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
Welcome back to our regularly scheduled M&D programming, and the last edition of this newsletter in 2023. It’s been quite a year (as most are) and I’m grateful for all of you who have been here for all of it, as well as those of you who joined partway through. There’s going to be a lot more where this came from in 2024 and beyond, so keep on opening those emails!
With the Christmas holiday almost upon us (and no snow forecast for the NYC metro area) the closest thing to a white Christmas we’ll be getting is this edition’s font, called Snowtop Caps.
Jobs
No new job postings in this edition. Check out previous editions for earlier listing.
Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication
⌚ This is a beautiful and detailed walk-through of how a mechanical watch works.
🏠 A 3D printed house was recently torn down in Iowa, but it's not entirely a setback for the promise of printed homes.
🃏 Now you only need one business card for your day job and your side hustle.
⚖ Back when I worked at 3D Systems, I designed a telescoping cone that, when fully extended, could exceed the build volume of the 3D printer — that is, the 3D printer could make something that was larger than itself. While that model was just a concept, without any real application, this load-bearing beam is designed with that same concept in mind (and has much more utility).
Software and Programming
😂 This is how the world LOLs when they're not IRL.
🖥 If you’re like me (and you may be, since you’re reading this newsletter), you’re totally fine writing and running software from a text-only terminal window. I do, however, acknowledge that most people don’t like doing that, which makes Gooey a GitHub repository I’ll definitely be checking out during the Interregnum (aka the week between Christmas and New Year’s).
🎥📡 This week’s edition of Scope of Work is a great read overall, but one section that I found particularly fun was the demonstration of how SSTV (the technology used to transmit the moon landing video) is basically just radio for images.
Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine
🤖👃 Your next sommelier may be a robot.
⏳ Which movies do the best job portraying time travel? (And which ones do it the most entertainingly?)
🍽☢ How radioactive is your Fiesta Ware?
Mapping, History, and Data Science
🍷 If you find yourself uncorking some wine over the next few days, see how similar your openers are to some of these century-old examples.
🧱 Should you find yourself in Berlin (and using an Android phone), this app might be fun to check out.
🎅 There’s still a few days before this link becomes useful, but you can’t send out an edition of M&D on December 22nd and not include NORAD’s Santa Tracker.
Events and Opportunities
Tuesday, 1/9/24 (+ 2nd Tuesday of the month) Mid-Atlantic Bio Angels 1st Pitch Office Hours. Continuing the tradition that began with their 1st Pitch Life Science™ series of live events, MABA Office Hours are meant to provide constructive feedback to companies that may be too early for funding, and those who wish to pitch for feedback. This monthly office hours session gives companies 10 minutes to pitch a panel of MABA investors, followed by 10 minutes of feedback from the panel. You need not be part of a startup to attend, either — these pitch events are open to all to attend.
Firday, 1/19/24 IndieBio Open Call. For the first time since setting up shop in New York, IndieBio is holding an open call for startups to come and pitch the IndieBio New York Team. If you’re working on an early-stage biotech innovation and think it might be ready to take to the next level, definitely consider applying to this unique opportunity.
⭐Saturday, 1/20/24 Mouthy Baby Returns to Arlene's Grocery! Coming off a jam-packed double-set at the Brooklyn Music Kitchen, we're once again returning to another familiar venue with a headlining show at Arlene's Grocery. With our friends in Off Wing joining us on the lineup, you can be sure this show is gonna be packed to the gills and full of energy, so get your tickets before they run out!
Other events coming up you think I should know about? Let me know here!
Map of the Month
🚉🛤 I imagine many of you who are traveling this holiday season aren’t doing so by rail, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check out this well-designed and interactive map of the Amtrak rail network.