back to the same spot

 In the post immediately prior to this I talked about a Youtube short in which people were asked how long someone can serve as US President.

Today I saw a similar short in which someone was asked the following riddle:

You are standing on the earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west and then one mile north. Where are you.

In the video, it's presented as something Elon Musk asks all potential employees. I actually doubt that that part is true, but whatevs. In the video I saw, the answer given was the North Pole. Because, if you start at the North Pole, go south for a mile and then west for a mile, you are still one mile south of the North Pole. So when you finish by going north, you wind up at the North Pole again.

That answer is good as far as it goes. But, in fact, it's not the only answer.

Near the South Pole, there is a line of latitude at which the distance around the world is exactly one mile. If the earth were flat, then using the rules of geometry we could solve for the latitude and find that it's 1/(2×pi) miles (about 840 feet) north of the South Pole. That's actually off by a little, since the earth is a sphere. But at such scales, that distortion is tiny. At any rate, there is a circle around the South Pole that's exactly one mile around. Any point exactly one mile north of that circle is a correct answer to the riddle. Because if you start one mile north of the circle and go one mile south, you will be on the circle. Travelling one mile west puts you back at the same spot on the circle, and one mile north puts you back where you started. So there's a whole circle of correct answers.

But it get's even better!

At about 420 feet north of the South Pole, there's a circle that's exactly half a mile around. Any point one mile north of that circle is a correct answer.

And at about 280 feet north of the South Pole there's a circle that's exactly a third of a mile around. And at about 210 feet north of the South Pole there's a circle that's exactly a fourth of a mile around. Any point exactly one mile north of either of these circles is a correct answer. For any positive integer N, there's a circle around the south pole that's exactly N miles around. Any point exactly one mile north of any of these circles is a correct answer.

So take that, Elon.

How long a president?

What's the maximum amount of time someone can serve as U.S. President?

If you're like most people -- including most well-educated people -- the answer isn't what you think it is.

This has been on my mind since I saw this Youtube short.

It's one of those videos where someone asks people some basic knowledge questions.One of the questions was: "In years, what's the maximum amount of time someone can swerve as U.S. President?" It's something I've addressed tangentially in this blog. And it interests me because almost everyone will get it wrong.

I'd be willing to bet that the questioner was looking for people to answer ten years. That's based on the 22nd Amendment, which set term limits for the Presidency. You can only be elected President twice. But if you serve as president for more than two years of someone else's term, you can only be elected once. So, the thinking goes, if you get elected Vice President and then move up to the presidency upon the death or resignation or -- I suppose -- impeachment, conviction and removal from office) of the President with exactly two years left in his term, you can still get elected to two four year terms and serve a total of ten years. If, when you move up, there are more than two years left, you can only get elected once, and therefore serve less than eight years.

But that answer isn't right. Suppose you serve the ten years as described above. Then, after you leave office, you get elected to Congress and become Speaker of the House,* and then the President and Vice President both die. In that event you become President again and you have now served more than ten years. You can't get elected President again. But after the end of the term you can become Speaker of the House again, and then elevated to the Presidency again. Since there's no limit to the number of times that pattern can be repeated, there is really no limit to how much time you can serve as President -- subject to the whims of mortality.

So the correct answer: There is no limit.

__________________________

*Someone told me that you don't actually have to be a Congresscritter to become Speaker of the House. I don't want to bother researching it, since it doesn't really affect the analysis

cinema history class: zombie lake (1981)

 

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Session: A Brief History of the Nazi Zombie Films (Week 4)
Movie: Zombie Lake (1981)
Directed by Jean Rollin and Julian de Laserna

Plot:

Having been ambushed, killed and dumped in a lake by the French resistance during World War II, Nazi soldiers are coming back to exact revenge on the town. Also, one of the Nazis is father of one of the girls in town, so they're trying to have a good father-daughter relationship amidst the carnage. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

This is an example of poor execution of a reasonably interesting concept.

The biggest problem is the way the movie handles time. Given the age of the little girl, and the fact that she was conceived during the war, we can surmise that the movie takes place during the 1950s. But it doesn't look like the 1950s. The clothes and the vehicles all look way too contemporary. It's like they made no attempt to make it look of the time.

But that's hardly the only flaw. The green zombie makeup is incomplete and inconsistent enough that its effect is more comical than anything. The subplot about Helena (the young girl) and her zombie Nazi dad trying to build their relationship is supposed to be moving. But it just comes off as comical. That's especially true in the end when it comes down to Helena being forced to sacrifice her father and the relationship in order to defeat the Nazis. The clear intent is that we should feel sad or her. But it's really just laughable.

I'll give the movie a pass for the fact that, in the underwater scenes, it was visually clear that we were in a pool. Keith pointed out that that may have been a result of the movie being cleaned up for DVD. If the movie, as shown onscreen in 1981, didn't reveal those details, then I shouldn't hold it at fault. And, I suppose, the underwater scenes had enough interesting visuals that I wasn't really paying attention to the background.

Another interesting part of the film is the sparsity of the sound in some sequences. When Helena's zombie Nazi dad is confronted by the other zombie Nazis who want to kill her, there's no dialogue. Which, I guess, makes sense since they're zombies. But they fight while making no vocalization, accompanied only by sparse atonal music. It was awful but fascinating. Like watching a misguided art film.

I also note that the green makeup was of very poor quality. It was coming off, and wasn't applied far enough down the neck, so the effect was incomplete, which also made things laughable. There's just no excuse for that. Back in 1998 I attended my friend, Elliot's wedding the day after an Arena Football playoff game between the New Jersey Red Dogs and the Albany Firebirds in Albany. I went to that game covered in red and black body paint, only to discover in the shower that night that the paint didn't wash off easily. I spent hours in the shower scrubbing with powdered dish detergent. Ultimately, I was able to get most of the paint of my face, hands and neck, which was all I really needed. But it was very difficult. And, given the level of difficulty, I find it inexcusable that the producers couldn't find green facepaint that would stay on in the pool.

Ratings

Me: 4

Bob-O: 5

Christina: 7.2

Dave: 8

Joe: 9.2*

__________________________________________

*Joe noted that "genre films" automatically start at a 9 and can range up to 12. He likes the genre that much. He noted that most of this genre film gets a 9, but the scenes of skinny-dipping women gets a 10. A weighted average of those two would give him something like a 9.2 He did offer that, in the real world, outside of his genre bubble, he would grade this movie a 5. He also suggested afterward that he could give these movies two grades -- one reflecting his genre-love and one for the real world. I said that I would like that, but I think his latest word is that that complicates things too much. It should be noted (and, indeed, it is -- you're reading the note!) that when challenged on his "9+" policy for genre films, he agreed to retroactively change his grade for The Woman in Black to a 9. I wrote about that session here.

i was a middle-aged flower show entrant

When I first started buying daylilies, I figured that I'd never be the kind of person who uses markers in his garden.* Eventually, though, I started using marker stakes and labels.** But I figured I wasn't the type of guy who got involved with the flower shows. Then I started clerking.*** But I figured I would never actually enter a flower show. And that wall fell yesterday.

Having signed up as a clerk, I was pretty confident that I had an excuse not to enter flowers in the show. But I was reminded that clerks can enter. And we really need entries—this being the first show since COVID, there was real concern about whether we'd have enough entries to fill the venue.¹ So, with reservations, I got up early this morning, hoping that, despite the rain last night, I would find sufficient good-looking blooms to enter. At that point I had no interest in winning ribbons; I was primarily interested in helping the club with entries.

I know that lots of people cut scapes the night before, guessing which ones look likely to bloom. Maybe that approach makes sense. But for me, I decided to cut in the morning. And cut I did, until we were running out of time and had to go. I had cut fourteen scapes in all, though the flower broke off one of them before I could do anything, so I brought 13 with me for the show. I would lose another one—Spider Man (Durio, 1982)—while grooming it, so in the end I had 12 entries.

While I had started out with no interest in how well my entries would eventually do, my competitive juices started flowing when I got there and saw others grooming their scapes for the show. Suddenly I was struck by the idea that maybe I could win something. Someone had to win Best in Show, so why not me? And there would be all those Best in Category winners. I could have a shot. But what got me most was the thought of coming away empty-handed.

So I started grooming. I've never groomed scapes before, so I made mistakes. I mentioned above that I lost Spider Man in the process. I was trimming the site of an old bud and got too close to the base of the bloom. It snapped off. And I know -- yeah, I can't prove it, but I just know -- that that Spider Man would have won Best in Show if only it hadn't broken off. But that wasn't my only mistake. I scraped some brown spots too much. And I missed others. None of my entries were perfect, but I felt they were good enough. They would be pleasing to the eyes of the general public, even if they provoked disdain from the judges.

Clerking was largely the same experience as before—except for when the judging panel I was working for was judging my entries. It took all my willpower to maintain control as they evaluated the first one—Mynelle's Starfish (Hayward-M., 1982)—and commented on how it could have been groomed better. But I heard that and similar comments a lot as they evaluated the various entries, so I was not the only insufficient groomer. That first one won a red ribbon, so I felt a bit of pride. I wouldn't go home ribbonless. Then I noticed that the other judge's panel had awarded one of my entries—Harem Scarem (Millikan-B., 1992)—a blue ribbon. Hey, this was getting cool! And so we went along, as I struggled to keep my yap shut. Watching as flowers were judged, keeping in mind how long before the next time they'd get to one of mine. The names of the entrants were hidden, but I could tell from the handwriting which ones were mine.

In the end, all 12 of my entries won ribbons. I scored two purple ribbons, four blue and six red. I list them below for posterity. Sadly, neither of my purple ribbon winners won Best in Category, so I didn't win Best in Show. Maybe next year.

My entries:

• Purple
• Dublin Elaine (Joiner, 1987)
• Missy Moo (Sayers, 2006)
• Blue
• Harem Scarem (Millikan-B., 1992)
• Little Granny (Faggtard, 1981)
• Red Rain (Whitacre, 1988)
• Whispering Violet Water Waltz (Sayers, 2014)
• Red
• Becky Lynn (Guidry, 1977)
• Bed Head (Howard-R., 2017)
• Dietmar's Wisdom (Elliot-D., 2016)
• Elizabeth Salter (Salter, 1990)
• Exotic Love (Stevens-Seawright, 1987)
• Mynelle's Starfish (Hayward-M., 1982)

For what it's worth,  Best in Show went to the Turkiew family (again) for Garden Fairy (Reed, 2018).

________________________

*Technically, not true. When I first bought daylilies I was blissfully unaware that that labels and such were a thing. But please humor me and play along.
**And that has generally gone well. With some hiccups. The worst hiccup was a couple years a go when a herd of feral backhoes ran wild in my yard.
***In an early post in this blog I wrote about my experiences clerking. Reading it now, it makes me cringe.
¹The Horticultural Center at Planting Fields Arboretum.
²As much as I'd like to claim that this makes me a superb flower-show enterer, the fact is that in this venue and under these conditions, you have to try hard for a flower not to win any ribbon. Or you have to have the misfortune of being the fourth-best (or worse) entry of a given cultivar—in a field in which most entries were the only examples of their cultivars.

cinema history class: shock waves (1977)

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Session: A Brief History of the Nazi Zombie Films (Week 3)
Movie: Shock Waves (1977)
Directed by Ken Wiederhorn

Plot:

A small group of tourists have their pleasure-boat ride interrupted by a small army of Nazi zombies. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

It bothered me more than it should have that the zombies' awakening is never really explained well. That said, I have to acknowledge -- as Keith and the rest of the class reminded me -- that many good horror movies set up the situation without a full explanation. Notable among those are The Incredible Shrinking Man and Night of the Living Dead. So perhaps I should be more forgiving of that element.

But one legitimate weakness concerns the ending.

 The movie is structured as a flashback, and introduced in such a way that we know who survives and who doesn't. This device robbed the film of a lot of its suspense. Fortunately, the story is riveting enough that there is still some suspense. Instead of wondering things like "will he die," we are wondering "how will he die." It's still good, but it could have been that much better.

The fact is the second half of the movie is very well done -- despite the giveaway I mentioned above. But the first half moves a bit too slowly. All in all, it's enjoyable. I'm told that it's the best Nazi zombie movie out there.

Ratings

Me: 7.5

Bob-O: 9.2

Christina: 9.5

Dave: 9.5

Ethan: 9

Joe: 10

cinema history class: the frozen dead (1966)

 

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Session: A Brief History of the Nazi Zombie Films (Week 2)
Movie: The Frozen Dead (1966)
Directed by Herbert J. Leder

Plot:

Dr. Norberg is experimenting on dead Nazis, hoping he can figure out how to thaw them and revive the Third Reich. But he doesn't want his niece to know what he's up to. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

In the 23 years since Revenge of the Zombies (which we saw previously, the genre has gotten more blatant. In Revenge, I might not have noticed the Nazi angle if it hadn't been pointed out to me. So I'll give the movie points for that.

But the problem here is that this movie is just so frikkin' boring. Talk talk talk talk talk. And about nothing. There were things in the movie that could have been interesting if they had been explained. Like the scarred woman. But no...they talked about nothing.

There was some measure of redemption in that the ending was somewhat interesting. And Elsa, the glowing blue disembodied head (with exposed brain) was a visual treat. But those two things weren't enough to save this.

Oh, and Dana Andrews' fake German accent was laughable.

Ratings

Me: 5.5

Christina: 8.7

Dave: 9.4

Ethan: 6

Joe: 9.9

happy tunesday! funny in my head

 

Some years ago I made a minor joke and no one laughed. I remember the situation, but that's not important. I don't remember what the joke was. But when no one laughed I mumbled "well, it was funny in my head." And an idea was born.

Years later, I had most of a novelty song written. I ran it by my friends, Christina and Keith Crocker, who helped me put the finishing touches on it.

I have another recording with a slightly different mix. In the one above, you'll note that the final lines are sung by a woman, the wife in the song. In the alternate, those lines are sung as a duet by the husband and the wife. I asked Keith and Christina which they like better. Keith likes this one, Christina prefers the one with the duet at the end. But I went with this one, because I like it better. Sorry, Christina...

Now, if only I can get it to Dr. Demento's ears...

concierge service as insurance?

 One of the trends in the world of healthcare is concierge medical are. Honestly, I'm not sure if I got the term right -- maybe there's another or a better word for it. But I'm talking about the practice of doctors charging a membership fee for access to their services.

One doctor I know is typical. In private practice, he's a primary care physician. But he charges a membership fee to see him. Of course, once you've paid the membership fee, you don't have to pay extra for most services. members do pay for such things as vaccinations, since he himself has to pay for those. In theory, nonmembers can see him. But it's very difficult for them to get appointments, and they pay for every service.

But now, this doctor tells me, he has heard grumblings from the New York Department of Financial Services. They are, as he puts it, uneasy about the arrangement. Their concern is that a patient can come in every day and get looked at and examined for free. So, the argument goes, the doctor is effectively selling health insurance -- without all the reporting, review and other logistical hoo-hah required of health insurers.

I mentioned this to a small group of colleagues. They all seem to think it's a stretch. The doctor isn't putting himself on the hook for any kind of monetary outlay. It's just time. They also argued that any kind of product guarantee is, effectively an insurance policy. I suppose that's more in the realm of P&C insurance, and we're all life actuaries, but the principal is the same.

I didn't debate the issue with my colleagues, since this isn't my fight. I will be interested in following up with my doctor friend to find out if there are any developments.

In the meantime, can I claim CE credit for the time it took me to write this blogpost?