I was particularly intrigued by The Economist’s latest special feature about manufacturing and innovation. Not so much because they are reporting on anything that is so groundbreaking to me, or most engineers I would think, but because they gave exposure to the exact kind of thing I do – engineering custom solutions on the fly for customers – that I found it interesting. I don’t pretend to have any deep insights into what the future of manufacturing holds, but I like to think that being at some point in the specialized process of manufacturing is a good thing going forward.
If there’s any magazine that I routinely read cover to cover, it’s The Economist, and even though in their recent special feature they talk aren’t revealing anything that groundbreaking – nanotechnology, carbon fiber, 3D printing – it’s good validation. I mean, do you know how cheap 3D printers have become these days? The only thing holding me back from buying one of these or these is not having the space to put it and a general preference to spend my surplus dollars on bikes instead.
get a printer and print a bicycle.