2015-09-20

Notes.

Zach wrote a really good retrospective on our sourcing trip to China for The Public Radio. It's kind of a must-read for anyone thinking about manufacturing and product development... which unless I'm crazy should be everyone on this mailing list.

Meanwhile I got some new EBM titanium bike parts from Addaero, and am scheming on some fun things there :)

Pathfinding.

• Google (ugh, Alphabet?) hired John Krafcik to CEO their self-driving car business. Krafcik was the first American engineer hired at NUMMI (now the Tesla factory), and coined the term "lean production."
• Etsy launched their manufacturing product, which helps shop owners to scale their businesses. I know that Amanda has been working on these ideas for a while, and am really interested in seeing where it goes.

Building.

• Delcam is apparently making build prep software for metal AM. I'm interested in this.
• iRobot is finally giving its high end Roombas vision, and a method of scheduling them that doesn't feel like 1996.
• Hershey's and 3D Systems are gearing up for a full launch of chocolate 3D printers (thanks, Dan!)

Logistics.

• 2nd Ave. Sagas on the state of the MTA's maintenance efforts.
• Stirling engines are pretty cool.
• A good short piece on how the New Jersey Department of Transportation is preparing for the Pope's visit.

Evaluation.

• Nicola Twilley on the RFID player tracking system that the NFL just rolled out.
• This is kind of a strange one for me, but I went to see a show of Trevor Paglen's work at Metro Pictures in Chelsea. It's kind of about the internet - there's a bunch of stuff about subsea internet cables - and I really enjoyed it. It's up until October 24th; check it out.

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

• Venice Backstage is a website about how the city of Venice works. The video on their home page is really interesting - recommended.
• Chris Quintero (of Bolt) on the state of venture capital and hardware.

And.

A discussion on what types of images are *really* difficult
to compress by JPEG.