2015-10-17

Notes.

Hello! I'm Eric Weinhoffer, and I'm filling in for Spencer this week. I'm an engineer on the Hardware team at Other Machine Co., where I mainly focus on product design and project management. Like Spencer, I'm deeply involved with, and interested in, the world of manufacturing.

Pathfinding.

• This week Tesla rolled out version 7.0 of their software, granting their cars the ability to automatically change lanes and parallel park, among other things. And finally, someone steps up on the legal front: Volvo announced that they will take responsibility for all future accidents involving their autonomous vehicles.
• Apple released a few new accessories along with a new revision of the iMac, and Steven Levy at Medium wrote about their development process. I'd also highly recommend checking out Patently Apple if you're interested in reading about their many, many patent filings.
• Our wonderful CEO Danielle Applestone wrote about some of the things she learned from the insanely successful (as in, $12+ million) Glowforge lasercutter campaign.

Building.

• Some fantastic automated robotics manufacturing from FANUC.
• Ben Krasnow talks about how to choose the best cleaning solution for various situations.
• In the above video, Ben mentions this series: Building Prototypes by Dan Gelbart. It's a lot to take in but is incredibly informative for anyone who likes to build things.
• The Tangible Media Lab at MIT built a neat pin-based display that can manipulate blocks and build simple structures.

Logistics.

• Ingrid Burrington writes about that time she went to the NSA Data Center in Utah (and why Utah?).
• A structural engineer explains why Donald Trump's US-Mexico border wall idea is a bit insane.
• The designer of the San Francisco Bay Bridge is worried that leaks are damaging the main cables. This does not bode well...
• OpenRailwayMap is fantastic. So is SkyscraperPage.

Evaluation.

• Fake bike parts are much more prevalent than I thought. Here's a great read about how Specialized deals with it (thanks Ezra!).
• Tim O'Reilly announced a new conference that will focus on the future of work.
• The fear of a cyber attack encouraged the Navy to reinstate their celestial navigation course into the curriculum, after removing it entirely a few years ago. Hackers, man..

Air and Space.

• Reconstructing a Boeing 777 in manila folders.
• Read about the complexity of a Mars Rover selfie.

And.

Thank you, NASA.