Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication
How to build anything with delrin and a laser cutter. (I've been a big advocate for laser cutter-based manufacturing for a while, so this is a great breakdown of all the things you can make pretty quickly and cheaply with that machine, plus a very handy, widely used plastic.)
If I shared this before, then it was a while ago and it's worth bringing back for the M&D audience (especially now that there are more of you!). This is a guide from Autodesk for every piece of machinery in their Pier 9 workshop in San Francisco (which I, unfortunately didn't get to go to while I was out there).
⚔ Adafruit designed a fully 3D print-able collapsing lightsaber (just like the toy ones Toys R' Us used to sell, RIP) and you know I'm making a set over the weekend for dueling purposes.
Software and Programming
This CSS-only web chat app is definitely not a good idea, but at least its creator(s) are aware of that.
Have you ever wanted to make cool *~*aesthetic*~* generative art (think Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" album cover)? Of course you have, and now there are some easy tutorials for you to follow.
A classic from the Transit Techies meetup, TransitFlow is software designed to make it easy to visualize the ebb and flow of multiple transit modalities simultaneously through both time and space. TL;DR: this code makes pretty maps!
Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine
Just on its own, this picture of the Large Magellanic Cloud (a galactic satellite of our Milky Way) is incredibly impressive. It's capture is all the more impressive, though, because of the group that captured it: a small collection of amateur astronomers.
➡ Since we're on the opposite side of the calendar from winter (at least in the northern hemisphere) I think it's now safe to show this amazing video of a drop of water becoming a snowflake.
This galaxy simulator from Columbia's Department of Astronomy isn't the first intergalactic simulator I've shared here, but it is one of my favorites and produces some of the most beautiful results. It isn't actively supported on Columbia's servers anymore, though, so the link here is via the Internet Archive. If you have any trouble getting to it, drop me a line.
Mapping, History, and Data Science
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Children's Book Week a few weeks ago, the Library of Congress has released a free collection of their oldest children's books, with some of them dating back to the 1700s. Personally, I'm very curious to learn the plot details of The Cat's Party.
It turns out that, like most other things, there's no such thing as a truly original logo design. For tomorrow's edition of Moment of Inertia, I'll be exploring this theme of "originality" and what it means in the internet age in greater detail.
The study you never knew you needed to see: A comparison between the graffiti in men's and women's bathrooms.
Events and Opportunities
Did you realize I forgot to change the intro to this section in the last edition of M&D? In any case, there's a lot of exciting stuff coming up as we start heading towards summer.
Saturday, 5/18 The Futureworks Makerspace - the cornerstone of NYC's advanced manufacturing infrastructre - holds its grand opening. If you've been looking for a reason to go down to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, this is it.
Monday, 5/20 The New York Entrepreneurs, Startup & Business Coalition meetup group has one of their biggest networking happy hours yet, with the goal of bringing together people from a wide range of disciplines to meet potential co-founders, business partners, team members, and more.
Tuesday, 5/21 Harlem Biospace's next Riverside Chat deals with all things medical device investing (something I don't think the NYC ecosystem normally gives enough attention to).
Tuesday, 5/21 For anyone who will be in Detroit for TCT/RAPID (one of the biggest 3D printing industry trade shows of the year), my friends over at 3DHEALS will be hosting an invite-only happy hour. If you're interested in bioprinting and/or medical 3D printing applications, you should definitely check this out.
Wednesday, 5/29 SciArt convenes at Peculier Pub once again for their May mixer.
Wednesday, 5/29 Join NYDesigns for their monthly happy hour at Bierocracy to meet women engineers, developers, marketers, business developers, scientists, inventors, tinkerers, and awesome women involved in the New York City Tech ecosystem. Individuals who identify as female and men are welcome to attend as well!
Thursday, 5/30 JLABS @ NYC hosts their next Innovator and Entrepreneurs mixer, which is quickly becoming a mainstay of the NYC biotech scene.
Some other upcoming events to keep on your radar...
Thursday, 6/6 Join the Nanotech NYC meetup at their new monthly Nanonite Social! Whether you are a student, scientist, engineer or just curious about what nanotechnology is and how it's used, you're more than welcome to join the group. Heck, even if you aren’t a nanotech enthusiast and want to just get to know new people, come on by, it's a friendly group!
Saturday, 6/8 The next Music Community Lab hackathon explores the relationships between movement and music. The hackathon is on 6/8, but be sure to apply by 5/22 - space is limited!
Tuesday, 6/11 The Mid Atlantic Bio Angels have their next 1st Pitch competition. Always a great opportunity to connect with local up-and-coming biotech startups as well as the wider life science community in NYC.
Thursday, 6/20 JLABS celebrates 1 year in New York with a pitch competition some of the area's most promising local talent.
Thursday & Friday, 6/20-21 The Biodesign Challenge Summit 2019 on June 20th and 21st at Parsons School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art brings together 36 teams from 9 countries to present their visions for the future of biotechnology. Use code SUMMITVIP115 for a free pass.
Map of the Month
It only has the years 2011 to 2013, but this map of all the filming locations in NYC is pretty fun to explore. On my block during that period, one movie was filmed: New Year's Eve staring well..., a bunch of people.
Odds & Ends
With very little to work from the Image-to-Image AI will generate some pretty reasonable pictures of everyday objects.