2019-01-21

Notes, 2018-01-21.
The Prepared's 2018.Q4 report went out to paid subscribers (Note: You should totally become a paid subscriber) this week, with details on list growth, editorial plans for the next six months, and invites to The Prepared's Slack instance. The Prepared grew 26% last quarter - on par with historical trends, but still a little bit of a shock every time I re-run the numbers. Thanks for being here, everyone :)

The most clicked link in last week's issue (~16% of opens) was a collection of photos of bike mechanics' tool boxes.

Planning & Strategy.

• Tesla will cut 7% of their workforce.
• Simulate your own nuclear weapon detonation. See also the 99% Invisible episode that discusses this and other issues related to nuclear preparedness.
• Andrew Cuomo has (among other things) a NY Green New Deal that "sets the state on a path to decarbonize its electricity sector five years ahead of California."

Making & Manufacturing.

• A *very* good vintage documentary filmed right as the New York Times was transitioning from hot type mechanical printing (Linotype) to electronic "cold type" phototypesetting. Recommended.
• A close up video of a Fuji NXT III pick-and-placing components. The NXT III is rated for 35,000 components per hour, and I'm told that the NXT product line "completely upended the whole pick and place industry and forced [Fuji's] competitors to completely rethink pick and place." This is the same family of machines from the GeForce assembly video from last week.
• Induction heating (and then quenching) gears. See also this demo of a handheld induction heating machine and this (classic) video of metal being fully melted by induction heating.
• Wooden trusses being assembled with a lot of automation at ETH Zurich.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• Aaron is looking for someone who can talk knowledgeably about dealing with silica dust in tunnels or other confined spaces - and about concrete tunnel repair more generally. Contact him here.
• It's hard to repair jets that happen to be in Iran. A brand new Norwegian Air 737 MAX was forced to make an emergency landing in an Iranian airport last month, and now one of its engines (produced by CFM, the GE-Safran joint venture) needs to be repaired. But US sanctions prevent exporting basically anything to Iran, and spare parts for aircraft are no exception. Add the US government shutdown, and the airplane may be waiting for repairs for some time.

Distribution & Logistics.

• Apple is United Airlines' largest customer, accounting for $150 MM in revenue and 50 business class seats **every day** between SFO and PVG (Shanghai Pudong).
• A time lapse video of Protolabs moving 295 CNC machines to a new facility.

Inspection, Testing & Analysis.

• I'm looking for best-in-class examples of supply chain transparency; send them here. My favorite so far (from 2018-10-22) is Marks & Spencers interactive map, though I'd love to see other takes on visualizing material flow, etc.
• Two good sets (contemporary and vintage) of photos of the Marine Corps Air Station Tustin, which Zack described nicely as "like the Spruce Goose of buildings."
• I'm a little unclear *why* WeWork needs millimeter-accuracy scans and is so proud of the fact that they own 13 $100k FARO scanners, but this blog post describes their process in decent detail.
• On Amazon's patent application which would integrate facial scanning into Ring, their recently acquired video doorbell.

Tangents.

• A clever little trick screw that binds when you turn it the wrong way.
• A great archive of 1950s and 1960s NSA posters.The nostalgia! The naivete! The heavily normative imagery!

17 years of antarctic iceberg flow.