bcohen5055

This qualifier is actually more about lawyers and accountants. The US has a very unclear policy about labeling something as USA Made. It comes down to the US content in the BOM cost and it is specific to costs essential to the product, at my last 2 companies these decisions were left to accounting and legal.

In my current company we make sunglasses a non-polarized pair of sunglasses will say made in USA and a polarized pair will say assembled in the USA because the polarized wafers are not domestically made. In both cases the boxes, stickers, and logos are non domestic but aren't counted because they "aren't essential". In my previous company anything that had electronics from overseas had to be "assembled" but electronics from NAFTA areas were "usa made"

In reality it doesn't make much sense to ever have a BOM 100% USA made as that fully negates the benefits of trade but we should have policies that still encourage companies that chose to conduct business here. When consumers are turned off by "assembled in" it drives business out of the country.

*I work as a product development engineer for consumer goods. My current role and previous company both had US MFG sites

Edit: here is a link to the requirements https://www.nist.gov/standardsgov/compliance-faqs-made-usa#4

Not a home but if you were a bank and a 17 year old walked into the bank, talked to someone and was able to walk out with a fat stack of cash i think the insurance company would have to reconsider your policy.

The distinction you are looking for is parametric vs. geometric.

Parametric models such as Solidworks or Creo use complex equations to derive the 3D geometry. Geometric models use a point cloud built from polygons to develop surfaces. These point clouds are defined by the user and are not as "stable" when used in product development setting where you are trying to create multiple iterations/sizes of an object

There is a system for TV Meta Data to be sent over the air and TVs with tuners used to be able to read this data and create an on screen guide. I had this on one of the first HDTVs I got but haven't seen it since

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_and_System_Information...

I've been running Home Assistant for a while in Docker on my home NAS server. It runs great, is reliable, very scriptable, and so easy my wife can use it! I run it on my LAN without needing any additional online services and I VPN when away from home if I want to check anything out.

To be fair they don't pay for it every time... The chargers are now in LA, not SD

I grew up in Colorado and having them as a local resource for components was truly a gift. My dad was an EE and in his eyes Sparkfun was a great alternative to the Radioshack of his early days.

When I was in college in Fort Collins I made a quite a few trips for last minute parts to finish my projects and I had a ton of fun when I got one of the 5.00 dumpster dive boxes.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for this list.. you have killed my productivity this afternoon.

Any links to good articles about this? I for one have not heard of this before.

Yes, because seat belts and airbags only encourage people to drive faster and more reckless

Where I live in Southern California the problem is that supply is kept down by people renting out their first home and buying a 2nd. The houses appreciate at 4% per year and the rent increases at nearly 8% so it's win win for owners. On the flip side renters continue to spend their money renting and paying the mortgage of their landlords. The 2010 census reported Irvine was nearly 50% rentals [1].. In one of the largest planned communities in the US that is a problem.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California (see census data for 2010)

I work in a product development environment. We have a worldwide network of suppliers. At the beginning of this year our employer stopped reimbursing our monthly cell phone bill. When asked if we still should respond to emails form our phone both durring and outside of work hours we were reminded that although it is our choice to reply after work hours our bonus is contingent upon launching product on a timely schedule. Personally I enjoy being connected at all times as it maintains better relationships with engineers across the globe but ever since this decision was made I'm much more selective about what emails I reply to.

Profession: Mechanical Engineer - Full Time (large well known consumer product brand)

Workday:

-[8:00] Meeting, once a week with Italy (tool supplier), 2 days a week with US manufacturing (on site)

-[9:00-11:30] Catch up on emails, review 3D CAD for projects, individual casual meetings with designers, marketing, CAD etc

[11:30-1:00] Lunch with coworkers, usually go to local climbing gym or go for a hike

[1:00-5:00] Same as morning routine, sometimes have to help manufacturing team with production issues, usually schedule larger meetings to kickoff new projects

[5:00] Touch point call with Chinese counterparts for new projects

[6:00] Go home.. exchange email/wechat with China for a while

I'm a current robinhood non-gold user and they actually eliminated this restriction around 6 months ago. Now as soon as I sell a position I can buy my next with the funds from the sale.

If it's made in China and involves electronics it probably involves Shenzen

Investors are always focused on the rate of new subscriptions, if they can't be profitable they can at least say they are growing subscriptions in new markets and possibly save the share price

*citations needed

I was hoping to click on this and find the same page in Comic Sans

Phone manufacturers typically optimize around a 1 day use case. The battery takes up a significant amount of space and adding more than a day of charge at the expense of a thicker or larger phone typically doesn't play out well in the market.

A perfect example is the correlation between screen sizes and the launch of LTE. At the time if you asked anyone they wouldn't have wanted a larger phone however carriers wanted LTE phones and the market wanted phones that lasted all day. At the time thickness was a fairly standard comparison so what happened? They sold you a bigger screen so that they could fit a larger battery without producing a thicker phone.

I've always disagreed with the statement that elegant engineering is art. The purpose of art is to convey a statement or emotion while engineering is to deliver the best possible solution within a pile of constraints. Scientific and engineering findings should not be seen as anything more than the outcomes of a puzzle. Although 2 engineers may arrive at slightly different results it is easy to score them and select the correct path. In art this is not possible as both artists are conveying their message, not presenting a solution.

Hi Derek, I'm interested in learning a bit more about some of the mechanical engineering positions. If you see this send me an email. My address is in my profile.

Thanks, -Ben

In the united states there are very specific rules about the height and spacing of almost all plumbing fixtures in public places due to ADA and other local plumbing codes. Lots of the examples in the article are clear violations in the United States. Same goes for trip and flush levers, their identification and style.

FYI I'm a product design engineer at a plumbing fixtures manufacturer

Instead of a bomb how about a warning that these vans exist? You could have a bunch of nerds leaving arduinos in Ubers around NYC. Have the arduinos measuring radiation and phoning home with any locations that are above average. At the very least it would be an interesting map to look at

I've always wondered if sites do this the other way around. A site invests a lot in content they create you would think to get the most out of it they would serve it with different headlines to different demographics. Knowing from Facebook what headlines you have clicked through in the past can indicate how they should write future headlines to get you again.

Ya, "Our OS goes to 11, you see... a typical OS can only go to 10. Our OS rocks that much harder"

Although yes "connected to the drive shaft" in a sense is how it works but there can be some great discussions of 3 phase motor design, torque demand motor control systems, power electronics, regenerative breaking... The list goes on and on

All they have done here is produce a head that can produce a new support structure pattern, but I don't see the advantage of this pattern. The build layers are isolated by the support so you are left with only thin spider web type filament designs. Furthermore these designs can already be accomplished with other styles of support structures in filament style 3D printers. I think what they have done is a cool innovation but I don't see any novel application for it.

I will say that putting a print head on a robotic arm could lead to more industrialized FDM machines though.

It has an onboard ARM micro controller that can be programmed with Wiring just like Arduino. It also has its own REST API for simple web app type uses and has serial analog and digital io pins

Does anyone know if Randal is "Live Animating" this event or does he just know enough about the landing procedure to draw it all out ahead of time?

I'm an ME who uses CAD on a daily basis and I'd have to say that yes at first parametric modeling in the current software packages is a challenge. But I'v found it is a learning curve similar to syntax in programming. Once you learn to construct features robustly you do it every time and you no longer have too many hideous errors. No different than programming.