Better Off Ted: Apparently there were two unaired episodes of Better Off Ted at the end of season 2. They are on netflix streaming, but their order is flipped - what netflix calls episode 12 (swag the dog) is clearly supposed to be the last (13th) episode of the season.
I'm still amazed how badly they messed up the promoting of that show. I know I had no interest in watching the show after seeing the ads since they completely failed to play up the arrested development style humor or the pointed comments about corporations that so well match the post 2008 national attitude. I bet that if they had just used the Veridian ads as the better off ted ads the show would still be on the air. Oh well...
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
TV
First Chuck: Chuck producers, the woman we've all be waiting to see isn't Chuck's mom, it's Summer Glau. And here's how her episode should go. First a mysterious, large box should show up at castle. There should be some commotion over opening it then Chuck should kick it open and Summer should jump out naked (in a surprisingly non-sexual way). Then there should be a mission where Summer has to act as a ballerina and shows off some dance moves. Something strange should happen during the mission causing her to beat up Casey in a series of very fluid motions. Afterwards Morgan should laugh about Casey being beat up by a 90 pound girl. After that Summer should act more cold and distant and take on a stiffer fighting style where she acts almost like she is indestructible. During that time she should run into Chuck's mom and make a comment about how Chuck's mom looks different than she remembers. To make sure the joke lands, Chuck's mom should make a comment about expecting a body builder instead of a little girl. During one of these fights something should land on Summer's arm forcing her to wear a cast. Then she should meet up with Morgan and flirt with him in a weird, nerdy way. While Morgan is busy flirting with Summer, there should be an important phone call to the Buy More and Lester should cover for Morgan by doing a dead on impression of him. Throughout the episode Summer should make slightly off comments. The episode should be written and directed by Joss Whedon. It would also be nice if they could fit in some references to some of Summer's previous roles.
Second SGU: Anyone else think that while a few SGU episodes are about progressing the plot (mostly stacked at the start and end of a season) and a decent number are about building the characters (all thousand of them), that they set aside several of the mid season episodes to be more about how the story is told? I do think it is cool that they play with the format a bit. But in some of those episodes every character acts exactly as you'd expect and so does nothing to build the characters and the plots are so obvious you know the ending 15 minutes in. Which I guess is fine if it is all about how the story is told rather than the story itself, but does seem like making those stories a bit stronger would do a lot to improve the episode. I also don't think they have fully adapted to the idea that the crew is isolated so making it look like someone (especially someone we've seen more than once or twice) is going to die is extra unbelievable.
Third Caprica: I'm so disappointed Caprica is being canceled. Partially because I like the show, but even more so because I feel like I put in a season of watching them build up the world in order to get the payoff in later seasons and now it turns out those seasons won't be made.
Second SGU: Anyone else think that while a few SGU episodes are about progressing the plot (mostly stacked at the start and end of a season) and a decent number are about building the characters (all thousand of them), that they set aside several of the mid season episodes to be more about how the story is told? I do think it is cool that they play with the format a bit. But in some of those episodes every character acts exactly as you'd expect and so does nothing to build the characters and the plots are so obvious you know the ending 15 minutes in. Which I guess is fine if it is all about how the story is told rather than the story itself, but does seem like making those stories a bit stronger would do a lot to improve the episode. I also don't think they have fully adapted to the idea that the crew is isolated so making it look like someone (especially someone we've seen more than once or twice) is going to die is extra unbelievable.
Third Caprica: I'm so disappointed Caprica is being canceled. Partially because I like the show, but even more so because I feel like I put in a season of watching them build up the world in order to get the payoff in later seasons and now it turns out those seasons won't be made.
Travel Costs
I've found that when I'm looking at ticket prices to travel somewhere I tend to evaluate the cost of the ticket based on factors such as the cost of other modes of transportation, ticket prices at other times of the year, ticket prices to other destinations... But rarely try to evaluate how much the trip is actually worth to me.
Say that it costs $1000 to fly home for thanksgiving. Sounds outrageous since say it is usually $400 around thanksgiving time and $250 other times of the year. But what if you are asked what is it worth to you to get home for thanksgiving? Or why does spending $1000 to go to Egypt seem reasonable, but $2000 seem unreasonable? Do I actually know the value I would get from a trip to Egypt to within $1000? Is the purchase of travel tickets purely based on a game of trying not to be the chump?
Priceline sort of gets at this, although it always shows you the normal prices before you have to name your own. I bet if it didn't do that it would be incredibly difficult to decide what to pay and in the end the decision would probably mostly rely on a guess of what prices should be.
Maybe that's more universal than just airline flights, but I do think that when I buy items there's typically a question of how much is this worth to me, rather than just, how's this compare in price to similar (but not equivalent) items. (The "not equivalent" is important, because unlike say a different smart phone, I can't buy last year's ticket home instead of this year's and a ticket to someone else's home wouldn't make sense, but still factors into the acceptable price calculation).
Say that it costs $1000 to fly home for thanksgiving. Sounds outrageous since say it is usually $400 around thanksgiving time and $250 other times of the year. But what if you are asked what is it worth to you to get home for thanksgiving? Or why does spending $1000 to go to Egypt seem reasonable, but $2000 seem unreasonable? Do I actually know the value I would get from a trip to Egypt to within $1000? Is the purchase of travel tickets purely based on a game of trying not to be the chump?
Priceline sort of gets at this, although it always shows you the normal prices before you have to name your own. I bet if it didn't do that it would be incredibly difficult to decide what to pay and in the end the decision would probably mostly rely on a guess of what prices should be.
Maybe that's more universal than just airline flights, but I do think that when I buy items there's typically a question of how much is this worth to me, rather than just, how's this compare in price to similar (but not equivalent) items. (The "not equivalent" is important, because unlike say a different smart phone, I can't buy last year's ticket home instead of this year's and a ticket to someone else's home wouldn't make sense, but still factors into the acceptable price calculation).
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Facebook Venn Diagram
Since I can't seem to sleep I was flipping through facebook. As I was looking at the page of a good friend I noticed that we have few friends in common both as an absolute number and as a percentage of his total friends. So I started looking through other friends and noticed the same pattern with almost everyone. Good friends, family, distant friends, people from high school whose names I forgot. In almost all cases mutual friends were very roughly around 1% to 20% of total friends.
There is another good friend in college where it came in at 1/3 which is more in line with what I would suspect.
I'm not complaining or worried about not knowing enough of my friend's friends or think any of this means anything. But especially the minimal correlation with how well I knew the person struck me as odd.
Anyway, enough of the meaningless observations, time for bed.
There is another good friend in college where it came in at 1/3 which is more in line with what I would suspect.
I'm not complaining or worried about not knowing enough of my friend's friends or think any of this means anything. But especially the minimal correlation with how well I knew the person struck me as odd.
Anyway, enough of the meaningless observations, time for bed.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
It's All About Jobs
There's a meme floating around that this election is all about jobs and that the top item for voters is jobs.
First off, I'm sorry for for everyone who has lost their job in the economic downturn and in general for the unemployed. I in no way want to imply that I don't think it is important to increase the number of available jobs. Also this discussion could easily be seen as influenced by politics, but I'm really just trying to understand the above statement.
The question is if jobs is the top issue on the minds of voters and if so why?
The unemployment rate is about 10% (which is big). But that's only 10% of people who are looking for a job who don't have one, there are a lot of people who have just given up on looking given the poor economy. Not sure what that number is, but I'm thinking it is reasonably to bump the unemployment rate up to 15% to include those who have stopped looking.
So of the people who want a job 15% don't have one. As a matter of economics and ethics that's very bad, but is a small portion of the voters. Let's assume that everyone who doesn't want a job is dependent on someone in the general population of workers (both employed and unemployed) then 15% of the overall population would be unemployed or depend on someone unemployed. I think that's probably an overestimate (we're talking potential voters so kids under 18 don't count), but let's go with it. We've still got 85% of the population to explain.
Let's for the moment assume that voters represent the population as a whole. Obviously untrue, but I don't think adjusting this assumption would help answer the question (we'd have to consider all the retired people who consistently vote).
There is a decent portion of the population that is underemployed because of a lack of jobs at their skill level. Let's say this equals our adjusted unemployment number, of all my guesses I have the least idea about this one. So now we've accounted for 30% of the voters.
There are only a few other groups I can think of:
1. People who are employed at the right level, but feel they'd be making more money or would like to make a job shift if there were more jobs. Not sure, but doesn't seem this would make jobs their top issue. At this point it seems something like healthcare would be just as important (in either political direction).
2. People who know unemployed people and are sympathetic or even don't know any and are super-sympathetic. Maybe I'm being too jaded, but again doesn't seem like enough to push it to the top of the list.
3. I thought I had another group, but the Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA I just drank is starting to kick in.
Maybe some portion of the above groups (including the one I forgot) makes jobs their top issue. Let's say a whole 20% of the population (which would require a fairly large portion of the above groups since they are only a portion of the total population) defies my jaded world view, that only bring us to 50% of voters. That's a lot but only on the edge of majority. I guess that if the rest of the issues have to split the other 50% then jobs would be the top issue. But not in the supermajority way that I think the meme represents.
This leaves me with only a few possibilities:
1. It's not true. Jobs aren't actually the top issue for voters.
2. The above analysis is correct (or close enough) and while jobs is bigger than any other issue, it isn't actually the top issue for more than half the voters.
3. I vastly misestimated the above numbers and/or left out some significant group that cares about jobs.
4. Jobs is the top issue of super-vocal voters, not voters as a whole.
5. Some group or groups have put the idea of jobs into the heads of voters who otherwise would have other top issues.
6. I'm just missing something completely. This seems very likely.
Again, I'm really asking. I'm not trying to make a point, I just don't understand, most likely due to a lack of knowledge. Although, now that I wrote all this out I'm thinking that something along the lines of #2 is correct, but this post took some time to write and I don't feel like deleting it.
First off, I'm sorry for for everyone who has lost their job in the economic downturn and in general for the unemployed. I in no way want to imply that I don't think it is important to increase the number of available jobs. Also this discussion could easily be seen as influenced by politics, but I'm really just trying to understand the above statement.
The question is if jobs is the top issue on the minds of voters and if so why?
The unemployment rate is about 10% (which is big). But that's only 10% of people who are looking for a job who don't have one, there are a lot of people who have just given up on looking given the poor economy. Not sure what that number is, but I'm thinking it is reasonably to bump the unemployment rate up to 15% to include those who have stopped looking.
So of the people who want a job 15% don't have one. As a matter of economics and ethics that's very bad, but is a small portion of the voters. Let's assume that everyone who doesn't want a job is dependent on someone in the general population of workers (both employed and unemployed) then 15% of the overall population would be unemployed or depend on someone unemployed. I think that's probably an overestimate (we're talking potential voters so kids under 18 don't count), but let's go with it. We've still got 85% of the population to explain.
Let's for the moment assume that voters represent the population as a whole. Obviously untrue, but I don't think adjusting this assumption would help answer the question (we'd have to consider all the retired people who consistently vote).
There is a decent portion of the population that is underemployed because of a lack of jobs at their skill level. Let's say this equals our adjusted unemployment number, of all my guesses I have the least idea about this one. So now we've accounted for 30% of the voters.
There are only a few other groups I can think of:
1. People who are employed at the right level, but feel they'd be making more money or would like to make a job shift if there were more jobs. Not sure, but doesn't seem this would make jobs their top issue. At this point it seems something like healthcare would be just as important (in either political direction).
2. People who know unemployed people and are sympathetic or even don't know any and are super-sympathetic. Maybe I'm being too jaded, but again doesn't seem like enough to push it to the top of the list.
3. I thought I had another group, but the Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA I just drank is starting to kick in.
Maybe some portion of the above groups (including the one I forgot) makes jobs their top issue. Let's say a whole 20% of the population (which would require a fairly large portion of the above groups since they are only a portion of the total population) defies my jaded world view, that only bring us to 50% of voters. That's a lot but only on the edge of majority. I guess that if the rest of the issues have to split the other 50% then jobs would be the top issue. But not in the supermajority way that I think the meme represents.
This leaves me with only a few possibilities:
1. It's not true. Jobs aren't actually the top issue for voters.
2. The above analysis is correct (or close enough) and while jobs is bigger than any other issue, it isn't actually the top issue for more than half the voters.
3. I vastly misestimated the above numbers and/or left out some significant group that cares about jobs.
4. Jobs is the top issue of super-vocal voters, not voters as a whole.
5. Some group or groups have put the idea of jobs into the heads of voters who otherwise would have other top issues.
6. I'm just missing something completely. This seems very likely.
Again, I'm really asking. I'm not trying to make a point, I just don't understand, most likely due to a lack of knowledge. Although, now that I wrote all this out I'm thinking that something along the lines of #2 is correct, but this post took some time to write and I don't feel like deleting it.
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