Inside Tech.

More woven in large.

I was an insider of sorts today; I wasn't told to keep anything especially secret, so it can't have been that bad, but the meeting was designated "UK OFFICIAL" which was amusing. It was a symposium on bio-inspired design led by DSTL, and I was included because the military are now very interested in looking to nature to help them solve their problems. Apparently the best way to get reliable funding in biology is to study insects in flight, and my research isn't so far away from that...

I also received a new laptop to replace my ageing Dell. It is another Dell, but this time it has a rather pretty carbon fibre top surface. They made no dramatic claims about its structural properties, which is a relief because it seems to have been deployed mostly for aesthetic purposes. Most consumer products using carbon fibre are a sham, as it takes careful design (including consideration of fibre orientation) to realise its potential for high stiffness/modulus.