3D printing is now really coming to you! I have written about this intriguing concept several times (each word is a separate hyperlink) in the past few months. No, a company is selling the device for consumers. MakerBot, from an industrial sector of Brooklyn, is selling a kit ($ 1299) that lets you make products you design. This company is the brainchild of Bre Prettis, Adam Meyer, and Zach Smith.
Continue reading Now YOU can 3D print- really!
I read many newspapers every day. I read tons of articles every day (ok- maybe only 100 pounds, but you get the idea). Many of them all describe how tough life is, how folks get stuck in patterns from their parents. If the father was an abuser, so will be the child. If the mother was cold, so will be the child. I think NOT! We all have a choice. It is not an easy one- but one we must make- and remake, every day.
Continue reading No excuses will do!
There is a four letter word that we never want to say. O.K., your mind wandered- WRONG! The correct answer is “fear”.
Continue reading The four letter word starting with “F”…
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I am a big “phan” of the Phillies. And, nowadays, teams trade their people at the drop of the hat. (To be honest, that is not a Phillies trait, but it does happen.) Last year, Jayson Werth, our right fielder was a free agent and though he could get a big boost in pay. He did- but now he’s a Washington National. (I do see every Phillies game here in DC, where I live, as well as in Citizen’s Bank Park. I may not root for the Nats, but I still follow Jayson.) 
Continue reading I want you to read about baseball? Really?
It also turns out that changes in sleep patterns can have a profound effect on our lives. A new study, published in Sleep, states that changes in our sleep patterns that we make- or just happen as we age- in our late middle ages can lead to cognitive decline. This decline is equivalent in scope to adding some 4 to 7 years to our actual mental age. Notice, I said “changes” in sleep patterns.
Continue reading More on Sleep (too much or too little!)
I used to commute from Charlottesville (VA) to Long Beach (CA). Yes, really. It started out as three days in one place and four in another. It escalated (degraded?) into alternating 8 and 30 hour segments for some two or three years. (It’s how I learned how to sleep on airplanes- and get lets of work done on them, too.) But, it’s also how I learned to get plenty of planning done on my 75 minute drive (don’t figure out what speed that was) to Dulles Airport.
Why do I bring this up? Because, I have been driving to and from Citizen’s Bank Park every week or so, for years. And, on one of the rare occasions that I did this trip solo, I got a lot of thinking done, too. (Good thing- we’ve been working on a new concept. This gave me plenty of time to get the edges honed down.) I also figured out what makes my work with helping new and existing companies so exceptional. (I obviously have no problems with hubris 🙂 .)
Continue reading Techie? Businessperson?
So, many of you know that I sleep 3 hours a night. No, I don’t sleep during the day. (OK, put me in a boring lecture and I am out faster than you can say “boo”.) And, there was a recent Wall Street Journal article that made me feel better. Dr. Chris Jones of the University of Utah (and Dr. Fu of UC San Francisco) have been running a study (actually checking folks genetic code) about folks who thrive on 3 hours of sleep. The problem is that while many people think they need little sleep- but only 5% of those who do so think, really meet this criterion. It turns out only a select few (elite?) can survive healthily on such a regimen, about 1-3% of the total population. The short-sleepers are night owls and early birds. (Yes, they, like I, burn the candle at both ends.) We short-sleepers are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious. (I clearly include myself in this “elite” group.) Moreover, this practice (habit?) starts when we are kids and runs in families. (Until my dad was dying, he was like that. My grandmother as well.)
Continue reading Are you asleep? Or are you awake? Or- are you both?
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Many folks repeatedly talk about making a list of goals, listing our tasks, so that we can be productive. The problem is that completing tasks and goals does not mean one is productive- it just means one is busy.
Continue reading Finishing tasks is NOT productivity
A new solar thermoelectric device is in the offing- and what’s cool is that it can be retrofit into existing solar water heaters to gain the benefits. This means the payback for adding the device is amplified. Dr. Gang Chen and ZhiFeng Ren and twelve colleagues and doctoral students (MIT, Boston College, GMZ Energy (founded by the primary authors), and Masdar Institute of Abu Dhabi), published these results in Nature Materials.
Continue reading A (much) Better Solar Hot Water Heater
