2017-01-29

Hi folks, Sam here, long time reader, first time editor.

Commentary on issues facing a hot rolled steel tubing fabricator in Texas from the perspective of its Boston private equity owner.

A teardown of the 100kWh Tesla Battery Pack.
Boeing has designed a new spacesuit.
If you're in lower Manhattan and need a book bound, check out The Last Bookbinder on the Lower East Side. He's got great reviews on Yelp too.
After watching the video of an manual outdoor ring forging operation in China from from the 12/19/2016 edition of The Prepared, I found this video of an automated version from Sweden.
And then I found a brand new video from the same Chinese forging firm using a rolling machine!

I've been thinking a lot about inverted pendulums this week and stumbled on sone interesting ones.
The Kapitza Pendulum is a stable inverted pendulum due to a vertically oscillating pivot point.
The Furuta Pendulum has a pivot point mounted on a rotating wheel.
The ACIN group out of Vienna has built a dynamically balanced double and triple(!) pendulum on a cart.
And here's an inverted pendulum with two degrees of freedom balanced by two reaction wheels.

I'm halfway through The Last Days of Night, a historical novel about the Edison / Westinghouse battle, Nikola Tesla, and the origins of the modern law firm. Highly recommended.

Love, Sam