I overheard someone in the lunch line talking about 3D printers running in a conference room upstairs, and asked what that was about. He apparently happened to have a Makerbot on his desk a couple of years ago, and now the kids just expect to see 3D printers when they visit Google. I commented that they must think Google is awfully futuristic for having such high-tech equipment around – but oh no, he said, they think this stuff is totally normal. They know that plastic things must come from somewhere, so why wouldn’t it be a printer at Google? In fact they complain that the plastic is weird and bumpy, and only comes in one color – it’s only their parents who are impressed.

I said hello to Nathan H.’s daughter Mabry as she was eating lunch. She’s about four years old, and told me that she has a friend with a little brother who is also named “Mars”, who is two. I said that was great, I don’t know anyone else named Mars, and that I looked forward to talking with him some day. “Oh, but he’s only two”, she said; “by then you’ll be really really old, or maybe dead!”