2016-10-23

Notes.

What I've been feeling.

Was in Belgium last week, and am happy to be in NYC all week this week. Next week: Toronto, Madison, and Chicago.

Wayfinding & Strategy.

• On our need for purpose and recognition.
• GE launched Fuse, a crowdsourcing platform for engineering problems. Think you know a good way to detect welds in pipes, or compress CT scan data? Start here.
• Apple is apparently *not* making a car anymore.
• Dragon Innovation launched a new project planner, to help forecast operations & cash flow on hardware projects.
• GE Appliances, which is now owned by Haier, is auctioning off its 1 million square foot Lexington, KY refrigerator factory. If you're in the area, I'd really recommend going - tool auctions are *really* interesting, and the toolroom stuff (that Hardinge HLV-H in particular, but also the tool cabs and whatever Bridgeports they have) would be great for a prototyping shop.
• Arcam, which you'll recall hasn't been acquired by GE just yet, is investing $24MM in a new powder production facility. Meanwhile, a hedge fund manager is claiming that he'll block GE's SLM acquisition if they don't raise their price - which GE says it won't do.

Making & Manufacturing.

• Maslow is a pretty clever - and really inexpensive - router CNC kit launching on Kickstarter this week. NB: When they say "print," it's because they think you don't know what "CNC," "router," or "CNC router" mean. Prove them wrong!
• Related: A pretty awesome video of a multi-axis CNC machining center working on a big gluelam.
• Galling occurs when two metal parts slide against each other and, due to adhesion, one or both becomes plastic, tears, and smears. Thread galling, particularly between aluminum female threaded holes and stainless bolts, is a real pain in the ass, often resulting in aluminum literally welding itself to the bolt threads.
• John is teaching an edX course on manufacturing processes. It began a few weeks ago, but I *think* you can still enroll!

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• A team in Japan put a hydronic cooling system into the porous, printed skeleton of a humanoid robot. The coolant can seep out of the skeleton's "bones," providing cooling for motors.
• It's *really* hard to put out underground fires.
• If you're going to recycle your iPhone, don't give it to Apple - no matter how cool their recycling robot is.
• Freakonomics on the value of maintenance (as opposed to innovation).

Distribution & Logistics.

• Tesla's announcement; go ahead and watch the video too. Full autonomy in 2018, with all cars produced starting today being upgraded via software update. Reminder: the SolarCity vote is due November 18, and Musk kinda needs investors to continue trusting him. I took the gamble :)
• British Airways is launching an app that calls someone to meet you in London, pick up your luggage, check you in to your flight, and then let you hang out in the city for the rest of the day.
• A startup called Surtrac ran a pilot in Pittsburgh of its "smart artificial-intelligence-fueled traffic signals that adapt to changing traffic conditions on the fly," and apparently they helped.
• Hanjin owns a decent chunk of one of the operators of the Port of Long Beach. Traffic through the port is down 16% YOY since their bankruptcy, while the port of LA is slightly up.
• A pretty rad interactive tool to browse the NYC T&LC taxi/uber/lyft dataset.
• Maersk is looking at blockchain-powered bills of lading.

Inspection & Testing.

• Eric Paley is on fire right now: "It seems that even in the highest upside cases, raising less money leads to better companies. Yet today, most founders are convincing themselves to take the opposite approach." Related, this interview with Bryce Roberts is really good too.

Tangents.

• Here's the thing: I find PG & Sam Altman's justifications for keeping Peter Thiel at Y Combinator unconvincing and offensive. Here are two links explaining why.
• An introduction to Cherry MX switches, the clikety-clackety keyboard buttons. Coincidentally, Cherry was acquired by an investment firm this week.
• Robin Williams' bike collection is up for auction on Paddle8.
• A company called Kindernay is apparently launching a competitor to Rohloff's internally geared mountain bike hubs, with hydraulic shifting and an interchangeable hub flange design. Looks interesting.

Credit to Chris, Jordan, Nick, Mackenzie, Alex, Craig, and James for sending links this week. If you see something, send something :)

And.

The first GE9X, which will be used on the Boeing 777X, was tested this week.