Notes, 2020-08-03.

Like a massive container ship, the economy and associated supply chains can’t make quick course adjustments.

In truth, I am not feeling too optimistic about the world today. I’ve  followed the supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations as consumption has changed during the pandemic, and while people seem to be pretty effective at making small adjustments, like reallocating toilet paper from commercial distributors, it feels like the whole thing has veered off course. And so, I am trying to think outside of this present moment and have been thinking a lot about how we might steer this giant ship of a global economy towards, as Deb Chachra recently wrote, systems of collective care. And personally, I’ve been advocating for tax justice (side note: there is no inheritance tax in Canada 🤯) and supporting local mutual aid funds - both of which feel like good first steps. And despite it all, I feel optimistic about - and am looking for reinforcement on - people's ability to support one another.

-Hillary Predko

The most clicked link from last week's issue (~16% of opens) was Geoff Manaugh's quick rediscovery of some wild articulating houses built by an old Italian retiree.

Planning & Strategy.

• Before test pilots became the preferred candidates for astronauts, studies were conducted on lay people who were kept confined and surveilled in tiny cabins to simulate space flight. These dystopian Cold War era experiments remind me being confined to my apartment isn’t too onerous.
• I was excited to learn that the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline has been ordered to be shut down and emptied of oil for an environmental review, as requested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. With the cost of solar dropping decades ahead of projections, this could encourage energy investors to reinvest in renewables.
• A compelling case for reframing wildfires, and in the process mitigating the damages they cause. We’ve locked ourselves into negative feedback loops with wildfire management, spending millions of dollars to fight fires in areas that, ecologically, need to burn periodically.

Making & Manufacturing.

• These simple parametric tools to create boxes, bags, and polyhedra are incredibly useful to have on hand, especially paired with a laser cutter.
• Despite recent announcements that the US will rebuild its semiconductor industry, reshoring is logistically and politically fraught, and unlikely to proceed without immense difficulty. Related, the Foxconn project in Wisconsin, which was supposed to create 3,000 jobs, continues to be a cluster of empty buildings.
• The New York Times tracked factories who use a Chinese government labour program, which often forces Uighurs into factory work, through PPE supply chains. If you are a non-medical worker, consider reusable PPE and otherwise vet your suppliers. Boycotting products based on labour practices has a long history, such as 1790s "free-grown" sugar.
• Bicycle sales have nearly doubled in the US this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and supplies are running out in many stores. If you’re looking to get a bike you could repair an old one, but be prepared, as I was not for the challenge of navigating multiple competing standards for common parts.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• Alphabet has deployed their balloon based internet project, serving a 50,000 km2 area across central and western Kenya.
• Cell tower technicians in Mexico need to navigate the dangerous politics of cartels to do their jobs, navigating parasite antennas installed on cell towers by criminal organizations. Workers have had to pay off criminals to access work sites and have even been kidnapped to perform maintenance on renegade infrastructure.
• North Kosovo, a region once known for mining, now mines so much cryptocurrency that the energy consumption caused digital clocks across Europe to lose time. In this economically devastated region, where scrap metal has been the largest export for the last decade, electricity is free - making crypto mining one of the only lucrative opportunities available.

Distribution & Logistics.

• I am always delighted to see photos of panamax ships moving through the locks of the panama canal. The standard, allowing ships 32.31 m wide, was just 1.22 m narrower than the old lock chambers - a mind blowingly tight fit. It has been subsequently superseded by neopanamax then post-neopanamax, terms that scream to be silkscreened on faux band t-shirts.
• Reselling unclaimed luggage in America is a reverse logistics market cornered by one company in Alabama. The company, aptly named Unclaimed Baggage, has a number of exclusive contracts with major airlines and resells 7k unique items daily.
• This paper argues that undersea cables have been, for over a century, the site of international interference as part of international conflict. Intelligence agencies benefit from their ability to tamper with cable traffic, so they don’t seem keen on cracking down on the practice. You can explore the routes of undersea cables here.

Inspection, Testing & Analysis.

• Haoda Wang, an intern at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, analyzes whether the LEGO City Deep Space Rocket could actually fly.
• You can determine whether you are preparing your tea correctly using this handy ISO standard.
• Many of the emerging strategies for keeping healthy during the pandemic aren’t empirically backed. Fever-detecting drones don’t work, and the constant disinfecting of surfaces may simply be ineffective hygiene theatre.

Tangents.

• We know remarkably little about eels and how they reproduce. In fact, people have never seen an eel reproduce despite the efforts of our best minds from Aristotle to Freud.
• While they look like heritage properties at street level, many expensive homes in London have multi level basements with luxurious amenities excavated far underground. Called iceberg homes, these properties manage to fit into local heritage designations.
• A really fun collection of roadside attractions across America.

Seven Seg 2 by Mohit Bhoite.