It’s a CNC thing:

I wanted to begin this video with an anecdote suggesting how I bought this CNC machine, in an empty car park, from the back of some blokes van, that happen to be stuffed with the cryogenically preserved brains of deceased carpenters, on their way to be harvest of knowledge for an already bloated catalogue of online woodworking plans.

In reality Inventables just gave me it, like some dockers delight gives an entire crew VD. YouTube seems to be swamped with this machine and I am discovering channels I never knew existed simply because of the interlinking nature of meta data, and videos.

It takes both parties to complicity share STI’s, Scientific Technological Innovations. I willingly engaged in activity knowing the risks; and after several months, this buddle of joy was dropped off by a benevolent stork, and it is now up to me to rear it.

The CNC machine at first must seems like a small child, in constant need of supervision, in case you turn your back for a moment and it either destroys itself or everything around it. But if it were a child, it would be a Victorian one, whose purpose was to quickly ascend into adult working life, for the benefit of cruel masters and an oppressive system.

The machine’s main advantage is simply, its ability to repeat cutting processes with a high level of accuracy. But new technology always faces scepticism, which is one reason I believe this machine had been bandied around in much the same way unpopular American abstract expressionism was, during the cold war. 1

Grass root activity often fosters technological and social development. Art and technology are signs of passive progression. But I also feel the concerns of luddites, to new technology at least, are in part justified, because it is unheard of that the economic benefits of new technology are ever shared amongst the people rendered obsolete.

An example of which, was recently bought to light by researchers from UCL, in an investigation into British slave ownership. The compensation of Britain’s slave owners was the largest bailout in British history, until that of the banks in 2009. Slaves who received nothing, were also compelled to provide 45 hours of unpaid labour each week for their former masters, for a further four years after their supposed liberation, effectively paying part of the bill. 2

Seventy plus years after the birth of the industrial revolution, machines proved so effective, they replaced slavery with technology that required small children to maintenance and operate machines.

1: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

2: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed