text:
Theology Proper
The BasicsA Sermon
(No. 1)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 7th, 1855, by the
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."- Mal 3:6
It has been said by some one that "the proper study of mankind is man." I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God's elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, "Behold I am wise." But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass's colt; and with the solemn exclamation, "I am but of yesterday, and know nothing." No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God. We shall be obliged to feel-
Great God, how infinite art thou,
What worthless worms are we!"
But while the subject humbles the mind it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. He may be a naturalist, boasting of his ability to dissect a beetle, anatomize a fly, or arrange insects and animals in classes with well nigh unutterable names; he may be a geologist, able to discourse of the megatherium and the plesiosaurus, and all kinds of extinct animals; he may imagine that his science, whatever it is, ennobles and enlarges his mind. I dare say it does, but after all, the most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatary. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning. We shall present you with one view of it,-that is the immutability of the glorious Jehovah. "I am," says my text, "Jehovah," (for so it should be translated) "I am Jehovah, I change not: therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
There are three things this morning. First of all, an unchanging God; secondly, the persons who derive benefit from this glorious attribute, "the sons of Jacob;" and thirdly, the benefit they so derive, they "are not consumed.' We address ourselves to these points.
I. First of all, we have set before us the doctrine of THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. "I am God, I change not." Here I shall attempt to expound, or rather to enlarge the thought, and then afterwards to bring a few arguments to prove its truth.
1. I shall offer some exposition of my text, by first saying, that God is Jehovah, and he changes not in his essence. We cannot tell you what Godhead is. We do not know what substance that is which we call God. It is an existence, it is a being; but what that is, we know not. However, whatever it is, we call it his essence, and that essence never changes. The substance of mortal things is ever changing. The mountains with their snow-white crowns, doff their old diadems in summer, in rivers trickling down their sides, while the storm cloud gives them another coronation; the ocean, with its mighty floods, loses its water when the sunbeams kiss the waves, and snatch them in mists to heaven; even the sun himself requires fresh fuel from the hand of the Infinite Almighty, to replenish his ever burning furnace. All creatures change. Man, especially as to his body, is always undergoing revolution. Very probably there is not a single particle in my body which was in it a few years ago. This frame has been worn away by activity, its atoms have been removed by friction, fresh particles of matter have in the mean time constantly accrued to my body, and so it has been replenished; but its substance is altered. The fabric of which this world is made is ever passing away; like a stream of water, drops are running away and others are following after, keeping the river still full, but always changing in its elements. But God is perpetually the same. He is not composed of any substance or material, but is spirit-pure, essential, and ethereal spirit-and therefore he is immutable. He remains everlastingly the same. There are no furrows on his eternal brow. No age hath palsied him; no years have marked him with the mementoes of their flight; he sees ages pass, but with him it is ever now. He is the great I AM-the Great Unchangeable. Mark you, his essence did not undergo a change when it became united with the manhood. When Christ in past years did gird himself with mortal clay, the essence of his divinity was not changed; flesh did not become God, nor did God become flesh by a real actual change of nature; the two were united in hypostatical union, but the Godhead was still the same. It was the same when he was a babe in the manager, as it was when he stretched the curtains of heaven; it was the same God that hung upon the cross, and whose blood flowed down in a purple river, the self-same God that holds the world upon his everlasting shoulders, and bears in his hands the keys of death and hell. He never has been changed in his essence, not even by his incarnation; he remains everlastingly, eternally, the one unchanging God, the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither the shadow of a change.
2. He changes not in his attributes. Whatever the attributes of God were of old, that they are now; and of each of them we may sing "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen." Was he powerful? Was he the mighty God when he spake the world out of the womb of nonexistence? Was he the Omnipotent when he piled the mountains and scooped out the hollow places for the rolling deep? Yes, he was powerful then, and his arm is unpalsied now, he is the same giant in his might; the sap of his nourishment is undried, and the strength of his soul stands the same for ever. Was he wise when he constituted this mighty globe, when he laid the foundations of the universe? Had he wisdom when he planned the way of our salvation, and when from all eternity he marked out his awful plans? Yes, and he is wise now; he is not less skillful, he has not less knowledge; his eye which seeth all things is undimmed; his ear which heareth all the cries, sighs, sobs, and groans of his people, is not rendered heavy by the years which he hath heard their prayers. He is unchanged in his wisdom, he knows as much now as ever, neither more nor less; he has the same consummate skill, and the same infinite forecastings. He is unchanged, blessed be his name, in his justice. just and holy was he in the past; just and holy is he now. He is unchanged in his truth; he has promised, and he brings it to pass; he hath saith it, and it shall be done. He varies not in the goodness, and generosity, and benevolence of his nature. He is not become an Almighty tyrant, whereas he was once an Almighty Father; but his strong love stands like a granite rock, unmoved by the hurricanes of our iniquity. And blessed be his dear name, he is unchanged in his love. When he first wrote the covenant, how full his heart was with affection to his people. He knew that his Son must die to ratify the articles of that agreement. He knew right well that he must rend his best beloved from his bowels, and send him down to earth to bleed and die. He did not hesitate to sign that mighty covenant; nor did he shun its fulfillment. He loves as much now as he did then, and when suns shall cease to shine, and moons to show their feeble light, he still shall love on for ever and for ever. Take any one attribute of God, and I will write semper idem on it (always the same). Take any one thing you can say of God now, and it may be said not only in the dark past, but in the bright future it shall always remain the same: "I am Jehovah, I change not."
3. Then again, God changes not in his plans. That man began to build, but was not able to finish, and therefore he changed his plan, as every wise man would do in such a case; he built upon a smaller foundation and commenced again. But has it ever been said that God began to build but was not able to finish? Nay. When he hath boundless stores at his command, and when his own right hand would create worlds as numerous as drops of morning dew, shall he ever stay because he has not power? and reverse, or alter, or disarrange his plan, because he cannot carry it out? "But," say some, "perhaps God never had a plan." Do you think God is more foolish than yourself then, sir? Do you go to work without a plan? "No," say you, "I have always a scheme." So has God. Every man has his plan, and God has a plan too. God is a master-mind; he arranged everything in his gigantic intellect long before he did it; and once having settled it, mark you, he never alters it. "This shall be done," saith he, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. "This is my purpose," and it stands, nor can earth or hell alter it. "This is my decree," saith he, promulgate it angels; rend it down from the gate of heaven ye devils; but ye cannot alter the decree; it shall be done. God altereth not his plans; why should he? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform his pleasure. Why should he? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should he? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before his plan is accomplished. Why should he change? Ye worthless atoms of existence, ephemera of the day! Ye creeping insects upon this bayleaf of existence! ye may change yourplans, but he shall never, never change his. Then has he told me that his plan is to save me? If so, I am safe.
"My name from the palms of his hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on his heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."
4. Yet again, God is unchanging in his promises. Ah! we love to speak about the sweet promises of God; but if we could ever suppose that one of them could be changed, we would not talk anything more about them. If I thought that the notes of the bank of England could not be cashed next week, I should decline to take them; and if I thought that God's promises would never be fulfilled-if I thought that God would see it right to alter some word in his promises-farewell Scriptures! I want immutable things: and I find that I have immutable promises when I turn to the Bible: for, "by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie," he hath signed, confirmed, and sealed every promise of his. The gospel is not "yea and nay," it is not promising today, and denying tomorrow; but the gospel is "yea, yea," to the glory of God. Believer! there was a delightful promise which you had yesterday; and this morning when you turned to the Bible the promise was not sweet. Do you know why? Do you think the promise had changed? Ah, no! Youchanged; that is where the matter lies. You had been eating some of the grapes of Sodom, and your mouth was thereby put out of taste, and you could not detect the sweetness. But there was the same honey there, depend upon it, the same preciousness. "Oh!" says one child of God, "I had built my house firmly once upon some stable promises; there came a wind, and I said, O Lord, I am cast down and I shall be lost." Oh! the promises were not cast down; the foundations were not removed; it was your little "wood, hay, stubble" hut, that you had been building. It was that which fell down. You have been shaken on the rock, not the rock underyou. But let me tell you what is the best way of living in the world. I have heard that a gentleman said to a Negro, "I can't think how it is you are always so happy in the Lord and I am often downcast." "Why Massa," said he, "I throw myself flat down on the promise-there I lie; you stand on the promise-you have a little to do with it, and down you go when the wind comes, and then you cry, 'Oh! I am down;' whereas I go flat on the promise at once, and that is why I fear no fall." Then let us always say, "Lord there is the promise; it is thy business to fulfill it." Down I go on the promise flat! no standing up for me. That is where you should go-prostrate on the promise; and remember, every promise is a rock, an unchanging thing. Therefore, at his feet cast yourself, and rest there forever.
5. But now comes one jarring note to spoil the theme. To some of you God is unchanging in his threatenings. If every promise stands fast, and every oath of the covenant is fulfilled, hark thee, sinner!-mark the word-hear the death-knell of thy carnal hopes; see the funeral of thy fleshly trustings. Every threatening of God, as well as every promise shall be fulfilled. Talk of decrees! I will tell you of a decree: "He that believeth not shall be damned." That is a decree, and a statute that can never change. Be as good as you please, be as moral as you can, be as honest as you will, walk as uprightly as you may,-there stands the unchangeable threatening: "He that believeth not shall be damned." What sayest thou to that, moralist? Oh, thou wishest thou couldst alter it, and say, "He that does not live a holy life shall be damned." That will be true; but it does not say so. It says, "He that believeth not." Here is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offence; but you cannot alter it. You must believe or be damned, saith the Bible; and mark, that threat of God is an unchangeable as God himself. And when a thousand years of hell's torments shall have passed away, you shall look on high, and see written in burning letters of fire, "He that believeth not shall be damned." "But, Lord, I am damned." Nevertheless it says "shall be" still. And when a million ages have rolled away, and you are exhausted by your pains and agonies, you shall turn up your eye and still read "SHALL BE DAMNED," unchanged, unaltered. And when you shall have thought that eternity must have spun out its last thread-that every particle of that which we call eternity, must have run out, you shall still see it written up there, "SHALL BE DAMNED." O terrific thought! How dare I utter it? But I must. Ye must be warned, sirs, "lest ye also come into this place of torment." Ye must be told rough things; for if God's gospel is not a rough thing & the law is a rough thing; Mount Sinai is a rough thing. Woe unto the watchman that warns not the ungodly! God is unchanging in his threatenings. Beware, O sinner, for "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
6. We must just hint at one thought before we pass away and that is-God is unchanging in the objects of his love-not only in his love, but in the objectsof it.
"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away.
My fickle, feeble soul, alas,
Would fall a thousand times a day."
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be, and then there is no gospel promise true; but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once, when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then he will love me for ever.
"Did Jesus once upon me shine,
Then Jesus is for ever mine."
The objects of everlasting love never change. Those whom God hath called, he will justify; whom he has justified, he will sanctify; and whom he sanctifies, he will glorify.
1. Thus having taken a great deal too much time, perhaps, in simply expanding the thought of an unchanging God, I will now try to prove that He is unchangeable. I am not much of an argumentative preacher, but one argument that I will mention is this: the very existence, and being of a God, seem to me to imply immutability. Let me think a moment. There is a God; this God rules and governs all things; this God fashioned the world: he upholds and maintains it. What kind of being must he be? It does strike me that you cannot think of a changeable God. I conceive that the thought is so repugnant to common sense, that if you for one moment think of a changing God, the words seem to clash, and you are obliged to say, "Then he must be a kind of man," and get a Mormonite idea of God. I imagine it is impossible to conceive of a changing God; it is so to me. Others may be capable of such an idea, but I could not entertain it. I could no more think of a changing God, than I could of a round square, or any other absurdity. The thing seems so contrary, that I am obliged, when once I say God, to include the idea of an unchanging being.
2. Well, I think that one argument will be enough, but another good argument may be found in the fact of God's perfection. I believe God to be a perfect being. Now, if he is a perfect being, he cannot change. Do you not see this? Suppose I am perfect today, if it were possible for me to change, should I be perfect tomorrow after the alteration? If I changed, I must either change from a good state to a better-and then if I could get better, I could not be perfect now-or else from a better state to a worse-and if I were worse, I should not be perfect then. If I am perfect, I cannot be altered without being imperfect. If I am perfect today, I must keep the same tomorrow if I am to be perfect then. So, if God is perfect, he must be the same; for change would imply imperfection now, or imperfection then.
3. Again, there is the fact of God's infinity, which puts change out of the question. God is an infinite being. What do you mean by that? There is no man who can tell you what he means by an infinite being. But there cannot be two infinities. If one thing is infinite, there is no room for anything else; for infinite means all. It means not bounded, not finite, having no end. Well, there cannot be two infinities. If God is infinite today, and then should change and be infinite tomorrow, there would be two infinities. But that cannot be. Suppose he is infinite and then changes, he must become finite, and could not be God; either he is finite today and finite tomorrow, or infinite today and finite tomorrow, or finite today and infinite tomorrow-all of which suppositions are equally absurd. The fact of his being an infinite being at once quashes the thought of his being a changeable being. Infinity has written on its very brow the word "immutability."
4. But then, dear friends, let us look at the past: and there we shall gather some proofs of God's immutable nature. "Hath he spoken, and hath he not done it? Hath he sworn, and hath it not come to pass?" Can it not be said of Jehovah, "He hath done all his will, and he hath accomplished all his purpose?" Turn ye to Philistia; ask where she is. God said, "Howl Ashdod, and ye gates of Gaza, for ye shall fall;" and where are they? Where is Edom? Ask Petra and its ruined walls. Will they not echo back the truth that God hath said, "Edom shall be a prey, and shall be destroyed?" Where is Babel, and where Nineveh? Where Moab and where Ammon? Where are the nations God hath said he would destroy? Hath he not uprooted them and cast out the remembrance of them from the earth? And hath God cast off his people? Hath he once been unmindful of his promise? Hath he once broken his oath and covenant, or once departed from his plan? Ah! no. Point to one instance in history where God has changed! Ye cannot, sirs; for throughout all history there stands the fact that God has been immutable in his purposes. Methinks I hear some one say, "I can remember one passage in Scripture where God changed!" And so did I think once. The case I mean, is that of the death of Hezekiah. Isaiah came in and said, 'Hezekiah, you must die, your disease is incurable, set your house in order.' He turned his face to the wall and began to pray; and before Isaiah was in the outer court, he was told to go back and say, "Thou shalt live fifteen years more." You may think that proves that God changes; but really I cannot see in it the slightest proof in the world. How do you know that God did not know that? Oh! but God did know it; he knew that Hezekiah would live. Then he did not change, for if he knew that, how could he change? That is what I want to know. But do you know one little thing?-that Hezekiah's son Manasseh, was not born at that time, and that had Hezekiah died, there would have been no Manasseh, and no Josiah and no Christ, because Christ came from that very line. You will find that Manasseh was twelve years old when his father died; so that he must have been born three years after this. And do you not believe that God decreed the birth of Manasseh, and foreknew it? Certainly. Then he decreed that Isaiah should go and tell Hezekiah that his disease was incurable, and then say also in the same breath, "But I will cure it, and thou shalt live." He said that to stir up Hezekiah to prayer. He spoke, in the first place as a man. "According to all human probability your disease is incurable, and you must die." Then he waited till Hezekiah prayed; then came a little "but" at the end of the sentence. Isaiah had not finished the sentence. He said, "You must put your house in order for there is no human cure; but" (and then he walked out. Hezekiah prayed a little, and then he came in again, and said) "But I will heal thee." Where is there any contradiction there, except in the brain of those who fight against the Lord, and wish to make him a changeable being.
II. Now secondly, let me say a word on THE PERSONS TO WHOM THIS UNCHANGEABLE GOD IS A BENEFIT. "I am God, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Now, who are "the sons of Jacob," who can rejoice in an immutable God?
1. First, they are the sons of God's election; for it is written, "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, the children being not yet born neither having done good nor evil." It was written, "The elder shall serve the younger." "The sons of Jacob"-
"Are the sons of God's election,
Who through sovereign grace believe;
Be eternal destination
Grace and glory they receive."
God's elect are here meant by "the sons of Jacob,"-those whom he foreknew and fore-ordained to everlasting salvation.
2. By "the sons of Jacob" are meant, in the second place, persons who enjoy peculiar rights and titles. Jacob, you know, had no rights by birth; but he soon acquired them. He changed a mess of pottage with his brother Esau, and thus gained the birthright. I do not justify the means; but he did also obtain the blessing, and so acquired peculiar rights. By "the sons of Jacob" here, are meant persons who have peculiar rights and titles. Unto them that believe, he hath given the right and power to become sons of God. They have an interest in the blood of Christ; they have a right to "enter in through the gates into the city;" they have a title to eternal honors; they have a promise to everlasting glory; they have a right to call themselves sons of God. Oh! there are peculiar rights and privileges belonging to the "sons of Jacob."
3. But, then next, these "sons of Jacob" were men of peculiar manifestations. Jacob had peculiar manifestations from his God, and thus he was highly honored. Once at night-time he lay down and slept; he had the hedges for his curtains, the sky for his canopy, a stone for his pillow, and the earth for his bed. Oh! then he had a peculiar manifestation. There was a ladder, and he saw the angels of God ascending and descending. He thus had a manifestation of Christ Jesus, as the ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, up and down which angels came to bring us mercies. Then what a manifestation there was at Mahanaim, when the angels of God met him; and again at Peniel, when he wrestled with God, and saw him face to face. Those were peculiar manifestations; and this passage refers to those who, like Jacob, have had peculiar manifestations.
Now then, how many of you have had personal manifestations? "Oh!" you say "that is enthusiasm; that is fanaticism." Well, it is a blessed enthusiasm, too, for the sons of Jacob have had peculiar manifestations. They have talked with God as a man talketh with his friend; they have whispered in the ear of Jehovah; Christ hath been with them to sup with them, and they with Christ; and the Holy Spirit hath shone into their souls with such a mighty radiance, that they could not doubt about special manifestations. The "sons of Jacob" are the men, who enjoy these manifestations.
4. Then again, they are men of peculiar trials. Ah! poor Jacob! I should not choose Jacob's lot if I had not the prospect of Jacob's blessing; for a hard lot his was. He had to run away from his father's house to Laban's; and then that surly old Laban cheated him all the years he was there-cheated him of his wife, cheated him in his wages, cheated him in his flocks, and cheated him all through the story. By-and-bye he had to run away from Laban, who pursued him and overtook him. Next came Esau with four hundred men to cut him up root and branch. Then there was a season of prayer, and afterwards he wrestled, and had to go all his life with his thigh out of joint. But a little further on, Rachael, his dear beloved, died. Then his daughter Dinah is led astray, and the sons murder the Shechemites. Anon there is dear Joseph sold into Egypt, and a famine comes. Then Reuben goes up to his couch and pollutes it; Judah commits incest with his own daughter-in-law; and all his sons become a plague to him. At last Benjamin is taken away; and the old man, almost broken-hearted, cries, "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away." Never was man more tried than Jacob, all through the one sin of cheating his brother. All through his life God chastised him. But I believe there are many who can sympathize with dear old Jacob. They have had to pass through trials very much like his. Well, cross-bearers! God says, "I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Poor tried souls! ye are not consumed because of the unchanging nature of your God. Now do not get fretting, and say, with the self-conceit of misery, "I am the man who hath seen affliction." Why "the Man of Sorrows" was afflicted more than you; Jesus was indeed a mourner. You only see the skirts of the garments of affliction. You never have trials like his. You do not understand what troubles means; you have hardly sipped the cup of trouble; you have only had a drop or two, but Jesus drunk the dregs. Fear not saith God, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob," men of peculiar trials, "are not consumed."
5. Then one more thought about who are the "sons of Jacob," for I should like you to find out whether you are "sons of Jacob," yourselves. They are men of peculiar character; for though there were some things about Jacob's character which we cannot commend, there are one or two things which God commends. There was Jacob's faith, by which Jacob had his name written amongst the mighty worthies who obtained not the promises on earth, but shall obtain them in heaven. Are you men of faith, beloved? Do you know what it is to walk by faith, to live by faith, to get your temporary food by faith, to live on spiritual manna-all by faith? Is faith the rule of your life? if so, you are the "sons of Jacob."
Then Jacob was a man of prayer-a man who wrestled, and groaned, and prayed. There is a man up yonder who never prayed this morning, before coming up to the house of God. Ah! you poor heathen, don't you pray? No! he says, "I never thought of such a thing; for years I have not prayed." Well, I hope you may before you die. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell. There is a woman: she did not pray this morning; she was so busy sending her children to the Sunday School, she had no time to pray. No time to pray? Had you time to dress? There is a time for every purpose under heaven, and if you had purposed to pray, you would have prayed. Sons of God cannot live without prayer. They are wrestling Jacobs. They are men in whom the Holy Ghost so works, they they can no more live without prayer than I can live without breathing. They must pray. Sirs, mark you, if you are living without prayer, you are living without Christ; and dying like that, your portion will be in the lake which burneth with fire. God redeem you, God rescue you from such a lot! But you who are "the sons of Jacob," take comfort, for God is immutable.
III. Thirdly, I can say only a word about the other point-THE BENEFIT WHICH THESE "SONS OF JACOB" RECEIVE FROM AN UNCHANGING GOD. "Therefore ye sons Jacob are not consumed." "Consumed?" How? how can man be consumed? Why, there are two ways. We might have been consumed in hell. If God had been a changing God, the "sons of Jacob" here this morning, might have been consumed in hell; but for God's unchanging love I should have been a faggot in the fire. But there is a way of being consumed in this world; there is such a things as being condemned before you die-"condemned already;" there is such a thing as being alive, and yet being absolutely dead. We might have been left to our own devices, and then where should we have been now? Revelling with the drunkard, blaspheming Almighty God. Oh? had he left you, dearly beloved, had he been a changing God, ye had been amongst the filthiest of the filthy, and the vilest of the vile. Cannot you remember in your life, seasons similar to those I have felt? I have gone right to the edge of sin; some strong temptation has taken hold of both my arms, so that I could not wrestle with it. I have been pushed alone, dragged as by an awful satanic power to the very edge of some horrid precipice. I have looked down, down, down, and seen my portion; I quivered on the brink of ruin. I have been horrified, as, with my hair upright, I have thought of the sin I was about to commit, the horrible pit into which I was about to fall. A strong arm hath saved me. I have started back and cried, O God! could I have gone so near sin, and yet come back again? Could I have walked right up to the furnace and not fallen down, like Nebuchadnezzar's strong men, devoured by the very heat? Oh! is it possible I should be here this morning, when I think of the sins I have committed, and the crimes which have crossed my wicked imagination? Yes, I am here, unconsumed, because the Lord changes not. Oh! if he had changed, we should have been consumed in a dozen ways; if the Lord had changed, you and I should have been consumed by ourselves; for after all, Mr. Self is the worst enemy a Christian has. We should have proved suicides to our own souls; we should have mixed the cup of poison for our own spirits, if the Lord had not been an unchanging God, and dashed the cup out of our hands when we were about to drink it. Then we should have been consumed by God himself if he had not been a changeless God. We call God a Father; but there is not a father in this world who would not have killed all his children long ago, so provoked would he have been with them, if he had been half as much troubled as God has been with his family. He has the most troublesome family in the whole world-unbelieving, ungrateful, disobedient, forgetful, rebellious, wandering, murmuring, and stiffnecked. Well it is that he is longsuffering, or else he would have taken not only the rod, but the sword to some of us long ago. But there was nothing in us to love at first, so, there cannot be less now. John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of Election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else he would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case, and true in respect most of God's people; for there is little to love in them after they are born, that if he had not loved them before then, he would have seen no reason to choose them after; but since he loved them without works, he loves them without works still; since their good works did not win his affection, bad works cannot sever that affection; since their righteousness did not bind his love to them, so their wickedness cannot snap the golden links. He loved them out of pure sovereign grace, and he will love them still. But we should have been consumed by the devil, and by our enemies-consumed by the world, consumed by our sins, by our trials, and in a hundred other ways, if God had ever changed.
Well, now, time fails us, and I can say but little. I have only just cursorily touched on the text. I now hand it to you. May the Lord help you "sons of Jacob" to take home this portion of meat; digest it well, and feed upon it. May the Holy Ghost sweetly apply the glorious things that are written! And may you have "a feast of fat things, of wines on the lees well refined!" Remember God is the same, whatever is removed. Your friends may be disaffected, your ministers may be taken away, every thing may change, but God does not. Your brethren may change and cast out your name as vile: but God will love you still. Let your station in life change, and your property be gone; let your whole life be shaken, and you become weak and sickly; let everything flee away-there is one place where change cannot put his finger; there is one name on which mutability can never be written; there is one heart which never can alter; that heart is God's-that name Love.
"Trust him, he will ne'er deceive you.
Though you hardly of him deem;
He will never, never leave you,
Nor will let you quite leave him."


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Academic Degree Requirements
An undergraduate education at The University of Texas at Dallas is designed with several goals in mind. First, the purpose of an undergraduate education is to acquaint students with ways of knowing the world of the natural sciences, mathematics, arts, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences. Therefore, all students are required to complete a Core Curriculum consisting of 42 semester credit hours. Secondly, students are expected to acquire depth in a field of study. To this end, students must fulfill the major and related requirements of a specified number of semester credit hours for their major. Thirdly, students are encouraged to take courses outside of their major and related field and beyond the Core Curriculum, and thus students are given free and advanced elective hours in which to explore intellectual domains beyond their area of specialization and beyond the core requirements.
In order to graduate with a baccalaureate degree from UT Dallas, students must complete and receive credit for all graduation requirements stated at catalog.utdallas.edu/2012/undergraduate/policies/graduation#requirements "Graduation Requirements" as well as their specific degree requirements.
Students are responsible for fulfilling their degree requirements and enrolling in courses appropriate to their degree programs. Students should, at the lower division, complete all freshman and sophomore prerequisites for the degree program. These requirements are set by the degree program and are listed under the program heading in the catalog; the number of semester credit hours may vary according to degree program. Students who are Texas residents should be aware that state law limits the number of semester credit hours that an undergraduate Texas resident may complete while paying tuition at the rate provided for Texas residents. See "Excessive Undergraduate Hours" at catalog.utdallas.edu/2012/undergraduate/tuition-and-financial-aid/excessive-hours.
Field of Study
If a student successfully completes a field of study curriculum approved by The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, that block of courses may be transferred to The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and substituted for appropriate lower-division requirements of the appropriate degree. Following receipt of credit for these courses, students may be required to satisfy further requirements in the field of study curriculum for that degree at UT Dallas.
Major and Related Areas of Study
Courses taken to satisfy requirements for the student's major field of study may include major and related courses. Some of these may be outside the courses with the major's designation; such courses are related to the major and required for its satisfaction. Other requirements may be satisfied by courses from lists of guided electives within the major and related courses. Finally, some requirements may be courses preparatory to the major; they are not considered major-core or major-related courses.
The degree requirements of every major include the opportunity for elective courses, that is, courses exploring subjects not directly related to a student's major. Six of the elective hours for all majors are required to be selected from advanced electives, which are defined as upper-division courses, or lower-division courses that have prerequisites, and that are outside the major. All students are encouraged to use their electives to explore fields beyond their major.
Some academic units designate a set of classes that constitute a minor in that academic unit. The requirements of the minor are set by the faculty of the academic unit offering the minor, not by the academic unit of the student's major field of study. When an academic unit offers a minor in a field of study, it is open to all students in the University regardless of school of origin. Students who take a minor will be expected to meet the normal prerequisites in courses making up the minor. Minors consist of a minimum of 18 credit hours, of which at least 12 must be upper-division hours, although individual academic units may require more hours at their sole discretion. Credit hours may not be used to satisfy both the major and minor requirements; however, free elective hours or major preparatory classes may be used to satisfy the minor. At least one-third of the hours for a minor must be taken at The University of Texas at Dallas. Students should consult with an advisor in their major field of study as they select and plan minors.

subset: commoncrawl


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A Strategist's Guide to Digital Fabrication
Rapid advances in manufacturing technology point the way toward a decentralized, more customer-centric "maker" culture. Here are the changes to consider before this innovation takes hold.
At a research meeting in late 2010, a primatologist studying monkey genetics took a tour of a university's digital fabrication shop. She mentioned that her field research had stalled because a specialized plastic comb, used in DNA analysis of organic samples, had broken. The primatologist had exhausted her research budget and couldn't afford a new one, but she happened to be carrying the old comb with her. One of the students in the shop, an architect by training, asked to borrow it. He captured its outline with a desktop scanner, and took a piece of scrap acrylic from a shelf. Booting up a laptop attached to a laser cutter, he casually asked, "How many do you want?"
This question is central to most manufacturing business models. Ten units of a comb — or an automobile component, a book, a toy, or any industrially produced item — typically cost a lot more per unit to produce than 10,000 would. The price per unit goes down even more if you make 100,000, and much more if you make 10 million. But what happens to conventional manufacturing business models, or to the very concept of economies of scale, when millions of manufactured items are made, sold, and distributed one unit at a time? We're about to find out.
The rapidly evolving field of digital fabrication, which was barely known to most business strategists as recently as early 2010, is beginning to do to manufacturing what the Internet has done to information-based goods and services. Just as video went from a handful of broadcast networks to millions of producers on YouTube within a decade, and music went from record companies to GarageBand and Bandcamp.com, a transition from centralized production to a "maker culture" of dispersed manufacturing innovation is under way today. Millions of customers consume manufactured goods, and now a small but growing number are producing, designing, and marketing them as well. As operations, product development, and distribution processes evolve under the influence of this new disruptive technology, manufacturing innovation will further expand from the chief technology officer's purview to that of the consumer, with potentially enormous impact on the business models of today's manufacturers.
Some early signs of change are visible in the development and use of relatively low-cost digital fabrication devices. The leading producers of these tools are firms like 3D Systems (a US$51 million maker of 3-D printers founded in 1986 and based in Rock Hill, S.C.), Stratasys (a $117 million printer-maker founded in 1986, based in Eden Prairie, Minn.), and Epilog Laser (a privately held company founded in 1988 in Golden, Colo.). Their products were originally used for rapid prototyping, giving mainstream manufacturers and university researchers the means to test concepts and identify problems early in the design cycle. Now, the devices are being applied to end-product manufacturing by a burgeoning number of small-scale manufacturers and one-person factories. In mid-2010, 3D Systems and Stratasys reported on the information site MakePartsFast.com that more than 40 percent of their customers used digital fabrication tools to manufacture not just prototypes, but end products and parts. These tiny companies are often started with little or no external funding; the proprietors tend to work from plans encoded in software that are often openly available for download on the Web.
Digital fabrication also continues to attract press attention — in part because of stunts designed for that purpose. For example, in 2009, Stratasys teamed up with a Canadian automotive company called Kor Ecologic Inc. to announce the hybrid Urbee, the first automobile with a body fabricated by 3-D printers; in 2010, the laser-sintering company EOS (a privately held business founded near Munich in 1989) manufactured a violin within just a few hours. In the long term, many aspects of today's conventional supply chain are likely to change. But even in the next few years, digital fabrication technology — and the way it is used — will pose new and unusual challenges for conventional manufacturers, both large and small. It also represents enormous opportunities for brand building, cost saving, consumer outreach, innovation, and global competitiveness: in short, for a manufacturing business model that no longer depends only on economies of scale.
Tools of Change
The first step in building this new manufacturing business model is to take stock of the new fabrication tools. Digital fabrication devices fall into two categories. The first is programmable subtractive tools, which carve shapes from raw materials. These include laser cutters (which cut flat sheets of wood, acrylic, metal, cardboard, and other light materials), computer numerical control (CNC) routers and milling machines (which use drills to produce three-dimensional shapes), and cutters that use plasma or water jets to shape material.
The second category is additive tools, which are primarily computer-controlled 3-D printers that build objects layer by layer, in a process known as fused deposition modeling. They work with a wide variety of materials: thermoplastics, ceramics, resins, glass, and powdered metals. Technically known as "additive rapid manufacturing" devices, 3-D printers also use lasers or electron beams to selectively shape the source material into its final form. Because additive devices require little setup time, they make possible the production of any quantity at the same cost per unit, and also allow easy, rapid switching between products. A single machine can shift from making combs to making clamps to making iPhone stands within minutes. In some cases, a 3-D printer can fabricate in a single piece an object that would otherwise have to be manufactured in several parts and then assembled. And because it composes objects bit by bit, instead of carving them from larger blocks, additive manufacturing considerably reduces the waste of materials.
Additive technologies have been following a path comparable to that of Moore's Law; the capabilities of the devices are growing and the cost is decreasing exponentially. In 2001, the cheapest 3-D printer was priced at $45,000; by 2005, the cost had dropped to $22,900, and now you can buy a professional 3-D printer for less than $10,000, an open source personal version for less than $4,000, and a desktop do-it-yourself kit for less than $1,500. Subtractive tools, such as laser cutters and CNC routers, have also become more affordable, mostly because manufacturers have produced models to fit the low-volume needs (and lower budgets) of small businesses, schools, and individuals. Most of these digital fabrication devices no longer require custom CAD software and extensive training. They can follow designs created by people using mainstream programs like Adobe Illustrator or even using iPad apps; the techniques can be learned in an afternoon.
To be sure, digital fabrication tools have limits. Currently, they are best suited to production runs of 1,000 items or less. Although a few high-end routers and cutters are fast enough to produce dozens of products in an hour, 3-D printers can't yet make goods with the same speed as traditional injection molding. Some 3-D printers can combine different types of plastic (to make, for example, a hairbrush with a hard plastic body and soft bristles), but this kind of hybrid printing is still a high-end process. Most can handle only one type of material at a time. Metals and other nonplastic materials require specialized devices. Thus far, no digital fabrication device, professional or personal, can efficiently produce in one fell swoop a complex multi-material product such as a mobile phone.
For these reasons, no one expects digital fabrication to replace conventional manufacturing anytime soon. According to a 2010 report from the technology market research firm Wohlers Associates Inc., the most common applications of the technology are the production of functional models, prototype components and patterns (used for tooling or to test fit and assembly), and visual aids. All of these are areas where production runs of one unit are often necessary. Nonetheless, even these early forms of digital fabrication could become highly disruptive to conventional manufacturing practices.
How is one factory making 1 million units different from 10,000 factories making 100 units? For one thing, the 10,000 factories offer the safety and ability to experiment that comes with redundancy. For another, they offer proximity to local customers, and thus useful information about their needs and wants. Having a large number of small shops immediately at hand ensures that when one shop is not available, another can be brought into service. The rapid tooling turnaround afforded by digital fabrication means that each shop can change production runs for different clients as needed. The ability to augment mass production with highly customized components and parts, to reduce inventory by making components on demand, or to make setup changes more rapidly at a lower cost, could dramatically affect supply chain design, finance, and management.
The potential for transforming manufacturing business models is most evident in healthcare, an industry that requires mass customization because every person's body is different. Wohlers estimated the 2009 revenues from 3-D-printed medical devices at $157 million. British manufacturing expert Phil Reeves says more than 10 million 3-D-printed hearing aids are in circulation worldwide (it takes just an hour and a half to fabricate one), along with more than 500,000 3-D-printed dental implants. Medical researchers are using fabricators to turn CT and MRI scans into 3-D models and, at a still very experimental level, to "bioprint" artificial bones, blood vessels, and even kidneys layer by layer from living tissue. Established manufacturers still have the upper hand when it comes to larger quantities or complex assembly. That could change, however, as the devices foster new waves of experimentation.
Open Source Manufacturing
Probably the most disruptive element of this technology is not the tools themselves, but the maker culture — the community of people who sell, use, and adapt the tools of digital fabrication. This community is, in effect, a self-organizing global supply chain, consisting of hundreds of interlinked businesses, user groups, online shopping sites, and social media environments. Online fabrication services such as i.materialise (a Belgian company founded in 1990) and Sculpteo (a Paris-based service founded in 2009) provide on-demand 3-D printing and laser cutting in small volumes and at rates that are affordable to individuals. Customers upload a digital design and receive the corresponding physical object by mail a few days later. Ponoko (a New Zealand startup founded in 2007) and Shapeways (a Netherlands-based spin-off of Philips Electronics) go one step farther: They are supply chain management tools for garage inventors, enabling creators to exchange plans and instructions, coordinate production, and sell their designs and fabricated objects directly to the public.
Complementing these businesses are open repositories like Thingiverse, a website created and managed by MakerBot, a New York–based manufacturer of 3-D printers that was founded in 2009. At Thingiverse, people can freely download one another's designs and programming code for such ubiquitous products as gears, bottle openers, and coat hooks. Distributed manufacturing networks like Makerfactory and 100kGarages enable the communities further by connecting digital fabricators with potential customers, allowing customers to post job requests that are then bid on by individual fabricators. There are also successful new small enterprises using digital fabrication to make customizable iPhone accessories (Glif), jewelry (Nervous System), cases for prosthetic limbs (Bespoke), and other products such as kitchenware, toys, and furniture. They generally make their goods on demand, with short production runs, catering to both local and global markets.
The makers who start and run these enterprises don't work alone. Nor do they rely on university or company labs, as innovators did in the past. Instead, they are forming open source collaboratives and workshops that take advantage of the dropping costs of digital fabrication and the connectivity of social media. In the past few years, many informal workshop collaboratives have sprung up around the world. These spaces are not centrally owned or organized, but they share information collectively and help one another advance. One such operation, TechShop, has six locations in the United States and markets itself with the slogan "Build your dreams here." Another group, the community fabrication spaces called Fab Labs, is affiliated with MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms; there are 50 Fab Labs in 16 countries. Even more numerous are "hackerspaces": community-organized workshops that share an ethic of collaboration and information sharing on tools and processes. The world map on hackerspaces.org registers about 500 of these collectives. Centers for bio-fabrication also exist; the New York–based Genspace offers the tools to perform synthetic biology experiments, DNA analysis, and more.
Within the maker culture, people are expected to publish their plans and specifications, typically under an open source license, which allows others to copy, adapt, and learn from the designs, always with credit and mutual access to ideas. Makers tend to design their business models accordingly. They make short runs of each product and make frequent changes based on customer feedback; two makers might work together easily while creating competing products that draw on each other's specifications.
Many successful manufacturing startups are emerging from this community, with strong ties to its open source ethic. SparkFun Electronics Inc., founded in 2003 in Boulder, Colo., makes electronic component modules and devices. Its revenues reached $18 million in 2010. Makerbot and Arduino (based in Chiasso, Switzerland, and making microcontroller modules) had revenues of more than $1 million each, and Adafruit Industries (New York, electronics kits and sensors) reported sales of well over $2 million. The Arduino microcontroller board, an open source microcontroller platform, sold almost 300,000 units in its first seven years, and has spawned dozens of derivative products because its design is freely available for copying and innovation. Open source software is already a billion-dollar business, and Adafruit partner Phillip Torrone estimates that open source hardware will reach that threshold by 2015. (Torrone is also an editor of Make magazine, which is devoted to the maker culture.)
A noteworthy parallel to, and inspiration for, the Western maker community is the shan zhai movement in China. These fast-moving "knockoff" manufacturers are genuinely innovative in their own right. They respond to local needs and tastes, they make continual improvements in their products, and they repeatedly invest in future developments. (See "Knockoffs Come of Age," by Edward Tse, Kevin Ma, and Yu Huang, s+b, Autumn 2009.) Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, vice president of engineering for Chumby, an Internet browsing/receiving device whose plans are published under open source licenses, adds that many shan zhai companies share information about materials and other design elements, and credit one another with improvements. As do other maker groups, the shan zhai community enforces this policy itself and ostracizes those who violate it.
Already, digitally enabled open source manufacturing is changing the way people think about the production and use of goods. As Eric von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at MIT's Sloan School of Management, put it in his book Democratizing Innovation (MIT Press, 2005): "User-centered innovation processes offer great advantages over the manufacturer-centric...systems that have been the mainstay of commerce for hundreds of years. Users that innovate can develop exactly what they want, rather than relying on manufacturers to act as their (often very imperfect) agents. Moreover, individual users do not have to develop everything they need on their own: they can benefit from innovations developed and freely shared by others."
This change is likely to translate into greater levels of product and process innovation. Von Hippel notes that "users were the developers of about 80 percent of the most important scientific instrument innovations, and also the developers of most of the major innovations in semiconductor processing." And it will make supply chains more robust: As small shops and home shops come online and share information, networks of vendors grow more dense, more diverse, and less dependent on any one supplier or region.
Lessons for Large Manufacturers
Any disruptive innovation requires changes in basic operating practices, and digital fabrication is no exception. For example, many large manufacturers have separated high-expense "creative" or "innovative" R&D from low-cost production processes. But in the maker community, those two practices are merging again. The changes to come will accelerate moves that some leading manufacturers are already making: toward open source innovation, flexible production, and knowledge-intensive production lines. If you are a mainstream manufacturer intending to become a leader in this new environment, here are some directions worth considering.
• Prepare now for the capabilities you'll need when some of your products are digitally fabricated. As early as 2020, every auto dealership and home improvement retailer may have a backroom production shop printing out parts and tools as needed. Manufacturers that figure out how to make their wares out of printable composites, investing now in the requisite changes in materials, could have a considerable advantage.
One way to gain skills and experience is to participate in fabrication-oriented supply chain networks, leasing out excess capacity to smaller manufacturers or startups or using those customers to diversify your existing business. SparkFun has done this for clients that want small numbers of custom-printed circuit boards, spinning off a business called BatchPCB.com, which aggregates small circuit-board jobs into larger batches for mass production. For the end customer, it means waiting a few more days for the board, but at a drastically reduced price.
Experience suggests that your own company's capabilities will improve when your employees get their hands on the tools of fabrication. For the past 50 years, the separation of manufacturing from R&D has produced engineering graduates with too little hands-on manufacturing experience. Now that fabrication tools are increasingly driven by digital information, the two functions can work more closely together. Many factory-floor workers are already highly skilled at reading and interpreting design files and operating and maintaining machinery, and should be seen as allies in adapting shop processes to match new tools. As computer-controlled fabrication tools become more flexible and product runs become shorter, a typical factory worker might be making tripod handles in the morning and watchbands in the afternoon, and the gap between R&D and manufacturing will narrow.
• Establish a hybrid product line that mixes complementary mass-production and individual-production items. For some objects, digital fabrication will allow you to shorten product life cycles and make rapid improvements. Limor Fried, founder of Adafruit, notes that you can sell 2,000 of anything on the Internet with little effort. If you can finance development by planning a run that size, you can innovate at a profit. Digital fabrication tools make it easy to swap in new features, change the production line, or restart production of old products if demand resurfaces. In this environment, it's helpful to think of product planning as designing a continuous information flow, rather than designing separately launched objects.
For other items, such as commonly used products, exploit the competitive advantage that scale provides. Whether it's the mounting bolt used in all camera tripods, the USB cables that connect to more and more electronic devices, or the ubiquitous aluminum drink can, things that are universally compatible and consumed in large quantities will always be needed. Because standards hold a complex system together, they must be openly available, clearly defined, and changed only when necessary. This makes them good anchor products for large manufacturers that have capable supply chains.
• Counter reverse engineering with open innovation. Digital fabrication will inevitably enable amateur enthusiasts to knock off and alter commercial products in their garages. Although it's unlikely that any one individual will replicate complex goods such as laptops, cameras, or cars in large quantities, the Internet is already flooded with blueprints for customizing consumer goods, repurposing game controllers, and replacing broken parts. Just like the music and movie industries, manufacturers now face a choice between engaging in eternal court battles with their own customers and assimilating this new culture of sharing and remixing into their design and production processes.
Deploy the new tools to help consumers adapt and personalize their products, and use this to learn about their unspoken wants and needs. There are already several examples to emulate. Quirky.com, a site where inventors can propose their ideas for fabrication, invites the 35,000-plus members of its community to vote on whether a product should be made. The result is imaginative devices and housewares as varied as precision plungers, cord organizers, and new types of Swiss Army–style knives. Customers whose ideas are manufactured get a cut of the profits.
The Microsoft Corporation has learned from customer innovation on its Kinect sensor, a popular accessory for its Xbox 360 game console that allows games to track and respond to people's body motions. Just after the Kinect's North American introduction, Adafruit announced a competition for an alternative open source driver for the device. This started a frenzy of "Kinect hacking," generating numerous novel applications for the device — including 3-D mapping for robotic devices, 3-D holographic images, and many other applications. The Kinect, which was originally marketed as just a sophisticated video game controller, could thus be made into a motion-detection device with endless applications, appealing to a much broader customer base. Although Microsoft initially threatened legal action, it ultimately chose to capitalize on the excitement. (It later turned out that Johnny Chung Lee, a member of the Kinect design team, had financed the original Adafruit competition without asking permission from the company.) Microsoft now provides a software development kit to cultivate its "unofficial" Kinect developers.
Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) also combines proprietary and open source products in its portfolio. Its open source products include the Beagle Board, a low-cost computer-processing device with the computational capabilities of a typical smartphone or tablet computer. Jason Kridner of BeagleBoard.org, a developer community that includes several TI employees, told Make magazine editor Phil Torrone, "The revenues on board sales are in excess of $1 million annually and continue to rise, but the business model here is one of enabling the technology partners, not making money off the board sales. That said, all parties in the value chain are making money off the board sales — and this helps to keep the ecosystem alive where people can participate at almost any level."
Are there enough interested customers to justify such efforts? One 2010 research study of United Kingdom consumers, conducted by Eric von Hippel, Jeroen De Jong, and Steven Flowers, found that 2.9 million people, or 6.2 percent of the nation's adult population, have taken part in some form of consumer product innovation since 2006. "In aggregate," they wrote, "consumers' annual product development expenditures are 2.3 times larger than the annual consumer product R&D expenditures of all firms in the UK combined."
• Help in the development of new and better materials for fabrication. Independent fabricators are eager for materials, and they are experimenting fervently. Forward-thinking manufacturers can form powerful partnerships by making their scrap materials available for experimentation.
Advanced materials emerging today include conductive thermopolymers and inks (useful for printing electronic circuits), organic semiconductors, metal filaments with low melting points, and paper pulp that can feed into 3-D printers for additive packaging. The list grows daily, and materials information is ever-more-readily available on open access blogs such as formlovesfunction.com and openmaterials.org.
Better materials are particularly needed to reduce waste and hazard at the end of a product's life, especially because the faster production cycles of digital fabrication may lead to increasing numbers of discarded products. Ultimately, the disposal of goods is a problem of information and logistics. Recyclers need to know what's in a product to break it down into component materials safely. The companies that manage assembly of a product can (and, in our opinion, should) partner with recyclers, providing the information needed to safely and profitably disassemble it into raw materials.
• Be prepared for new misuses of technology. The most troubling side of digital fabrication is the potential for new forms of crime and abuse. In June 2010, i.materialise.com received an order for a custom skimmer, a card-reading device that fastens to the card slot on an ATM. Cleverly designed skimmers can look just like part of the machine. Every time a customer inserts a debit card, the skimmer copies the card numbers and PINs for later extraction. The proprietors of i.materialise refused to fabricate the skimmer, but other 3-D printing services may not be as ethical.
Disruption has its downsides. A diversified supply chain, more widespread manufacturing literacy, and changing intellectual property practices will inevitably bring new forms of abuse and mishap. Regulations and conventional law enforcement might not be agile or thorough enough to keep up. Manufacturing as an industry will need to promote new best practices and professional norms — in collaboration with a more engaged customer base and a wider range of manufacturing, distribution, and reclamation partners.
The Future of Detroit
Taken as a whole, digital fabrication and information sharing herald a diversification of the manufacturing ecosystem. Economies of scale will still exist. Large manufacturers that adapt will benefit significantly. Not every customer will be a maker. Most will be happy to purchase products created by others, but they will choose from among a far greater number of producers and innovators. Remember that despite the popularity of file sharing, the music and movie industries are not dying. The mainstream producers of goods may face similar challenges and opportunities.
To Dale Dougherty, publisher of Make magazine, Detroit represents the prototypical city of the future for digitally enabled manufacturing. Detroit has a large population in need of employment, knowledge of a wide range of manufacturing techniques, and a surplus of affordable real estate. In July 2010, Dougherty convened the first of a series of "Maker Faire" expos in the Motor City (similar expos had taken place since 2006 in the San Francisco Bay area and Austin, Texas). Three hundred and twenty-five Michigan-based manufacturers of products, including knitted goods, soap, machine tools, rockets, and auto components, showed off their work to the public.
Dougherty envisions cities like Detroit fostering new industries of digitally enabled fabrication. Large manufacturers might outsource designs to local micro-factories, leveraging supply chains to build highly responsive production networks. Unions might help their laid-off members become entrepreneurs, providing group buying power for health insurance as well as materials and services. Whether digital fabrication will have this kind of transformative effect on troubled economies isn't known; indeed, no one can predict exactly how the new, disruptive technology will play out. But we can already guess at the capabilities that will be needed by manufacturers to win in this new game. The history of digital technology suggests that the winners will be those that embrace decentralized models, exchanging the kinds of information, materials, fabrication processes, knowledge, and labor that, for the first time, can travel freely across a network of avid makers.
Reprint No. 11307
Author profiles:
- Tom Igoe is an associate arts professor at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU-ITP), where he oversees work on research and teaching related to the physical design of computer interfaces and sustainable practices in technology development. He is the author of Making Things Talk (O'Reilly Media, 2007), and a cofounder of Arduino LLC, an open source microcontroller platform.
- Catarina Mota is a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas Universidade Nova de Lisboa and a fellow at the International Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies, a partnership between the Science and Technology Foundation of Portugal (FCT-MCTES) and the University of Texas at Austin. She is cofounder of the openMaterials research group.


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by David Crane
Back in February (2006), DefenseReview briefly discussed the new and improved MGI QCB (Quick Change Barrel) Upper Receiver system and MGI D-Fender "D-Ring" in our article titled DefRev Quick Hits 3 from SHOT Show 2006: And the Hits Keep Comin'.
We got to handle and examine both of these items, as well as MGI's Modular Lower Receiver with Interchangeable Mag Wells, which mates to it, at the MGI Industries, Inc. a.k.a. MGI Military booth in the outside tent situated outside of the main exhibition hall at SHOT Show 2006. In his article on the MGI QCB Upper Receiver and modular lower receiver in the #44 edition of Special Weapons for Military & Police, Charlie Cutshaw referred to the complete weapon system as the "Hydra" (as in "MGI Hydra Carbine"), the "Hydra" moniker of course referring to the seven-headed monster of Greek mythology. This is applicable to the QCB upper since it is a multi-caliber system.
In fact, the MGI Hydra's modular/multi-caliber capability is the…
whole reason behind the design and development of the system in the first place. Mack Gwinn Sr. and Mack Gwinn Jr. (Mack W. Gwinn) developed the Hydra modular/multi-caliber weapons system in response to the Special Operations community's need for a multi-caliber rifle/carbine that would give them an AR-15/M14/M4 Carbine-platform system that would allow them to utilize any/all calibers that are applicable to the various combat missions and environments that they find themselves in OCONUS (Outside the Contintental United States), specifically in Afganistan (a.k.a. "Stan) and Iraq. While on these missions, SPECOPS personnel (a.k.a. Spec-Operators) often come across enemy 7.62x39mm ammo and magazines (AK-47/AKM mags), so this caliber was particularly important for the MGI Hydra Carbine/modular weapons system to be able to utilize.
In order to be able convert the HYDRA from 5.56x45mm/.223 Remington to 7.62x39mm, in addition to the weapon itself (MGI upper and lower receiver assemblies) the operator only needs carry a 7.62x39mm barrel and bolt carrier group (bolt and bolt carrier), an AK magazine well, and spare AK mags (Kalashnikov mags). The actual conversion proceure can be accomplished very quickly in the field. Swapping out barrels via the proprietary and patented cam lever system takes seconds, not minutes, so it's a true quick-change barrel. Swapping out the bolt carrier group and mag wells can also be accomplished quickly. According to Cutshaw, once the replacement magwell is installed, it locks up rock solid and ain't comin' loose (he describes the lock-up method in some detail), which is important for a combat weapon.
The story gets better: 7.62x39mm isn't the only caliber conversion available. The MGI Hydra Carbine will allow the user to convert to 6.8x43mm (6.8 SPC), 6.5 Grendel, .50 Beowulf (designed and developed by Bill Alexander of Alexander Arms), .22LR (using a Jonathan Arthur Ciener .22LR Atchisson conversion kit), and .22 WMR. That gives the user a total of seven (7) calibers at he/she can utilize witht he Hydra, provided they can afford the spare barrels, bolts, bolt carriers, mag wells, and mags.
If the MGI Hydra QCB carbine/modular weapon system (MGI QCB upper and modular lower, combined) proves to be adequately durable, reliable, and accurate, and all the unique features work as advertised, it may well be the most significant development in the history of the AR-15/M16/M4 system, since the original AR-16/M16 was first developed, just as Mr. Cutshaw asserts. It's a very slick system, and DefenseReview was very impressed with it when we got to examine it at SHOT. We look forward to putting the system through its paces as soon as possible. In the meantime, we're going to try to get some testimonials from active U.S. military Special Operations personnel and/or PMC/PSC PSD/Security Operators who have run it.
The MGI QCB Hydra carbine/modular weapons system operates via direct-gas-impingement, just like the standard AR-16/M16/M4 Carbine. However, a gas piston-driven (gas piston/op rod) version of the Hydra may be in the works (i.e. under development). We don't know, yet. We'll try to find out.
The system's performance should be even more impressive, once you add the MGI M16/M4/AR-15 Rate Reducing Buffer, MGI Regulated Gas Tube, MGI Super 2X Recoil Spring, and MGI D-Fender "D-Ring". The Rate Reducing Buffer can apparently reduce the AR-15/M16/M4's cyclic rate/ROF (Rate of Fire) over 300 RPM (Rounds-Per-Minute). The Regulated Gas Tube, according to MGI, can assist in mitigating gas port erosion and enables the user to adjust the gas system for specific ammo and environmental conditions. The Super 2X Recoil Spring, made from music wire, is more than two times as strong as a conventional spring and gets rid of the "bong" sound of the conventional spring. The D-Fender D-Ring, which DefenseReview picked up at the show, "can assist in eliminating extraction problems".
MGI also makes a nifty 90-shot 5.56x45mm magazine for the AR-15/M16/M4 called, appropriately, the "90 Rounder".
If you'd like to get more information on the MGI Hydra QCB (Quick-Change Barrel) system, you can contact MGI Industries, Inc. by phone at 207-945-5441, by fax at 207-945-4010, and by email at firstname.lastname@example.com. The Hydra is available in both select-fire (full-auto) and semi-auto versions. The semi-auto version is available to civilians.


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DURHAM, N.H. (AP) — The University of New Hampshire has fired women's hockey coach Brian McCloskey after an investigation into inappropriate physical contact with a player.
In a brief statement, the university did not describe the contact except to say it occurred on the bench during a home loss to Ohio State on Nov. 30.
UNH Athletic Director Marty Scarano says the university has "zero tolerance" for unsportsmanlike behavior.
The team, which is 6-9-2, will be led by its assistant coaches, Jamie Wood and Stephanie Jones, in two games this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth.
Conference play resumes Jan. 10, and the school says an interim head coach will be in place.
A phone number for McCloskey could not be found.


text:
Testimonies of Interrogators
Interrogation room in the defunct Camp X-Ray. Photo Credits: Chris Zuppa / St.
Petersburg Times.
- Testimony of a Former Interrogation Control Element Chief
According to the JTF Guantanamo public affairs office, five different buildings
were used to interrogate detainees at the defunct Camp X-Ray. Photo Credit:
Chris Zuppa / St Petersburg Times.


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This set of main page <tags/> allows for easier main page design and is the recommended method of creating layouts for desktop main pages.
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Matodi Palya also called as Matawadi Palya is a dish made of soaked Bengal gram or Chana Dal and fenugreek / methi leaves. It is one of those dishes which fall under the category of extremely tasty but time and oil consuming ones! You need to plan ahead as it needs the dal to be soaked for a few hours, the methi leaves picked, washed and chopped. Hence this is made as part of a special meal on a festival day or a weekend when you can over eat and play couch potato. This vegetable or palya as it is called in Kannada is quite crumbly by itself, making it necessary to add more oil (gulp!) when it is mixed with rice. It is eaten as a special combination with curd based gravies such as Majjige Huli or Hasi Majjige and even gojju or sweet and sour gravy.
There are again different versions of preparing this delectable dish. Just Bengal gram and sometimes a combination of both Bengal gram and Toor Dal are used here. Would like to add that this is also made with raw bananas or sometimes with cluster beans in place of the methi leaves. You could add a whole lot more than the amount of methi leaves mentioned here. The dal or dals are first soaked for a few hours till soft. Then ground with spices, green chillies and coconut till smooth. Then comes out your big kadai or frying pan. Biggest one actually! Folks don't take to it kindly if you don't serve this very generously at least twice a day, leftovers are lapped up without a murmur of protest! The ground paste is fried till all the moisture evaporates and you get a divine aroma wafting through your home. Health conscious and lazy folks prefer to steam this paste as we steam idlis, then add a lesser amount of oil and fry for lesser time. I am yet to try making Matodi Palya this way, but definitely sounds like a promising idea. I personally like to eat this with plain steamed rice and oil, then with loads of rasam and then with curd rice. Oh, yes! Its heavenly! If you have never tasted this, I urge you try it, you will surely love it...
This is my mother-in-law's recipe and boy was I glad she made a lot of it!! I won't tell you that I hogged on this and how!!
Bengal Gram / Chana Dal 1 1/2 Cups
Fresh fenugreek / methi leaves, chopped - 1 cup firmly packed ( you could use 2 cups too, more doesn't hurt)
Green Chillies - 5-6 large
Asafetida / Hing - A generous pinch
Fresh Coconut, grated - 1/2 cup
Jeera powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Oil - 1/4 cup plus 1 or 2 tablespoons more as needed
Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
Bengal Gram - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 3/4 teaspoon
Curry leaves - A few
Salt to taste
Procedure: Wash and soak the Bengal gram in enough water for about 3 hours or till soft. Think Masala Vadas! Grind the dal to an almost smooth paste using as little water as possible. A few whole grains here and there is fine. Grind the coconut, jeera powder, hing and green chillies to a smooth paste. In a large bowl, mix the ground dal, coconut paste, turmeric powder, chopped methi leaves and salt to taste. The ground mixture may taste spicy now, but once fried it will be less spicy. At this stage you could steam the mixture till cooked and then carry on with the rest of the procedure.
Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large broad, thick bottomed frying pan. Add the mustard seeds, chana dal and curry leaves. Add the dal mixture and fry on high heat for a few minutes, stirring continuously. This lot of oil will disappear like magic! Don't worry, it will resurface sometime later...
Lower the heat, cover the pan with a lid. You need to keep mixing the palya every 5 minutes or so for about half an hour. The raw smell should disappear, the dal cooked, crumbly and oily when done.
Serve with hot rice and oil, gojju / majjige huli / hasi majjige...The above quantity serves 3-4 people.


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The fast-evolving world of digital marketing has undergone profound changes over the past year. 2012 will offer us some even more interesting developments.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Content will trump craftiness
Google 's recent (and arguably overdue) change to its search algorithm, or how it ranks sites, was the game-changer of 2011. Google's older algorithm gave less weight to how frequently a company was being discussed on social platforms like Twitter and more to relevance.
On the one hand, expect to see more results to be linked to timely and social relevance and less to esoteric tinkering. On the other, as its product offering becomes arguably more robust, expect a bit of backlash over Google's keyword and site promotion offerings (have you noticed how those sponsored sites are slowly taking over the results page?). The burden of authentic, timely and relevant content on the part of companies will become ever more important.
Influencer Management: A new kind of celebrity is born
Marketing 101 teaches business students the virtues of segmentation. Today, when we think of celebrity endorsement it is the Kardashian call to Sears that comes to mind. Increasingly, however, it is specific community experts that are becoming the true celebrities that influence consumer decisions. Companies like Klout now assign "influence" scores to web users, allowing marketers insight into who might be most likely to talk about their brand. With a few Las Vegas casinos already offering upgrades to guests with high Klout scores, expect to see more companies giving special perks (pricing, gifts or unique information) to those they consider most likely to influence others. Powerful platforms by firms like Youcast are emerging to allow marketers to identify the top influencers specific to a company's audience. Expect companies in 2012 to focus marketing on those customers most likely to be influencers or brand ambassadors.
Mobile and Tablet: Leapfrogging
In 2010, for the first time in the history of computing, tablet sales have surpassed desktop sales. Yet many companies continue to channel most of their investment into their web presence, continuing to think of their mobile and tablet use as an adjunct nicety. Expect that to change in 2012. The savviest of marketers will also know how to appeal to the untethered consumer. They will harness geo-localization technologies (Foursquare-style check-ins and soon even walk-bys) for customized offers, better use QR codes to gather data and link to in-store experiences. And outside of the US, mobile is increasingly playing a larger role as is mobile use is often stronger, with wireless technology often superior to older line-bound networks.
Facebook: Watch those marketing budgets shift
With the amount of time spent on social media now exceeding 23% and Facebook now accounting for 90% of that time, it has become clear to companies that Facebook is a serious platform for marketers. Yet advertising dollars still remain eschewed to print and television, places that consumers are spending ever less time. As companies begin to realize where their customers are really spending their time, they will begin to reallocate resources away from traditional media to social platforms, with Facebook leading the pack. And consequently, the meteoric rise of Facebook software applications by companies like Buddy Media, Wildfire and Tigerlily will continue as companies seek in earnest to organize, augment and measure their effectiveness on the platform. And expect Facebook itself to evolve as well in 2012, offering better insights and improving their e-commerce functionality "f-commerce".
Video: Emotional and Viral
2012 is likely to be a banner year for video. Infinitely more emotional than text, video is a rich medium that fits perfectly within an ever more social web. 85% of Americans watch videos online, and they watch a lot of them too-- over 1.3 billion (yes, billion) videos a day. Studies show far higher levels of engagement and customer conversion among brands that use video on their websites. We will see the giant of the pack, YouTube, with its new organization and improved functionality make content creation and sharing easier- effectively solidifying its role among social sharing platforms. And innovative firms such as Boston's Vsnap, whose technology allows users to create and send short video messages will tap into the democratization of content creation and desire for more dynamic sharing. Expect video advertising to grow significantly as it is a far less crowded a space than television.
Finally, 2012 may be the year in which video-powered social shopping technologies like (e)-motional, a tool that allows users to click on, share and purchase items without ever leaving a video, begin to catch on.
Internationalization and Localization: Relevance Rules
While in theory the internet has no borders, few companies know how to effectively garner and cultivate an international audience effectively. Expect that to change in 2012. Data shows that brands with localized web and social media presence enjoy far greater engagement and brand buzz. But the distinction between internationalization and localization is an important one. Successful localization efforts go far beyond language translation alone. They create and encourage content that is relevant to the local audience. Expect companies to pay more attention to the other 88% of internet users that don't live in the US.
What's the link among all of these?
They all involve tools and technologies that enhance engagement and improve interaction. In fact, 2012 may be the year when "social marketing" simply becomes "marketing". After all, aren't businesses operating in society social by definition?
Philip Guarino is a Boston World Partnerships Connector and the founder of Elementi Consulting, a Boston-based consulting firm specialized in business strategy and market development. Elementi helps companies succeed in international business development, digital strategy and multi-channel marketing.
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