mfrykman

Also worth noting that China's government policies can create a domestic vacuum for products previously validated outside of China. Google's product and business model can be replicated for the 1.3+ billion Chinese citizens that don't have access.

A friend of mine is an investigative journalist in China - he spent a while working in a helmet foam factory and living in a dorm such as the one in the article.

He heard rumors that the Chinese mafia would pay workers to commit suicide at Foxconn in exchange for money for their family in the countryside. The mafia would then threaten suicide attempts as leverage to extort concessions from Foxconn.

Not sure if it's true (was only a rumor), but certainly got me thinking about it from another perspective.

Some of my buddy's work:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yvwj3k/chinas-21st-centur...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/0...

This is true, it does trigger with wet wood. Aside from framing lumber (2x4s, etc), most woodworking is done using kiln-dried hardwood, though.

I worked around a sawstop at the Stanford student shop for a couple of years, and saw it triggered a handful of times: once was a piece of mirrored acrylic, once was a (wet) oak stump, and once was a TA's finger (he was fine, just a nick).

We frequently turned the safety off if a student needed to cut something that we knew might trigger it - it's just a key that you turn next to the start/stop switch.

The blade is not always ruined - just depends on the blade you're using. We primarily used a blade with carbide tips (which is very common, though more expensive), and I never saw the blade ruined.

Personally, I would never buy a table saw without this technology. However, I'm not sure we need a law to require it.

I'm not positive, but I think Spiegel already made FU money as part of a funding round prior to the FB offer.

Can anyone confirm?

Pretty sure that Industrial Designers call this a "squarecle"

I would also guess that he can actually afford a house for his children to grow up in down in Burbank.

I wonder if Motiv subsidies the Surf Air membership. Moving a company from LA to SF is expensive - maybe that was part of the price payed to keep the CTO.

I'd also point out that it possibly was not his decision to move the company.

Quite the opposite, I'd say.

Most commercial drones have 4 motors w about 12 magnets each.

Some others: electric bikes, electric skateboards, power tools, blow dryers, iPad cases.

If I recall correctly, one of the earlier iPhones was basically held together w rare earth magnets, with the screen module magnetically stuck into the case. Can't find info to verify this though, so take it w a grain of salt.

Not positive, but I think there are scaling issues w AC induction motors. My understanding is that for smaller applications, they don't make sense.

Anyone have more insight on this?

Aside from community, is there a functional difference between designspiration and pinterest?

This is all I remember from my Stanford intro to humanities "World History of Science" lecture.

We'll, this and "witch's milk"..

Robert Proctor is a legend.

In the article, it states that Chase is offering 0% funds, yet Betterment claims that their "All-in Actual Cost" for a 100k fund is better than Chase's due to cash drag and a lower expense ratio. (Found here: https://www.betterment.com/comparison/schwab-intelligent-por...)

This is confusing and hard to fact check. Who do I believe?

When the biggest customer complaint is that people can't buy enough of your product, you know you're doing something right.

Picking a manufacturer is a several month-long process by itself, and would require building out an operations/production engineering team for ongoing production.

Imagine producing 50,000pc/mo and having to do in-depth quality inspection on an sample size of, say 500pcs. Who is going to do the inspection? That's a lot of Pis.

How do you distribute? Do you ship a box of 50,000 to your warehouse and then mail them out 1 at a time to customers? Do you form retail partnerships?

How do you front the money for a 50,000pc order? Say they cost $3 per board, that's $150,000 up front in capital tied up for, say, 1 month of lead time, 2 weeks of transit time, and 1 month until you get paid by the customer - that's $425,000 at any time tied up in inventory (150k*2.5months). Do you negotiate payment terms with the supplier? It's difficult to negotiate terms without a history. Who does the negotiation?

What do you do when your box of 50k has an defect?

None of these issues are insurmountable, but there is a lot of necessary overhead that comes with mass production of anything. Deciding to MP Pis is an organizational decision that requires significant changes to company structure and resource allocation.

"The pom-pom crab, the scientists speculated, is perhaps the only animal on the planet that controls another species’ growth, feeding and asexual reproduction."

Except for scientists, of course.

To get around the paywall, google search the article URL and go through the search results.

Liquor, Beer, Wine?