2017-04-03

Notes.
None!

Planning & Strategy.

• "You don’t make good products because you really want to, you make good products by fostering the conditions in which great products can be made."
• A great twitter thread between Greg Koenig and Tom Gerhardt which starts with a *highly* automated multi-axis CNC machining setup, and then steers towards how to get smart, energetic people interested in manufacturing in a real way. This is a big thing for me, and I've got two more for you: See this article about how all the big robot manufacturers are *not* based in the US, and this Proto Labs survey showing that apparently millennials are actually *more* upbeat about manufacturing than other age groups.
• An interview with the author of Building the Skyline about how the big valley in NYC's skyline is due to geographical variations in demand, *not* bedrock.
• A thorough description (replete with TLAs) of the process of bringing a medium to high volume consumer electronic product to market.

Making & Manufacturing.

• The Keyboardio blog has some *really* thorough production updates on it recently, full of technical details and written in a way that really makes you understand what they're going through.
• A pretty cool looking knitting machine on Kickstarter.
• Rockwest's manufacturing processes page is a good primer on how carbon fiber assemblies are constructed.
• Festo made a pretty clever pneumatic robotic gripper based on octopus tentacles.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• Hi-vis vests as free passes into *anything*: "If you see someone in hi-vis stepping through a barricade, or marching past a bouncer, you naturally assume they're headed to fix something. This makes a hi-vis vest the keys to life."
• The Trump EPA, led by a climate change denier who is under investigation for lying under oath during his Senate confirmation hearings, ended up finding the $500k that the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup's project management team needed to continue their work. Which seems... kinda like their job, right?

Distribution & Logistics.

• SpaceX flew and landed a Dragon 9 that had already been flown and landed. This is a pretty big deal.
• The zip code 48222 is assigned to the J.W. Westcott II, a boat that operates out of Detroit and delivers mail to vessels transiting the Detroit River.
• A visit to the largest onion market in Asia.

Inspection & Testing.

• Constance Tipper was an engineer in an age largely without female engineers. Her work on brittle failure of steel was critical in understanding why Liberty Ships in the North Atlantic broke so catastrophically.

Tangents.

• The hoverboard company that's suing JLo has a pretty good case, and is making a pretty reasonable request: That she pay for the hoverboards they gave her.
• John Gruber on The Deck being shut down and business models for the web.
• Jeff Immelt, GE's CEO, believes in climate change.

Thanks as always to our recurring donors for supporting The Prepared. Credit also to Emmett, Hannah, Sarah, Andrew, Conor, Gabe and Jordan for sending links.
Inside one of the largest closed die forging presses in the world.