Like the iPhone X better than I thought

I ordered an iPhone X and picked it up Friday. The Apple Store asked if I was excited and I told them no. I just figured why not. I signed up for the upgrade program and it is easy to get a new iPhone every year.

First impressions was how much smaller the iPhone X is vs. iPhone 6/7/8 Plus.

It was easy to set up the phone. Although the Verizon activation servers were hammered and I hit "try again" screens at least 3-5 times.

So how is it? The Facial ID takes a bit of time to get used to. But today figured I could pick up the phone. Swipe up immediately and in parallel facial recognition recognizes me. When I was holding up the phone waiting for facial recognition, then swiping up it felt much longer than touch id. Facial ID so far is way faster and more accurate than touch ID.

The main reason I wanted the iPhone X was for the facial recognition hardware to experiment with and to have the latest A11 processes for both ARKit and ML.

So how good is the camera? Well I took a picture of one of my favorite things. My pizza oven. :-) No it is not my favorite thing, but thought a flaming picture would be a good test.

Before I took the above picture I took another picture of the oven when it was cold. There is so much detail in this picture I was tempted to not use it. But all those details could useful if you took pictures for maintenance events.

Here is some roasted broccoli from the pizza oven.

It's cold here in Redmond and we got some snow.

We had our dog in the car and I bundled her up to keep her warm when we were out watching a high school football game. I think she was warmer in the car, then we were in the bleachers.

Actually I notice a bigger change switching to the iPhone X than I expected.  It is fast and feels smooth using the UI.

Discover the Secret to Great Pizza, Tom Douglas's Serious Pie

This weekend my wife and I attended a Hot Stove cooking event where Wildwood Grilling had a smoked cooking event. Below is the Wildwood crew with Tom.

What was a pleasant surprise is how much time Tom Douglas was there hosting the cooking class.

With Tom Douglas in front us I figured it was a good chance to get cooking tips from a top chef. Tom has two awesome pizza restaurants in Seattle.

So I decided to talk to Tom about pizza. What should I ask?

I went up to Tom. And told him, "I have a Woodstone Oven at home (which is the same as what he has in his restaurants). I make my own dough. What should I do to make pizza at an advance level?"

His answer. "The crust."

Totally agreed. But he was busy with the cooking class.

I tried looking for a downtime when I could follow up. 

So food is on the table. We are all eating. Then Tom comes over. Pulls me to side let's talk.

I knew Tom's time is valuable no different than any top executive, so needed to quick and go with his thoughts.

We discussed dough time high gluten vs. low gluten, oven temperature, how long to let the dough rise, stretching the dough, how to cook without the cheese for 3/4 time then finish, his attempt at patenting his pizza trays and how he retains heat after removing from the oven versus the common practice of putting the pizza on a grated surface to reduce moisture. 

I think the discussion was maybe 3 minutes. and what Tom shared will give me months of ideas to experiment with as ultimately I need to find my own way to make advanced pizza. Pizza that has a great crust.

Below is a picture of one of my pizzas.  I think I am pretty close, but always can do better.

Ireland Taoiseach (Prime Minister) makes his 1st trip to USA a trip to GAFAM

Yesterday I was at a luncheon for Ireland's Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar at the Chiluly garden and glass. http://chihulygardenandglass.com

https://twitter.com/AilbheConneely/status/925813069074145280/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rte.ie%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F2017%2F1101%2F916850-leo-varadkar-seattle%2F

Here is a picture of the Taoiseach from my seat.

At my table was Microsoft and Amazon. And next on the Taoiseach was Menlo Park.

When looking at where the Taoiseach went his list comprised the GAFAM - Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.

Apple. https://twitter.com/DanMulhall/status/926232751925108738

Google https://twitter.com/eob/status/926220221278576641

Facebook https://twitter.com/theirishpost/status/926212058483392512

amazon. https://twitter.com/DanMulhall/status/925798675216863232  Sorry no picture

Microsoft https://twitter.com/bcollins241/status/925774687942066176

As one of the attendees to the Seattle event said I don't know why I am here, but must be because I am Irish. I think I snuck in because they saw my name and thought i was Irish.

Here is the O'Hara family crest on a coffee mug in my office.

;-). Here is my name in Japanese in the center of my Aikido black belt certificate with the way my ancestors wrote Ohara.

There was many more little things I learned from the event, but given I didn't disclose I would write about anything I don't have permission to say more than above. Maybe next time I go to a Taoiseach event I will attend under a media role and I have been granted permission and what is shared is "on the record."

The end of DCIM is coming

Chris Crosby writes an entertaining post making an observation on DCIM’s attempt to be a star. https://www.compassdatacenters.com/dcims-window-of-opportunity-appears-to-be-closing/  

I am copying Chris’s last paragraph. Please read the above post to get the context. 

”The world moves fast. Sometimes, things that look really good at first turn out to be not good enough. People loved silent movies, but they liked them better when they could hear the actors talk. While folks never have universally embraced DCIM, they liked the idea of it. It’s hard to say what the future holds for DCIM, Norma never gave up hope of returning to the silver screen. Of course, she wound up shooting William Holden in the back and, psychologically broken, she descended down a staircase to a gaggle of news cameras, declaring “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille”. I suspect that whatever DCIM’s ultimate fate is, it will be a little less dramatic.” 

What some of you may know is the number of people who would like to shoot their DCIM deployment and move on.   Or some of you will just let DCIM be turned into just another one of those tools that only a few use.

I have never been a big fan of DCIM. Why? Because whenever I would peak under the covers of the system I found it wasn’t meant to scale, or the automation wasn’t ready yet.  Or other issues that were best just left under the covers and hidden.

Why isn’t DCIM simply a use case of Industrial IOT platforms? 

If you made DCIM do all the things the sales team said it would, then there is no reason why it is not the Industrial IOT Platform.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google openness to failure

Here is a video on Business Insider that explains the secret of these four. 

“Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern and the author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google” shows how some of the biggest successes in tech have also had major public failures. He explains why failure is an important aspect of success. Following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: So there’s a famous chart that shows, it says, what people think success is and it has a straight upward line and then what success really is and it’s a jagged, multi-art adventure. And that is accurate.

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing NYU Stern and the author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.””

— http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-galloway-amazon-facebook-apple-google-failure-success-tech-2017-10

What is kind of sad is Microsoft has many failures, but is not considered part of these 4. Why?