2015-07-18

Notes.

Most of my energy this week was spent thinking about my career, and why I've focused so much energy on metal 3D printing over the past two years. I wrote something of a purpose & strategy statement about this yesterday, which to be honest was a bit exhausting, but it feels good to have it out there.

Pathfinding.

• Bill Gurley on why startups should use pitch decks. I still think they're a poor way to communicate, but he makes some good practical points here.
• How Anthony Bourdain travels.

Building.

• An Australian company called Aurora Labs is building laser based ~$40k metal 3D printers, which apparently do a combination of SLS, SLM, and directed energy deposition. This seems far fetched to me, but what do I know.

Logistics.

• New Yorkers who talk shit on the G train are wrong: it actually has exceptionally high uptime.
• In an attempt to reduce pedestrian deaths, "members of the New York City Council have sent a letter to Google asking that its Maps navigation system provide users an option to 'reduce left turns.'"
• Maersk is going to buy Greece's two biggest shipping ports.
• New Horizons did its Pluto flyby, and will now begin transmitting back the data it captured there - at a rate of 2,000 bits per second.

Evaluation.

• I really recommend The New Yorker's piece on the likelihood of a *huge* earthquake (and tsunami) in the Pacific Northwest.
• A woman's twenties, as documented by what she bough on Amazon Prime.
• David Chang's Burger Manifesto.

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

• As I'm planning a sourcing trip to China for The Public Radio, I'm reminded of an essay I wrote two years ago about the anti-China bias that I see in otherwise intelligent and respectful Americans. It's long, and there's a moment or two I'm slightly embarrassed by, but overall I think it communicates my China policy pretty well: "if you don't understand it, be interested in it - not scared of it."
• Q.E.D. is basically the Latin equivalent of an argumentative mic drop.
• Homejoy (which Google Ventures had invested in) shut down, citing lawsuits due to employee classification. Then Google hired a bunch of their development team.

And.

Richard Nixon's resignation lunch.