
Idea: a machine that eats dirt and prints roads - wumi
http://shindyapin.tumblr.com/post/48427945/idea-a-machine-that-eats-dirt-and-prints-roads
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shadytrees
Machine, equipped with AI, goes on to learn how to eat children and other
small mammals and print roads

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jsmcgd
I think I've seen this in Thunderbirds. Thought it was good then. Still do!

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ph0rque
Can you post a link?

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jsmcgd
I can't sorry. Maybe someone else remembers the episode?

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ph0rque
Hadley posted a youtube video in the comments of the blog post:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f28_zrU0X4A>

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jsmcgd
Thanks. That's fantastic! (The road layer debuts at 5:02).

I'm not sure if it's using the plasma process but it must be doing something
similar because a large chunk of the mass of the vehicle is empty hanger
space. So the materials to make the road must be coming from the ground
itself. Either that or the 'road' is just a layer of black paint. I choose to
give Gerry Anderson benefit of the doubt however.

At university my mate had to design a road maintenance vehicle that allowed
traffic to drive over whilst in use, a kind of rolling mobile bridge. I was
very jealous. My CS degree assignments never approached anything like
designing real thunderbirds.

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petercooper
I'd buy one.

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vaksel
except our roads aren't made of dirt.

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ph0rque
They were at some point, and are in a lot of developing countries.

