Magnitude and Direction — Issue #191

Designing for 3D printing, AI Clippy, and blood exports

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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!

If you like this email, forward it to a friend (I can't encourage this enough) and if you're seeing it for the first time, subscribe here to get it regularly. As always, if you come across something cool you'd like to share, send me a note.

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Notes

For everyone who pointed out that I forgot to include the name of the font in the previous edition, it was called Exile.

Avoiding repeating that same mistake today, this edition’s font is kind of a mouthful: Edu VIC WA NT Hand.

Jobs

No new job postings in this edition. For previous job postings, check out the Magnitude and Direction archive.

Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication

⚙️ I have certainly shared the work of the legendary mechanical design YouTuber thang010146 here before, but someone (a saint and legend in their own right for this) has made the effort to sort the thousands of design's featured on thang010146's account into an easily navigable and searchable PDF. Truly the Lord's work 🙏

📐 Even if, like me, you've been designing things for 3D printing for over a decade, this guide is probably still a good refresher of best practices for an increasingly formalized manufacturing method.

🏗️ The world's tallest 3D printed building has recently been topped off in Switzerland. At 100 feet, it's just a little taller than the build volume on your standard BigRep 3D printer...

Software and Programming

📎 With the rise of AI assistants, it was probably only a matter of time before someone brought the OG into the modern era.

💸 It's only a matter of time before e-commerce starts running completely autonomously...

🌐 Wilby gives you a taste of the Internet as it was back in the "good 'ole days".

Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine

🩸 How much blood does the US export? (And, no, I don't mean that in some kind of poetic, metaphorical sense.)

🪰 The next clementine you eat may have had fly larvae laid in it before it was picked, but don't worry, after a little X-ray blasting, it's perfectly safe to eat.

🧠 Most land animals have really tiny brains.

Mapping, History, and Data Science

😎 Nice weather is definitively here, which means it's the perfect time to break out SunSeekr and find your nearest sunny cafe (or bar, or restaurant).

🎶 What can over half a million song's worth of data tell us about the state and trajectory of music composition? (One major caveat I have with this data, and its resulting analysis, is that the songs' chord data was sourced from Ultimate-Guitar, a website I have used extensively to learn songs on the fly, but also one I would not describe as "very accurate" when it comes to outlining the actual chords used in a song. It definitely gets "close enough", which is what makes it such a valuable tool for musicians who just need to "fake" a song well enough for a short-notice performance, but it definitely also misses the composers' intended chords, in all their depth and complexity, at least half of the time.)

🏢 If you find yourself deciding between two job opportunities, this little tool might be a useful resource.

Events and Opportunities

⭐SEVERAL DATES THIS SUMMER. The Mouthy Baby Tri-Boro Tour. Teethers rejoice, your favorite local band is back in a big way with four shows this summer across three borough (apologies to the Bronx and Staten Island). Whether your a long-time “Teether”, a brand new fan, or a long-time fan who’s never managed to get out to a show (we don’t hold it against you too much) this is your chance to catch the band once, twice, or even four times in two months! The show dates are as follows:

• Saturday, 5/31 Mouthy Baby with Ian Persaud at The Windjammer.

• Thursday, 6/5 BRC Benefit Concert at McCarren Parkhouse.

• Thursday, 6/19 Mouthy Baby Live at the Cutting Room.

• Wednesday, 7/30 Mouthy Baby and Friends at Berlin.

Saturday, 6/7 NYTechWeek- AI x BIO Rag-A-Thon®. Next Sequence is officially kicking-off its Cohort#2 Launchpad for founders, and are thrilled to invite you to the AI x BIO RAG-a-thon, an exclusive Global AI x Bio Agents Hackathon Series! Join Next Sequence, Bits in Bio, and Nucleate in kicking off this global competition held through a series of Hackathons from New York, London, Paris, all the way to Hong Kong to build and show off your best AI models and agents for Biology.

Wednesday, 6/11 OUTbio Greater New York’s Annual Pride Happy Hour. Join the Greater New York chapter of OUTbio for sips and twirls at their annual Pride celebration, featuring performances by Nick Gaga and Kimmi Moore w/DJ Alex Cohen.

Wednesday, 6/11 Merck Digital Sciences Studio Graduation Showcase. Join the Merck Digital Sciences team to meet their latest batch of companies enabling the next wave of drug discovery and development, offering a chance to see the exciting work from the 12 teams in the current cohort. ​​During this showcase, attendees will have the chance to hear from teams, engage with the leaders of these ventures, gain insights into their methods & solutions, and explore the potential impact of their work on biopharma and beyond. At the end of the day, stick around for an excellent sunset reception high above Manhattan while enjoying some victuals and refreshments with friends new and familiar.

Wednesday, 6/11 Westchester Bioscience Community Event: AI - Real Use Cases. Join FirstXFounder and the WCBA program to hear from experts on AI in biotech. The panel discussion will focus on real-world use cases for AI and the problems they are helping to solve.

Thursday, 6/12 ECHO Biotech Happy Hour. This month’s edition of ECHO’s monthly happy hour hang will once again bring together the usual lineup of life sciences-oriented entrepreneurs, clinicians, healthcare operators, and beyond - this time for an evening of waterfront mingling at Pier I Cafe in Riverside Park South.

Thursday, 6/12 Biotech Innovation Social - by ModernVivo and ReSync. Come join ReSync Bio and ModernVivo for drinks, bites, and great conversation at for an evening of community and conversation at West End Labs in NYC. ​​Whether you're working on the next breakthrough therapeutic, investing in biotech innovation, or just curious about what's new in preclinical drug development, this is your chance to connect with others.

Wednesday, 6/18 How to Apply Your Skills to Biotech: Automation. As AI and lab automation revolutionize scientific research—from robotic liquid handlers and automated cell imaging to AI-driven drug discovery and predictive modeling—they’re also transforming how we train and grow the biotech workforce. Join Genspace and Dr. Kennedy McDaniel Bae for a seminar on the intersection of biotechnology, automation, and education. Whether you're a student, educator, researcher, or science enthusiast, this is a timely conversation about the evolving nature of scientific work and the future of inclusive, tech-forward training in the life sciences.

Friday, 6/20 French American Innovation Day: Bridging Health Innovation. ​The French American Innovation Day (FAID) is an annual symposium aimed at fostering collaboration between France and the USA in innovation and research, organized by the Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy. ​The French American Innovation Day will showcase the dynamic landscape of health innovation, focusing on key themes such as onco-immunology, gene therapy and brain and cognition.

Friday & Saturday, 10/3-10/4 2nd Annual NY BCI Symposium. Following up on a stellar inaugural conference last fall, BCI’s leading minds and most exciting emerging startups will once again descend on the New York Academy of Medicine for two days of panels, presentations, and networking, all with the mission of advancing and expanding the brain-computer interface space. With NYC increasingly becoming the center stage for this technology revolution, this is a can’t-miss event for anyone working in neurotech, AI/ML, medtech, and beyond.
Early-bird registration is now available!

Other events coming up you think I should know about? Let me know here!

Map of the Month

🇨🇿🇸🇰 Now this is a map particularly close to my heart (and genes): does your state have more Czech or Slovak ancestry?

Odds & Ends

🤵👰💒 Find random weddings to crash with this nifty website! (Note: Magnitude and Direction does not condone attending weddings you have not been invited to.)