2014-10-31

Notes.

This week I visited an Amazon distribution facility with The New York Infrastructure Observatory. Expect a full report soon, and holler at me if you want to come on a similar tour in the future.

I also received the parts for the new bed I designed, and am looking forward to putting it together tomorrow. I'm about tapped out on side projects at the moment; it'll be good to have one wrap up.

Pathing.

• Michael I. Jordan, a machine learning & AI expert at Berkeley, gave a long and very interesting interview with IEEE Spectrum. The short version: There's cool stuff happening right now, but the hype (especially around computers that emulate the brain) is just silly.
• I *really* hope this video of Dyson's new robot's vision system is anywhere near accurate.
• Buffer is raising money, and they wrote a long post about why - and how - they're doing it. It's kinda intense.

Building.

• NASA will use an ultra-black nanotube coating to help block ambient light when viewing faraway objects.
• Some great detail on how sweat sensors work and what they can be used for.
• Cree is making LED light bulbs without heatsinks..
• Citibike's new leaders are planning expanded service, and ~50% price hikes.
• A distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana makes whisky for a *lot* of the "craft" brands.

Logistics.

• Man, this video of the construction of the 2nd Avenue Subway is *awesome.*
• Prole drift is the phenomenon where style propagates upward through socioeconomic strata.
• A great interview with the guy who runs NYPL's map collection.
• Some interesting data on how many containers are *actually* lost at sea.

Reflecting.

• Ford's testing lab and the science of failure prediction.
• A strong defense of "fake" reviews on Yelp. <- Strong recommend.
• Joe Louis - the boxer and the first big African American hero - was also a pretty accomplished golfer, and broke the PGA color barrier in 1952.
• Scott Miller (of Dragon Innovation) recorded a fun teardown of a really cheap jigsaw.
• The current wave of New York's anti-graffiti policies sound counterproductive.

Stuff that doesn't fit into my dumb/arbitrary categories.

• IFTTT is planning paid premium features in the "coming months."
• HP announced a 3D printer, and people seem to be really excited about it.

And.

The hype/fear about Chinese control over the rare earth
metals market was massively overblown.