Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • Trapeze

    Danielle turned 9 yesterday and for her birthday she wanted to go to a trapeze place in Brooklyn. She had been there once before at another birthday and had a blast, but it was the first time I had seen it.

    It was pretty awesome.

    First you get a safety belt:

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    Then you practice:

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    Then you fly:

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    In two hours, they try to teach you to swing to the end, bring your legs up over the bar after one pass (it’s all timing, if you do it at the right moment your momentum makes it easier), then let your arms down at the end of the backswing of that pass and you fly upside down. Then you bring your arms up and drop.

    The goal is to get comfortable enough with that move so that you can actually swing upside down to another guy who grabs your arms and truly pass from one bar to another (again, all about timing). Could we learn that in two hours?

    Just getting that first part is tricky. Only a few of us did it. And ultimately I was the only one to attempt the full upside down catch (took two tries, but I got it). But Danielle did do a simpler ankle pass (apologies for the blurry picture)

    DSC03816

    Seriously big fun for kids and adults alike.

  • Murmuration

    Look it up. Or just watch this.

  • Oh my

    Not sure what other reaction you can have to this picture:

    Yes, that’s a rhino. And yes, he’s upside down being lifted by a helicopter…

  • This can’t be good…

    This will be a business school case study someday of how to run a hugely successful tech company into the ground…

  • In Congress We Trust

    Recently the House passed a resolution re-affirming that our nation’s motto is “In God We Trust”. This was in response to a US President stating that our motto was “E Pluribus Unum”.

    Thank God Congress is on top of things. It’s not like we have more important things to worry about…

  • Nook vs. Fire

    So to me the choice between the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire is an easy choice. But Danielle turns 9 this week. She’s a good reader. She’s been asking for an eReader. We like reading and want to encourage it. While a tad expensive, when you add up all the crap we’d normally get her for her birthday, it isn’t that much more.

    So she’s been wanting the Nook Color. It’s the only existing color eReader that has apps.

    Now I also want an eReader for my birthday, which is a week later. Instant gratification is not a big deal to me. So the Kindle Fire is an easy choice for me (won’t ship until 11/15). There’s just no way Barnes and Noble can compete with Amazon as an Android platform.

    So prior to getting the Nook I’ve been doing the research. And the B&N App store is, well, lame. It’s a tiny subset of the Amazon store and has almost none of the free stuff (when Amazon does a different free app every day).

    So today, three days before her birthday, I have the discussion. How do you explain technology platforms to an almost nine year old? But there was one clincher. I had put a free texting app on her iTouch (her odds of getting a cell phone anytime soon are negative). It’s not like she actually has people to text. I asked her, “who are you going to text?”.  “You and Mami”. So for a day, she sent me text messages every five minutes.

    That app is available for the Fire. There are no text messaging apps for the Nook.

    Sold.

    So she’ll have to wait two weeks for her birthday present. For a nine year old, reasonably impressive delayed gratification.

    Long term, she’ll be happier. Sorry Barnes and Noble…

  • Oh the Horror…

    I guess Kim Kardashian won’t be moving to Brooklyn now…

  • Super Cool Roosevelt Island

    Obviously these are just preliminary plans by Bloomberg trying to get tech industry in NYC. But wow, this would be so cool for Roosevelt Island.

  • Biker Latte

    “Only in Santa Cruz would you have biker wars over who’s going to control pumpkin spice lattes.”

  • Camtasia

    I really need to give proper credit to a tool I’ve been using for years. Every video on Origami’s video site was produced using Camtasia Studio.

    The key to Camtasia has always been that they nailed the sweet spot between ease of use and the ability to produce good quality videos. We aren’t talking professional grade here. But we are talking about hours to make, not days and a price within any company’s budget.

    So belated thanks to TechSmith for an excellent product.