2016-09-25

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.