Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • ooVoo is fairly cool

    As part of our constant effort to think through remote communications at work, we’ve been checking out ooVoo.

    ooVoo is a free (so far) video web conference system. You can have up to six people on a video call. The video quality is decent, the voice quality is ok. Here’s Chris and me talking:

    oovoo

    I’m not even going to comment on his shirt…

    A cheap web cam seems to work fine. You need a halfway decent microphone or headset for the audio. We’ve banished Linus from these calls until he gets a better one…

  • A day at the park with Tori

    As all parents know, until you have more than two kids, you can play man-to-man defense. Once you get to three you have to play zone. We only have two and because Danielle has always liked doing active things with me, we typically pair off (when pairing off is needed) with me being with Danielle and my wife being with Victoria.

    This afternoon we wanted to get Victoria outside but Danielle was tired (getting over a cold) and just wanted to stay home. She wanted to stay home with my wife. So for a change, I went out with Victoria, just the two of us.

    Victoria is finally at the age where the park (what city folks call a park, really a playground) is big fun. She’s 17 months, climbing on everything. There are a ton of parks near us, but there’s one that is totally designed for her age. So here are the obligatory pictures.

    Tori on the move:

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    Determined to go up the slide:

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    Cheerios in hand. The five second rule is about to be applied:

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    Two fisted. Milk and cheerios:

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    And of course, smiling as usual:

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  • Google fireside chat with author Tim Ferriss

    Tim Ferriss is the author of “The 4 Hour Workweek”. I have an RSS feed from his blog. Google had him in for a “fireside chat” (no actual fire). It is very interesting. It’s also an hour, so watch it (or just listen, there’s no real visual, he’s just sitting there) when you have some time.

  • No news

    I haven’t blogged in a while. There just hasn’t been that much going on. Some highlights:

    • Isiah Thomas is no longer the coach or GM of the Knicks. Perhaps there will be watchable basketball at Madison Square Garden someday soon.
    • I did pretty well in my NCAA pool, but had UCLA all the way. Oops.
    • Baseball season has begun. That’s not really news. Just a great thing.
    • My daughter had a substitute teacher for her soccer class last Sunday. This is a 5-7 year old class (Danielle is 5). The instructor had played for the Jamaican national team. He was unbelievable. Only in New York…
    • My nephew is having problems with his geometry homework (he’s a freshman). Wikipedia is a great source of refresher information. I now recall all of the principles of triangle congruence.

    That’s about it. Oh yeah, it’s spring. That is the most beautiful thing of all…

  • Programming in the real world

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  • Let’s Make a Deal

    This is the sort of thing that amuses my mathematical mind. The starting point is the classic Monty Hall problem. If you aren’t familiar with it, it goes like this.

    You have three doors. Behind one is a car, behind the other two are goats. You have to choose which door you want. Before revealing what is behind your door, Monty Hall (if you are too young to recall “Let’s Make a Deal” on TV, just imagine a game show host) opens one of the doors you didn’t choose and there’s a goat. At this point Monty offers you the option to change your mind and take the other door.

    Statistically speaking, what is the best choice? Stick with your original door or switch? As a hint I will tell you that one answer is much better than the other, which may be counterintuitive.

    Today’s New York Times Science section has a follow up article that takes this even farther.

    If you’d like the Monty Hall problem explained further and actually test it out online, go here.

  • Visit with my Mom

    I took a trip with Danielle to visit my mom, who has Alzheimer’s. This was the first time Danielle and I had traveled just the two of us. She likes to fly and she’s a good traveler.

    Danielle had been asking about visiting her Nana and I hadn’t seen my mom in a while so it was time. It’s hard because my mom’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse. When I talk to her on the phone I can’t really tell if she knows who I am.

    But the visit was pretty good. They have my mom on some different medication that keeps her much more even. Alzheimer’s patients often have "sundowner’s syndrome" which basically means they get a lot worse in the evening. Mom used to be that way, but she really wasn’t this time. She knew who we were. We went to a children’s museum that we have been to before and Mom pretty much stuck with Danielle (the last time she seemed to be confused about which child she was there with).

    But Danielle isn’t really making any connection with her anymore. She was interacting much more with my brother and his wife. I think she sees that her Nana can’t really have a conversation with her anymore.

    The amazing thing about talking with my Mom is how good her defense mechanisms are. If you aren’t really paying attention and you didn’t know that she has Alzheimer’s you might think that she was actively engaged in conversation. She says things that make sense and are appropriate. But if you really know what she does and doesn’t remember you realize that she is totally faking it. She has mastered the use of vague terms that hide the fact that she can’t remember.

    Occasionally, just to try to understand what she really remembers I will slip into scientist mode and not give her any verbal cues or hints. But I didn’t do that on this visit. I don’t know how many more times Danielle will see her, so I wanted to keep it as light as possible.

    So Danielle got to try blue ice cream:

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    And here’s a picture of my Mom, Danielle and my brother’s wife Diana:

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    So it was a good, if somewhat sad, visit.

  • A Great Sports Day (or two)

    First of all, through the generosity of Aaron Shapiro (and the fact that his dad couldn’t make the rain-out make up day) I got to go to the last opening day at the present Yankee Stadium. Aside from how great that is just by itself, it was the perfect game. Wang pitched 7 solid (though a bit shaky) innings. Melky Cabrera totally saved him with back to back amazing catches in center and followed that up with a home run. OK, it was the shortest possible home run in Yankee Stadium. It’s 314 to the right field foul pole. This ball went 314 and 6 inches. The Yankees came back to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 7th.

    Then Joba Chamberlain shut down Toronto in the 8th, striking Frank Thomas out with a 97 mile an hour fastball. Jorge Posada, the catcher, was asked afterwards if he had called for 97 miles an hour on that pitch. He said, “no, 98”.

    And then to start the 9th inning the strains of “Enter Sandman” began. Yankee Stadium erupted as it always does when that music starts. For those that don’t follow the Yankees, that music means that Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer of all time, is entering the game. When he threw his first pitch, you saw so many camera flashes lighting up. It looked like the first pitch of the game, not the first pitch of the ninth inning.

    Of course Mariano had a 1-2-3 inning, the fans went nuts and they cranked Sinatra singing “New York, New York” as they always do when the Yankees win. It was a great night.

    By the way, the new Yankee Stadium is going up fast across the street. Here’s a picture from my phone:

    Stadium

    This great night was followed by two fantastic pieces of news. First Tom Crean is hired as the basketball coach at Indiana University. This is a great hire. Great coach, impeccable ethics (unlike their last coach). With NCAA sanctions on the way, getting a coach that good was a surprise, though Indiana is still one of the great basketball traditions.

    Then, even better, Donnie Walsh is taking over the Knicks. I may be able to watch pro basketball again. He might even (dare I dream) fire Isiah Thomas as coach. It will take a while to fix, but there’s actually hope for the Knicks. Professional basketball may return to Madison Square Garden.

    So all in all, a great couple of days…

  • Passport Renewal – Proof I’m Getting Old

    I just renewed my passport for the third time. Since I didn’t do any international travel until after college (not counting Canada, like Canada’s really another country…) you can do the math and conclude that it’s been 20 years since I graduated. Damn, when did I get so old?

    The worst part is looking at the passport photos. Not that any of them are flattering, but I definitely used to have more hair.

    What’s cool about looking at passports is that in many ways they reveal your life. My first two passports are clearly two separate parts of my life.

    Passport 1 is musician life. It has by far the coolest stamps. There are multiple Japanese work visa stamps (from my Ringling Brothers days), a stamp from Saipan (how many people have been to Saipan? How many even know where it is?), stamps from a variety of Caribbean countries (cruise ship days), and some European stamps. At the end of musician life I settled into regular work life, but I didn’t do much cool travel so there aren’t any good stamps in the passport during the second half of this passport.

    Passport 2 is married life. The very first stamp is Tahiti, our honeymoon. With the exception of a few work trips (mainly UK), the stamps are all due to trips with my wife. British Virgin Islands (Virgin Gorda, site of a beautiful resort), Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, France, Holland. And of course the Guatemala stamp for our adoption.

    So what will passport 3 be? Hopefully it will be as fun as the first two…

  • Easter Fun

    We had a good Easter at my wife’s sister’s place. Danielle and Victoria had matching dresses. Here are the girls ready to go to church:

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    Of course there was an Easter Egg hunt. Danielle found most of them:

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    Victoria helped a bit:

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