2017-12-05

Notes.
First, a warm welcome to our new sponsor, Shaper Tools! I love seeing construction tools get an update, and it's great to have them here :)

Second, thanks to everyone who sent kind words about last week's tool guide. Need a permalink? It's all on theprepared.org.

Third, on the podcast this week, Zach and I talk to Reilly Brennan about all things transportation.

Planning & Strategy.

• A good piece on the Balanced Transportation Analyzer, a publicly available Excel spreadsheet that models NYC's transit holistically. Related: The RPA's new plan, which proposes not only (totally sensical) congestion traffic pricing but also a (sensical but really unappealing) suggestion to discontinue 24/7 service.
• John Barnes' excellent recap of Formnext, Europe's big 3D printing show.
• 3DSIM, one of the leading providers for build process simulation & design for manufacturing optimization for metal 3D printing, was acquired by ANSYS.

Making & Manufacturing.

• A really fantastic 3D model of the tooling used to injection mold Studio Neat's Glif. This thing is *great* - slides all over the place and in particular a *ton* of complexity in the areas that will eventually be overmolded. I recommend spending a few minutes here, isolating some part of the tool and figuring out what it's there for - it's really satisfying.
• A pretty rad video of a tree cutting & splitting machine.
• Samsung is working on batteries based on "graphene balls," with double digit improvements in energy density and 5x charge speeds. Very impressive, though with graphene you always have to watch out for the sections where they say "in theory..."

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• Me, writing on my own blog, about the experience of restoring an old Swedish milling machine back in 2009.
• A good blog post on small (electronic) parts organization on the PartsBox.io blog. I spent a few hours setting up my own PartsBox instance (mostly nuts & bolts) recently, and already it's made my shop easier to manage.
• A startup called Urban Umbrella is trying to give construction sidewalk sheds a facelift.

Distribution & Logistics.

• A good Amazon PR video showing their final package conveyors on Black Friday. See also my notes from an Amazon FC from a few years back.
• On the huge impact that bike sharing has had on Chinese ride sharing platforms (namely Didi).

Inspection & Testing.

• "The Union of Concerned Scientists analyzed the cost of refueling electric and gasoline vehicles in each of the 50 largest cities in the United States. In every city, there is a rate plan that would save the average EV owner on fuel costs, with the median savings over $770 per year."
• Ingrid Burrington shows the NYTimes where (physically) the internet is.

Tangents.

• If you don't use Twitter but do like gifs of machines in action, check out MachinePix' daily email.
• This is old news by now, but the venture arm of the Walton (Walmart) family acquired a controlling stake in Rapha, the luxury cycling brand.
• "The complete guide to living in a van."

An analysis of CitiBike rebalancing data.