Planning & Strategy.
- A smart blog post on an alternative method of pricing & selling niche products. The approach taken uses Vickrey auctions, which set the price for a batch of n products to be the n+1th bid in a sealed auction.
- The Navy is reverting destroyers back to physical throttles after touchscreen UI complexity was flagged as a potential issue in the aftermath of the USS John S. McCain collision.
- The way that WeWork issued employee options is totally terrible.
Making & Manufacturing.
- Aeromet's A20X aluminum powder for DMLS/LPBF surpassed the 500 MPa mark in utimate tensile strength, putting it roughly on par with 7075-T6.
- Viennetta ice cream cakes being made.
- The patent for Knipex's Cobra pliers, which are excellent.
Maintenance, Repair & Operations.
- The 2019 Festival of Maintenance will be held on 2019-09-28 in Liverpool. Go, and say hi to Laura for me :)
Distribution & Logistics.
- A live map of CO2 emissions from electricity generation worldwide.
- The world's largest electric vehicle, an adaptation of the Komatsu HD 605-7 mining truck, may run at a surplus due to the fact that it drives uphill empty and regenerates through braking when full.
Inspection, Testing & Analysis.
- A good video comparing a $1000 Sunnen dial bore gage with a $7 set of Plastigage. Pretty rad.
- A teardown of the Apple AirPods charging case.
Tangents.
- Control your Google Slides presentations with an old Nokia 3510i.
- A list of large public transit projects that are less expensive than Uber's $5.2 B Q2 losses.
Disassembling the Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM
Thanks as always to our recurring donors for supporting The Prepared. Thanks also to the following readers for sending links: Bradley, Mark, Michael, Russ, Rafal, Xavier.
Love, Spencer.
p.s. - We should be better friends. Send me a note - coffee's on me :)
p.p.s. - Whenever possible, we work to encourage inclusivity. Here's how.
