Bayard
Bayard's JournalNot so fast on Bernie news
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Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients lives by 3D printing valves
Many have been asking what the implications of the current Covid-19 pandemic are going to be on additive manufacturing as an industry. The relationship between coronavirus and 3D printing is not entirely clear, mostly because we are very far from understanding what the long, medium and even short terms implications of the pandemic are going to be on global supply chains.
Additive manufacturing may be able to play a role in helping to support industrial supply chains that are affected by limitations on traditional production and imports. One thing is for sure though: 3D printing can have an immediate beneficial effect when the supply chain is completely broken. That was, fortunately, the case when a Northern Italian hospital needed a replacement valve for a reanimation device and the supplier had run out with no way to get more in a short time.
The original valve (on the left) and its 3D printed twin.
One of the biggest immediate problems that coronavirus is causing is the massive number of people who require intensive care and oxygenation in order to live through the infection long enough for their antibodies to fight it. This means that the only way to save lives at this point – beyond prevention – is to have as many working reanimation machines as possible. And when they break down maybe 3D printing can help.
https://www.3dprintingmedia.network/covid-19-3d-printed-valve-for-reanimation-device/
Why do we touch strangers so much? A history of the handshake offers clues
Coronavirus is disrupting an age-old habit with roots spanning from ancient Greece to the American Quakers.
THERE’S A LOT that can be conveyed in a handshake, a kiss, or a hug. Throughout history, such a greeting was used to signal friendship, finalize a business transaction, or indicate religious devotion. But touching strangers can also transmit other, less beneficial shared outcomes—like disease outbreaks.
As fears about COVID-19, or coronavirus, mount, France has warned its citizens to pause their famous cheek kisses, and across the world business deals are being sealed with an elbow bump. But with histories tracing back thousands of years, both greetings are likely too entrenched to be so easily halted.
A popular theory on the handshake’s origin is that it began as a gesture of peace. Grasping hands proved you were not holding a weapon—and shaking them was a way to ensure your partner had nothing hiding up their sleeve. Throughout the ancient world, the handshake appears on vases, gravestones, and stone slabs in scenes of weddings, gods making deals, young warriors departing for war, and the newly dead’s arrival to the afterlife. In the literary canon, it stretches to the Iliad and the Odyssey.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/why-touch-others-history-handshake-offers-clues/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=linkedin::cmp=editorial::add=li20200313history-newhistoryhandshakes:rid=&sf231467907=1
Forecaster calls the coronavirus "an amazing grace for the planet"
A design trends forecaster calls the coronavirus “an amazing grace for the planet”
Climate Consciousness
Every decision counts.
“I think we should be very grateful for the virus because it might be the reason we survive as a species.”
Dutch trends forecaster Li Edelkoort has a provocative outlook on Covid-19, the deadly coronavirus strain that has upended manufacturing cycles, travel plans, and conference schedules around the world. Speaking at Design Indaba, a conference in Cape Town last week, the celebrated 69-year old design industry advisor pictured Covid-19 as a sobering force that will temper our consumerist appetites and jet-setting habits.
Edelkoort, who in recent years has become a fashion sustainability crusader, believes we can emerge from the health crisis as more conscientious humans. “We need to find new values—values of simple experience, of friendship,” she told Quartz. “It might just turn the world around for the better.”
“The virus will slow down everything,” Edelkoort notes. “We will see an arrest in the making of consumer goods. That is terrible and wonderful because we need to stop producing at such a pace. We need to change our behavior to save the environment. It’s almost as if the virus is an amazing grace for the planet.”
Having been a consultant to global brands like Armani, Hyundai, and Google, in a career spanning more than 45 years, Edelkoort is attuned to how travel restrictions affect businesses. Then, of course, there is the crucial role China plays in the supply chain for companies around the world. “People will try to do things via Skype, but that seldom works,” she explains. “We are already two months behind, which means summer-themed goods won’t be delivered or will arrive too late to be sold.”
But after the coronavirus, utopia looms, Edelkoort suggests. Indeed, Covid-19 could open new avenues for innovation, akin to how the bubonic plague ushered in an era of labor reforms and improvements in medicine in the Middle Ages. Being confined to our own towns or cities could foster a revival of cottage industries and an appreciation for locally made goods, she says. “There are so many possibilities,” Edelkoort says. “I’m strangely looking forward to it.”
https://qz.com/1812670/a-design-trends-forecaster-calls-the-coronavirus-an-amazing-grace-for-the-planet/
Microsoft will pay hourly workers regularly
Microsoft will pay hourly workers regularly even if they spend less time on the clock because of coronavirus.
KEY POINTS
The policy applies to people who work for other companies but provide services like bus rides or food service to Microsoft.
The announcement comes a day after Microsoft told employees in the Puget Sound and the Bay Area who can work from home to do so.
Microsoft on Thursday committed to paying normal hourly wages to non-employees providing services to Microsoft workers, like bus drivers and cafeteria workers, who might otherwise receive less pay while many of the company’s employees spend the next few weeks working from home to avoid exposure to the coronavirus.
The announcement highlights one of many factors that go into the equation of how the virus will affect businesses, particularly those that are keeping employees away from their offices.
On Wednesday Microsoft said employees in Washington’s Puget Sound — the home of its headquarters — and California’s Bay Area who can work from home should do so through March 25. Other companies have issued similar directives; on Wednesday San Francisco-based Salesforce encouraged all of its employees in the Washington cities of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue to work from home in March.
“We recognize the hardship that lost work can mean for hourly employees,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “As a result, we’ve decided that Microsoft will continue to pay all our vendor hourly service providers their regular pay during this period of reduced service needs. This is independent of whether their full services are needed. This will ensure that, in Puget Sound for example, the 4,500 hourly employees who work in our facilities will continue to receive their regular wages even if their work hours are reduced.”
Microsoft said last week that it didn’t expect to reach its quarterly revenue target for the business segment that includes Windows because of coronavirus impact.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/microsoft-will-pay-hourly-workers-regularly-as-it-faces-coronavirus.html
Amazing what a father will do for his children.....
A New Circular Juice Machine Turns Orange Peels into Bioplastic Cups
Freshly squeezed orange juice is a welcome sight at cafes worldwide. The machines often showcase about-to-be-squeezed oranges with pinball machine-esque wire loading racks and clear cases that allow the consumer to see their juice being made in real time. International design firm Carlo Ratti Associati (previously) takes the immediacy of the experience to another level. ‘Feel the Peel’ is a prototype machine that uses orange peels to create bioplastic, shaping bespoke cups to hold the juice made from the cups’ own innards.
In a press release about the project, Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) explains that the approximately 9-foot tall machine handles 1,500 oranges, and the peels accumulate in the lower level. The peels are dried, milled, and mixed with polylactic acid to form a bioplastic, which is then heated and melted so that an internal 3-D printer can form each recyclable cup. CRA shares that they will continue to iterate, and are considering creating clothing from orange peels as a future functionality.
Follow along with CRA’s wide-ranging projects on Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy Feel the Peel, also check out the cone-shaped french fry holders made from potato peels, designed by Simone Caronni, Paolo Stefano Gentile and Pietro Gaeli, as well as Mi Zhou’s toiletry containers made of soap. (via designboom)
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/09/circular-juice-machine/
Time Magazine--100 Women of the Year
For 72 years, TIME named a Man of the Year. With a few exceptions, it was almost always a man, usually a President or a Prime Minister or perhaps a titan of industry. Throughout history, these are the kinds of men who have wielded influence over the world.
In 1999, Man of the Year gave way to Person of the Year. While the name rightly changed, too often the choice was the same. With this 100 Women of the Year project, we’re spotlighting influential women who were often overshadowed. This includes women who occupied positions from which the men were often chosen, like world leaders Golda Meir and Corazon Aquino, but far more who found their influence through activism or culture. As former TIME editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs writes, this project is an exercise in looking at the ways in which women held power due to systemic inequality. “Women,” Gibbs writes, “were wielding soft power long before the concept was defined.”
To recognize these women, we have created 89 new TIME covers, many of which were designed by prominent artists. We left intact the 11 covers for women who had been named Person of the Year. The 100 choices in this project are the result of a months-long process that began with more than 600 nominations submitted by TIME staff; experts in the field; our creative partner, filmmaker Alma Har’el; and a committee of notable women from various backgrounds.
This process prompted just as many questions as answers: “What does it mean to be a woman?” “How has society failed to acknowledge the contributions of women?” One answer came from feminist organizer Gloria Steinem, whom we picked for 1970, and whom we asked to revisit a piece she wrote that year in TIME called “What It Would Be Like If Women Win”—a rare opportunity to reflect on 50 years of change.
https://time.com/100-women-of-the-year/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=women-of-the-year&utm_term=_&linkId=83706045
These are fascinating. Every cover from 1920 on is shown.
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