Eighteen years ago today, the Cubs were playing Houston, and Ryan Dempster was pitching. I remember hearing the game on the radio as they were wheeling me into the operating room for a quadruple heart bypass to save my life. At least I think I heard it, or imagined hearing it. Since I was five years old, the Cubs have been knitted into my cerebral cortex, so even if I was unconscious, I may have somehow imagined Dempster on the mound against Houston. Why do I care so much about the Chicago Cubs? Why do I study the batting order for almost every game and know the histories of even the most insignificant players? Why do I respond so viscerally to an error, a pop-up with runners on base, or a stupid throw by an outfielder to home plate when he should have thrown to third? I’ve thought about this passion for the Cubs a lot lately as they scuffle through another pennant race. They are a good team but clearly well behind Milwaukee and probably the Dodgers. Yet this does not diminish my ardor. It just increases my pain. I grew up with the Cubs. My mom was an…

Open your fridge and grab a beer without knocking anything else over. It’s usually not hard for a human to do it. But getting a robot to do the same task can take an engineer weeks or months. George Konidaris is a professor of computer science at Brown University, director of the Intelligent Robot Lab, and cofounder of Realtime Robotics. Their technology does that kind of motion planning in minutes instead of weeks, and it’s running on the manufacturing lines of major automakers right now. He was on the show three years ago, when the technology worked in the lab. A lot has changed. The company closed a 45 million dollar Series B and is cash flow positive. (Blog continues below video) ******** Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Main Points Grabbing a beer is harder than it looks Real Time came out of research George and his colleagues did on robot motion planning, which is how a robot decides…

Today’s guest on the show is Paul Huber, CEO of COMEX, in Monroe Connecticut. Paul is a machinery dealer specializing in cam Swiss automatics. That’s cam Swiss, not CNC. I’m talking about Bechlers, Stroms and Escomatics, not Citizens. Paul is 84, but proudly says feels like he is 60 as he raises his 17-year-old son. He has been working on screw machines for over 67 years, starting as an apprentice in Switzerland. Early in his career, Paul worked as a technician for European screw machine builders. Later, he ran his own production shop in the US. Then he became a machinery dealer and sold some of the very first CNC Swiss machines. For decades, he has rebuilt and sold cam automatic screw machines, specializing in Swiss-type. Paul learned business skills watching his dad wheel and deal as a dairy farmer in Basil, Switzerland. He managed a Jazz group as a teenager. He is a skilled engineer, an astute entrepreneur, a natural at stumbling on serendipity and hell of a story teller. He also loves to speak his mind, which you will see when we discuss the skills gap problem in the United States. So sit back and enjoy our conversation…