the idog is watching

I was thinking about my Grandpa Joe.   He was a jack-of-all-trades who did everything from sheep herding to self-taught electrical and mechanical engineering projects.  The depression of 1921, the great depression, and family illnesses taught him to focus on what was necessary.  Everything had its purpose and many items, like the Jobs family washing machine, were carefully selected for function and value.  

 

Over the past decade I've been working on simplifying my life.  I can't claim his focus, but major purchases are now thought out much more deeply than in the past and many potential purchases never happen.  The Apple Watch is a good example.  While it is a great gadget on the surface and some love it, it comes up wanting when I try to construct a personal use case.

 

It as much a watch as the iPhone is a phone - namely not much.  It took people roughly two  to discover what the iPhone really was as wireless connections improved and the app ecosystem exploded.  I had a solid use case almost immediately and the match has only become stronger.  It has both uncluttered my life and given me too much connection.  I'm in the process of finding the right balance of how much I allow it into my life.  Currently my iPhone is on for ten hours a day and I'm thinking of cutting that to eight. 

 

The Watch has time keeping, signaling, monitoring and communication abilities .  I've uncluttered my life to the point where I don't want more realtime notifications for text messages, email, or other forms of communication.  These can wait a few hours. I'm not interested in a fitness band as I self start with exercise with something over an hour of aerobics five days a week combined with habitual walking.  I don't worry about measuring movement as the quality of the measurements aren't good enough to make a difference for me.  Navigation isn't a big deal to me as I appreciate the serendipity of getting lost a bit and asking directions.  I have too many objects to charge and manage chargers for, 

 

Apple is very patient.  The iPad and iPhone were both failures in the eyes of the pundits for the first year or more.  They grew in capability and wedged themselves into a growing ecosystem.  The Watch is probably following the same path - I suspect it is - but isn't attractive to me .. yet.  I suspect it will be in a few years and have some ideas, but first the comments of a friend. 

 

Jheri is in her late twenties and extremely stylish.  A few years ago I might have said fashionable, but she's developed a personal style that goes beyond contemporary fashion.  What she has was purchased or made with a purpose. She also is very selective about the things she buys.  She tells me her bespoke bicycle is the nicest thing she owns.  So with that, her comments:

 

Hej Steve!

Here is my experience with the Apple Watch.

I was loaned one very early on with several sports bands in colors you can't buy. Many people is fashion had loans and some may have been given. Mine was stainless steel.

I have an iMac and iPhone 6plus. It came up and linked with the iPhone easily. I spent about a day playing with the tiny applications, but few were of any use. The watch dials looked ok and some were clever, but it wasn't good as a watch because it didn't turn on immediately when I moved my wrist to a position to read it.

It isn't a watch, but there isn't much else for me at this time. I leave my iPhone off when I'm moving around by choice and do not wish to be alerted. If I am someplace new I'm used to the iPhone's map and access to so many other services. Those on the watch were inferior to the phone or they didn't exist.

As I'm mostly deaf I don't worry about phone calls and it is my policy to wait on alerts for almost everything. That may make me different, but this is how I work. If I'm meeting with someone for work or a date and they take out their phone or play with something on their wrist, my view of them drops.

The other big use is fitness, but I do not keep track of that other than knowing about how long my runs are and how long my weight and aerobic sessions. I love running so it is not a motivation issue with me. I'm not competitive either, so I'm not looking to improve my times. So I run electronically nude with only my iPhone in a bag switched off. It is only there for emergencies. I haven't an emergency phone in years.

When I'm looking for things traveling I do use my iPhone a lot. Restaurant reviews and reservations, flight status and now purchases in some places. The watch may be able to take some of that over, but not enough to make me want it.

There is probably something I need it to do that doesn't exist, but for now there isn't so it is just something else to worry about charging and packing when I travel. It went back and I have no intention of buying one.

There is another piece that is as important to me, namely how do it fit my personal style? As you know I think about my style a lot and am very careful with what I buy or have made. As I am very long and thin with angular features a square watch is wrong for me. My jewelry, accessories and how I move are all curves for contrast. The watch is square, so it is an automatic clash for me.

It is beautifully made, but does not seem timeless. I think it will be as ugly as my first iPhone 3GS in five years. While I could buy a new one every few years to keep up, that is not my style. For accessories or for clothing. I may be up to the second in ads or on the runway, but if I'm dressing I strive for a look that would work ten years from now.

I do carry a timepiece other than my switched off phone. My grandfather's old pocket watch has huge personal value to me as it was his before a Nazi bullet found him. It is gloriously big and round and it makes me feel his presence. It has made him immortal to me. I have several ways to wear it. Sometimes on a chain, sometimes on a homemade leather wrist gauntlet. It only needs to be wound and I don't have to worry about a cable or charge bricklet.

My summary is the tech does not meet my lifestyle now. It may in the future. The style clashes with what I have invested several years in. Many people may not care about style or those who change every year may be ok. I would guess that more men are interested in functionality than style, so I guess men buy it over women. There will be some women who like its look, but many I know do not for one or two of many reasons.

What I say could apply to any smart watch. I assume Apple makes the best, but even if another is better, I'm uninterested unless it does something I need and does it best on the wrist, plus it MUST fit my personal style. I would never wear an inappropriate scarf or carry a bag that is wrong for me.

This may be a product that requires a lot of time. It is not a fashion success and that would be a mistake anyway. Unfortunately it is not a big design success either. While this sounds negative I do not mean it to be. I've been investing for five years and continue to hold the Apple stock I bought five years ago and bought more when everyone said they were doomed about two years ago.

 

People usually focus on human interface, but I suspect the Apple Watch may be an important piece of their Internet of Things strategy.¹  We're going to be surrounded by a large number of "smart" objects enabled with computation and communication.  Some will have a sensor or two, some will simply control other objects and they will range in scale from seemingly trivial throwaway devices to very carefully designed medical implants or sensor/controllers for vital pieces of infrastructure.  We'll be interacting in a wide variety of contexts -  personal, semi-personal, medical, corporate, utility, insurance and so on...    Some very personal information will be shared - or not.  

 

Some of this information will go up into the cloud for processing.  Communications companies are salivating at the idea of very low duty cycle communication contracts - devices that may only transfer a few kilobytes of information a month, but links they can monetize.  Other types of information can be dealt with locally inside your personal firewall.  Perhaps your watch or smartphone can interact with these IoT objects or your PC.   For much of this is may well be counterproductive to go to the cloud.  Even more counterproductive to open up security and privacy cans of worms.

 

Some of these devices will be insecure through poor design while others will become insecure over time as attacks are devised.  Most will probably not be updated.  A short range radio link that doesn't go directly to the Internet strikes me as a very useful first step. 

 

Apple has been stressing privacy and security - particularly privacy.  It is my belief that the Apple Watch linked to an iPhone could be a central piece of a miniature cloud that you control - your private internet ground fog.²  For most people a watch is something more likely to be with them than their phone.  A good deal of information may be collected from hundreds of devices and made sense of in your service rather than sharing information with another entity.

 

My grandfather had border collie.  She was extremely intelligent managing a small herd of sheep.  She also kept tabs on the herd and many other aspects of his ranch.  She was mostly with him. And she was trained to respond only to him and in Irish Gaelic.  She was his iDog.  

 

I want a watch that is my border collie.  I'm waiting for my own iDog.  I'm not terribly particular about what it looks like, but it must work with me rather than the wolves. Likewise it doesn't constantly intrude. Most of the time it herds the flock and a hundred other dog managed things, but it makes itself known when necessary and can provide some unexpected moments of delight.

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¹ ugh I dislike that term, but everyone uses it, so when in Rome...

² Some of the technology in the watch and announced Apple plans are highly suggestive. 

internet ground fog is a term I've been using for the last 15 or so years to describe physically localized intranets that use internet protocols and may or may not connect to the Internet proper through firewall under the user's control.

My crystal ball is often cloudy, but I think there is a good chance privacy and personal data ownership will become major issues in the next five to ten years.

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 Recipe corner

 

A friend is has West African heritage so I've felt inspired to learn a bit of cooking.  She suggested jollof rice - something I had never heard of.  It turns out to cover a range of cooking - sort of like barbecue in the South.  I've been playing with it mostly not measuring.  It has the potentially to be very good.  She likes it with fried plantain.  This one was served with very sweet roast plantain.  

There are probably ten thousand ways to make this...  give this a glance and put together something that seems good.

 

Jollof Rice

 

Ingredients

 

° 2 cups basmati rice 

° 1 large red pepper

° 1 14 oz can plum tomatoes (if it is tomato season go for the real thing, otherwise stick to canned)

° 1 scotch bonnet pepper (if you love hot food go for 2 or 3)

° 2 garlic cloves

° 1 tbl tomato paste

° 2 inch piece of fresh ginger

° 1 small red onion

° 1 tsp curry powder

° 1 tsp dried thyme

° salt

° 4 tbl sunflower oil

° 3 cups vegetable broth (the classic recipe would use water with 2 vegan stock cubes)

 

 

Technique

 

° blend pepper, tomatoes, onion, ginger and garlic with 1 cup of the stock (or water with stock cube)

° heat the oil in a pot and add mixture and seasoning and remaining stock.  Bring to a boil

° add the rice, stir and lower the heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes until the rice is fluffy

 

Comments

[Uche]

Hi Steve! Your take on jollof rice is good! I would just add that if people can't get hold of Basmati rice then they can use regular rice. My mum part boils the rice and then adds it to the tomatoe stew. However my mother's method takes a lot of practice to get right.