Life Story told by a Jewish Cook opening Ramen Shops in Japan and Brooklyn - Ivan Ramen

Up until last night one of my favorite cooking shows was Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" with Masa Takayama. Why was this episode my favorite? Because it told a great story about Masa.

My new favorite is the story of Ivan Ramen. on Netflix's "chef's table." It is also the favorite of many others.

“In its third season, Chef’s Table is trying to relax. Creator David Gelb’s Netflix series is typically a paean to the kind of austere, über-expensive restaurants casually referenced as “temples” to their chosen cuisine, with the annual World’s 50 Best list as its unofficial source text. That description still applies to about half the new season’s six mini-docs, because this is still Chef’s Table: the Peruvian restaurant Central, currently fourth among the all-important 50, has its own research department, and an interlude with tyrannical Berliner Tim Raue could be retitled Whiplash: Germany. But the other half constitutes a real and intermittently successful effort at change, and the story of ramen chef Ivan Orkin represents the peak.
The proprietor of Lower East Side–by-way-of-Setagaya shop Ivan Ramen is both a perfect and atypical subject for the docuseries. On the one hand, he tells us in his opening voice-over, “You have to be all in to get into ramen” — obsession and commitment being the traits Gelb prizes above all else in his subjects. On the other? “Ramen isn’t dainty,” Orkin says, by way of explaining how a “fuck-you kinda guy” became a respected figure in the culinary world. “It’s messy.” On a show on which tweezers appear as often as knives, that’s a step off the beaten path.”

— https://theringer.com/chefs-table-orkin-netflix-ivan-ramen-new-york-a3513fe922ac

Three perspectives of The Glue and The Grease

I wrote about the concept of the glue and the grease.

Curious I found three posts on the concept of the glue and the grease.

I am starting to like the concept of the glue and the grease more and more. Next is to the conept into a few presentations.

“The organizational glue should remind people why they come to work every day. I’ve seen a number of organizations where the vast majority of employees can recite the mission statement or purpose, but stating a mission doesn’t make it glue. Author and visiting professor at London Business School, Gary Hamel, might suggest that the stronger an organization’s mission, the less need for layers of management because employees are driven more by the mission than by their manager. It should also be noted that a strong mission is intended to mean how sticky the glue is or well the glue bonds; not how firm or aggressive the mission’s language. The glue will create a unified culture that’s prepared for disciplined execution.

The grease drives productive change. In practical terms, the grease is a methodical plan, detailed in a series of work initiatives that are aligned with the organization’s purpose. Another word for methodical could be disciplined; it’s a plan that’s not only well thought out; it’s executed with an almost regimented series of targets and milestones. ”

— http://tuesdaymorningswithkathrynscanland.blogspot.com/2011/11/leaders-balance-glue-and-grease.html

“The ‘glue and grease’ – what a horrible expression!!!


The first time I heard a former colleague of mine use that expression to refer to the role of communication I didn’t like it either.

But I’ve got to say that until I find a better expression for it, it’s a pretty accurate description of what our (then) comms team was supposed to be to others: the glue that brings everyone together, and the grease that lets knowledge flow easily.

But the ‘glue and grease’ only happens when the sharing (and learning) in KM comes together with communication.”

— https://km4meu.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/sharing-and-learning-processes-the-glue-and-grease-between-comms-and-ikm/

“In this article, we’ll describe those elements and why they matter—and why one matters most of all. (Spoiler: It’s purpose.) Drawing on the companies we’ve studied, we’ll show how some of them focus on two priorities—what we call the glue (collaborative engagement) and the grease (disciplined execution)—to achieve their collective ambition. Our hope is that their journeys will inspire you to do the same.”

— https://hbr.org/2011/12/the-power-of-collective-ambition

Going to 7x24 Exchange Orlando, June 11-14, 2017

Over the years I have shifted what conferences I attend.  In the beginning of my data center efforts I went to Uptime and I think my first Uptime Symposium was in Orlando.  At the time I was following the lead of Mike Manos when he was at Microsoft and we worked together. I can remember meeting some great people at this Orlando conference that I consider some of the best.  Uptime Symposium in the US have disappeared and 7x24exchange Exchange is now the main data center conference I go to. Why?

Top is the people attending are some of the most social in the data center industry. Including some of those people I met at Uptime Symposium and some of their staff.

Part of why the people attending are so good is the 7x24 Exchange staff that supports the event are awesome.  https://www.7x24exchange.org/about-7x24/7x24-staff/ https://www.7x24exchange.org/about-7x24/board-of-directors/

Looking forward to see friends and making new ones at 7x24 Exchange Orlando.  See you there. 

http://conferences.7x24exchange.org/spring2017/ 

"Glue and Grease" = "System Integration and Performance Improvements"

I spend much of my team thinking and working on innovative information systems for construction. One of my best sources for developing ideas is a construction expert Chris who is passionate about lean construction, industrial engineering, logistics, and OODA Loop.  He has taught me many things about how construction people see things and think. And I have shared ideas on how technology people approach problems, like in order to program things we need to get to a binary condition of is this a "1" or a "0."

In our latest conversation chatting about the efforts to use wireless technology Chris said the application of wireless is the "Glue and Grease" in the process. "Glue" was providing the way to connect and attach things. "Grease" was reducing the friction in processes to make them easier and faster. To my technology friends we would never use these terms we would say "system integration and performance tuning."

On the other hand I like the physical explanation of glue and grease. And I think sometimes it explains the sloppiness in system integration and performance tuning with glue dripping and grease over applied. :-)

My next presentation on construction innovation will use the ideas of "Glue and Grease," because saying words like integration and performance tuning doesn't mean much to non-technology people.

Greening the Local Area Network with Passive Optical LAN

I have been in the world of Wireless Access Points and Mobile for months now, and part of what I started looking at is with 802.11ax coming in 2019-2029 an access point is going to need a 10G connection. Well actually even now there are needs for over 1gigabit connections to access points. The access point I have been playing with for the past week is Xirrus XD2-240 which has a maximum bandwidth of 6.9Gbps. I have two gigabit ethernet connections to the AP which I can set up for failover, aggregate, or load balancing.

An active multimode fiber local area network would be an option to 10gig copper, and scale to higher speeds. Then I found information on passive optical lan (POL). This is the same technology used for FTTH. In researching POL I found information how much greener POL can be. Nokia has this post.

“For example, the amount of power consumed by a traditional Ethernet local area network (LAN) is significant. All the active switches and aggregators, not to mention the air conditioning units needed to cool these components, consume a lot of electricity.

A new technology is beginning to gain traction that promises to boost the LAN’s performance and make it much, much greener.

Passive Optical LAN (POL) is to Ethernet LAN what fiber-to-the-home is to copper telephone lines.

POL brings the power of fiber optic broadband technology to enterprises, university campuses, hospitals, hotels or anywhere else that uses a local area network. It is both cheaper and more powerful than Ethernet and, as well as lower energy consumption, holds many other advantages.

Passive technology actively saves 20-40% in energy

CablesThe clue to POL’s energy efficiency is in its name: it is a passive technology. For example, it only needs passive splitters to aggregate data from users and end-points whereas Ethernet relies on active components. Also, POL can be run on a centralized architecture – a rarity in Ethernet LANs larger than a few hundred end-points – and signals can travel up to 30km without needing to be boosted, so there is no need for a server room at the end of every corridor. The performance of a typical POL switch (known as an optical line terminal) is also much greater than an Ethernet switch, so you don’t need as many. In fact, whereas organizations often run separate LANs for different services, POL can handle everything in one. The overall energy savings of POL are therefore substantial.

A comparative study of POL and Ethernet LAN by our Bell Labs Consulting team calculated energy savings of between 20% and 40%, depending on the size and configuration of the LAN. These kinds of figures are invaluable for meeting targets for green initiatives such as LEED certification. And they contribute greatly to POL’s 5-year total cost of ownership being 20%-60% cheaper than active Ethernet solutions.

Cheap and green. Now that’s a good combination. This way to a greener LAN.”

— https://blog.networks.nokia.com/optical/2016/04/20/saving-energy-greener-lan/

I'll write more about POL and other fiber technologies in addition to wireless.