Pathing.
- How Domino's became a tech company.
- The trouble that agencies get into (and benefits they receive) when they release their own products.
- The costs & benefits of "unlimited" vacation policies. Recommended.
- The FBI is changing their policy on hiring & marijuana.
- Felix Salmon on why salaries should be public.
- Getting couples to join a gym together does *not* help them follow through on exercising regularly.
Manufacturing.
- Hydroponic farms use colored LEDs to grow vegetables.
- As Elon Musk trash talks hydrogen fuel cells, Toyota is doubling down on them.
- A new move in supercomputing: Networked smartphone & tablet ARM CPUs.
- Photochromism is a process by which a material's light absorption properties change in reaction to electromagnetic radiation - think "Transitions" lenses. This video of fast photochromic liquids is really cool.
Logistics.
- A really good history of shipping pallets.
- Working at an office doesn't make you more productive, but it does affect your career success.
- Error correction in quantum computers may be improving.
- A company called Peloton is building software to allow tractor trailers to draft each other - saving up to 10% in fuel costs.
- Square is giving small businesses weird cash advances.
- Brain controlled flight. I *think* this is real.
- Beaming WiFi to the moon.
- A French company called SigFox is using the unregulated 915MHz spectrum to build a wireless network *just* for things.
- Quantum teleportation has been done.
- Google's self-driving car prototype.
- Google Tango can be used to help drones fly autonomously.
Reflecting.
- A history of ramen.
- Ben Thompson on publishers & Amazon.
- World War II as the impetus for the modern mapmaking era.
- The Great (canonical) works of software.
- Baby Boomers are no longer #1: There are now more 22-year-olds than any other age.
- Client feedback on the creation of the Earth. Yes.
Stuff that doesn't fit into my dumb/arbitrary categories.
- Photos of North Brother Island, the abandoned NYC island where Typhoid Mary was quarantined.
- The second genome (bacteria) in personal hygiene.
- Leap Motion can now be used to translate sign language.
And.
The hidden beauty of airport runway markings.
Love, Spencer.
ps - Thank you to everyone - especially my friends at Gin Lane, Undercurrent, and on twitter - who referred me to everything here.
We should be closer friends. Coffee's on me.
