2014-12-26

Notes.

I'm in Seattle with family for the holidays. I visited Boeing's Everett factory on a whim, and saw 747, 777 and 787s being built. Unfortunately I couldn't take photos, but Google Images is pretty good on that front. Did you know: The carbon fiber wings on the 787 can flex 21 feet up-down during flight?

Also I think I figured out how to host EAGLE CAD (with shared libraries!) on Github. And I changed the "Reflecting" heading to "Evaluation," which feels a little bit like a non-improvement, but what the heck.

Pathing.

• The conventional wisdom around oil pricing is always wrong.
• I feel like this is fake but NASA is apparently trying to populate Venus.
• Sparkfun has a good overview of how they design test fixtures for PCBs.

Building.

• NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is trying to use van der Waals forces as a zero gravity adhesive. As you may know, van der Waals forces are used by Geckos to stick to climb vertical surfaces, and AFAIK are affective on pretty much every substance - except teflon.
• A pretty awesome time lapse video of a Boeing 737-800 being built. According to the awesomely geeky 737 Technical Site, Boeing makes 737s at a rate of 42 per month.
• The dynomak is one variant on the tokamak, which itself is a class of theoretically possible cold fusion reactors. Anyway, some people are working on building a dynomak, and this article gives a decent take on how they're doing, and who the other players in the field of fusion are.
• Because graphene is highly inert, it's hard to use it in composites; epoxies just don't bond with it. But a company in the UK is working on functionalization processes that hold good promise for commercially viable graphene composites.

Logistics.

• A surprisingly good counterargument to all the economic arguments for Uber. Whichever side you're on, I really recommend considering it.
• The MTA is advertising courtesy.

Evaluation.

• An awesome analysis of TechCrunch headlines. Interestingly, TechCrunch is writing fewer stories about fundraises than they have since 2012. Also, "Instagram for video" is the most common "x for y," and Airbnb is the most common company in "x for ys."
• Plus size models often wear fat suits. Which is kind of weird, and does seem like it just forks the traditional body type ideals.
• Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and Total effective equipment performance (TEEP) are measures of a shop, department, or factory's utilization. Anecdotally: most facilities can't measure them accurately, though we're getting closer.
• Steven Sinofsky recounts security issues early on at Microsoft (macros!), and relates what the Sony breach will mean for the future of software architecture.

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

• Boeing and BlackBerry are working on an ultra secure phone.
• Ayn Rand reviews children's movies.
• Modbot is a startup building modular articulated robots.
• Coca-Cola stopped taking voicemails.

And.

The crazy people who "run" self-declared micronations;
This guy is the President of the Republic of Molossia.