MachinePix Weekly #8
BlackBerry: what is dead may never die. The birth of a vinyl record.
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This weekend I took a break from interviews—they’ll pick back up next Monday. Last week’s interviewee Mohit showed me an open source BlackBerry-esque LTE project, which I’m quite smitten by. In the interim, I’m always looking for interesting people to interview, have anyone in mind?
The most popular post last week was the pressing of a vinyl record. As always, the entire week’s breakdown is below.
- Kane
The Week in Review
Allen Pan’s YouTube channel is a cornucopia of wacky inventions and cosplay props.
This was my favorite post from the past week. Everything about this—the whimsical name, the steampunk complexity of it, and the honest-to-god Trammel of Archimedes—is incredible. Apple Advanced Materials & Prototyping Lead Simon Lancaster sadly notes “Not many left in existence! These have basically become collectors items since CNC lathes.”
The most popular post this week starts off looking like matcha donuts and ends up as a vinyl album. I was surprised by how little precision is required throughout the process; all the precision is in the cutting of the press’s die. I wonder how many records can be pressed before the die starts to lose fidelity?
As an aside, I pranked my roommate by having Despacito made into a vinyl record disguised as a Tycho album (he hates Despacito), and one-off records are cut on lathes instead of pressed.
More specifically, a three-knife trimmer, often used in the publishing industry.
Postscript
My friend is trying to add a wifi hotspot to his Toyota Tacoma, so I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of LTE networking hardware for getting remote access. It feels like a new generation of the ham radio folks I grew up with.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to friends (or interesting enemies). I am always looking to connect with interesting people and learn about interesting machines—reach out!
- Kane