Enrage Your Enemies with 3D Printers

We all have that certain someone, a special person who just gets under your skin like a fungus and does nothing but irritate you and make you ugly. Unfortunately, according to local law enforcement, you can’t just work out your differences by putting anchovies in their sock drawer or releasing a herdlet of hamsters into their kitchen cabinets. And taking out a full page advertisement in the New York Times to express, in great detail, all of the reasons why they are simply unbearable is just too expensive. In any case, those would only be short term solutions and, if you really don’t like someone, you are probably looking for something a bit more, shall we say, permanent.

Rather than engaging in assault and battery, and all of the nasty legal ramifications of such activities, try buying them a present instead. I know it sounds crazy, but stay with me. Think back to the last time you were issuing forth a string of profanities powerful enough to make Satan blush blue. Chances are, other than those moments of road rage, it involved technology and a DIY project. Do you remember now?

That’s right. Sure, 3D printers can make lots of amazing stuff. You only have to take a five-minute run around 3DPrint.com to see prosthetics, emergency shelters, and surgical models being produced as just a taste of what this technology can do. But think of all the stuff that isn’t making the news: all the prints gone wrong, the proprietary squabbling, the disappearance of support, and the endless amounts of times you have to explain that you cannot 3D print dinner. You probably felt a little bit of the rage welling up there behind your right eye just from reading that list, didn’t you?

Now, imagine giving that kind of rage creator to someone who really deserves it. That’s what the folks at Shitty Gifts (motto: Not every gift is given with love) are asking you to consider. In their own words:

“Let’s forget for just one moment that 99% of the shit that these things produce are akin to dollar store key fobs. The user won’t get that for a while. 3D printers may be amazing, but the rate at which prints fail is even more amazing…Even worse, and more rage inducing, is the fact that often a print won’t fail until hours…HOURS, into the job. The lucky owner of the most advanced rage-machine will be pulling out their hair and cussing the companies which constructed these monstrosities in no time at all.”

If you aren’t already chuckling under your breath at the mere idea of inducing such a state in someone you loathe, then you are probably too nice to have read this far into the article. For those of us who haven’t yet reached such a Mother Teresa-esque state of perfect forgiveness, the fantasy is delicious. And to gauge from the response to this idea among users on Reddit, there are a lot of us out there with unresolved issues. The only thing missing is a built-in camera that will live webcast your target’s experience back to you so that you can create a highlights tape of cursing, fist-pounding, and eye-bulging moments of rage induced by your present.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and re-evaluate my relationship with the person who purchased and bestowed upon me my own 3D printing nightmare. And maybe print a lifetime supply of 3D printed giftlets for them. Thoughts? Discuss in the 3D Printers for Enemies forum over at 3DPB.com.