Welcome to the latest installment of my bi-weekly newsletter, covering some of my favorite new developments in the fields of biotech, data science, engineering, and more. If this is your first issue, it's great to have you! For everyone else, thanks for coming back!
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Notes
This edition's font is called Herculanum, the existence of which I was made aware of while playing the game "Is it a Marvel character or a Font?"
Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication
📏 This is a clever little way to more accurately measure inside corners using a tape measure, and I imagine something easy enough for someone to make a dedicated part for with 3D printing.
💡 The only downside of these ephemeral, glowing displays are that the light source used to make them might be a bit annoying in the low light you need to actually see the displays. (Still a really neat project, though.)
🔌 Cheap electronic devices have enabled tremendous technological progress and socioeconomic changes over the past several decades. Sometimes, though, the axiom of "you get what you pay for" is still relevant, as these dueling teardowns of a legitimate and fake Apple USB charger show.
Software and Programming
🎧 If you miss the good old days of a physical scroll wheel and playing Brick while you listen to music, then this is the website for you.
📚 TL;DR Wikipedia is here to provide you with short, snarky descriptions, overviews and answers on both Twitter and Instagram.
🥁🎶🎵 Ploop is the ultimate polyrythm mixer. (Just click on the link and play around with it a bit, even if you don't know music you'll get the gist of what I mean.)
🎤 There's working from home, and then there's having a CGI version of yourself deliver a keynote address.
➕➖✖➗ From longtime reader Dan, every self-respecting developer needs the isEven API in their life.
Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine
🥩🍌🍎🥔🍅 How has our diet changed over the years (and how has it not, in many cases)?
📅👨💼👩💼🏢 Now that we're living in a hybrid work world, what's the best day to go into the office?
🌚📱🔋 Dark mode is good for a lot of things, but saving battery life isn't always one of them.
🐖🦠🤧 COVID-19 may not have been our first coronavirus pandemic.
Mapping, History, and Data Science
📈📉📺 How often do different people appear in the news? The Stanford TV News analyzer is here to answer that question.
💸 As the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare, there's a lot of issues around the economics of medical care in the US. This data deep dive from Axios looks at some of those issues.
🌡 How much hotter will it get in your lifetime?
🏙 What historical events and influential people have been affiliated with your street? (Not available for all streets yet 😅)
Events and Opportunities
Wednesday, 9/8 The Science Behind Design. In the healthcare realm, the importance of design can often end up tossed to the side or outright ignored, but in many cases good design with decent health policy is better than great health policy and no design. In this event hosted by Moss Design and the Healthcare Club, Moss co-founder Sarah Gear will discuss how compliance, the scientific method, and the care model all come together in designing for healthcare.
Tuesday, 9/21 New York Bio Pharma Networking Group Networking Event. For their next networking event, the NYBPNG is teaming up with Rutgers iJOBS for a virtual meeting that brings together biotech professionals, students, and researchers from across the NJ and NY life science communities.
Sunday, 9/26 SciArt Synapse Virtual Mixer. Join the SciArt group for a casual afternoon of cross-disciplinary networking and conversation to mix, mingle, and chat with professionals in the arts, sciences & technology sectors. Bring a drink, set yourself up with your favorite Zoom background and enjoy an afternoon of meeting artists, scientists, technologists, and cross-disciplinary practitioners. The event will include a few organized rounds of blind networking in breakout rooms and then some longer sessions on chosen topics.
Monday-Friday, 11/1-5 Founder-Led Biotech Summit. With some of today's most innovative and exciting biotech companies being led by their scientist founders, our friends over at Pillar VC and the Petri biotech accelerator believe this trend isn't the exception, but rather the emergence of the new biotech industry. With these companies blazing the trail for the next generation, Pillar and Petri are hosting this free virtual summit that brings together leaders from around the globe to drive this movement.
Map of the Month
🌎🌍🌏🎨 These are the average colors of the world.
Odds & Ends
✈🍔☕ If you're missing the glamor and fun of air travel, this game let's you simulate the experience of trying to eat food on a commercial airliner.