Movie night

August 22nd, 2011

So I watched ‘La Grande Illusion‘ again this evening. A marvelous film, depicting World War I prisoners of war, living in a much different and more genteel civilization which was in its final years. Class differences are highlighted in the story. Dialogue in the film was mostly in French, some German, and the occasional bit of English.

Can you envision the following dialogue during prison-camp in-processing in a World War II movie?

“This conduct is unbecoming.”
“Sorry, it’s our duty to search you. This is war.”
“I perfectly agree, but conduct it courteously. If not, I’ll see your commanding officer.”

I’d seen the movie once before, and there were two scenes I recalled – the first was in the prison camp theater, which had just received a large basket of women’s clothing so the prisoners could put on a stage production. As they were going through the contents of the basket, Lt. Marechal, one of the main characters, and newly-arrived at the prison, was describing the current fashions back in France to the men who’d been prisoners longer. A very young, baby-faced lieutenant was talked into trying on an outfit, and a minute or so later, came out dressed in women’s clothing with a wig on. Everyone in the theater suddenly stopped what they were doing and stared at him. The scene was as powerful as I remembered.

The second scene was in the second prison camp, a castle, and involved a conversation with the prison camp commandant, played by Eric von Stroheim, during which he describes the injuries he’s sustained:

“A silver plate (pointing to his head). In my kneecap, too. I owe this wealth to the misfortunes of war.”

I’d completely forgotten the part of the movie concerning the escape. Beautiful scenery, strong story, and powerful acting in that part, too.

I’m glad I took the time to see it again.

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Miscellany 17

August 21st, 2011

There’s not quite an hour left in the 52nd anniversary of Hawaii becoming a state (in this timezone, anyway). Time to clear out the browser tabs.

Andy Firth believes that people who code for a living aren’t learning enough about the abstractions they use and what those abstractions are hiding. I happen to agree with that. My list of things that coders should study/know would be somewhat different than his, but that is likely to be just because of our differing backgrounds.

The economy is going to hell in a handbasket. My company isn’t exempt from problems; our customers have taken to using us as a bank that provides no-interest loans – customers on net 30 terms have been taking 90 days or more to pay. Here’s a good roundup of poll results with respect to the economy and the government’s handling of it.

Perhaps this chart explains some of the problem. Pay particular attention to the last two lines.

Accounting rules have, of course, contributed to where we are today with respect to manufacturing.

Oh, for the days when farming was fun!

While we’re on the subject of dynamite, I’d like to suggest this as a problem that can be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.

I don’t agree with Fred all the time, but he’s almost always worth reading. He’s got a sobering take on the London riots.

The closest I can come to matching this customer service story is to note that I used to be a regular-enough customer at a local Mexican restaurant that the staff knew my usual order. Nowhere near the same thing. I’ll have to get to a Morton’s sometime when I feel as though I can afford it; such service deserves reward.

I need to find out more about this. There may be nothing there, but, if there is …

Free online classes in AI. Might be fun. Here’s more information about other online education sources.

I saw an interesting documentary on burlesque a couple of weeks ago. This song was in part of it, but never sung in its entirety. I looked it up because it sounded fun. Note: the page automatically plays a MIDI file of it.

Posted in Music, Politics, Reading, Software, Technology | Comments Closed

This bothers me

August 10th, 2011

It fits right in with other things this administration has done, though, such as the fact that President Obama has never issued an Easter statement, but does offer yearly statements on Ramadan and hosts Iftan dinners.

If you’re an American citizen born in Jerusalem, the State Department won’t let you have “Israel” noted as your place of birth.

And, apparently as a result of the prior article appearing, the White House has removed the information noted in that article that Jerusalem is in Israel from its website.

At what point do you have enough evidence to start wondering if he’s practicing taqqiya?

Posted in In the news, Politics | Comments Closed

Because it’s not truly organic without the grit to wear down the enamel on your teeth

August 7th, 2011

Germany’s last millstone mason is getting plenty of work with the fad for organic food.

Posted in In the news | Comments Closed

Surprisingly, it’s not a trade exposition for bad cooks

July 26th, 2011

Blechexpo

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Erudition

July 21st, 2011

I saw a bumper sticker last week that was in Latin. Such things tend to catch my eye; I’ve got two t-shirts with Latin text on them. On translates into English as, “I have a catapult. Give me all your money or I shall hurl an immense rock at your head.” The other one is a bit sillier, and translates to, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

In any case, the bumper sticker I saw reads, “Si hoc legere potes eruditissimus es sed parum distas!” This translates to, “If you can read this, you are well-educated and too close!”

And, speaking of well-educated (or stretching in that direction, anyway), I have a vocabulary of 35,000 words. This puts me at the top of the “most people” range, and somewhere between the 85th and 90th percentile. They don’t have a lot of data yet, though – the average SAT verbal score for people who’ve taken the test so far is 700. They’d like more people to take their test, particularly ages 15 or younger. My age doesn’t have an average vocabulary reported, though. They only report that for ages 18-32. The data shows an increasing vocabulary size with increasing age, although the data isn’t monotonic. I’m wondering if the increase is regular enough beyond 32 to be worth extrapolating to see how I compare.

Posted in Fun Stuff, It's all about me | Comments Closed

Saturday matinee

July 16th, 2011

Here’s a couple of videos for a summer Saturday.

First, we have the animated cartoon:


octopus lovers fight back!! brought to you by Free Funny Videos

Drama, action, and romance – what more could you ask for? Next, we have the live-action feature, in which someone is pretty animated:

He gets an amazing amount of music out of an instrument with only three strings, especially considering that two of them are tuned to the same note.

Posted in Fun Stuff, Music | Comments Closed

Evolution’s Stepchildren

July 15th, 2011

This is a poem I wrote back in 2002. Note the dated topical reference in the last line – I actually wanted at the time to draw a cartoon with the hostess facing the one primitive primate among the contestants and saying, “You are the missing link!”, but I can’t draw. I ran across it by accident today, and thought it would be worth posting. Apart from that, most of the impetus behind this one was the desire to come up with something that had a quick, bubbling rhythm to it.

I’ll note that it’s possible to sing this to “Turkey in the Straw” with a little forcing here and there, but I won’t claim that it’s a good idea.

Evolution’s Stepchildren

In the course of evolution, newer species will emerge.
They develop out of older ones, as though there is an urge
For them to try to become better (however that’s defined),
But the process takes forever, which some people seem to mind.

Improvement comes in two ways, as I’m certain that you know.
Your descendents can be better, which eventually will show
Through accumulated changes, as the generations pass.
And the species is a new one when enough changes amass.

The other way is faster, and it only needs a fool
Who improves the race by bowing out of our genetic pool.
This happens rather often, so it cannot be ignored,
And we give to those who qualify their very own award.

Named after Charles Darwin, it’s not one for which you’d vie,
Since to qualify to win it, you must nearly always die.
Do these people ever stop to think before they do their stunts?
Do they realize that they’ll be known as intellectual runts?

Does their life flash by before them when they realize what they’ve done?
Do they hear the angels tell them that they’ll soon have no more fun?
Well, I know I’m not impressive, but I’d really hate to think
That I’d hear a voice from Heaven say, “You _are_ the weakest link!”

Posted in Fun Stuff, Song and Dance | Comments Closed

Miscellany 16

July 14th, 2011

Let’s see what we can pull out today, shall we, boys and girls?

I don’t use picks much, apart from finger picks when I’m playing banjo. I do use picks when I play mandolin, but I don’t play my mandolin that often (and, actually, it’s on a long-term loan at the moment). However, I can’t help but wonder if I’d have a better grip and be able to keep the picks from sliding around in my fingers without having to clamp down to the point of cramps if I were to punch them out of old credit cards.

Carbon fiber is neat stuff. I’m quite taken with the Blackbird carbon fiber ukulele, although I doubt I’ll ever own one. Perhaps I can eventually learn to make my own, though.

If you’re interested, there are more extreme substances discussed here. I don’t think there are any hobby guides for using them, though.

There are a couple of new British reality shows in the process of finding cast members. I’m linking to this article because the shows are based in Liverpool, where I was born, and I enjoy stupid puns such as the series names.

Invisibility cloaks are now officially passé – now they’re proposing time cloaks.

This is an extremely heart-warming story. I so understand why the father feels like that.

We’ve long had computers that could play games, but that’s because they were specifically programmed to do so. There have also been computers that have been programmed with the rules for a game, then tasked with determining a winning strategy by playing countless games against themselves or other computers. Now there’s a computer that learned to play a game by reading the manual.

Here’s a cool video: one year of the moon’s cycles covered in 2.5 minutes.

If someone tells you that the Sun doesn’t affect weather on earth (which I’ve seen argued by some global warming/climate change advocates), tell them “thanks for playing; now go away.”

Lots of information about sunscreen here; some of it I’d known, and some I hadn’t. It does put me in mind of the letter purportedly received from a child by a book publisher: “Dear Sirs: I am returning your book because it is about penguins and it tells me more about penguins than I care to know.” The link goes to PDF file of a speech delivered in 1948 – I first ran across the anecdote (which I remember slightly differently) in an earlier edition of this book.

This looks like an interesting site to help with learning a foreign language.

Mark Steyn has a disturbing report up.

Here’s a series of mug shots. A couple of them show up more than once. All I can say is, the only way I’d get tattoos like these people is if someone drugged me and applied them while I was unconscious. And then I’d have to worry about getting mug shot, after I went after them.

And, finally, the (presumably) first Pastafarian driver’s license.

Posted in Fun Stuff, In the news, Science, Technology | Comments Closed

This is a post I’ve been putting off

July 13th, 2011

I wrote it about three weeks ago, but I’ve been putting off posting it because I don’t like conflict. I did promise these people that I’d post about it, though, and now that the doctor has told me to start walking without the support boot, it’s time and past time.

Now that my broken ankle is healing, I’ve been wearing a boot for support. The boot was supplied by Rocky Mountain Medical Equipment, and they’ve sent me an invoice for $240.92. I called them last week to see if I can get a discounted price, because I don’t have medical insurance. Most places will give discounts to people without insurance, because there’s less paperwork involved, and my understanding is that the payments tend to come through more quickly if an insurance company isn’t in the middle of the process. I couldn’t get an answer when I called, because the manager (whose name I wasn’t given, and forgot to ask for) was out of the office that day, and all discount requests had to be approved by the manager.

I heard back from them Friday, to the effect that the price quoted in the invoice already included a 15% discount. I find this difficult to believe, because of the evidence shown in the following two pictures.

Ortho price list

Part of the bill

I scanned these from the invoice package. Note that the price of the “walker boot” on the form in the first photo is what I was invoiced, and note that there is no entry in the area provided for “discount” in the second photo. I suppose it’s possible that the price list I saw at Dr. Shannon’s office is a custom one specifically for people without medical insurance, but how likely is that? I’d say there’s zero possibility, since another part of the form talks about what may or may not be covered by insurance. Wouldn’t you expect the invoice to show the original price and the discount? I certainly would. And how hard is it for them to determine whether an invoice has had a discount applied? I see three possibilities here:

1. The price includes a 15% discount that is not noted on the invoice, and I was shown a custom “discounted for no insurance” price list.
2. The price is not discounted, but they presumed it is because I asked about it, and they didn’t bother checking the invoice.
3. The price is not discounted, but they told me it was so they could get full payment.

The billed price is troubling to me, because I found the exact same boot available online for $79.95. I realize that things are normally cheaper online, but by a full factor of three? I was presuming that the invoiced price was the full retail price, and felt that if Rocky Mountain Medical Equipment provided me with the same 40% discount that both Dr. Shannon’s office and the hospital have already provided me, then the price would not have been tremendously out of line. Presuming about $20 shipping costs (which is probably high) for the online purchase, a 40% discount would have made the prices about $140 versus about $100. This is still a significant difference, but justifiable.

If the quoted price is already discounted by 15%, then their retail price is more than $280, well over three times the cost to purchase online, possibly even including shipping. This, to me, is unreasonable, if not unconscionable. Either Rocky Mountain Medical Equipment is price-gouging, or their overhead costs are so high that it’s obvious that they don’t know how to run an efficient business. Not to mention that their staff appears to be dishonest, clueless, or lazy.

Posted in Fitness & Health, It's all about me | Comments Closed

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