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.
Love, Spencer.
ps - Thank you to everyone - especially my friends at Gin Lane, Undercurrent, Brilliant Bicycles and on twitter - who referred me to everything here.
We should be closer friends. Coffee's on me.
