Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • Huge Numbers of Citi Bike Riders Will be Hurt! Also Locusts!

    The press (notably, but not exclusively the NY Post) was full of predictions of injuries, death and other calamities from Citi Bike. Some examples below.

    The truth?

    After 31 days:

    • Over 500,000 rides
    • Three minor injuries

    Three. Uh, we get that many at a typical street fair.

    I promised examples of fear mongering:

    Mild:

    NY Daily News: Bicycle Roulette

    Medium:

    NY Observer: Citi Bike Floods Streets With Thousands of Uninsured Cyclists

    And the NY Post (which just hates Citi Bike):

    Well, that was fast! First Citi Bike cycle stolen

    New York City bike-share program bans riders who weigh more than 260 pounds

    Uneasy riders: City’s bike share off to rocky start

    Riding a Citi Bike an uphill battle — as bulky, 45 lb. units not easy to maneuver

    I posted this before, but the Venn Diagram of why conservatives hate Citi Bike is the best explanation.

    It’s Vaguely French…

  • Super Cool Science

    With apologies for the pun in the title, watch the video.

    Courtesy The RI Channel.

  • Settled

    Via xkcd.

  • More Animation

    Danielle just finished an 8 day summer camp where one part was animation with the same guy who does her afterschool animation class.

    This isn’t as involved as other things she’s done, but you have to remember that this was done by 10 year olds in exactly 7 days. Not full days, because animation is just one part of this art camp. So with that in mind, it’s pretty cool.

    Danielle’s monster appears exactly one minute in.

  • CitiBike is my new iPhone

    I’m obviously a CitiBike fan, but check out this article in Business Insider.

    I can’t remember something that’s made so many people so happy here in such a short time since the iPhone launched. It’s going to be really interesting to see how the Citi Bike program changes New York.

  • This Has Already Happened

    Today’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic (below) reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy line:

    There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory, which states that this has already happened.

    Enjoy…

  • Imagine

    You are a gay man (I’ve just alienated 95% of my audience). You live in NYC. You meet another man and fall in love. He’s from Columbia. You go through the usual dating motions and decide this is real. This being NYC, you get married because that is now legal.

    Oh crap, he’s not a citizen.

    New York says you are married, but the feds do not. His visa has expired. Columbia is not one of our favored nations so immigration is tricky.

    If he were a she, this would be easy. But he is a he, so it’s not.

    He’s about to be deported.

    Today happens. DOMA is dead.

    This morning our intern, Gabe, ran the 77-page ruling and delivered it the Immigration Court five blocks from our office. It was still warm from the printer.

    Can you imagine this? Your husband is about to be deported and a Supreme Court ruling saves the day. We think of these rulings in grand policy terms but sometimes they are very personal.

    As Tip O’Neill once said, “All politics is local”.

  • Brooklyn Soccer

    Regular readers know that my two nephews are big soccer players. The oldest, Mike, has graduated college but wants to keep playing. He has friends in Brooklyn, so they invited him to play in a Monday night league. You have to love soccer to drive almost two hours each way for a game.

    But the setting is fantastic. As part of the continued expansion of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 5 has been built out with three nice turf soccer fields. On a nice summer night, it’s a great place to watch a soccer game.

    20130624_205040

    The fields look like this, with lower Manhattan in the background. Mike was playing on the field farthest to the back:

    20130624_205618

    And the obligatory view of Manhattan from the end of the pier:

    20130624_210911

    Really a great spot and a nice night to watch soccer with family.

  • Jay Z Magna Carta

    So Jay-Z did a deal with Samsung to make his new album available for free for Samsung Galaxy owners. The app became available today, so as an S3 owner I installed it.

    The first thing it asks is to login with Twitter or Facebook. You cannot continue until you do so.

    I tried Twitter first. Twitter does a good job of telling you the access the app is asking for. Among other things, it is asking for access to:

    • Follow new people (presumably Jay-Z)
    • Update your profile (what?)
    • Post tweets for you (double what?)

    Needless to say, I did not click accept.

    I tried the Facebook login. Facebook gives zero warnings about what saying Accept means. Do I think that means I’m giving up less if I use Facebook? Uh, no. I think it means that Twitter is honest and Facebook is not.

    But I frankly don’t care a ton about my Facebook account and I think people on Facebook are used to random Facebook updates from apps that aren’t real. So I’m going to try the Facebook login as an experiment.

    It’s not like I’m a big Jay-Z fan. My tastes go to Jazz in the 50’s. But my girls do like Jay-Z (and I appreciate him as a Brooklyn guy) so I’ll give it a whirl.

    If you follow me on Facebook and get random Jay-Z stuff, you know why…

    UPDATE:

    After you login to Facebook, it does warn you that you are giving them access to your timeline, friend list and birthday. It did not say it could post for me or update my profile. Creepy enough, but I’m giving it a shot.

    Free stuff = give up your privacy.

  • Blackberry Mounting a Comeback?

    Article courtesy of Business Insider.

    Answer courtesy of Betteridge’s law of headlines:

    No.