2015-03-01

Notes.

I've mostly been working on a long (5k+ words) writeup on my DMLS research to date - and, in the process, thinking about how I can more fully integrate that kind of work into my career. If you've got thoughts on business models that bridge research & strategy - or if you've got a hookup who wants to publish a thoughtful & thorough perspective on the current state of metal 3D printing - hit me up!

I'm also being more rigorous with finances, starting with Nick's budgeting system. In this case, having any idea what's going on >= moving fast and breaking things.

Pathing.

• I like this idea: stochastic privacy. Basically, the thought is that privacy settings (an app using your location, say) shouldn't be all-or-nothing - they should be probabilistic.
• The NYTimes piece on Justine Sacco (who you'll remember from her Aids/white privilege tweet) is really good.

Building.

• NYC added about 425,000 jobs since 2009, and almost none of them have come from Wall St.
• Horace Dediu on the auto industry, in light of recent press about Apple building a car. A good takeaway: "For most motorists, congestion is a bigger problem than any vehicle deficiency." Also, an interesting piece on how long it would take for an auto supply chain buildup to become evident.
• This story is supposed to be about a hidden stop on the G between Bedford-Nostrand and Myrtle-Willoughby, but IMO it's *actually* about how much easier it is to dig extra tunnels that you might never use.
• Like many cities, much of NYC is built on trash. But I didn't know that Ellis Island went from 3.3 acres to 28 - or that those 25 acres of landfill are actually part of New Jersey.

Logistics.

• This is crazy. So, every cell tower is a little different. And your proximity to a cell tower - and the physical objects between your phone and the tower it's communicating with - have a big effect on energy usage. Well it turns out that if you track battery performance really closely, you can geolocate the user without asking for location services permission.
• So spark plugs introduce a spark at the end of a cylinder, producing incomplete (and inefficient) combustion. But if you could introduce the spark in the middle of the cylinder, you could increase fuel economy substantially. Well some researchers used lasers to do just that, and they made the engine 27% more fuel efficient as a result.
• Some interesting data on the effectiveness & locations of NYC's speed cameras. In 2014, they issued about $23M worth of fines.

Evaluation.

• Venmo's terms of service, and their security systems, are *not* as good as your bank's.
• An interesting piece about how Amazon Mechanical Turk can be an unreliable source of study data.
• David Carr's "Me and My Girls," an essay adapted from his memoir about being (in his words) "a fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke," is really intense.
• Of *course* Yelp should show health grades on their restaurant listings.
• Verizon did some pretty silly stuff after the FCC net neutrality decision went against them.

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

• There are four fundamental forces between particles...
• Chuck Klosterman interviewed Kobe Bryant. It's interesting.
• "Lo and behold, there is a minority of negative-minded people who describe others, snarkily, as "off fleek," (haters)."

And.

Pictures like these ones, from a sulfur mine in Indonesia,
are why I push back on predictions that some
"Uber for manufacturing" startup is going to give
us all jetpacks in the blink of an eye.