omenti

your local replicator

minipost

I thought we were past the hype stage.  3d printing has been around for about three decades and has undergone a couple of "gee-whiz - this is the next PC .. the next Internet" hype stages.  Recently a friend mentioned a futurist was pushing it and a few other technologies as a way out of many of our problems.  It has it's place, but in the grand scheme of things it's still very much a niche player.  Once you get past prototyping or technically difficult shapes you run into the fact that it offers a limited palate of materials, is usually much more expensive than other techniques in volume and often comes with environmental and health issues. 

 

I've been playing with it as a hobbyist for about fifteen years.  I like making things and some shapes are too complex to use conventional tools.  It's fun to play with so give it a whirl if you like making.  Rather than buy a printer go with a service bureau.  Good printers are probably too expensive to justify and you don't want the noise and sometimes toxic fumes in your home. If you have some money to burn spend it on a computer controlled laser cutter or CNC milling machine...

 

The reasons why it's unlikely you'll be printing things at home rather than buying them in the next decade or three would fill a book.  Instead here's a book recommendation that will give you background and is one of those fun references almost no one has heard about.  Making It, Third Edition by Chris Lefteri.  It's aimed at designers who want to learn about manufacturing processes, but is highly readable detailed over 100 production processes at a high level.  It gives a sense of the importance of materials and dealing with scale and budget constraints.  

 

The practical openings hanging automated making are equally interesting.  Clothing is an area that could be huge.  I've written about it a few times and good progress is being made.  It also turns out to be interesting as it has great socio-economic issues.

 

Real innovation is rare.  A fun way to spend a day over the holidays is go to your library and go through Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines from the 50s and 60s.  These are excellent illustrations of technologies being hyped. You'll see a couple of things that worked out and hundreds that didn't.  At the same time they give a sense of how popular, and perhaps necessary, building skills were around the home then.

 

pathfinding and appropriate encouragement

Last night I caught a John Cleese interview.  In the US and UK, he complained, it's common to tell children how talented they are at something and that perhaps it is ok to not do well in something else because talent is the deciding factor.  In his experience that's entirely wrong.  Kids should be taught perseverance and to recognize that luck is extremely important.  

 

I mostly agree..  some things may come more easily to some people, but work and perseverance can get you a long way down the path.  Rather than pure luck I believe the act of paying attention and having the sagacity to notice when the new and interesting appears. Basically serendipity.  Cleese found himself in a serendipity generator of sorts when he joined a student comedy group at Cambridge. He immersed in comedy at the right level for learning the trade. Other than having timing he wasn't very good, but he stuck with it.  One thing led to another.. successes and failures, but it worked.

 

He made another point.  When he went to Cambridge he started into the sciences as he did well in tests.  Very quickly he discovered the other students actually enjoyed physics and chemistry and realized  that put him at a distinct disadvantage. He changed his major, but at least he tried and worked hard enough to recognize he didn't enjoy the science path.  When you get to a point where major focus is necessary it makes sense to take stock of what you like and take that path if there's a choice.  Of course this is at odds with current advice to get a degree in something that you can make a living at.  I'm afraid I have trouble with that as general advice.

 

The serendipity part is critical. My focus was initially far too narrow, but I managed to slowly branch out.  Sometimes, like John Cleese, you find yourself in a rich environment.  At other times you must concoct your own serendipity.  There are a variety of techniques - mine is tithing my time.  I devote ten or eleven hours a week to the projects of friends.  While it's not perfect, it's been an incredible education. 

 

Finally back to praise and perseverance.  I try to encourage others, but am parsimonious with praise.  Of course there are times when it's well deserved and it's always a wonderful example of perseverance. In that spirit I'll recognize one of you. Yesterday Sarah was named the best beach volleyball blocker for 2018-2019.   Here's a link to a short video compliation posted to Twitter.  Amazing Sarah!  Now on to Tokyo and a gold for Canada.

 

An update - today her teammate Melissa Humana-Paredes was named the best female defender in the world and together they are the best women's team in the world.

 

 

two innovations for charging into the future

Electric cars are on people's radar.  Three friends bought new cars in the last month.  Without prompting all three gave reasons why they didn't go with an electric car. It's interesting that we're at that point.  Without going into details a conventionally sized electric vehicle is a poor environmental choice if the metric is lowering carbon emissions per dollar.  Of course there may be other good reasons for going electric and the breed is improving. Battery technology is central to conventional EVs like Teslas and emerging unconventional and disruptive vehicles and change is in the air.

 

It seems every few months there's a news release announcing a dramatic breakthrough in battery development.  The problem is Lithium-ion is a huge family of battery chemistries rathe rather than a specific type of battery.  Hundreds of varieties exist all with different characteristics.  For vehicles you want low cost, high energy density, high power density (how quickly energy can be delivered), fast charging, long lifetime (thousands of charge/discharge cycles), tolerance to temperature extremes, safety and a few other things.  These translate into longer range, faster charging, extended lifetime, safety - all at a reasonable cost.  The press releases usually only address one characteristic - often at the expense of others.  Improving the breed has been a long road and fairly steady road, but two innovations are on the near-term horizon:  solid state electrolytes and lithium metal anodes.  They could change the industry.  

 

The anode is the negative terminal of a battery.  Currently most Li-Ion batteries use graphite anodes. The cathode or positive terminal is where the exotic material science is usually invoked along, but a lithium metal anode can increase the energy density (energy stored per kilogram of battery) by as much as fifty to one hundred percent.  Suddenly the weight penalty of the battery is lowered. It probably won't happen tomorrow, but seems likely on the five to ten year horizon.

 

You've probably seen videos of flaming Teslas and cellphones.  Thermal runaway causes many current Li-ion batteries to burn if they manage to get too hot (usually around 150°C) A lot of careful engineering can minimize this but, like the gasoline in a tank, it's a risk.  Solid state electrolytes are non-flammable. There are a variety of types being investigated including some that charge quickly.  Unfortunately no one has a handle on exactly how to pull it off. Toyota announced they'd have something ready by the early 2020s.  That seems a tad aggressive.  Then again it's possible a few breakthroughs could happen in the near term and they'll be on track.  It raises an interesting question.. how proprietary will the technologies be?  Will there be a class of solutions that allow many players or are we going to see the emergence of one or two very powerful players? 

 

The magic number cited for cost parity of EVs and conventional cars is around $100 per kilowatt-hour of energy storage. Exact internal costs are difficult to come by and there is more than a bit hype, but most educated guesses are in the $170 to $200 range.  This seems to be improving incrementally, but solid state electrolytes and lithium metal anodes in the next decade would disrupt the curve.  An EV with 400 to 500 mile range between charges, a safer and faster charging battery than the current crop and for the same price as a similar car with a gasoline engine. 

 

Many issues that are poorly addressed.  Recycling a vehicle batteries is going to be necessary, but is currently basically non-existent and a difficult problem.  Then there's beefing up the grid - particularly the low voltage local distribution component as electricity demand will rise significantly and could double in areas with high electric vehicle density.  Issues that will take time and money to address, but nothing insurmountable.  

 

In the meantime use whatever vehicle seems most appropriate and drive it less.  Better yet use a bike or ebike to offset some of your normal driving.  There's a short list of other environmentally meaningful steps you can take from flying less, to eating less meat (particularly beef), to voting global warming denying politicians from office.