First, what is RepRap?
A universal constructor is a machine that can replicate itself and - in addition - make other industrial products. Such a machine would have a number of interesting characteristics, such as being subject to Darwinian evolution, increasing in number exponentially, and being extremely low-cost.
A rapid prototyper is a machine that can manufacture […]

So I didn’t post much stuff last week, and I didn’t do a week in review. Sorry, been busy. I’ve also been meaning to write an overview of reasons to be hopeful, like this one form last year. I’ve found Fareed Zakaria’s article “The Rise of the Rest” does a pretty good job. This […]

New York Times Magazine has a lengthy piece on an interesting crime-prevention organization in Chicago, CeaseFire:
Newspaper accounts usually refer to the organization as a gang-intervention program, and Hoddenbach and most of his colleagues are indeed former gang leaders. But CeaseFire doesn’t necessarily aim to get people out of gangs — nor interrupt the drug trade. […]

Rose Colored news highlights the progress made by activists, scientists, engineers, and everyone else who strives to make the world a better place.
After the crushing defeat of the Democrats in 2004, it was hard to have much optimism for the future of the United States, or the world. The Republicans were bent on continuing the […]

I wrote this in 2005. It still seems relevant.
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Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.
Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing […]

UN inspectors on Friday said they had reached a “mutual understanding” with North Korea after visiting a nuclear reactor at the centre of efforts to disarm the communist country.
Team leader Olli Heinonen said his four-strong International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team, carrying out the first UN inspection of the Yongbyon reactor in five years, were […]

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Central African Republic (CAR) and the country’s major rebel group have signed an agreement that will allow some child soldiers in the northeast – the scene of fierce fighting in recent months – to return to their families and become reintegrated with their former communities.
In an accord signed […]

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today welcomed the announcement by a former Sudanese rebel faction that it will begin handing over children participating in its armed groups in Darfur.
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), which is one of the signatories of last year’s Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), has indicated that several children attached to its […]

1. The overall decrease in armed conflict. With the Iraq war, the Darfur crisis, the Israel/Palestinian conflict, and other armed conflicts in the news (with good reason), it’s sometimes hard to remember that the world is actually much more peaceful now than it was just over a decade ago.
2. Steady donations for disaster relief. […]