Notes.

I'm *finally* listening to The Toyota Way on audiobook. It's long overdue.

Two short blog posts of mine: One about supply chain complexity as the manufacturing technology becomes more mature, and the other about the kinds of improvements I want to make in additive manufacturing technologies.

Pathfinding.

• An analysis (largely over my head) of Tesla's recent deal to purchase future production from a lithium hydroxide deposit in Mexico.
• Siemens is getting more serious about additive with this investment in Materials Solutions Limited.

Building.

• I don't really know what to make of Divergent Microfactories, who are making a wild looking supercar using 3D printed nodes and carbon fiber tubing. Interestingly, Coda (the electric car company that Kevin Czinger, DM's CEO, cofounded & ran a few years back) is one of Tesla's early (and failed) competitors. (Note: Kevin was kind enough to speak to me on the phone this week. He's all about the environmental benefits of making cars with powder bed fusion + carbon fiber frames, which TBH I know next to zero about, but I take his word for it.)
• ...and I still *really* don't know what to make of Aurora Labs, who are now claiming that NASA is taking an interest in their metal 3D printer that is "100 times faster" than other machines on the market.
• An interesting little article on concrete construction methods in early 20th century urban industrial architecture.
• A pretty great video of Pilot fountain pens being manufactured in China.
• Okay: YouTube's Oxtoolco is making a replica baby Wilton Bullet vise, and it's making me kind of emotional. First, Oxtoolco is *amazing* - it's just *really* detailed videos of this guy, Tom Lipton, making parts in his (awesome) manual machine shop. Second, I used to own a manual machine shop, and I kind of really miss it. And third, I *just* got myself a slightly larger Wilton Bullet vise, and I'm *really* excited to have it in my home office.

Logistics.

• Google's self driving cars are apparently confused by track stands.
• Industrial robots are significantly more efficient (40%!) if you just lower their maximum acceleration rates.

Evaluation.

• A strong critique of salad: "Lettuce is a vehicle to transport refrigerated water from farm to table."
• De minimis is essentially Latin/legalese for "ain't shit."

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

• If anyone out there knows someone at Precision Castparts Corp (or knows of anything I can read on their history) I'd love to know about it.
• Auxetics are materials that have a negative Poisson's ratio - they get fatter when you stretch them. Confession: Bradley Rothenberg has been talking to me about them for months, and I only just looked them up :/
• Does anyone out there read technical (manufacturing) German? I really want to understand this document better.

And.

A nice little nomenclature of robot arm configurations.