Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Culture

  • Tech Handling Gender. Poorly

    White males explain women’s tech issues. Poorly

    Microsoft CEO explains women’s tech compensation. Poorly.

  • iPhone Encryption

    This is one of the better articles I’ve read on the topic.

    This isn’t really only about the iPhone, since you’ve been able to do this on Android for years…

  • The Genie Question

    I discovered Wait But Why through the blog post on the Fermi Paradox (yes, I’m a geek). The author then decided to let his readers pick a bunch of random countries for him to visit. And I do mean random.

    1. Russia
    2. Japan
    3. Nigeria
    4. Iraq
    5. Greenland

    At the beginning, he said,

    Finally, I’m going to ask 50 random people in each country the following question: If you had a magical Aladdin genie who granted you any three wishes, what would you wish for? I’m not totally sure what will come out of it, but I think it’ll be interesting to see how the answers differ from country to country.

    Here’s the results of The Genie Question

  • Wedding in Italy

    A good friend of my wife has been living in London for many years. About a year ago she announced she’s getting married (no surprise, they’d been together for years) and she wanted to do it in Italy in September.

    September is after “the season” for these places (i.e. not as expensive), so that made sense, but it also meant during school. My wife really, really wanted to see her friend get married. I cringed at the cost of going to Italy for a 4 day weekend, but I knew we were doing it. We declared it the combination of our 15 year wedding anniversary celebration (last year) and my 50th birthday (upcoming) and booked it.

    It was last weekend. I’m crazy jet-lagged at the moment, but the whole thing was spectacular.

    The wedding was in Santa Margherita, Italy. I had never heard of it, but it’s near Genoa. This was the view from our hotel.

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    There’s no beach there, but stairs have been carved into the rocks to go down to this, if you want to swim.

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    There were wedding events each day, but some free time as well. We walked to Portofino a couple of times. Portofino is a very cute town tucked into a little bay. There are many expensive boats there.

    The walk is along the coast, so very scenic.

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    As you approach Portofino, you start to see the boats:

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    The main area of town:

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    There’s a small castle (Castello Brown) near the point of the peninsula. The views from there are postcard-like (and yes, that boat on the left was ridiculously huge).

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    For reasons I cannot explain, there are statures of pink meerkats looking over the harbor.

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    Even stranger was this one…

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    Oh yes, and there was a wedding. In some beautiful villa in Santa Margherita. The bride and groom looked fantastic, of course…

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    All in all, a fabulous whirlwind trip.

  • Ice Bucket

    I’m sure you’ve seen this, but it’s the best ice bucket response I’ve seen.

    Write a check…

  • Yum

    Pumpkin Ales came early this year. This is one of the best I’ve tasted.

  • The Best Beer in Baseball

    This is a great interactive article. I have issues with it because they consider Stella Artois (the Bud of Europe) to be as good as Guinness on draft, but overall the ratings seem good.

    As a Yankee fan, the Yankee Stadium rating is embarrassing, but not unexpected. The beer there just isn’t good. What is especially bad is that there is a great brewery in Cooperstown, NY, Ommegang. Cooperstown? Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame? Hello?

    Anyway, wherever you go, try to drink good beer.

  • The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz

    Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz on this one. There’s a new movie, Get on Up about James Brown, but why watch impersonators when you can watch the Godfather of Soul (you have to be amazing to get two cool nicknames) for real, 50 years ago.

    If you don’t have time for the full 18 minutes, start around the 15 minute mark and watch his feet.

  • Google Doodle o’ the Day

    Today’s Google Doodle is an amusing tribute to John Venn (of Venn diagram fame). I liked it a lot.

    Then I realized it’s Louis Armstrong’s birthday and he’s never (to the best of my knowledge) had a Google Doodle.

    Venn diagrams are useful, but c’mon Google, Satchmo…

  • My Joint

    The NY Times has an interesting article about restaurants near hospitals. It talks about my favorite joint, the Waterfront Ale House (there are two, one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn).

    Several people recommended the Waterfront Ale House in Kips Bay, a popular option for the families of patients at both NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue, along with the hospital staffs. It has become a bona fide foodie destination as well, thanks to the celebrity chef April Bloomfield, who has professed her love of Waterfront’s hot wings everywhere from Food & Wine to The Financial Times. Waterfront’s owner, Sam Barbieri, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and operates a smoker in Brooklyn, where the ale house has another branch.

    Amusingly, while I was at my favorite joint, my favorite bartender showed me that article and gave me my favorite beer. Then I read my RSS feed on my phone and saw this:

    The beer I was drinking.

    From Business Insider: How 16 Of The Oldest Companies On Earth Have Been Making Money For Centuries