2015-06-22

Notes.

I took the weekend off.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time reading the Paul Ford "What is Code?" piece, which I'm still not done with but endorse anyway.

Pathfinding.

• Elon Musk still isn't associated with any of the Hyperloop companies, but SpaceX is building a test track and inviting teams to compete on pod designs.
• Jack Ma wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, where he reiterated that his only goal is to get American companies to sell stuff in China.

Building.

• A Dutch designer wants to use a couple of ABB robots with directed energy deposition heads attached to them to 3d print a bridge in mid-air. This idea is more than a little bit nuts, especially as DED (a process that uses an energy source, usually a high powered laser, to melt base metal while spraying powdered metal at the melt pool) tends to build in a *ton* of stress into the parts it builds. As a result, these robots will have to be constantly checking & error correcting where they are and how they're laying out new material, never mind the fact that we're currently not any good at predicting how . But whatever - jetpacks, right?
• Chipotle is working on a mass-produced tortilla that has only four or five ingredients.

Logistics.

• A good Planet Money story on how a dispute with German poultry farmers ended up with the US placing a tariff on pickup trucks that stands to today.

Evaluation.

• Horace Dediu on the business models that Apple/Google/Uber use to make their maps businesses work.

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

• Jeb Bush's website's source code contained (for at least a little while) a synopsis of Die Hard.

And.

HEY!
I need a machine shop in NYC for some prototyping work.
Who's got the hookup? And why has it been so hard to find?
They'll get to work on cool stuff like this: