An Eye On that New Smart Phone Star in the Sky

Has the smart phone market bubble gone bust?

I read this week, that companies like Apple, HP, and Intel may need to take things down a notch, when it comes to smartphone production. They don't doubt their popularity. Folks continue to enjoy these devices,  it's just that sales aren't growing like they once were. Oh, and they may not be able to charge as much for them. Of course I also read about the market in China heating up for Apple, so I don't think that fruit stand down the street is going to be suffering too much. For those of us without investments in these companies, is a price break a bad thing?  

My main concern is built in obsolescence. Like that stove top we had to replace in less than ten years, whereas the ones I remember from my childhood had been around since the 1930's, and may still be in use somewhere today. If those big companies decide they want to sell me on wearables, instead of a phone, you know I'll be stuck. Although it sure would be awesome to be able to just look down at my wrist to see what time it is, instead of having to get out my phone. Oh wait, isn't that what we all used to do?

I do notice a strong desire to have the latest and greatest smart phone, don't you? Mobile devices seem to have replaced changing fashions in clothes. Yes, believe it or not there was a time before we all wore tee shirts and jeans to work. Hemlines went up one year, down the next, and no gal wanted to be seen dead in last years skirt. Of course men could get by with just switching out the wide tee for the narrow one. Oh a tie, let me try and explain what that was.... 

I wonder who figured out they'd do better selling us on keeping up with the phonies down the street, than getting us to simply fill our wardrobes? I know it's going to cost me more in the long run. I tend to sew my own clothes, but I strongly doubt I'm going to be rolling my own mobile devices.

Built in obsolescence is a big help to mobile device manufacturers - not so much for me.

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Web Resources

Apple, HP, Intel may be hit by slowdown in growth of smartphone sales http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_25347385/apple-hp-intel-may-be-hit-by-slowdown

Music to Apple's Ears: the iPhone is Mobile China's Leading 4G Smartphone http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/03/music-to-apples-ears-the-iphone-is-mobile-chinas-leading-4g-smartphone.html

Apples Need a Home? California Apple Pancake To the Rescue! (Recipe)

Do you have some apples in your house that need a home?

The perfect California apples grow on a little tree overhanging our driveway. We planted it there because our yard is pretty shady and we have to tuck in the sun worshippers where we can. Kind of fun though, as we can share the produce with our neighbors.  If it's hanging down on their side, those are their apples!

It's a little golden delicious apple tree and that's perfect for us. Not being big time foodies, there's a limit to how many apples my husband will turn into sauce and can, how many apple crisps he'll make or how many California Apple Pancakes I will bake. Those pancakes are, however, a lovely, simple dish, something I can make quickly and easily. I've been making it since college days, and I never get tired of it. Here's how.

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California Apple Pancake

Serves 2 -3

Leftovers OK, saved in refrigerator and reheated the next day

Tools 

 * two skillets- one must be oven proof. I use a good old cast iron skillet for that. The other will go on top of the stove, so whatever works there.
* An oven
* Blender or wisk and medium large bowl

Locate your ingredients

* 3 (or more apples) whatever kind you like when they're cooked or that you have handy. Of course I prefer the ones that fall down into my driveway
* 3/4 cup flour
* 3/4 cup milk
* 3 eggs
* Some cinnamon
* For the apples - Sugar or Not to taste (maybe 1/4 of a cup or more, or none at all, depends on what you like, and the sweetness of your apples)
* Something to grease a pan with (spray on stuff, margarine, whatever works in your house)

Now do the work

* Turn on your oven to 410 degrees, so it will be ready

* Core and Cut up the apples into slices or chunks. I leave the skin on of course - good for you, and we like the taste.

* Grease the skillet that goes on top of the stove. (Grease the oven-proof one at the same time so she's ready). Toss in the apples and as much cinnamon as you like (we don't add sugar anymore but you might like it at this stage). As it heats up pour in a little bit of water. Sauté the apples and when there brown enough for you, turn down the heat to simmer, pour in enough water so that they will cook up into cooked apples, not be too wet, and not burn - a judgment call. My husband likes a little apple syrup left on the apples that top off his pancake, I just like the apple pieces.

Work Continues , While your apples are cooking...

* In blender, or with your whisk, beat/froth up all those other ingredients - eggs, flour, and milk
* Turn the heat on the stove top on medium high, pop on your oven-proof skillet, and pour in the mixture. I just leave it on there for maybe 30 seconds, so it helps make a tiny bit of a bottom to the pancake, don't over do that. You just want it to kind of stick on when you swirl the pan. Better to under do this step.

* Pop the skillet into your hot oven.

* After 15 minutes, turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees (with the pan still in the oven). Back another 10 minutes, but check it occasionally to make sure it's not overdone, since ovens vary a bit, don't they? (If you forgot to preheat the oven, you might just bake it a little more. This is not a picky item.)

* When it puffs up into a beautiful ever so slightly golden brown - but mostly still egg colored - it's done!

* Take it out, cut into 2 or 3 wedges and serve with the cooked apples.

~ ~ ~ Variations ~~~

Clearly you can use other seasonal fruit- Oregon Bosc Pears are nice in the winter. You can also experiment with baking the fruit and batter together in the oven. I have a personal-pancake version for one I do in the microwave, where I use 2 eggs, 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup flour, and I bake it over chunks of one piece of cut up fruit. I have to take that out and loosen it up several times during the microwaving process, and how it bakes depends on what fruit is in it.

Heart of Silicon Valley (Mountain View, Red Rock Cafe)

You can hear about the big names and hot companies in the Silicon Valley, but if you want to feel it happening, come by Castro Street in Mountain View.

Go on into the Red Rock Cafe and head up the narrow stairs to find people plugging away on their laptops, working and talking together. This is where they come to informal working groups, Meetups, like those for Android App and IOS (apple/Mac) developers. This is where it's actually going on. 

History is happening here.

Steve Jobs: Heroes and Heroines

I took the pedestrian time portal over to the downtown Palo Alto Apple Store yesterday. It's a nice walk past the library and park fields on a long path of trees that runs alongside the Caltrain railroad track.  At the end of the path, I cross San Francisquito Creek a time portal that has occasionally taken me back to visit with a local Ohlone tribe, back before 1769 when the Spaniards arrived. 


Yesterday, however, I continued past the temptation to drop back a few centuries and gather fall berries with a few of my early California sisters, and headed out along Alma Street on the path to more recent times.  


No matter what time of day I've walked past, since Steve Jobs death, there's been a crowd of people gathered at the window of the downtown apple store, writing postits, dropping off flowers, taking photos, or simply reading the notes that others have left. I found at least six different languages yesterday, two of whose origin I couldn't even make a guess.


We all need heroes and heroines so that we can go forth with a touch more heroism ourselves.

Time Traveling Forward to Fall

Just this morning I was listening to a BBC History Magazine podcast, time traveling back to World War II. But tonight I'm going forward, just a few weeks really. Fall officially starts on September 23, 5:05 a.m., according to  The Old Farmer's Almanac.

I'm thinking fall now because I just put a batch of applesauce spice muffins in the oven for the resident geologist to take out in the field. I made them with the apples I raked up and sauced from our runty little apple tree in the driveway. They are the ones the squirrels kick down, after chewing them and deciding they aren't reall….llly ripe. They also don't make the world's best apple sauce, because they are kind of green and they aren't cooking apples. But they make fine muffins PLUS the added benefit that if I don't leave them under the tree, Mr. Rat and his clan don't come a' callin' (at least not in the driveway).

Yup, it all just puts me in a very seasonal mood- the fall harvest, the squirrels and the jolly little rats. Here's my recipe, or receipt, as us time travelers like to say.

Applesauce Spice Muffins

A creation of The Simple Romantic

350 degrees, until baked/fork clean - depends on your muffin tin

Get out a Large Bowl 

Put in dry ingredients and mix 'em

Make a well in the dry stuff

 Beat one egg up in the well

Add in rest of wet ingredients. 

Put in muffin tins. 

Bake

Dry Ingredients

1 ¾ cup flour – type you like

½ cup regular oatmeal (NOT quick cooking type)

½ cup brown sugar

A whole bunch of black raisins (maybe ¾ of a cup?)

1 teaspoon baking soda (I run it through a sieve)

1 t ground cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

(I also like the following spices in addition to the above – Resident geologist does not – though he eats them anyway – they are quite good either way)

½ t ground cloves

½ t ground allspice

Wet Ingredients

-   1 egg

-   ¼ cup corn oil (or butter if you like that)

-   ¼ cup buttermilk

-   1 cup applesauce –(preferably made from the culls that fall in my driveway)