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Kenneth Jackson

High Flight – Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr.

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth 
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things 
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung 
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, 
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung 
my eager craft through footless halls of air….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr. – Killed 11 December 1941 (age 19)

Remembering Pearl Harbor

midway512 – The Oberg Color Film Footage of Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941

This short documentary tells the story of Harold & Eda Oberg, & the film footage they recorded of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. The couple captured shots during & after the attack on Hickam Army Airfield.

Apple Event – One More Thing – Apple Silicon MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini

The Next Generation of Mac

Apple Silicon M1 Chip

  • First System on Chip (SOC) for the Mac
  • Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) – High bandwidth, low latency Apple-designed package accessible to the entire SOC.
  • 5-nanometer tech
  • 16 Billion Transistors
  • 8-core CPU
    • 4 high-speed cores. Worlds Fastest CPU cores
    • 4 high-Efficiency cores. Best CPU performance per watt
    • 3x performance per watt
  • Integrated 8-core GPU
    • Worlds fastest graphics
  • 16-core neural engine
    • 11 trillion operations per second
    • Machine learning accelerators
  • Secure Enclave
    • Hardware-verified secure boot
    • Automatic high-performance encryption
    • macOS run-time protections
    • Activation lock
  • Image Signal Processor (ISP)
    • Video noise reduction
    • Greater dynamic range
    • Improved auto white balance
    • ML – enhanced face detection
  • Media encode and decode engines
  • Thunderbolt/USB 4 controller

MacBook Pro 13″ M1

Performance

  • Up to 2.8x faster CPU performance over the previous generation.
  • Up to 5x faster GPU graphics performance.
    • Edit 8K ProRes video in DaVinci Resolve without dropping frames.
  • Up to 11x faster machine learning (ML) performance.
  • Up to 2x faster SSD performance.
  • Up to 3x faster than the best-selling Windows laptop in its class.
  • Battery performance
    • Active cooling system (a fan) for increased performance.
    • Up to 17 hours of wireless internet browsing.
    • Up to 20 hours of video playback. Six hours longer than before.
    • Longest battery life ever in a Mac.

Specifications

  • Apple M1 chip with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine
  • 8GB unified memory
  • 256 or 512GB SSD storage
  • 13-inch Retina display with True Tone
  • Magic Keyboard
  • Touch Bar and Touch ID
  • Force Touch trackpad
  • Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
  • Enhanced camera ISP
  • Studio quality mics

Price: 256GB – $1,299.00 or 512GB – $1,499.00

Available from Apple today, November 10, 2020. Ships next week.

MacBook Air M1

Performance

  • Up to 3x faster CPU performance over the previous generation.
  • Up to 5x faster GPU graphics performance.
    • Edit multiple streams of 4K ProRes video at the same time without dropping frames.
  • Up to 9x faster machine learning (ML) performance.
  • Up to 2x faster SSD performance.
  • Up to 3x faster than the best-selling Windows laptop in its class.
  • Battery performance
    • Silent fanless design
    • Up to 15 hours of wireless internet browsing.
    • Up to 18 hours of video playback. Ten hours longer than before.
    • 2x Battery life on video calls.
    • Longest battery life ever in a MacBook Air.

Specifications

  • Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, 7‑core GPU, and 16‑core Neural Engine on the MacBook Air with 256 GB SSD
  • Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, 8‑core GPU, and 16‑core Neural Engine on the MacBook Air with 512 GB SSD
  • 8GB unified memory
  • 256 or 512 GB SSD storage
  • Retina display with True Tone
  • Magic Keyboard
  • Touch ID
  • Force Touch trackpad
  • Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports

Price: 256GB – $999.00 or 512GB – $1,249.00

Available from Apple today, November 10, 2020. Ships next week.

Mac mini M1

Performance

  • Up to 3x faster CPU performance over the previous generation.
  • Up to 6x faster graphics performance
  • Up to 15x faster machine learning (ML) performance
  • Up to 5x faster than the top-selling PC desktop

Specifications

  • Apple M1 chip with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine
  • 8GB unified memory
  • 256 or 512GB SSD storage
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
  • Two USB-A ports
  • HDMI 2.0 port
  • 3.5 mm headphone

Price: 256GB – $699.00 or 512GB – $899.00

Available from Apple today, November 10, 2020. Ships next week.

Inside the Mac mini M1

macOS Big Sur will be released on Tuesday, November 12, 2020

My Thoughts

Problem: Both the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air only have Active two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports.

The slide in the MacBook Pro presentation says that there is up to 16GB of RAM and up to a 2TB SSD but they are currently not for sale on Apple.com.

The entry level MacBook Air has a 7-core GPU rather than an 8-Core GPU.

The entire motherboard of these computers is about the same size as a desktop DRAM module. It is like someone stuffed a high-end workstation into a board not much bigger than a stick of chewing gum. Apple eliminated more than they added. Basically, the whole computer is on one chip. The other chips on the motherboard are for communications and power delivery.

Apple eliminated many of its biggest vendors and brought all the value that they brought to the table in-house. Communications chips are the only major value add in these computers that Apple doesn’t control.

Marques Brownlee – Apple M1 Chip: Let’s Talk!

Resources

Training Day – CoreML, CreateML and Object Detection

Tom Baranowicz – Training CoreML Object Detection model from scratch using CreateML

Lets Build That App – CoreML: Real-Time Camera Object Detection with Machine Learning – Swift 4

Resources

Time for Holiday Marketing Campaigns

Holiday Marketing Campaigns - Kenneth Jackson
Holiday Marketing Campaigns – Photo by Kenneth Jackson – Shot on a Nikon D5200

Holiday Marketing Timeline

  • November 1 – Review Holiday PPC* Campaign
  • November 4 – Set Up Realistic Shipping Expectations & Timeframes On Websites 
  • November 8 – Launch Holiday PPC Campaign
  • November 11 – Prepare Holiday Email Campaigns
  • November 13 – Launch Holiday Theme & New Categories on Websites
  • November 18 – Launch Holiday Email Campaign, Send Holiday Gift Guide Increase PPC Bids.
  • December 2 – Send Second Holiday Email Newsletter.
  • December 16 – Lower Bids On High Spending Keywords & Shopping Engine Products.
  • December 20 – Promote “Last Day To Order Before Christmas”

*PPC = Pay Per Click Advertising through Google and Facebook

Workflow – Think Different

Dry Lake – Photo by Kenneth Jackson – Shot on an iPhone 10

Here’s to the Crazy Ones

Mac Tip – How to Encrypt Your Mac

How to Turn On and Set Up FileVault Encryption

If you get a new Mac for Christmas and plan to make shady deals in the Ukraine and China you definitely need to do this. But everyone else should do it too.

FileVault is part of the macOS operating system and it encrypts your Mac system disk so that it can’t be accessed without the proper credentials. If I have physical possession of a Mac I can quickly break into it. If your disk is encrypted with FileVault I am stopped cold. It is that simple.

YOU SIMPLY CAN’T FORGET YOUR PASSWORDS!

FileVault 2 is available in OS X Lion or later. When FileVault is turned on, your Mac always requires that you log in with your account password. 

  1. Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy.
  2. Click the FileVault tab.
  3. Click Locked, then enter an administrator name and password.
  4. Click Turn On FileVault.

Resources

SpaceX Status Report

SpaceX Status Report – November 4, 2020

Nerd News

FoundryPlanet – IDRA Giga Press 3 Assembly for Tesla

This is Idra Giga Press #3 (Tesla DCM-6100-3 ?). DCM-6100-1 and DCM-6100-2 were installed at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.

Workflow – LiDAR/AR Training Day

First LiDar image produced with Swift code from Apple’s “Visualizing a Point Cloud Using Scene Depth” demo. Shot on an iPhone 12 Pro.

What I Am Working on Today

Today I am working with the LiDAR sensor on the new iPhone 12 Pro.

What is LiDAR? Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) measures distance using reflected light, usually from a laser measuring the time of flight of the light pulse.

The iPhone 12 Pro and 2020 iPad Pro have a new LiDAR scanner that adds depth scanning for better images. Other mobile devices use LiDAR technology to measure distances of a few feet the LiDAR sensor on the iPhone and iPad works with much higher precision at a distance of up to five meters.

Why do I care? I want to use the sensor to make highly detailed 3D models of objects and spaces for use in iOS apps and websites.

This is my first attempt at scanning a 3D model of my house using an app called simply enough 3dScanner App. It is UGLY but has potential.

Resources

Apple Tip

What to do If you forgot your Apple Screen Time passcode

SpaceX Status Report

SpaceX Status Report – October 31 , 2020