Notes.
None.
Wayfinding & Strategy.
- Eric Paley, of Founders Collective, on the downsides of VC money.
- A good recap of the Tesla/MobilEye breakup, and the benefits of rolling out autonomy incrementally.
- The McRib as arbitrage: McDonalds tends to re-release the sandwich when pork commodity prices are low.
- A pretty nice online bolt torque calculator.
- Remember Roger Smith and GM's failed attempts to automate their whole assembly line, and how that (plus Toyota's TPS) created a massive shift in the automotive balance of power in the 80s? Well, a reminder: That's essentially what Elon Musk is trying to do at Tesla now :/
- Apple may be trying to acquire or invest in McLaren.
- Oakland may be revising its parking requirements. Endorse!
Making & Manufacturing.
- Baishizhou, the big urban village in Shenzhen, looks like it'll be demolished soon.
- So, Amazon has apparently been building wind farms in the US for some time, and last week announced a project in Texas that (at 253 MW) ranks towards the bottom of Wikipedia's list of onshore wind farms.
- There are 15 subway lines slated to open in Beijing this year. Next year they'll launch the first cars with no drivers.
- GE has been posting some pretty good photos of the new wind farm off of Bock Island on Instagram recently.
- Solar power is getting really cheap - far cheaper, in some cases, than power prices from any source ever.
Maintenance, repair and operations.
- The Davis-Monthan Air Force boneyard in Tucson employs ~550 people and is home to a *lot* of idle and decaying aircraft. I recommend checking it out on Google Maps.
Distribution & Logistics.
- A new pipeline for beer in Bruges.
- More on the battle between wind (which traditionally generates just power) and coal (which often generates both power and heat) in China.
- How to prevent damage to a bicycle during shipping: Put pictures of flat screen TVs on the box.
- The MTA says it's considering the 14th St. auto shutdown. Endorse!
Inspection & Testing.
- On the strengths and weaknesses of welded aluminum.
- The macroeconomics of firing aversion.
- How Samsung rushed the Note 7 and missed the battery issues.
- On the limitations of cellphone emergency alerts.
Tangents.
- How the intricacies of Chinese real estate law discourage small business owners in the urban villages of Shenzhen.
- Laowai is Mandarin for "gringo."
- Wow, so THIS is why Angelina left.
- On the rich, complex history of Chinese soy sauce.
- A scathing/sobering profile of Hampton Creek, the startup that sells vegan mayo, and its really unappealing founder/CEO.
Credit to Brendan, Andrew, August and Reilly for sending links this week. If you see something, send something :)
And.
A 10-year-old panamax ship was sold for scrap - the youngest containership to be recycled ever.
Love, Spencer.
p.s. - We should be better friends. Send me a note - coffee's on me :)
