State of Ramen

The state of ramen by Momofuku’s David Chang.

When we first opened Momofuku, I feel like our ramen made sense at the time; we were figuring out what it was like to make ramen in America. But now ramen is everywhere, and a lot of it is the same. I don’t want to go to every city and taste the same fucking thing. Everyone’s serving tonkotsu ramen, everyone’s serving pork. You could do a blind taste test and not have any idea where the fuck you’re eating. Everyone is sharing the same experiences, but ramen is not supposed to be about that; it’s food for people that don’t want the same experience, that don’t want to be part of the mainstream. Even in Japan, cooks are returning to pure, clean, simple chicken ramen, because everything else has been done. That’s it—you’ve taken noodle soup as far as you can fucking go, and now it’s gotta go back to the beginning.

Mayweather's True Character Revealed

Says a lot about Mayweather's true character and unending excuse to fight Manny Pacquiao.

We want to deal with serious individuals, individuals who have the ability to make a decision. Regrettably, that is not the case with Mr. Mayweather," Muhammad said, as quoted by Boxing Scene.

"The Abu Dhabi group is serious, and I will not allow them to dangle an inordinate amount of time. Now that time has come, and the offer is gone," he added.

Muhammad also said Mayweather and "The Money Team" should "consider re-thinking its nickname" if the American superstar would rather fight for what he said was "hot dog money" instead of a $120-million purse.

via ABS-CBN News

SNL Does Serial Right!

It's been a while since I've actually laughed at an SNL skit but I think that they did a wonderful Christmas spoof off of NPR's latest and greatest Serial Podcast.  

I just finished the podcast yesterday and will post my thoughts on another day. Did I enjoy it, yes. I also loved listening to it using Overcast.

Lowering Your Expectation of the Cuban Cigar

With the potential influx of Cuban Cigars, maybe they aren't that great anyways.

In the view of some experts, the appeal of Cuban cigar tobacco has been overtaken in recent years by stogies from Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican Republic and Honduras, many made by Cuban exiles.

In fact, the best cigar of 2014, revealed on Thursday by Cigar Aficionado magazine, is Nicaraguan, the Oliva Serie V Melanio Figurado.

via NYTimes

On top of that, this month's Cigar Aficionado is loaded with some great articles. Check it out!

Apples A8X Revealed

Since publishing our initial iPad Air 2 review last week, a few new pieces of information have come in that have changed our perspective on Apple’s latest SoC. As it turns out I was wrong. Powered by what we’re going to call the GXA6850, the A8X’s GPU is even better than I thought.

To get right down to business then, the die shot confirms what we had begun suspecting: that A8X has an 8 cluster Series6XT configuration. All 8 GPU clusters are clearly visible, and perhaps unsurprisingly it looks a lot like the GPU layout of the GX6450. To put it in words, imagine A8’s GX6450 with another GX6450 placed right above it, and that would be the A8X’s 8 cluster GPU.

Wow! This is the tablet to beat and Apple, by designing their own SoCs, is far ahead in this race. In other words, there's nothing in the competition's timelime that will out gun or out maneuver the A8X.

via Anandtech

Paternity Leave: Max it out!

A recent article that I've highlighted below, from the NYTimes: Upshot, covers the topic of paternity leave. Being an airline pilot, the only stigma that comes from taking extended leave is the reduction in flying hours (experience) and the potential of losing currency which would require a simple proficiency check.¹ I decided early on that my family comes first and with that, those two side effects didn't worry me. Hence, I took the full 90 days of Family Leave when our daughter was born and it was the best time of my life²; getting to learn how to care for a newborn, new mother and bond together as a new family. I loved every moment of it and would never trade it for anything.

Five months after Todd Bedrick’s daughter was born, he took some time off from his job as an accountant. The company he works for, Ernst & Young, offered paid paternity leave, and he decided to take six weeks — the maximum amount — when his wife, Sarah, went back to teaching. He learned how to lull the fitful baby to sleep on his chest and then to sit very still for an hour to avoid waking her. He developed an elaborate system for freezing and thawing his wife’s pumped breast milk. And each day at lunchtime, he drove his daughter to the elementary school where Sarah teaches so she could nurse. When she came home at the end of the day, he handed over the baby and collapsed on the couch.

“The best part was just forming the bond with her,” said Mr. Bedrick, who lives in Portland, Ore., and went back to work in June. “Had I not had that time with her, I don’t think I’d feel as close to her as I do today.”

And of course, this comes without surprise. My daughter and I are tight and I love that I can read her and “feel” her emotions. I love her and my wife so much!

Social scientists who study families and work say that men like Mr. Bedrick, who take an early hands-on role in their children’s lives, are likely to be more involved for years to come and that their children will be healthier. Even their wives could benefit, as women whose husbands take paternity leave have increased career earnings and have a decreased chance of depression in the nine months after childbirth. But researchers also have a more ominous message. Taking time off for family obligations, including paternity leave, could have long-term negative effects on a man’s career — like lower pay or being passed over for promotions.

“Part of the rationale for paternity leave is if men are able to be very involved early on in the care of their children, they’re going to be more involved ever after, and it will translate to more equal sharing and equal roles,” said Ms. Waldfogel, the professor of social work. Though men who want to be more involved fathers are probably more likely to take leave in the first place, she found that even after controlling for fathers’ commitment levels, those who took significant leaves were more likely to do hands-on child care later.

Mr. Bedrick added, “I definitely would not have done anything differently.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

Cultural messages tend to reinforce the stigma. Last spring, Daniel Murphy, a second baseman for the New York Mets, was criticized when he took the three days of paternity leave allowed by Major League Baseball. “I would have said: ‘C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day,’ ” Boomer Esiason, a radio talk show host and former professional football player, said on his program. (He would later apologize for the remarks.) Mike Francesa, another radio talk show host, added: “You’re a Major League Baseball player; you can hire a nurse.” Men often receive subtle or not-so-subtle messages that leave is unacceptable, even if it’s in the employee handbook.

If you remember a few months ago in April, the sports media went a little crazy about criticizing Daniel Murphy and I too was enraged. It’s all about spending as much time as you can, no matter how rich or who you are, with your new family. Period. There is no higher calling. Baseball??? Dumb that in our society, we'd put these material things above that.

There’s also quite a few articles that have touched upon this highly important topic in the last year. One of my favorites was published a few months ago in The Atlantic and there’s also the 5 Reasons Dads Should Take Paternity Leave. Read them both and if you can afford it, max out your paternity leave!

note: with my daughter in school, and with a new one on the way, finances are stretching and unfortunately, I will NOT be able to take the full time off unpaid when my son arrives around Christmas time. However, if it was a paid leave, I would be all for it.

:

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1. my leave was also unpaid. ↩
2. besides running bone dry on funds near the end of the 90 days, it was the most rewarding time of my life as we were fortunate that my wife’s company had paid leave and we have great supporting families and friends nearby. ↩

Watch This: Another Call of Duty game?

I remember a few years ago, prior to having kiddo, camping out with a good friend for the midnight launch of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. It was midnight in Mira Mesa and it was exciting! Fast forward a few years and a next gen console, we now have Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by the group that I've always stood by. (Infinity Ward in case you were wondering). Every year, we've come to expect a Call of Duty and this year's launch is awesome. Here's the first video from Good Game the Series in what we can hopefully expect a bright and entertaining YoutTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xIQ2UWrqT4

Yea there's always been the buy the Infinity Ward version and not the Treyarch one argument for the past few years but this year's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by Sledgehammer is tremendous! If you want to learn more about the backstory, check out Polygon's first full feature article "The plan to reinvent Call of Duty" and don't skip out on the full review either just in case you needed more reason to pick it up!

A Short Rundown of MCX

Mike Issac from the New York Times on MCX.

First announced in 2012, CurrentC is an effort by merchants to build their ideal mobile wallet. CurrentC is designed to link directly to a customer’s bank account instead of a credit card. This is a strategic move, analysts say; in bypassing the credit card companies, merchants can avoid the high fees that they are required to pay on each credit transaction they process.

Apparently the big consortium of retailers forget that US citizens love their credit cards and their in-store branded credit cards more than using their check cards / bank account thus allowing for instant gratification. Using your bank account is like using the cash that more don't have and, in my opinion, will definitely limit what people buy in store or at least make you think twice until your next pay period.

CurrentC would also give retailers the ability to track shopping habits across the dozens of stores that belong to MCX, a data set that has traditionally been held by credit card companies, not merchants. If retailers had access to this data, it could be used to deliver relevant deals and loyalty points to consumers, which could increase these companies’ bottom lines.

The tracking in the app is ridiculous.

Critics of CurrentC say it appears much more difficult to use than Apple Pay. Instead of contactless payment technology, CurrentC will rely on QR codes, a type of bar code that merchants scan to complete the transaction. It will also be an app that users must find and download from Apple’s App store.

Wait what are QR codes? Seriously???

iMore has an even more "In Depth Look" as well as a cluster of articles about the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). Some quick highlights include:

On launch, the app immediately does a few things. First, it starts sending pings to https://my.currentc.com/mobile/pinggateway every two seconds or so. No interesting data is sent in the requests and blocking them seems to have no impact on the app. Next, a deviceState request goes out. In the request are your device type (iPhone or iPad) and a unique device identifier. This identifier is stored in the device keychain so even if you delete the app and re-install, it persists, allowing CurrentC to track users across app installs. The third and last request seen on launch is a call to Localytics. Localytics is a mobile analytics company and is used in countless other apps. As with the many other apps using Localytics, this call seems to include a variety of analytics information: not surprising for many apps, and not surprising for CurrentC (though it probably should be for an app seeking to handle payments and personal data).

Exclusivity or be fined for using a competitor's method e.g. Apple Pay, but there are no fees for leaving except the huge $500,000 investment in their tech.

Before you get too excited, think about these other questions that iMore has posed.

Why do they want to retrieve your device's MAC address? (Don't worry, as of iOS 7, the OS returns a fake MAC address of 02:00:00:00:00:00 which is what CurrentC seems to be sending to their servers)

Why do they want to log your device name, WiFi network name, and number of running processes?

Why do they use a unique device ID that persists across multiple installs?

Why do they send pings every 2 seconds?

Just in case you forgot the highlights of how Apple Pay works, it's quite amazing:

• Touch ID authentication ensures that only users authorized at the device level can make payments.
• NFC keeps the transmission distances down to a few inches versus showing a visible QR code.
• Token-generated single-use card numbers ensure that in the event of a retailer breach, the hackers get a card number that's already worthless instead of your real card number
• Accessing your credit card gives users additional spending power versus drawing from a cash account, lets users earn points, miles, or whatever perks are on their favorite cards, and adds a layer of intermediation between a security failure and your money.

Wal-Mart, who by the way is the head honcho of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), commented via Business Insider as to why they shut off NFC and use of other technologies. Awful, illogical and archaic. Another reason I don't shop there, although I might have to start avoiding places like Best Buy, CVS, Rite-Aid and whomever else is being bullied by this consortium.

There are certainly a lot of compelling technologies being developed, which is great for the mobile-commerce industry as a whole. Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure, and developed with their best interests in mind. MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day. MCX’s members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers’ shopping and buying experiences.

I'm done.

update: just shortly after posting this, CurrentC was hacked and users emails were exposed. You have to realize that there were the merchants that lost your credit card information to the hackers last year. Same company. Same technology.

Verizon is Tracking You

This can't end well for the largest carrier in the United States but apparently AT&T might be guilty too. Hopefully, T-Mobile isn't doing the same.

Verizon Wireless has been subtly altering the web traffic of its wireless customers for the past two years, inserting a string of about 50 letters, numbers, and characters into data flowing between these customers and the websites they visit.

via Wired

A Beautiful and Thorough Review of Yosemite

Just like clock work, every year Apple releases major updates to their operating system.  And accompanied by every release is John Siracusa's comprehensive review posted on Ars Technica. You can always read it for free on the website or do it like me and buy the complete ebook.

I've come to love his thoroughness and learn quite a bit when reading it on my Kindle or iPad.  Available now for only $4.99, sit back and enjoy the tour of Apple's latest Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Make sure to grab a Field Notebook and your favorite pen to jot some notes.

While you're at it, be sure to also check out Austin Mann's review of what Yosemite and iOS 8.1 offers photographers in his "Need To Know".

What's on your breakfast table?

I'm merely highlighting a paragraph that clearly says it all. One of my goals when Norah could start eating more foods was to introduce her to new cheeses every week / month together and explore that world. I can't wait to expand her palette even more.  If you continue and read through the NY Times article, it's quite amazing the variety that other cultures present as compared to us here in the United States.

I love the part of Toyo / Bangus Tocho.

It is only through repeated exposure and mimicry that toddlers adjust to new tastes — breakfast instead of, say, dinner. That we don’t put pickle relish on waffles or eat Honey Bunches of Oats for supper are rules of culture, not of nature. As children grow, their palates continue to be shaped by the food environment they were born into (as well as by the savvy marketers of sugar cereals who advertise directly to the 10-and-under set and their tired parents). This early enculturation means a child in the Philippines might happily consume garlic fried rice topped with dried and salted fish called tuyo at 6 in the morning, while many American kids would balk at such a meal (even at dinnertime). We learn to be disgusted, just as we learn to want a second helping.

- via www.nytimes.com

Customer Service Goes Above and Beyond

I have to applaud the Apple retail lady who picked up my phone call yesterday at Fashion Valley, San Diego. She truly went above and beyond. I inquired about an order that I was placing online for "In-store pickup". Specifically, I had an iPhone 6 Plus in Gold 128GB AT&T for my wife in my cart but ran into a small problem. Apparently by the time I had connected with her on the phone, she advised me that they had just run out.

I told her that I was flying out to work and she continued the awesome service by asking where. It was a little odd at first but after I told her Dallas, she found two different Apple stores that had the 128GB in Gold AT&T and Silver AT&T around town.  She told me that if I placed the order I would have 7 days to pick them up so that wouldn't be a problem at all. You're asking why AT&T? I'll talk about that in a later post. Yes, I'm still heavily contemplating T-Mobile but yeah… in a later post.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like flying around the country for the next few days with $2k worth of phones on me after my iPad debacle in Miami so I politely thanked her and said that I'd continue to play the game in San Diego when I get back.  I also thanked her for her amazing job and told her that she was awesome.

Kudos again to Apple Fashion Valley. Happy October!

Worst Restaurant Best Ever

By now, if you haven't heard about the restaurant Botto Bistro  you have to head over and read their Yelp Reviews. Trying to achieve the opposite of the highest rating via Yelp!, owner David Cerretini is arguing that it's the best business move he's made in years. If you give it a 1-star rating, you get 25% off your meal to boot!

Here's a favorite review of mine.

Also, here's a pic of the board that they have up in the restaurant.

The whole story here via SFGate.