Progress report
Not much going on here right now, but here's the little news I have:
- I failed my practical driving test yesterday, damn it. I got a serious fault during the "reverse around a corner" for not seeing a car coming up the road I was reversing into; the car came up the road rather quickly and there probably would have been a collision had the examiner not used his footbrake. Other than that, only five minor faults, but perhaps the examiner is a bit more lenient when you've already got a serious. No winners this week on Takeshi's Castle, but the queue is shorter than it was so fingers crossed I should get another go by the end of the year. Since then I have been cheering myself up by playing lots of Civilization 3 on the easiest mode.
+ A silly music video (Quicktime or Windows Media) which is a very loving tribute to educational television. And the number π.
+ Why isn't anyone talking about England beating Argentina 3-2 at football in the best England friendly for years?
+ Nice to see lots of old Grand Prix (motor racing) stars racing again. I recognised about half the line-up by name, and there is some real quality in there. If they can keep getting Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi, and start getting Alain Prost as well, this could attract some real attention. Some sports can support masters' tours, others can't - nice to see motor racing is one that can. (Also amusing to see Rene Arnoux racing for "Team Golden Palace" - not Mike Tyson, but probably it's just a matter of time.)
++ Off to see Meg again on Friday, hurrah! Really looking forward to it; additionally, seeing five other nice folk (well, three nice folk I know and two people who I'm taking on trust are nice) to watch the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie will be fun.
? I can't make my mind up about Deal Or No Deal, the new Channel 4 tea-time game show. I do intend to write a longer post about it, but am not completely sure what I want to say about it. It's not a desperately likeable show and it's neither a great game nor especially well-made. That said, despite not being particularly interesting to watch (especially until the end) it does raise some surprisingly knotty issues to think about.
We have it on good authority that Channel 4 are paying for all the prizes and the production company have no financial interest in giving away as little money as possible, despite the purported premise of the show. Given that (we believe) the banker is the producer of the show, what if instead of trying to give away as little money as possible, the banker is trying to incentivise the player not to take the deals simply because he thinks the which-of-the-last-two-boxes-was-won conclusion is the most exciting one for the show and he's trying to make the show as exciting as possible rather than trying to spend as little money as possible, even though this will end up costing Channel 4 more?
- I failed my practical driving test yesterday, damn it. I got a serious fault during the "reverse around a corner" for not seeing a car coming up the road I was reversing into; the car came up the road rather quickly and there probably would have been a collision had the examiner not used his footbrake. Other than that, only five minor faults, but perhaps the examiner is a bit more lenient when you've already got a serious. No winners this week on Takeshi's Castle, but the queue is shorter than it was so fingers crossed I should get another go by the end of the year. Since then I have been cheering myself up by playing lots of Civilization 3 on the easiest mode.
+ A silly music video (Quicktime or Windows Media) which is a very loving tribute to educational television. And the number π.
+ Why isn't anyone talking about England beating Argentina 3-2 at football in the best England friendly for years?
+ Nice to see lots of old Grand Prix (motor racing) stars racing again. I recognised about half the line-up by name, and there is some real quality in there. If they can keep getting Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi, and start getting Alain Prost as well, this could attract some real attention. Some sports can support masters' tours, others can't - nice to see motor racing is one that can. (Also amusing to see Rene Arnoux racing for "Team Golden Palace" - not Mike Tyson, but probably it's just a matter of time.)
++ Off to see Meg again on Friday, hurrah! Really looking forward to it; additionally, seeing five other nice folk (well, three nice folk I know and two people who I'm taking on trust are nice) to watch the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie will be fun.
? I can't make my mind up about Deal Or No Deal, the new Channel 4 tea-time game show. I do intend to write a longer post about it, but am not completely sure what I want to say about it. It's not a desperately likeable show and it's neither a great game nor especially well-made. That said, despite not being particularly interesting to watch (especially until the end) it does raise some surprisingly knotty issues to think about.
We have it on good authority that Channel 4 are paying for all the prizes and the production company have no financial interest in giving away as little money as possible, despite the purported premise of the show. Given that (we believe) the banker is the producer of the show, what if instead of trying to give away as little money as possible, the banker is trying to incentivise the player not to take the deals simply because he thinks the which-of-the-last-two-boxes-was-won conclusion is the most exciting one for the show and he's trying to make the show as exciting as possible rather than trying to spend as little money as possible, even though this will end up costing Channel 4 more?