Hasta La Gadget!

The late Steve Jobs has certainly left quite an impression upon the masses, and while his life has already spawned at least one movie, there will be an upcoming biopic which will star Michael Fassbender, one of the fast rising starlets in Hollywood. In fact, the upcoming biopic is said to feature recreated scenes of the famous unveiling of the world’s first iMac – an iconic machine all the way back in the previous century (1998, to be exact).

Steve Jobs made an official return to the company he co-founded in late 1996, where Apple picked up NeXT, and in the following year, he regained his position as CEO. 1998 saw Steve Jobs take charge of the unveiling of the original iMac, which marked a new era in the company as well as the direction that they were embarking on, which will eventually see Apple grow its market capitalization to become the behemoth that it is today.

That historical event, known prophetically as “Back on Track,” was held on May 6, 1998, when Jobs was just 43. The iMac, designed by Jony Ive, was certainly fashion forward to say the least. That event was recreated in San Francisco specially for a scene in the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, and it is sure to thrill fans of Apple when the movie hits the silver screen.

Steve Jobs Biopic To Feature 1998 iMac Unveiling

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Music mogul Jay-Z now owns a streaming service. He is expected to announce an official relaunch of Tidal today and already some of the biggest celebrities have started tweeting in support of Tidal. They’re definitely generating buzz for this lossless streaming service. While we await an official announcement about the relaunch Sonos has confirmed that its users around the world can now stream Tidal.

With the addition of Tidal, Sonos now lets users access more than 60 streaming services, including some of the big names like Spotify.

The company says that this is “one of the purest connections” between an artist’s music and the listener. Sonos goes on to say that this is a “watershed moment” for music fans around the globe.

Tidal will allow them to stream CD-quality music on-demand through Sonos. It will no doubt provide a great listening experience. Sonos users will appreciate the fact that the service will be available to them from day one.

Jay-Z’s official relaunch announcement is expected later today. We’ll let you know when that happens. Tidal is arriving at a time when streaming music wars are heating up.

In just a couple of months Apple is expected to relaunch Beats Music. People looking to subscribe to a music streaming service certainly won’t be pressed for choice.

Tidal Starts Streaming On Sonos Globally

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They say that money cannot buy happiness, and this I agree to a certain extent, although money does give one plenty of options, that cannot be denied. Well, most of the world’s richest do find that they would have arrived at a point where there is simply too much money to spend on themselves, so why not give money away to more deserving causes? Apple CEO Tim Cook did share that he has plans to donate a huge chunk of his wealth to charity before he calls it a day here on planet earth, citing that he intends to work on a “systematic approach” to philanthropy – how true to his personality!

With both vested and unvested shares of Apple taken into account, Tim Cook is currently worth around $1 billion thereabouts, which is a far cry from what Bill Gates is worth, but still a whole lot more than what most of us would have or earn in our lifetimes. Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky also claimed that Cook will contribute most of these funds to charity eventually, with a little bit of money set aside so that his nephew will be able to study without much worry about financing. It remains to be seen whether Cook will partner with the likes of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates eventually in terms of philanthropy, or to strike it out on his own.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Intends To Give All Of His Money Eventually

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I’ll admit, I dont keep up with my chocolate reading very well but I did read, with great interest, Megan Giller’s informative article on Slate.com last week, “Why Chocolate Experts Hate Mast Brothers.” I read this one in particular because Ms. Giller is possibly the first journalist I am aware of to dive headfirst into the deep end of the chocolate pool (or tank, if you will — a little chocolate humor for you) as it relates to the self-proclaimed “dangerous” company — Mast Brothers.

I am compelled to respond, because I’d like to address some of Rick Mast’s remarks in the article. Here’s the short history of the beginning of American craft chocolate. In 1997, Scharffen Berger was the first new bean to bar chocolate factory in the U.S. in over 50 years. They were acquired by Hershey in 2005. I started making chocolate in the summer of 2005, then incorporated Askinosie Chocolate in August of that year. Theo started in late 2006. Steve DeVries started selling first, then Taza, then Amano, then us, then Patric; all opened from early to mid-2007. Our five companies formed the Craft Chocolate Makers of America with Alan McClure as Chair. While I’ve never spoken with anyone at Mast, it was clear in 2008 when we started the group that they did not have any interest. We are no longer a formal organization but we talk frequently. This is fine, we didn’t expect all craft chocolate makers to join nor did we judge their chocolate based on membership (there were no dues, for the record).

The “expert” title was used in the Slate article in reference to Clay Gordon, Lauren Adler and Eagranie Yuh. Rick Mast said, “We have achieved incredible success without paying the self-proclaimed industry chocolate experts that you have cited a penny for their ‘expertise.'” First, Clay Gordon, is an actual chocolate expert. I met him in 2005 on my first trip to Ecuador. Even then before most of the world couldn’t tell craft chocolate from Hershey’s, he already had a national reputation as a chocolate expert making a living from people willing to pay for his knowledge and experience. I paid him to accompany me on some of my very first cocoa bean origin trips in 2006 as an expert. At that time, I did not have the confidence to know what I was looking at but I knew enough to recognize that I needed to consult with someone of superior knowledge in order to produce a superior product before I became more experienced myself. I knew that he could help me buy the best beans possible and he did. Now, with over 20 origin trips under my belt on four continents I have more confidence in my cocoa bean sourcing/buying skills than my first trip almost 10 years ago. As far as I know not a single one of our retail partners (wholesale customers) around the world have sought Clay’s opinion as to whether or not they should bring our chocolate into their shop. The fact remains, however, that there are not very many people in the world who possess Clay’s knowledge of chocolate. This leads to Lauren Adler. She is the owner of Chocolopolis in Seattle and they carry our chocolate. We both started about the same time. There is no panel of judges making these buying decisions because Lauren, herself, is the judge. Lauren has been selecting the chocolate carried in her shop since the beginning, relying on her own palate and that of her staff (and now her customers). The same way that every other of the 700 stores that we sell to. I am not aware of one single shop carrying our chocolate from New York, to San Francisco, to Stockholm to Tokyo who has made the buying decision of what to carry in their store by consulting a “chocolate expert” on what is good and what is bad. They (the buyers) taste it and then educate themselves about the company producing it.

Lauren is also an expert, but in a different way than Clay Gordon. As an owner of one of the most popular chocolate shops in the U.S. she has tasted pretty much every chocolate out there and has to make good business decisions about what brands to carry and what not to carry every day. I have never paid her a penny, nor any of our other retail partners. She does not carry everything we make and I am certain that she does not love everything we make. Regardless, I trust her and we frequently seek her feedback. Eagranie Yuh is also an expert, but as a writer and judge. She is not “self proclaimed,” rather she’s developed her reputation as someone who knows about chocolate from years of writing about it. She has authored many articles about chocolate in the last six years and most recently Chronicle published her book — The Chocolate Tasting Kit. There are food competitions all over the world and somebody has to be the judge and chocolate is no different. We have never paid Eagranie for any “expert” services. Like Lauren, she does not like everything we make and is not afraid to say it. And we appreciate her opinion and listen to it, just like the others, especially our customers.

Some of the people interviewed in the Slate article did not like the Mast chocolate and they clearly articulated their reasons. Lauren Adler is right when she said that we don’t have a good frame of reference yet with regard to standards like the wine industry. While it’s true that the wine industry, and coffee for that matter, have more mature tasting standards, chocolate is on its way. Some in our industry — such as Colin Gasko at Rogue Chocolate — are trying to establish common standards for tasting and quality. There are very basic defects, for example, that the experts in the article noted about the Mast chocolate that any chocolate expert (“self-proclaimed” or not) would find: moldy or stale aroma or flavor and chalky texture. I am not suggesting that Mast chocolate tastes this way because to be fair, even though I’m tasting chocolate all of the time, it’s been a few years since I’ve tasted one of their bars. My point though is that while chocolate tasting standards are not as mature and codified as wine, it is possible for experts to have some agreement on defects which appears to be the case here. Does that mean that people should not journey “by the thousands” per week to the factory in Brooklyn and buy Mast chocolate? Of course not. I am thankful that so many visit their factory to learn about the bean to bar movement because it’s good for the entire craft chocolate industry as more people become aware of another strata of chocolate possibilities in addition to Mast Brothers. Mast is a gateway chocolate. Those who visit their factory and love the experience will certainly seek out and experiment with other brands.

I really doubt that any specialty shop in the country would decide against carrying Mast chocolate because they are, as brother Rick pointed out, “a dangerous company because we are outsiders to the chocolate industry never leaning on industry norms.” That’s like saying a wine shop would not carry the agreed-upon best Burgundy because the winemaker is a rebel or outsider. In fact, the suggestion is ridiculous. The real reason is that profitability is paramount for any business, especially small specialty food and wine shops. And — don’t think for a minute that any store owner in their right mind would refuse to carry a profitable line just because they don’t care for the personality of the maker.

Confession: I actually think their beards are kind of cool and if my hair wasn’t pretty much all white (too many days in the courtroom) and if I was maybe 15 years younger, I would try to grow one like theirs. And honestly, there are times I dream about having a line out of our front door with “thousands of chocolate lovers mak[ing] the journey to visit our factory every week” like Rick Mast claims about his factory in Brooklyn. Our factory is in Springfield, Mo., in a part of our community that is undergoing revitalization, and populated by a variety of important social services and homeless shelters for those in need in our city. In eight years, I have never seen thousands of people here in one week, maybe not even in one year. This is why working with our retail partners across the globe — and thus making the highest quality and best-tasting chocolate possible — is paramount for us; because these stores and their fans all over the world are our bread and butter.

February’s Vanity Fair quotes one of the Mast brothers as saying “I can affirm that we make the best chocolate in the world.” When I read that I thought, “well that’s pretty bold and actually not true.” In case you’re wondering — no, I don’t think Askinosie Chocolate makes the best in the world and that mantle has never ever been my goal. I have always wanted to make “some” of the best chocolate in the world. I can say that we try to make “the best chocolate in the world” but I will never “affirm” that we do publically or even in my head. We have a saying here: “it’s not about the chocolate, it’s about the chocolate.” We mean that we have a laser focus every single day on making the best chocolate we can with the best beans possible. We know that if we fall short of trying to make the best, then we will not be able to do the other things that are important to us: opening our hearts as wide as we can to learn and respond to the needs of each other, our neighborhood, our community and the communities where we source cocoa beans. There is often tension in this tug-of-war but we not only expect it, we encourage it. In fact, this tension and ultimate balance helps us make better tasting chocolate.

Unlike Mast, we are not a “dangerous company” but like the Mast Brothers we have also achieved “incredible success,” and I can tell you the day it happened. We take local high school students to Tanzania to meet farmers and experience life changing travel in a very competitive program we started called Chocolate University. One of our applicants wrote in her essay that she lived in the homeless shelter a block from our factory as a young girl and that she would walk to our factory and that we (our employees) treated her as a special person and that we gave her and her little brother chocolate samples. When I read that I realized that we treated her with hospitality and that she liked coming to our place and that as she grew older and achieved against the odds, she was inspired to apply to our program. We selected her and she went with us to Tanzania last summer. I may die tomorrow and if I do, then I will know that we are a successful company beyond all measure.

Five years ago, I lost close friends in one of the most gruesome terrorist attack on Pakistani soil. In twin attacks on two Mosques in Lahore, 88 Ahmadi Muslim worshippers were killed at the hands of the Taliban. It was a painfully bloody day. This last weekend, I woke up to sad news from Pakistan that made me relive some of that pain.

Fourteen worshipers were killed, and more than 70 were injured, when two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up outside churches in the Youhanabad neighborhood of Lahore, Pakistan.

These attacks on Pakistan’s Christian community are not a sporadic event. They are a part of a very tragic trend. Just over a year ago, another suicide attack at a Peshawar church claimed 78 lives. Not long before this, an angry mob torched over a hundred houses in Lahore’s Joseph Colony, following blasphemy allegations against a Christian man. Another Christian couple — Shama and Shahzad — were recently lynched and burnt alive in a kiln on similar blasphemy charges. As in the Joseph Colony rampage, this mob violence was also led by a local cleric.

While Pakistan’s minority communities are frequently attacked by religious extremists, the state does very little to protect them. Even in the rare instance that the perpetrators of such attacks are caught alive, they get away with a mere slap on the wrist. Pakistan’s ruling party, the PML-N, is especially notorious in sponsoring hate against minority communities in an attempt to appease extremist elements that serve their vote bank. In fact, we now know that the Punjab Government under Mr. Shahbaz Sharif reportedly carried out negotiations with al Qaeda.

The reaction from the masses in Pakistan is not very encouraging either. The majority continue to remain apathetic to the ongoing persecution of minorities. The few that speak up are threatened and intimidated into silence. All this, while the Islamic faith requires that all Muslims stand up to such injustice.

Islam repeatedly mandates the protection of minorities. So much so, that one of the few times the Holy Quran permits fighting is to uphold religious freedom — including that of fellow Christians, Jews etc. — with specific mention of the protection of churches and synagogues. Extremists who act to destroy these places of worship act in complete opposition to the Quran.

Prophet Muhammad expressed great contempt for a Muslim who mistreats a non-Musim. He warned:

He who unfairly treats a non-Muslim living in a Muslim State, or undermines his rights, or burdens him beyond his capacity, or takes something from him without his consent; I will be his opponent on the Day of Judgment.

What a strong warning!

It is well-known that Islam equates the killing of one person to the killing of all humanity. In addition to this generic prohibition of murder, Prophet Muhammad is reported to have specifically forbidden paradise to those who hurt non-Muslims. He cautioned:

Whoever kills a non-Muslim citizen under a Muslim government shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise.

Yet, in their own perverted understanding of Jihad, extremists act against these clear injunctions of Islam. Even Muslims from minority sects are not spared of their wrath. Pakistani Muslims must stand up to this ongoing injustice and extremism. They must stand in solidarity with their Christian community, just as Prophet Muhammad stood by all Christians for all times to come.

In his covenant with the Christian monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, he declared:

Christians are my citizens, and by God, I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses.

The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. No one of the Muslims is to disobey this covenant till the Last Day.

He clearly warned in the covenant:

Whosoever shall annul any one of these decrees, let him know positively that he annuls the ordinance of God.

Whenever a Christian is persecuted in a Muslim land, this sacred covenant is broken. Those who willingly remain silent on this persecution contend with such violations of God’s ordinance. In this regard, Pakistan, an “Islamic republic,” has an added obligation to lead by example. If it claims to be the slightest bit Islamic, it has to raise itself to these basic standards of Islam. The government must protect its Christians and stop trying to make under-the-table deals with those who seek them harm.

As for Pakistan’s silent majority, how many more times will they witness the covenant of God being trampled before finally speaking up?