more hands is the surfacing of new engineering ideas that are simply impossible to create using existing manufacturing methods. 3D printing is paving the way to solving the most difficult manufacturing problems.

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Why does technology scare us so much?

You've seen it in movies. You've seen in on TV. Perhaps you've read it in books. Technology is dangerous. The smarter society gets, the smarter its computers get. In the mind of a mob, smart computers mean sentient computers. To an uneducated onlooker, it may seem as though new technology actually makes decisions and acts like humans do. While most will agree that beliefs of this variety are few and far between, the fact remains that we hold a special sort of fear and reverence for technology because we've entrusted some of it with the safety of human lives. When glitches occur, as they always do, we seek to find the cause of the glitches and ensure there are no repeats. Where did these unreasonable superstitions come from? They came from overzealous reporters and journalists trying to make their stories stand out from the rest. They came from observers who jumped to conclusions with a limited knowledge of the whole picture. We would do well to take a step back, challenge some of the claims that are widely believed about our gadgets, and apply what we learn toward increased convenience in our daily lives. That's why we advance technology, isn't it?

Censorship on the web

These days, it's becoming a common occurrence to hear about how the Chinese government has blocked Corporation X's website from their country. That's something you come to expect from them. In the United States, it's not quite nearly that bad....but it's slowly going in that direction. That's not to say that we'll ever see the same kind of widespread blocks of certain sites. However, certain companies are doing their best to wipe a couple of sites off the face of the Internet. One in particular is Pirate Bay, a popular website for downloading software, TV shows, Music, Movies, and all sorts of other stuff. Most, if not all, of what they do infringes a myriad of copyright laws (as evidenced by their proudly posting a list of companies that have threatened to take legal action against them). Most of us will agree that using this site is stealing. Hopefully all of us will agree that stealing is bad. Google thinks Pirate Bay is so bad that it's wiped them from their Autocomplete searches. Even though this is not the kind of full-scale censorship we see in other cases, it wreaks of user restriction. Google may do whatever they wish. After all, they're a business. But how far can a company go (or a government, for that matter) before crossing the line? Where is the line between protecting people from others (a sometimes difficult but worthy cause) and protecting them from the freedom of expression (a sometimes difficult and very controversial cause)?

Controlling the Web 2.0

Why is the outcome of the Tienanmen protests of 1989 so different from that of the mourning following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake? Clay Shirky in his TED talk in 2009 describes the immediate response of Chinese citizens to the massive quake. Even before official geological institutions could verify and report on the event, people were talking about the destruction on Twitter. He mentions a past earthquake and the Chinese government's response to it: they failed to acknowledge it for three months, and for 'good' reason. If you're a controlling communist government bent on maintaining your nation's image, why announce to the world the kind of destruction that probably ensued such a catastrophic event? It's clear that the same thing was probably desired for the 2008 quake, but not possible. The different response to the protests that followed is what is intriguing. In 1989, over 100 protesters were killed and 7,000 injured. Although there was an apparent out lash against protesters in 2008, why was the final outcome so drastically different?