2018-03-05

Notes.
Season 2 of The Prepared's podcast is here! To kick things off, I talked with Max Haot of Launcher Space about developing rocket engines. Launcher's proposed rockets will be 20 m long and set up primarily for microsatellites; they're NYC based and just recently completed their first round of hot fire testing.

We've got an *awesome* lineup of guests; I can't wait to share more :)

Planning & Strategy.

• Joe Lhota, the chairman of the NYC MTA, also has a board position at MSG - a clear conflict, as the MTA necessarily negotiates with MSG over Penn Station. The remarkable thing about this is that although Lhota earns something like $1.75MM a year, only $1 of it comes from the MTA. I ask you: Does this system incentivize intelligent, hardworking people to both take jobs that matter *and* avoid conflicts of interest elsewhere?
• A somewhat serious suggestion: What if we rebranded water conservation to be about reducing how often combined sewer overflows dump sewage into our harbors?
• As you probably heard, Trump announced tariffs on aluminum and steel last week; Marketplace has a good quick "what to know" on the economics. Related, about a week and a half ago Carl Icahn (the corporate raider who is both a longtime Trump associate and also resigned a position as an economic adviser to the president last summer after reports of his conflicts of interest) dumped about $31MM worth of stock in the Manitowoc Company, a crane manufacturer whose stock then lost more than 16% after the tariffs were announced.
• Trump has also imposed tariffs on foreign-manufactured solar panels; US solar installer SunPower will lay off 3% of its workforce this month.
• Remember how Uber was investing a bunch of money on a new office in Oakland? Well, not anymore.
• GE is working on a wind turbine that would be 853' tall and would produce 12 megawatts; the largest turbine in operation now is a 9.5 megawatt unit made by Vestas.

Making & Manufacturing.

• Expanded metal being made.
• A quick explainer on the benefits of sandwich panels in composite construction.
• On Mori Building's philosophy towards their developments in Tokyo. For context, Nori manages about half as much property as NYC's Related Companies.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• I'm reading Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter's book about scrap processing & recycling. This book has nearly 100% overlap with The Prepared: Unexpected manufacturing methods, a reevaluation of what it means to be a "product," an appreciation for both good intentions *and* good outcomes, and a built-in sense of empathy for the people doing the actual work. Recommended.
• A good, short video documentary about John Deere's aggressive (and I believe unwise) digital rights management policies, and the rather charming farmer-hackers fighting them.
• Chinese-funded Malaysian firms are plundering old shipwrecks (illegally) for low-background steel.

Distribution & Logistics.

• Drew on bike sharing.
• Biketown, Portland Oregon's Nike-sponsored bike share program, uses Jump (née Social Bicycles) bikes but is operated by Motivate (the company behind NYC's Citi Bike.
• A good high level explainer on Chinese investment (through Cosco and others) in foreign ports. "Chinese state firms, which once kept close to their home market, now control about one-tenth of all European port capacity." Jeez.
• The NHTSA mandate for rear-facing cameras on almost all passenger vehicles will go into effect in just a few months.

Inspection & Testing.

• NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne test fired an RS-25 engine up to 113%. The RS-25 was the Space Shuttle's main engine, and is currently planned to be used on the Space Launch System - but there's some indication that NASA is considering other options (possibly including Blue Origin's BE-3U).
• The EA-18G Growler, a Boeing-made jet which is loaded with signal jammers and missiles for taking out an enemy's air-defense systems, has a tendency for its environmental control system to malfunction. In a recent case, "the cockpit suddenly plunged to temperatures reaching -30 degrees and a mist pumped into the the cockpit, covering the instruments and windows in a layer of ice, rendering the pilots almost completely blind."
• There is a persistent low-frequency hum in Windsor, Ontario. Its origin is unknown.

Tangents.

• Global paper pulp prices are up, and Taiwanese toilet paper manufacturers announced price increases as a result. Chaos ensued.
• Termites are officially a type of cockroach.
• A detailed explanation of John Searle's Chinese Room argument, which attempts to cleave true intelligence from its facsimile. TL;DR: Passing the Turing Test doesn't mean you're conscious.
• A correction from last week: In a link about Rocket Lab's recent launch, which carried Planet Labs satellites, I incorrectly referred to Rocket Lab as Planet Labs :/

The IRT Flushing line in Sunnyside Queens in 1917, shortly after it was extended from Queensboro Plaza to Corona; Queens' population nearly doubled that decade and the decade after.
The same location today.