Jim
@sailbikewrite
Followers
1,333
Following
657
Media
199
Statuses
1,502
midwesterner lost in california | engineer | writing at thelimitcycle (at) gmail dot com
Palo Alto, CA
Joined July 2022
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
PAVILLON DES FOLIES X SAROCHA
• 806011 Tweets
ANILPIN LOVE ON THE BEACH
• 140998 Tweets
自民党石破総裁
• 70499 Tweets
イッテQ
• 53086 Tweets
John Kerry
• 45486 Tweets
Tottenham
• 42539 Tweets
BBS RAIN
• 39321 Tweets
ジャック
• 32241 Tweets
村上誠一郎
• 31780 Tweets
インライ
• 29059 Tweets
手越くん
• 24578 Tweets
モンスト
• 24347 Tweets
手越復帰
• 21322 Tweets
ツイステ
• 18032 Tweets
SPILL THE FEELS TRACK SAMPLER
• 17905 Tweets
WELCOME TO GOLD ERA
• 16268 Tweets
Happy Birthday Daniel
• 15255 Tweets
Flake
• 15064 Tweets
#EIGHTJAM
• 14319 Tweets
勝平さん
• 13416 Tweets
#プロセカ4周年
• 12981 Tweets
衆議院解散
• 12605 Tweets
Ipswich
• 12281 Tweets
ぐらんぶる2期
• 10513 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
@somarous
read dense books.
get your heart rate to 180 on a daily basis.
talk to strangers.
climb mountains.
2
5
64
there is so much opportunity in heavy industry and manufacturing right now. it's unreal
imagine PCs from the 1980s compared with the PCs of today
imagine cars from the 1980s compared with cars from today
many factories are still using technology from the 1980s and they're
29
78
930
Manufacturing’s Future is Based in El Segundo
A small city in Los Angeles County has assumed a near mythical status in the world of hardtech entrepreneurship. The storied American adage “Go West, young man” once again has a definite meaning: go to El Segundo.
The tweet heard
21
43
317
@animalologist
car companies charge more for bright colors and most people don't really feel like paying an extra 3-5 grand for a color.
8
2
263
If you're not working in manufacturing, wtf are you doing?
Reindustrializing the US is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Don't miss it
13
20
202
there has been lots of chatter about open source CAD recently.
this is new. and important for building the foundation for distributed and modular (and possibly LLM assisted) mechanical design
i don't know if VCs are thinking at this level, but funding a startup to build open-source parametric CAD software akin to solidworks/nx would pay dividends for basically every other company that's designing hardware.
Maybe each of you should put a few pennies in a jar?
85
57
906
4
8
167
@PaulSkallas
Big Shaq was the same way and 'Man's Not Hot' was a total banger
people loved over-exaggerated characters. its, as they say, lindy
1
0
144
Reversing 40 years of deindustrialization, offshoring, and industrial process stagnation is quite literally a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And you can watch it happen in real time if you know where to look.
6
8
128
The first step is to build the software that builds the machines.
What linux is to software development, the open source CAD will be to mechanical development.
@sailbikewrite
Solvespace is interesting, but maybe very early or not targeted at what I need - a solidworks-like system.
A standardized CAD system is critical to enabling wide collaboration across communities. For code, you just import a module. How do we get that with CAD? Standard systems.
2
1
17
4
6
115
The consequences of conferring low social status on careers in the world of atoms for two decades are becoming undeniable.
We need to make engineering sexy again.
FEAR OF FLYING
A door flew off a brand new plane recently in mid-air, due to cabin depressurization.[1] This is the kind of thing we didn’t previously see much in America.
So: are there more aviation incidents, is social media amplifying rare events, or is it all just our
129
161
1K
6
7
94
@US_Stormwatch
Great news! Lets see if we can put some of the water back in the ground and refill the aquifers. 💧
2
2
91
Imagine a considerable amount of all the value and wealth created during the 1999-2019 software/social media / web-app bonanza being directed at overhauling the American Industrial base.
This is the magnitude of opportunity that we're dealing with.
2
5
81
@markallanbovair
1. side impact safety requirements bring the belt lines up
2. fuel economy requirements dictate aerodynamic profiles
3. geometry of engines and drivelines dictate vehicle architecture
4. economics of raw materials and manufacturing techniques make stamped steel the obvious
4
4
76
@radshaan
ya accuracy in time domain limits accuracy in the frequency domain.
this is straight up called the "uncertainty principle of signal processing"
1
1
75
Memes like the American Dynamism investment thesis are starting to focus more attention and capital and clout on building new companies to develop new industrial machinery.
2
2
72
@PicturesFoIder
Kahneman won the Nobel for this. His Prospect Theory explains the way people approach this question.
It's obvious that the expected value of the green button is higher, but the red button guarantees enough money to live comfortably for a while. I'd definitely go red.
3
0
75
Mechanical Engineering was the first job taken by computers
There has been much ado about AI over the past few months. AI will take our jobs! Software developers will all be replaced by large language models! Lawyers will all be replaced by large language models! I believe this
6
16
67
Consider Elon.
His first company was Zip2 (software) and then he used the money from that to make PayPal (software)
He used his PayPal money to build SpaceX (industrial) and Tesla (industrial)
Same with Bezos and Amazon and Blue Origin.
1
2
58
The Bottom Is In
For the past 30 years or more, manufacturing has been declining in the United States. By nearly every measure, the manufacturing sector has fallen behind other sectors of the American economy.
1
9
59
@joodaloop
i think thats actually the right attitude and probably accounts for about 60-80% of people in any job.
think about the converse: if people had money to not work, what percentage of them would spend their time programming computers?
5
1
56
Gundo v SF is many things:
-Hardware-heavy development v software heavy development
-government / military applications vs b2b and consumer applications
-Zoomers v Millennials
And, perhaps most fundamentally, a new front in the age-old SoCal vs NorCal rivalry.
8
1
56
Why Here? Why Now? Why These People?
The scale and the speed with which people were building businesses in El Segundo is staggering. What is more unexpected is the youth of the people doing it. Nearly every founder I talked to was younger than me, some by a substantial amount.
2
6
53
The market cap of PayPal is less than 10% that of Teslas. Industrial companies have massive addressable markets.
Now scale that up from one guy to an entire sector of the economy.
1
3
52
@simonsarris
tbh hardest part about dating is knowing oneself.
once you know who you are and what you want, the rest falls into place naturally.
0
1
54
The Future of Manufacturing is Based in El Segundo
GUNDO DEEP DIVE VIDEO
Tons of hard tech startups are building in El Segundo. This video covers:
- Map of hard tech companies
- Brief history lesson
- Interviews with
@ADoricko
@ScottNolan
@ashleevance
@mrexits
@isaiah_p_taylor
@zanemountcastle
@cameron62s
&
@soren_ma
- 🧵👇
57
133
1K
3
3
52
@radshaan
wavelets are a sneaky way to take advantage of this as you can choose exactly how much frequency vs time resolution you want depending where you are in time-frequency space
2
0
42
@mattparlmer
why is that? I've met really skilled engineers that have advanced degrees and really skilled engineers that don't. seems decorrelated to me...
2
1
38
Is there a hardtech community in SF? I've met a few people working on hardware up here but nothing compared to what's going on in Gundo.
Who's working on hardtech in SF or Bay Area more broadly?
Hard tech communities in SF and El Segundo are battling for top talent to build some of the most hard core shit humanity has ever seen.
Miami…not even in the conversation!
19
4
140
7
1
35
@stan_okl
totally agree that prop 13 is bad and has essentially created a feudal society and should be repealed ASAP
However property taxes are collected by the counties, not by the state. The state gets most of its money from income tax.
4
0
34
@isaiah_p_taylor
120 years ago, the engineering college I went to had 3 different majors in railroading.
similar vibes
studying physics is lindy, as is studying ME, EE, and ChemE. stray away from the fundamentals at your own peril
6
1
28
@Juicy_J_713
Interesting. Without knowing the specifics of your clients' businesses, my gut says that it's the exact attitude that lead to 40 years of industrial stagnation.
These businesses will likely have to invest heavily in their own manufacturing R&D or they will fail.
Manufacturing
2
1
25
@inner_scorecard
its likely the FAANGs were hoarding engineers to make it harder for the competition to get them. So the wages were based on the opportunity cost of a competitor building a product. The opportunity cost collapsed and so did wages. He wasn't really being paid for his ability.
0
0
28
@RandomSprint
To succeed in a Professional Managerial Class job, you need to compete with people who have no kids. The time commitment is about 50-60 hours a week
additionally, the real estate is priced that places an upper middle class household can afford is about a 45 minute commute
2
0
28
vibe shift.
hardware is back.
There's a reason why SaaS funding is down to a 5-year low
VCs are finally waking up to the fact that zero marginal costs in the short term means zero margin in the long term
102
116
1K
1
0
27
Engineering is not science, science is not engineering
The ubiquitous, buzzword-y acronym STEM is often presented as a monolithic idea. It’s thrown around as though science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are all the same. I think this careless bundling obfuscates the
7
2
27
@WillManidis
some people credit Silicon Valley's success to this phenomenon. People bounce around from company to company, project to project and the labor pool as a whole becomes more skilled.
2
0
26
@holz_bau
I think this is primarily due to people texting while driving, not vehicle size
furthermore, the crash safety standards and fuel economy standards would likely make many of those cars illegal to sell today. you need large crumple zones and high beltlines and people would rather
4
1
24
engineering is an interesting career.
outcomes are bimodal.
you either push paper and do technician work or you build machines that will change the world from scratch. there isn't much in between.
i'd recommend doing the latter.
This is exactly how I feel after taking all the maths for electrical engineering 😂 I never use calculus or half of that garbage they taught me in school for design work.
0
0
3
3
1
26
Yesterday, a snarky tweet (post?) which gained a lot more attention than I expected inadvertently sparked an interesting conversation. I expressed doubts about the young fruits of the American Dynamism investment thesis then quickly realized that some savvy people are playing 4-D
i don't want to sound like a grouch but all these "American Dynamism" guys are just selling b2b saas, albiet for industrial applications
6
0
19
3
3
25
@Catherineoscopy
wages aren't correlated to productivity; they're correlated to replacement cost
the baseball stats geeked figured this one out.
Econ profs have a higher vorp.
0
0
23
The US economy supports 320k civil engineers vs 1.8M software developers and the BLS forecasts a 5x the growth in software developers vs civil engineers.
Not to mention software development pays 37% more at the median level.
These enrollment trends seem perfectly reasonable.
3
2
25
@unusual_whales
if the median American can't afford a home now, then the median American definitely won't be able to do so during a deep recession.
1
0
23
One foundational principle underlies California's culture: individualism taken past its logical extreme.
People come here to do whatever they want and to be whomever they want.
Individualism as the highest good is the cause of California's greatest successes and its most
3
0
23
There is a personality archetype in California that i haven't really encountered elsewhere; I call it 'the surfer dude'
The surfer dude is perennially chasing peak experiences in recreation and nature.
5
0
21
@holz_bau
what are the laws and regulations preventing rail projects from being developed?
it's counter-productive to simply say 'car bad train good'
why don't rail projects don't get funded or approved?
0
0
20
How to Jump-start American Manufacturing
America's current manufacturing strategy has lead to a disastrous race to the bottom. In order for the manufacturing sector to grow, we must change the culture of engineering and the geography of manufacturing.
1
1
20
the next 10 years will look a lot different than the previous 10
buckle up, the 40 year hiatus is over
we're back to making sci-fi machinery
0
2
16
The economics of American manufacturing businesses drive talented people out of engineering.
In the US, the word ‘engineer’ has been tacked onto any job that sounds remotely technical For example, software developers became ‘software engineers’. The fact that universities have
1
0
20
We don’t have enough engineers in the USA!” is a very common sentiment. People see a de-industrializing economy and assume this is due to a lack of workers, a supply problem. I believe cause and effect are swapped and it is actually a demand problem. We have so few engineers
@cameron62s
@sailbikewrite
we are graduating almost an order of magnitude less engineers than we should be
also meme game strong dawg
0
0
1
4
4
20
i don't want to sound like a grouch but all these "American Dynamism" guys are just selling b2b saas, albiet for industrial applications
Exciting News! After months in stealth, we're introducing Dirac's BuildOS - the first AUTOMATED Work Instruction platform.
It's time to change the way manufacturing engineers draft work instructions.
Get access to BuildOS here:
1/9
96
99
819
6
0
19
@unusual_whales
sampling bias. People who make 150k are concentrated in high cost of living places like NYC, Bay Area, LA, etc where homes cost upwards of 1.5 million dollars and rents are over 3k/month
expenses like daycare, food, gas, rent/mortgage can easily top 8k/month so seems logical.
4
0
15
climb some of the biggest cliffs in the world? Sail to Hawaii? They're there, may as well try.
California is an experiment in people doing whatever they want in whatever manner they want. And it's been wildly successful.
0
0
15
@ThaSoapBox
it's gotta be the Chicago Catholic League.
There are a lot of Catholic high schools in Chicago and they all put a huge emphasis on sports.
I'd be curious to see a public high school / Catholic high school breakdown of these athletes.
3
0
14
I'm working on another essay, this one on engineering education and training.
The first section deals with the word 'engineer' and how it is, to use a computer science term, overloaded.
Does an engineer operate a railroad locomotive? Write software for a hedge fund? Operate
@isaiah_p_taylor
@sailbikewrite
Interesting exchange
120 years ago the Professional Engineer was still decades away
Still today the rail industry maintains Engineer as a master craftsman…far closer to the historical meaning than today’s co-opted Professional Engineers who are missing their craft in entirety
2
0
3
2
2
11
A company called 'Nippon Steel' buying a company called 'US Steel' feels symbolic.
It's a clear sign of America's production capacity being sold off and potentially offshored.
Nippon Steel acquiring US Steel
Now X can IPO with the ticker X
1
0
26
4
0
12
What’s in a name?
What is in an engineer? The word is used to describe so much of work done in the economy. The people who design fighter planes are called engineers. The people who optimize the speed at which financial transactions take place or build that back end of an iPhone
0
2
16
@mkobach
a counter thesis: high home prices create a negative feedback loop which lowers the total fertility rate of a region, increases domestic outmigration and lowers the population and thus economic output of a region.
1
1
10
Want to dig up some gold or oil? Go for it.
Want to get famous being a movie star? Why not?
Want to spend an entire summer listening to the Greatful Dead? Put some flowers in your hair.
Want to spend 90 hours a week building startup? Someone might fund it.
1
0
12
@ZeDdCuLeS
oh wow.
I think we need to get serious about sourcing more raw materials in the US which means opening more mines and refineries, etc.
Just out of curiosity, what industry are you working in?
0
0
8
@robirwinengr
@pli_cachete
Here is a concrete example:
I was working as a 18-wheeler chassis development engineer and there was an issue with retreaded tires on the tractor inducing a first order wheel/tire vibration in the cab. Customers were complaining like crazy.
I put about 100 channels worth
1
0
14
@justindross
@friendly_gecko
lots of cost probably went into various levels of permitting review, engineering review, environmental review, rework, overtime, etc.
i'd be curious to learn which architecture, engineering, and construction firms worked on this project
2
0
11
The number of employees working in manufacturing saw sharp declines starting around 2000, bottomed out in 2009, and has not yet reached the level seen before the 2008 recession. [1]
1
0
11
@PirateWires
Manufacturing's future is Based in El Segundo
Manufacturing’s Future is Based in El Segundo
A small city in Los Angeles County has assumed a near mythical status in the world of hardtech entrepreneurship. The storied American adage “Go West, young man” once again has a definite meaning: go to El Segundo.
The tweet heard
21
43
317
0
0
10
@PekalaLaw
honestly a good idea. I feel like people would drive anyway so having them take a test and be licensed and insured is better than people driving around
17
0
10
Cervantes appreciators get rekt by Lord Byron
4
0
10
Getting more kids to study civil engineering will be a tough sell. It's obvious that construction and infrastructure will never have the same margins as tech, so the motivation will have to be something other than monetary.
Like I've posted before in the context of
3
2
10
the same companies that used profits to pump up their share prices with buybacks rather than invest in process improvement or research and development. Doing the same thing and expecting different results has been described as the definition of insanity.
2
0
10
@eigenrobot
switch to polar coordinates
work with the complex exponential
switch back
add real and imaginary parts
17 +sqrt(2)/2 + i sqrt(2)/2
1
0
10
@memecrashes
the guy did:
x / 2 = y
x1 = 6
x2 = 70
the right model is:
x / 2 = y
x = 6
w - z = x - y
w = 70
its a system of two equations, not super difficult, but can be a bit tricky
0
0
10
Re-shoring manufacturing has been a large part of Biden’s economic agenda, but the companies that are being subsidized to build factories in the US are the same ones that sent factories overseas;
1
0
10
An interesting dataset to estimate the value of an MBA is the MIT student outcome survey.
The median salary for MIT grads working in finance is the same whether the graduates have a bachelors or a masters degree.
The Masters/Bachelors delta is 80k for consulting.
If you assume
3
0
7
@TylerAlterman
Excellent. Unfortunately, the modern education system is malfunctioning at all levels so it's inspiring to see new educational paradigms emerge. Keep it up!
1
0
8
@chrissyykat
thats right! I forgot about all those art galleries, broadway theaters, dance studios, fashion designers, ad agencies and tv studios in San Francisco!
1
0
9
Engineering is not science. Engineering requires iterative prototyping to identify design issues and resolve them promptly. The best engineers I’ve worked with are relentless about making the iterative design loop as tight as possible; they test everyday.
1
0
8
When I was in college (early - mid 2010s) consulting was seen as the safe option, "yesterday's career of tomorrow" so to speak. All the action was in tech.
FAANGs were giving kids 6 figure offers if they got an A in CS225
now it seems like CS is 'yesterday's career of
I saw an entire generation switch their degree from Physics to CS because a silly college administrator with no real world experience told them it would help them get a job or some nonsense
30
1
139
1
1
8
@luke_metro
wait who is the principal and who is the agent?
principal -> company
agent -> employee?
principal -> company
agent -> mckinsey?
3
0
9
@1bit2far
Offshoring of manufacturing and brain drain into finance, tech, law, consulting, and other professions made manufacturing a less desireable place for intelligent, motivated, ambitious people to be.
the supply chain disruptions of Covid and the war in Ukraine are forcing people
The economics of American manufacturing businesses drive talented people out of engineering.
In the US, the word ‘engineer’ has been tacked onto any job that sounds remotely technical For example, software developers became ‘software engineers’. The fact that universities have
1
0
20
0
1
9
Re-industrializing the United States in an effective manner will require us to approach the problem differently. The last part in this essay will highlight the ways engineering and manufacturing will have to change to better suit the contemporary economy, geography, and culture.
1
0
9
Mechanical engineers:
what is the best CAD package?
what is the best open source CAD package?
asking for a friend
1
0
9
@vic_muchiri
Interesting. My impression is that construction processes are very tightly coupled to building codes, zoning laws, and union workflows so any change in how buildings are made would be slow.
What are some of the new techniques that are coming online?
2
0
7
@JakeZegil
I wrote about this a few weeks ago.
In short, talented people want to be near urban centers and want more creative control over the work they do.
We'll need to change the geography and culture of engineering and manufacturing.
How to Jump-start American Manufacturing
America's current manufacturing strategy has lead to a disastrous race to the bottom. In order for the manufacturing sector to grow, we must change the culture of engineering and the geography of manufacturing.
1
1
20
1
0
6