Notes.
Zach wrote a really good retrospective on our sourcing trip to China for The Public Radio. It's kind of a must-read for anyone thinking about manufacturing and product development... which unless I'm crazy should be everyone on this mailing list.
Meanwhile I got some new EBM titanium bike parts from Addaero, and am scheming on some fun things there :)
Pathfinding.
- Google (ugh, Alphabet?) hired John Krafcik to CEO their self-driving car business. Krafcik was the first American engineer hired at NUMMI (now the Tesla factory), and coined the term "lean production."
- Etsy launched their manufacturing product, which helps shop owners to scale their businesses. I know that Amanda has been working on these ideas for a while, and am really interested in seeing where it goes.
Building.
- Delcam is apparently making build prep software for metal AM. I'm interested in this.
- iRobot is finally giving its high end Roombas vision, and a method of scheduling them that doesn't feel like 1996.
- Hershey's and 3D Systems are gearing up for a full launch of chocolate 3D printers (thanks, Dan!)
Logistics.
- 2nd Ave. Sagas on the state of the MTA's maintenance efforts.
- Stirling engines are pretty cool.
- A good short piece on how the New Jersey Department of Transportation is preparing for the Pope's visit.
Evaluation.
- Nicola Twilley on the RFID player tracking system that the NFL just rolled out.
- This is kind of a strange one for me, but I went to see a show of Trevor Paglen's work at Metro Pictures in Chelsea. It's kind of about the internet - there's a bunch of stuff about subsea internet cables - and I really enjoyed it. It's up until October 24th; check it out.
Stuff that doesn't fit into my dumb/arbitrary categories.
- Venice Backstage is a website about how the city of Venice works. The video on their home page is really interesting - recommended.
- Chris Quintero (of Bolt) on the state of venture capital and hardware.
And.
A discussion on what types of images are *really* difficult
to compress by JPEG.
Love, Spencer.
p.s. - We should be better friends. Send me a note, and coffee's on me.
