Notes.
Last week I traveled around upper North America: First to Toronto for the opening of Renishaw's Global Solutions Center, then to Wisconsin to speak to & visit with Trek Bikes, and lastly to Chicago to visit McMaster-Carr.
Also I bought a table saw, which feels like a nice, stable step right now :)
Wayfinding & Strategy.
- GE Oil & Gas is combining with Baker Hughes.
- Why it took so long to invent the wheel.
- The Tesla/SolarCity solar shingles will be hard to pull off.
Making & Manufacturing.
- GE Aviation revealed a new turboprop engine, which uses a lot of 3D printed (unclear whether by laser or electron beam) parts. They say they've spent about $1B developing it.
- Two good factoids about the Bloodhound SSC's development: First, it was developed without wind tunnels, due to the high cost of supersonic wind tunnels and the fact that they don't typically have a way of representing the ground. And second, all 9.5MM square meters of the test track was swept by hand, with rocks removed by wheelbarrow.
- Manifolds are traditionally made by drilling holes through a part until all of the necessary pathways are roughed in. On many parts, that'll result in holes that then need to be sealed - something that can be done with Lee Plugs.
- ORNL is using their BAAM printer to make permanent rare earth magnets.
- A short video of the machine that rivets Boeing's 737 wings.
- Construction progress at Apple's new campus.
Maintenance, Repair & Operations.
- On the complications of operating a communal workshop.
- Postmates' investors converted their stock from preferred to common in order to incentivize employees to stay.
Distribution & Logistics.
- Intralox's omnidirectional conveyors are pretty rad.
- The Port of Long Beach is sending Hanjin's shipping containers back to Asia.
- Uber Freight launched.
- Harvesting Christmas trees by helicopter.
Inspection & Testing.
- Artforum reviews Donald Trump's architecture.
- An analysis of the ownership structure of venture backed startups. "Upon exit, the median level of founder ownership across the 79 companies was 11%."
- A gallery of NYC subway signs.
Tangents.
- I blasted through The Path to Power and Means of Ascent, and am now on to Master of the Senate. Audiobooks, man :)
- A 4K fisheye flythrough of the International Space Station.
- A guide to hardware focused accelerators & incubators in NYC.
Credit to Ezra, Chris, Reilly and Pru for sending links this week. If you see something, send something :)
And.
A very good video of springs being made.
Love, Spencer.
p.s. - We should be better friends. Send me a note - coffee's on me :)
