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Every single day, 600 tons of particle board go into a factory, and out the other end comes a product so ubiquitous that there is one for every 100 people on Earth. It was designed in 1978. Can you guess what it is?

It’s Ikea’s Billy bookcase, which should go down in the history books as one of the farthest-reaching designs in the world, and a model of hyper-efficient production. Compared to the 1980s, Ikea is currently producing 37 times as many Billys as back then—yet the requisite workforce has only doubled!

I learned these facts and plenty more from a fantastic podcast that will be of interest to industrial designers, and which is also being turned into a book. The podcast is called "50 Things That Made the Modern Economy" and the book is called "Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy." The former is hosted on the BBC World Service; the latter is coming out in August. Both are by Tim Harford, the journalist better known as The Financial Times’ Undercover Economist. Writes Harford of the book,

I’ve tried to paint a picture of economic change by telling the stories of the ideas, people, and tools that had far-reaching and unexpected consequences for all of us. Drawing from the hugely popular BBC radio program and podcast "50 Things That Made The Modern Economy ," I discuss the inventions that have transformed the ways we work, play and live. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette’s disposable razor to Ikea’s Billy bookcase, I recount each invention’s own memorable story and introduce you to the characters who developed them, profited from them, and were ruined by them.

The podcast is free and the sub-10-minute episodes are very listenable, well-researched and attributed. The book will be $15 to $20 for e-book or print versions, respectively. I highly recommend that you check both of them out.

Via Kottke

via Core77
“Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy”

An integrated Exhaust Manifold, or “headifold,” is an exhaust manifold cast into an engine’s cylinder head and cooled by antifreeze. This type of design, where the exhaust manifold is no longer a separate part, is becoming a lot more common in the auto industry (see 2017 Honda Civic Type R). Here’s why.

Let Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained walk you through the benefits of a water cooled exhaust manifold:

One of Fenske’s main points is that coolant collecting heat from the exhaust gets the engine up to temperature faster, which yields faster cabin warmup times and better initial engine oil flow (and thus better fuel economy, emissions and engine longevity).

Another benefit, he says, occurs at high engine loads where exhaust gases are so high, they risk compromising the life of the catalytic converter. Cooling these gases with coolant, Fenske mentions, prevents the engine control unit from having to dump more gas into the combustion chambers to lower exhaust temperatures. This means a staggering 20 percent better highway fuel economy on the 2017 VW Golf Alltrack he was driving. Not to mention, the lower CO2 emissions that go along with that.

Three benefits he doesn’t mention are weight, packaging space, and catalytic converter warmup. Weight is a big one, as typically, cars use a separate cast iron exhaust manifold bolted to a head with a gasket in between. This integrated setup gets rid of that manifold, all the bolts, and the gasket, the latter of which can also act as a potential failure mode.

Related to this weight savings is packaging space, as these tightly-integrated manifolds are typically smaller than a separate manifold bolted to a cylinder head. This benefit in packaging space can, according to a Ford patent on the technology, yield faster catalytic converter warmup times (and thus lower emissions after startup) and better turbo response, due to the shorter exhaust paths to the catalyst and turbocharger turbine, respectively.

Of course, as Fenske mentions, this integrated exhaust manifold adds more heat load to the cooling system, and makes tuning more difficult. But despite these drawbacks, the benefits in emissions, fuel economy, cabin warmup, weight, complexity and turbo response are hard to ignore, which is why “headifolds” have become so prevalent over the past decade or so.

via Gizmodo
Automakers Are Changing To Integrated Exhaust Manifolds Because The Benefits Are Staggering

Tim Harford, aka The Undercover Economist, is coming out with a new book called Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy.

New ideas and inventions have woven, tangled or sliced right through the invisible economic web that surrounds us every day. From the bar code to double-entry bookkeeping, covering ideas as solid as concrete or as intangible as the limited liability company, this book not only shows us how new ideas come about, it also shows us their unintended consequences — for example, the gramophone introducing radically unequal pay in the music industry, or how the fridge shaped the politics of developing countries across the globe.

It’s based on his BBC podcast 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy.

Fun fact that I just discovered: Harford and I share the same birthday, both date and year.

Tags: books   economics   Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy   podcasts   Tim Harford
via kottke.org
Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy

3D printing is coming of age in numerous ways. On a large scale, MIT researchers built a 50-foot-wide, 12-foot tall igloo in just 13 hours. They’ve also debuted the first completely 3D-printed rocket engine. On a much smaller level, our own Sean Buckley printed a little d-pad for his Nintendo Switch, while medical researchers have produced a 3D-printed patch that can heal scarred heart tissue. Now we’re seeing this technology coming to the industrial world with a new laser-powered metal 3D printer from GE.

GE Additive is a new business under the larger GE umbrella. It is developing what it calls "the world’s largest laser-powered 3D printer" to create parts that fit within one cubic meter cubic of space. "The machine will 3D print aviation parts suitable for making jet engine structural components and parts for single-aisle aircraft," said GE Additive’s Mohammad Ehteshami in a statement. "It will also be applicable for manufacturers in the automotive, power, and oil and gas industries."

Additive printers fuse fine layers of powdered metal with a laser beam to print objects. The new process could make complex parts like jet engine components easier and less costly to make than traditional casting and welding techniques. GE Aviation is already printing fuel nozzles for jet engines that will be found in Airbus, Boeing and narrow-body jets. GE has a prototype large-scale metal prnter, called ATLAS, that can print 2D objects up to 1 meter long, but the new one will extend that to a third dimension. Beta versions of the new printer should be ready by the end of this year, according to Ehteshami, with a production version slated for 2018.

Source: GE Reports

via Engadget
GE is working on a massive 3D printer for jet engine parts

On Tuesday, Netflix released its first interactive story. Like the choose-your-own-adventure books from our childhoods, Netflix’s television show lets viewers pick where the story should go, and it’s the best thing ever.

Right now, there’s only one interactive story available: “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale.” Luckily, it’s entertaining and well-written enough for both adults and kids.

In the episode, viewers get to follow Puss as he goes through remixes of popular fairytales. They encounter a book that prompts them to choose between two options while the narrator and Puss comment on both choices. Instead of a progress bar that tells you how far you are into watching a video, there are interactive book pages at the bottom of the screen that let you jump to decisions you can make. If viewers don’t decide in time, Netflix will automatically make a choice for them.

There are also characters from Puss in Boots upcycled to play new roles—like Toby the pig, who plays a pirate. There are the three little bears who can either be kind or not, depending on what viewers pick. And there’s my favorite character, an evil queen that enters the story, saying to her mirror: “I’m just saying maybe we could occasionally have a conversation about something other than who’s the fairest. Like, I don’t know, art, music?”

Unfortunately, the episode is only interactive on smart TVs, game consoles, iOS devices, and Roku devices, per Consumerist. On the web, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Androids devices, the episodes play as if Netflix were making the choices for you.

Apparently creating interactive stories has been an idea that took two years to execute. Netflix will release another interactive episode from the “Buddy Thunderstruck” series on July 14. In 2018, there will be an interactive episode of “Stretch Armstrong.”

Because it’s interactive, it’s not as easy to binge-watch a bunch of episodes in one sitting. There are other benefits, too, like letting kids think about the different pathways to creating a story and the potential consequences of a choice (Puss ends up getting injured a lot).

Hulu is also tinkering with choose-your-own-adventures. They’re developing a series called “Door No. 1" on its VR app, but the audience is for adults.

via Lifehacker
Netflix’s Interactive Stories Are Entertaining Even If You’re Not A Kid

This tutorial shows how to prepare a Debian 9 server (with Apache2, BIND, Dovecot) for the installation of ISPConfig 3.1. The web hosting control panel ISPConfig 3 allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache web server, Postfix mail server, Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server, MySQL, BIND nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more.
via Planet MySQL
The Perfect Server – Debian 9 (Stretch) with Apache, BIND, Dovecot, PureFTPD and ISPConfig 3.1

via TechCrunch
The law firm Cooley is updating its packet of startup tips and financing documents

via Dilbert
Dilbert 2017-06-20

Word on the street is the coconut oil is bad for you. Once thought to be a “fat burning fat” that was good to incorporate into your diet, now the advice is “You can put it on your body, but don’t put it in your body.”

Turns out, the research behind the oil being good for you was a bit flawed. It was looking at all the good stuff in “designer oil,” which isn’t what most of us are picking up at Trader Joe’s.

If you have a bunch of coconut oil in your pantry, you don’t have to throw it out. While you should at least limit the amount you consume (as you should with all fats, really), there are a ton of great uses, some of which we’ve written about before, for the oil that are worth giving a try:

Condition Your Hair

You may not want to line your stomach with fat, but fat can be a good thing for your hair. Coconut oil is thought to be a great conditioner. Putting it on your locks can help smooth down overlapping layers of protein, and will repel water so your hair keeps looking its best.

Treat Your Feet

Take care of cracked heels by applying a little coconut oil to your feet at night, putting on some socks, and then leaving the oil to soak into your dry heels overnight. You’ll wake up to much softer, much more moisturized, tootsies.

Coconut Manicure

Just like coconut oil can do wonders for your feet, it can also take care of dry skin on your hands. Rub a bit on dry cuticles to moisturize them, and your hands in the process.

Remove Gum From Hair

When I was in elementary school I had really long hair, and I used to have a real problem with somehow managing to get my gum stuck in my hair. Back in the 80s, the removal method was always just cutting it out (good thing I had a ton of hair), but you can actually use coconut oil to remove it as well. Just rub the area down with a little bit of coconut oil. The area around will get slick, and the gum will slide right out.

Makeup Remover

Running low on makeup remover? Coconut oil can do wonders when it comes to removing stubborn makeup. Put a tiny bit of coconut oil on a cloth, and then rub it on the area to remove the stuff that isn’t budging with soap and water alone.

Tell us about your own favorite uses for coconut oil in the comments!

via Lifehacker
Don’t Eat Your Coconut Oil, Use It For This Stuff Instead

mikeatTB shares an article from TechRepublic:
Software engineers have largely failed at security. Even with the move toward more agile development and DevOps, vulnerabilities continue to take off… Things have been this way for decades, but the status quo might soon be rocked as software takes an increasingly starring role in an expanding range of products whose failure could result in bodily harm and even death. Anything less than such a threat might not be able to budge software engineers into taking greater security precautions. While agile and DevOps are belatedly taking on the problems of creating secure software, the original Agile Manifesto did not acknowledge the threat of vulnerabilities as a problem, but focused on "working software [as] the primary measure of progress…" "People are doing exactly what they are being incentivized to do," says Joshua Corman, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative for the Atlantic Council and a founder of the Rugged Manifesto, a riff on the original Agile Manifesto with a skew toward security. "There is no software liability and there is no standard of care or ‘building code’ for software, so as a result, there are security holes in your [products] that are allowing attackers to compromise you over and over." Instead, almost every software program comes with a disclaimer to dodge liability for issues caused by the software. End-User License Agreements (EULAs) have been the primary way that software makers have escaped liability for vulnerabilities for the past three decades. Experts see that changing, however. The article suggests incentives for security should be built into the development process — with one security professional warning that in the future, "legal precedent will likely result in companies absorbing the risk of open source code."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

via Slashdot
What Happens When Software Companies Are Liable For Security Vulnerabilities?