It is National Pizza day !
And
63 degrees in February in Michigan !!!
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
National Pizza Day is February 9th! Pizza is the second most popular food in America after the Hamburger. Detroit has had a huge hand in popularizing pizza. Two of the largest pizza chains have their roots in metro Detroit. Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) was started in Ypsilanti, MI, and is HQ’d in Ann Arbor. Little Caesars started in Garden City, MI, and its HQ is in Detroit. In ‘Q4 of 2021 42 % of sales among major pizza chains went to Domino’s. Little Caesars earned 13 percent of U.S. sales among the pizza chains in ‘Q421. Globally pizza sales in 2022 were $141.1 billion.
The origins of pizza are lost in antiquity. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had flatbreads topped with oils, herbs, figs, cheese, and even meats. Pizza that we would recognize appeared in Naples during the 16th century as street food for the poor. It was not until approx. 1552 when the Spanish brought the tomato to Europe from the Americas that the modern pizza was invented. The biggest leap in the evolution of Pizza occurred with the unification of Italy in 1861.
Tradition says that in 1889 King Umberto I and Queen Margherita had grown bored with their French diet and wanted to try some pizzas from Naples’ Pizzeria Brandi pizzeria. The Queen enjoyed a pizza made to resemble the Italian flag with white mozzarella cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil for toppings. Since then, this pizza was also called the Margherita pizza after the Queen.
Even with a royal fan like the Queen, Pizza would remain non-existent beyond Italy’s borders until WWII. With the growing number of Italians immigrating to the U.S. for jobs, and WWII vets who severed in Italy pizza’s popularity took off. Troops stationed in Italy in the 1940s would eat pizza and upon their return home seek out the pies, increasing demand in the U.S. to rank second behind hamburgers and the most popular food in America.
1904 – The first printed reference to “pizza” served in the U.S. is in an article in The Boston Journal.
1905 – The first pizzeria in the U.S., Lombardi’s, opened in New York City.
1943 – Pizzeria Uno in Chicago probably invents the deep dish pizza.
1945 – A WWII veteran who had been stationed in Italy, Ira Nevin built the first gas-fired Bakers Pride pizza oven sparking the commercialization of pizza.
1946 – Detroit Pizza was developed at Buddy’s Rendezvous, a former speakeasy located at the corner of Six Mile Road and Conant Street in Detroit.
1957 – Frozen pizza was introduced in Newark, NJ by the Celentano brothers who owned an Italian specialty store.
1958 – Pizza Hut, was founded in Wichita, Kansas.
1959 – Little Caesars, founded at 32594 Cherry Hill Road, Garden City, Michigan. It’s 2 ½ miles from the original Kmart.
1960 – Domino’s started out at 507 West Cross St. Ypsilanti, Michigan.
1962 – Controversial “Hawaiian” pizza, a pizza topped with pineapple and ham, was invented in Canada by Sam Panopoulos at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario.
1974 – The first pizza was ordered via a computer from Mr. Mike’s in East Lansing, MI. The large pepperoni, mushroom, ham, and sausage order required a CDC 6500 mainframe computer to complete.
1994 – The first pizza is ordered online. The large pepperoni, mushroom, and extra cheese pizza was ordered on “PizzaNet” – Pizza Hut‘s digital ordering hub developed by the Santa Cruz Operation (aka SCO).
Here are some interesting facts surrounding National Pizza Day!
• Over 3 Billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. each year.
• Every second 350 slices of pizza are sold in the U.S.
• Americans consume over 23 pounds of pizza per year.
• Pepperoni pizza is the most popular, preferred by 36% of the people.
• Americans consume 251.7 million pounds of pepperoni each year, mostly on pizza.
• 30% of Americans have pizza at least once a week.
• 19% of people love to pair their pizza with a beer.
• 10 percent say they like to pair wine with pizza.
• More pizzas are sold on Super Bowl Sunday, than any other day of the year.
• Halloween is the second most popular day for eating pizzas.
• March 14th – National Pi Day
• April 5th – National Deep Dish Pizza Day
• May 15th – National Pizza Party Day
• June 11th – Pizza Margherita Day
• September 5th – National Cheese Pizza Day
• September 20th – National Pepperoni Pizza Day
• October National Pizza Month
• October 9th – International Beer & Pizza Day
• October 11th – National Sausage Pizza Day
• November 12th – National Pizza with the Works except Anchovies Day
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Sitting in the drive-thru lane waiting for your morning coffee is a thing of the past. Wing, Alphabet’s drone unit has made over 100,000 drone deliveries in Australia. As the name suggests, delivery drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that are used to deliver packages, medical supplies, food and other goods. According to the Wing website, the drone deliveries have include more than 10,000 cups of fresh coffee.
The Google moon-shot project began in 2014. The Wing drones are all-electric. The electric delivery system is green and quiet. Drone delivery works like any other delivery service like Uber Eats or DoorDash.
To order their coffee, the customer places their order through an app available in the Apple and Google stores. The coffee shop packages the cup of joe and attaches the order to the equipment. The drone then lifts off on its own. When it reaches its destination, the coffee is lowered down and unclipped, allowing for an entirely contactless experience. (Wing video) Customers can track their coffee drone delivery on their phones. Wing claims that it’s the quickest time from order to delivery recorded was two minutes and 47 seconds. Less time than it takes to brew your own coffee at home.
The Wing software analyses terrain, weather, and routing options to make its way over to the customer as efficiently as possible. TechRepublic reports the drones rely on a large number of Google backend systems. The backend system uses the vast computing power that is distributed across Google’s cloud of millions of servers, such as Google Maps, Earth and Street View to understand the location of buildings, roads, trees and other objects of interest to bring your coffee.
In the U.S., the Google spin-out became the first drone operator to win Federal Aviation Administration approval in 2019. Wing provides limited services in Virginia.
You can also get your coffee delivered by drone in Oranmore, Ireland. The town of 8,000 on Ireland’s west coast is the site for a drone delivery trial by the Irish startup Manna. A half dozen Manna technicians run the trial, loading deliveries – that can weigh up to 2 kilograms – into a white paper bag, which is placed into a removable cargo bay inserted into the drone. The Manna drones can fly at 50 mph, the cruise at 260 feet to reach their destination. They can reach anywhere in the town within two minutes.
Once over a delivery house, the Manna drone lowers to 80 feet before a hatch on its belly opens and the bag gently spirals to earth at the end of a thin rope. The company said it was normally doing between 30 and 100 deliveries a-day. The current delivery charge being trialed in approx. $5.
Other companies are working on coffee delivery drones. Matternet,a drone-focused logistics company tested its coffee delivery drone over Zurich, Switzerland in 2017. Back in 2014, the A Lab, an Amsterdam-based company demonstrated Coffee Copter, which relied on an app as the user interface for placing coffee orders in an office setting.
McKinsey estimates that in 2022 more than 2,000 drone deliveries are occurring each day worldwide. They project almost 1.5 million deliveries in 2022.
Domino’s Pizza first delivered a Peri-Peri Chicken Pizza and a Chicken and Cranberry Pizza via it’s DomiCopter drone in New Zeeland in November 2016. Pizza Hut is testing drone delivery in Israel.
Delivery giant UPS has a unique approach to drone delivery. ZDnet reports that UPS is trialing its HorseFlydrone delivery system in rural areas. The UPS drone launches from the top of a UPS truck and autonomously delivers a package to a home. Meanwhile, the delivery driver can continue along the route to make another delivery, because the drone will autonomously return to the truck and dock itself recharging.
DHL has shut down their Parcelcopter delivery drone project. with the company referring in a recent blog post to “unrealistic hype” in the drone delivery industry.
Amazon has recently relaunched its Prime Air drone delivery in California and Texas.
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The technology to deliver coffee by drone is here. The problem is that the FAA has banned all commercial uses of drones in the U.S. The FAA currently requires companies with exemptions, like Amazon, to have an operator with a pilot’s license keep each drone within line of sight—a mandate that makes deliveries completely uneconomical. Experts have expressed cautious optimism that the FAA, which is working on guidelines for drone deliveries, will let them fly in the U.S. – someday.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Related article
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Social engineering describes various non-technical attack techniques cybercriminals use to manipulate users. The attackers hope the user will bypass security or other business process protocols, perform harmful actions, or disclose sensitive information. Beware of these social engineering classics.
Don’t get fooled by official-looking emails even though the email appears to be work-related. Subject lines such as “Invoice Attached” or “Here’s the file you needed” might be a social engineering classic. To be sure, you should hover your cursor over email addresses and links before clicking to see if the sender and type of file are legitimate. BEC is the most costly form of cybercrime. It stems from faked emails called “Business Email Compromise” or BEC scams. A typical BEC scam involves phony emails in which the attacker spoofs a message from an executive at a company and tricks someone into wiring funds to the fraudsters.
VishingCorporate phone systems are often set up to forward voice mail audio files to employees’ inboxes. While this is convenient, forwarding the files can be risky. It makes it harder to determine if the email is phony or legit. Since 2014, scammers have been installing malicious software through emails designed to look like internal voicemail messages, making vishing a social engineering classic.
With vishing, cybercriminals use an urgent or alarming voicemail message to try to get potential victims to call back with their personal information. Fake caller ID information is often used to make the calls appear to be from a legitimate organization or business.
Free Stuff is one of the oldest social engineering classics. Most people can’t resist free Stuff, from pizza to software downloads, and they will click just about any link to get it. Of course, nothing is truly free. Sophisticated attackers might send a link to genuine free software, but they’re sending you through their website, which means you may get infected or compromised.
Baiting is a variant of “Free Stuff.” The attacker hopes to trick their victims into executing code by piquing their curiosity or convincing them to run hardware or software with hidden malware. For example, innocent-looking USB sticks handed out at a conference or casually “dropped” in the parking could contain malware. They then detonate when the curious user plugs it into their PC. This is how Stuxnet attacked the Iranian nuclear program.
Another version of “Free Stuff.” In Latin, Quid pro quo means “something for something.” In exchange, the attacker offers something of genuine worth to the victim and will work their way into the target’s network. An example: The attacker poses as tech support and solves a problem for you, then convinces you to type in a line of code that serves as a “backdoor.” On the other hand, it may be as simple as trading a candy bar in exchange for a password!
This attack plants malware on a website you and your colleagues frequently visit. The next time you surf the site, the malware—such as a remote-access Trojan or RAT—is downloaded to your computer. And just like that, the attacker can begin exfiltrating data from your employer’s network.
Pretexting is another form of social engineering in which attackers focus on creating a fabricated scenario that they can use to try to steal their information. It is a true con game. It relies on the crook fostering a sense of trust in the victim.
Pretexting can also impersonate co-workers, police, banks, or tax authorities. It pretends to be any individual who could have perceived authority or right-to-know in the targeted victim’s mind. In some cases, all that is needed is an authoritative voice, an earnest tone, and an ability to think on one’s feet to create a pretext scenario.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
