Horse, Meet Barn Door . . .

May 11, 2013 Uncategorized

Horse, Meet Barn Door . . .

Our regular blog readers will remember back in January I talked about the coming revolution in 3D printing, and especially its effect on gun laws.

You can check out that blog here.

http://ourrvadventures.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/and-so-it-begins/

Well, Cody Wilson of Defcad, has now revealed his latest 3D weapon. It’s an almost-completely plastic single-shot .380 pistol.

Although it kind of looks like it’s made from Legos, it does work. The only metal parts are a common nail used as the firing pin, and a block of metal built into the handle so that the pistol meets the Untraceable Plastic Gun laws.

Called “The Liberator”, the 3D printing files were downloaded over 100,000 times in the first two days, with the largest number of downloads to addresses in Spain, followed by the US, Brazil, Germany and the UK.

Then a couple of days ago Cody Wilson was ordered by the Department of State?? to take down the files because they might violate international treaties restricting illegal weapons trafficking.

Huh? Weapons, what weapons? These are 1’s and 0’s in a computer file.

And of course there are files all over the Internet on how to build everything from pistols, to machine guns, and even bazookas.

But a single-shot Lego gun is a problem. Right!

And on the Horse, Meet Barn Door front, it’s really hard to imagine how the State Department thinks that they have put a stop to anything. Besides the 100,000 original downloads, the files are now available from over 600 download sites around the world, places not under the State Department’s control.

One of the largest, Pirate Bay, reports over 2.5 million downloads since the State Department tried to clamp down on them. Way to go, State Department.

To quote Princess Leia:

"The more you tighten your grip, the more [files] will slip through your fingers."

Or, What goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet.

For more info about the many new advances possible with 3D printers, from building replacement ears to repairing spinal discs, or giving prospective parents a 3D image of their unborn child, check it out here.

http://www.3dprinter.net/

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Our son-in-law Lowell sent over the latest photos of their new house. You know when they plant the tree it’s getting close.

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Really nice looking cabinets.

I still don’t think they’ve got a move-in date, but soon.

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There’s an organization online that’s taking applications for a One-Way Trip to Mars to set up a colony. They planned on leaving in 2022, and in two weeks they’ve had over 80,000 applicants. I told Jan that I would consider doing that just for the adventure. She said,

“Have a nice trip.”

Guess she’s not as adventurous as I thought.

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About 2:30 Jan and I headed down to check out the Hoover Dam Bridge Walkway. We’d originally planned to do this yesterday on our way back from Oatman, AZ, but decided to put it off until today.

To get there you have to turn off the new bridge road and continue on like you’re going directly to the Dam, but there is an earlier turn-off that leads you to the parking area for the walkway.

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Looking up from the parking lot you can see the walkway entrance.

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To get to the top you have your choice of a back and forth ramp, or a more-direct stairway.

But either way it’s not a hard climb.

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The walkway runs almost all the way to the other side, but not quite.

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I was surprised that Jan was able to get almost all the way out here. Although from the expression on her face I don’ think she’s too happy about it. But probably happier than Nick would be.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see how open the railing was, especially since as of July 2012 there have been 4 suicides from the bridge.

But the view from up here is just fantastic.

But if they really wanted to make it a great attraction, they’d put a zip line from up here down to the dam. Now that would be a TRIP!

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II had thought that they had stopped all traffic over the dam after the bridge was opened, but apparently not. I guess they just stopped truck and RV traffic.

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Another thing checked off on my bucket list.

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Coming back to Las Vegas, we decided to have one more meal at Lindo Michoacan before we leave here on Wednesday. Delicious as always.

Heading toward home, we stopped off at a CVS and then Boulder Station Casino to register our Boarding Passes for today’s drawings. Then it was home at about 6pm

Another nice day here in Las Vegas.

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Jan had been complaining that she can’t see the computer keyboard at night because there’s not much light here at the computer. So I found this on Amazon and it works great. It plugs into any USB port and the flexible neck lets you angle it as you need.