2015-07-03

Notes.

This is a real throwback week - I'm sending this out on a Friday! Mostly so I can get it off my plate and start working on the backlog of stuff I have on my plate right now.

By the way, I've been getting some pretty low open rates the past few weeks. Is that just summer?

Pathfinding.

• Four big industrial additive players (3D Systems, Materialise, Siemens PLM Software, and Stratasys) joined the 3MF consortium. It would appear that this file format will have legs.
• Shyp converted all of its couriers to W2 employees.
• Despite the Supreme Court's decision that the EPA can't regulate pollutants from coal power plants, a *lot* of them will be retired (and likely repurposed) in the next decade.

Building.

• Last week Derek introduced me to Opendesk. It's pretty cool - open source plans for plywood office furniture. Download the plans, have them cut from plywood by a local cabinet shop.
• The Sealed Air company is introducing a new line of bubble wrap that should be much less expensive to ship to their customers - but the bubbles don't pop when you stamp on them :(
• Traditional refrigerated trucks are powered by diesel engines, which are shockingly inefficient. Now, there's a move to develop much more efficient (and quiet) refrigerators that are powered by liquid nitrogen.

Logistics.

• What would happen if all of our satellites were destroyed. Of particular concern is the Kessler syndrome, which is basically what happens in the movie Gravity.
• 33 Thomas St., aka the AT&T Long Lines Building, is an iconic part of New York City's digital infrastructure.
• How commuting patterns in NYC have changed over the past century, and the effect that's had on our daily social habits. My own commute is a big part of my life; the reading time it affords me is also the main reason that this newsletter exists.
• Some details on how CloudDDM (the 3D printing service run out of UPS's Louisville hub) operates. Incidentally, I'm told that the machines that CloudDDM "developed and manufactured" themselves are actually just Stratasys machines covered in chartreuse CloudDDM branding.

Evaluation.

• Bolt's teardown of a pair of Beats headphones.
• Some details (almost definitely incomplete) of Uber's financial situation.
• How Google Fiber pushed traditional communications companies to get (somewhat) serious about broadband.
• A good overview of how and why utilities don't like distributed renewable power generation.
• Kickstarter projects deliver on-time more often than VC backed companies, and are also run by a more diverse set of founders.
• Nicola Twilley on the history of singles bars and T.G.I. Friday's.

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

• A good overview of the different companies vying to purchase Nokia's Here mapping service.
• Gemination is the phonological phenomena when a consonant is elongated. English doesn't treat consonant length as distinct in root words, but languages like Japanese and Italian do.

And.

Photos of the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park, brought to you by the National Parks Service and the Department of Energy.