Tools that are like bicycles
By Ryan McDermott
There is a story/anecdote Steve Jobs told which I really like:
I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.
And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” ~ Steve Jobs
Some tools are like the bicycle in Steve Job’s story: they are huge amplifiers to what you are capable of making.
Laser Cutter
This is a photo of a box I made in ~2012, and I think it’s a good example of how a CNC tool like a laser cutter empowers me to make things I wouldn’t have otherwise thought I was capable of making.
I’m not a carpenter. While I can coax wood into shape given enough time, I often get too impatient, my cuts are crooked, and I’m terrible on a bandsaw.
But a lasercutter will cut exactly what I design. It will cut perfectly straight lines over and over as many times as I want. It will cut things in exactly the size that I tell it. For somebody like me (who is pretty comfortable in CAD software) a laser cutter opens the possibility of doing woodworking projects.