#588 – Gadget
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comic
The next step will go even further and the machine will print your food as well. Maybe by then the plates will be edible. They will be disposed of a little differently.
Also I have a new Doctor Who themed shirt available in the shop!
Tags: 3d printer, dishes, husband
Maybe if they put all the nutrition and flavor into the plates, we’ll simply survive on plates. Oh what a world we could live in!
One word: tortilla. Two words: fortified tortilla.
Or make it all finger foods so we don’t need plates 8^)
Add in another 3D printer extruder to make the food on the plate while you’re at it. Just serve spaghetti every night, everyone gets one insanely long strand.
One more thought:
“I just emptied this trash can yesterday! There needs to be some kind of device that will perform this task for me!”
Well there is: Offspring.
Edible plates were invented in the middle ages. They were called Trenchers. They were loaves of crusty bread. You cut the bread in half and put the food on it. When you finish the food you eat the bread, or throw it away, or give it to the poor. They dogs will probably eat it.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!
People food you mean? <_<
lol, I first read that as the ‘Dish Masher Elite’.
Better yet. The garbage can actually takes the previously printed dishes, grinds them up and turns them into new plastic to make more plates! 😉
It’s gonna happen one day: I discussed this technology with an engineer buddy of mine about 15 years ago when stereo lithography became available. Basically, the machine would create brand new plastic dishes and cutlery for each use. You’d then dump the dishes, leftover food and all, back in to the machine. It would be ground up and mixed into a bacteria-rich slurry. These genetically-engineered bacteria would break down the plastics and food and as a by-product of their metabolism, would excrete the fluid plastic required to make new dishes with stereo lithography. Besides reducing water and energy usage washing dishes and dumping of residue and soaps into the natural ecosystem, it would also allow manufacturers to sell designs and patterns (i.e. licensed characters, movies, etc.) via wifi directly to the device. Your choices for style, colors, and whatever are essentially unlimited.
Given the current rate of technological advancement, the gating factor is the development of the bacterial part. The rest could happen today.
I had a similar plan but just for stuff in general, I was going to have two disposals one for biodegradable stuff and the other for everything else. The one for everything else would be called “The Sarlacc Pit” because it would just empty into a pit of acid which would dissolve everything and then the resulting muck would be processed for the chemicals into new stuff.